12/31/12

Alone on New Year’s Eve from 2012 to 2013

It’s New Year’s Eve, and here I am wired and morose from having little rest from a busy schedule. I have observed, throughout the years, that my resolution to be happy becomes increasingly elusive. And each year, I manage to isolate myself and make myself a tad more lonelier.

I am a very flawed person; an ineffective mix of stubborn ambition, unrealistic sense of time and undisciplined focus. As a result, I always seem to lack time. I have unwittingly pushed away old friends due to this perpetual loss of time. And when I finally find time a long time later, I feel too guilty to contact them. Why should they wish to meet me, when I have rejected their meetups so often.

Of the army friends I see more often, I have recently confirmed my assessment and therefore have come to terms to the prospect of letting go of a few friendships. People come, and people go. And the law of this world is the temporal nature of everything. One or two will choose to leave, others will become distant by neglecting efforts to connect, and the last few will stick with you until they leave as a result of their quietus.

That said, here are my resolutions:

  1. Be disciplined in my focus and purpose
  2. Persevere but know when to let go (or try another method)
  3. Find more time for family and friends
  4. Remember to breathe and smile
  5. Earn sufficient returns from my web investments to pay for my monthly student loan repayment
  6. Devote time to run and exercise (Need to keep in shape, regulate my moods and avoid RT. Perhaps between now and the future, I might actually become happy and want to mitigate the years that cigarettes have cut from my life.)
The unresolvable resolution…
“A person doesn’t know true hurt and suffering until they’ve felt the pain of falling in love with someone whose affections lie elsewhere.” ? Rose Gordon, Her Imperfect Groom
Happy new year in advance. I’m going to take a nap before continuing my assignment.
Logen

 

12/28/12

Ineloquent Ramblings and Worries

Spent my Christmas and entire break working on my Microeconomics assignment and still have much more to complete. I need a break from this shit.

The pressure of balancing school and freelance work is horrible. I have no room to fuck up because my University education is  financed by bank loan. If I screw up in school, there will be issues with graduation date and the commencement of loan principal repayment. If I screw up work, there will be issues with repaying the monthly interest on loan.

Here’s reality. People call this responsibility and obligation. To me it’s a suffocating burden. And to you, you are understandably indifferent. This is life…

11/1/12

Apprehensive Over Managing My Business and Curtin Studies

Adjusting my sleeping habits back to normal hours have come at a cost. I feel tired all the time and have become less productive. I expect this to change though. My body has to relearn a new sleep-wake pattern and it takes time, since I’ve fucked it up in the past half a decade.

So, what’s new? I’m starting to see a pattern in my freelance business and have insights on my impediments to reaching the business’s potential. I need manpower and I need focus by the means of a daily agenda. This is even more crucial when the following week arrives, because I’m beginning my university double-major course at Curtin. I’ve got to calm myself and take things a step at a time; I’m having paralysis-by-analysis at the moment…

It’s been difficult. These days, the happiness I’m seeking is far away – invisible in this chaos and darkness. Some times, I feel content and am in the moment despite the chaos around me. But when I get my usual energy lows, doubt and worries creep in. Sad to say, I don’t have an exciting social life and my time is restricted to spending quality time with friends over dinner. Where is the excitement? In fact, excitement is far away concept to me as well. The energy to rein in my emotions when managing the business, has also rein in my love for seeking thrills.

I’m going to end here. I’ve been farting non-stop and the smell is killing me… It is needless to say where I will be going after this sentence…

10/5/12

Make Your Tombstone’s Dash Count

We live in a world of paradoxes and tragedies. Life is a rental of this mortal vessel that will eventually be returned back to the earth beneath our feet. That which we call a body is in the constant state of decay and repair. As time passes, we lose the ability to keep up with repairing the decay, until eventually, what is left of us is dust and bones.

Tombstone of Logen Lanka

As we advance, we forget our mortality and keep striving at the cost of what is truly important. We hold on to our stubborn values and beliefs, so much so, that we overlook and infringe the liberties and rights of other.  We struggle for the dream of a better life, and in the process trample over the dreams of the thousands of unknown and nameless people.

We live in an unfair world because we make it so. We live in misery because we are selfish for our own interests. And when we leave, we leave the mess and chaos we have created; that is our legacy, which we will not be remembered for if we are lucky.

I don’t know if I’m going to find my happiness. I don’t know if I will be stuck in student debt. I don’t know if my business will work out. I don’t know if I can find my certain someone.  Life is uncertain for all.

But I am certain that I am the god of my own destiny. I am certain that I will fight on in this struggle. I am certain that I will do my best to be immortal and leave behind a legacy worthy to be remembered for the right reasons.

I will make the tiny dash between the years on my tombstone count.

Logen

Image generated from: www.jjchandler.com/tombstone/

10/1/12

I Am Going To Curtin And Business Is Stabilising

My loan application to finance my University education at Curtin has been approved and I am indebted to both Siva and Shi Hui for being my guarantors. I would also like to thank both Mandy and Xing Dan, who has both offered to be my guarantor as well. Also, I appreciate the genuine concern of my fellow half-blood, JX, who had sent a long email with options on financing;  that said, he is also at Curtin and as suggested as much that my crazy presence at Curtin would bring life to the place.

Logen in the streets of Taipei

Logen in the streets of Taipei
(photographer: JX – I’d better give him credit. Although, he didn’t get me to sign model release forms :p )

Life has been hard but things are starting to work out in business. I have to still keep going on to ensure that I bring added stability to my income. With my acceptance of the job offer from my client, things will be a tad bit chaotic. When the time comes when I have to balance Uni, the business and the job, I am sure my moods will worsen. But my resolve and innate stubbornness, as ever, is intact.

How about love life? I lack one, despite having a huge liking for a certain person. Enough said.

So, let me fall back on my vices of smoking, drinking and soon enough (again), sex. I sound reckless with my life, but that is how I attempt to forget the bleakness. I will, of course, attempt to get some exercise in. But gaining weight is not a problem. With my horrendous sleeping habits, copious amount of smoking and knack to forget my meals when working, I have been told that I’m getting skinny – ‘skinny’ being a subjective term, considering I know really skinny people (one of whom thinks he is fat. Gosh…).

I intend to do several posts regarding stories of my close friends, probably starting from the people I mentioned on this post. I’d like to show some appreciation to the people in my life, instead of having melancholic and bleak posts all the time. So, watch this space.

One more thing, due to my correspondence to both clients from UK and USA, my English use has gotten slightly quirky as I have to switch from UK spelling to US spelling and vice versa. So forgive me for any inconsistencies.

02/12/12

Acid Tongue Lashing Decided After Kuala Lumpur

Took advantage of a cheap Tiger Airways deal to enjoy a short trip to Kuala Lumpur with a few of my camp-mates. I had (and have) been so focused on earning a stable income through my domaining and online content business that I have neglected my social life.

Not that I’m completely at fault though. Credit has to be given to the military for wasting my weekdays.

Being Too Soft

On the same note of resenting the military, I have been too soft with certain idiots back at camp, namely from the third platoon. Apparently crying like a pussy when he was charged and detained in detention barracks, and when his girlfriend broke up with him due to his obnoxious behavior, didn’t teach him any manners. I have also been too kind with a numskull of a financial planner whom I have told months ago that I was no longer interested in whatever plans he had to offer.

Ironically, Being Too Hard?

It is time to sharpen my acid tongue and be brutally straightforward. It is not my business to hold my tongue when certain people are to blind to see the boundaries they have trespassed. At the same time, ironically, I ought to soften my approach when dealing with friends who sometimes annoy me. As quoted from Matthew: “Logen, you had gunpowder for breakfast again?”. I will redirect my ‘gunpowder’ at assholes in the future.

Kuala Lumpur

That said about assholes, what about my trip to KL? The shopping and food was good. The nightlife there, namely Zouk nightclub, was bloody awesome. The Flaming Lambo’s were cheap and us drinking it gathered lots of attention from the patrons surrounding the bar.

The best part of the trip was the company. Travelling with two himbos and two Jurongers who nearly missed their flight made for good entertainment and companionship.

So photo insistently taken by JX, here I am in leggings in Changi Airport…

Is it really that strange?

Logen

12/31/11

Half Decade of Reflections

I am driven by loneliness and melancholy to reach for my goals. I had not accepted failure because being alone with my melancholic thoughts was painful. Today, I am where I am because of how I struggled in the process to find myself. It isn’t that the melancholy vanished. I merely learnt to deal with it.

Here are some excerpts preluding and postluding the new year festivities for the past half a decade. In my serach for my writings in the past, I managed to idiotically delete an entire blog database by accident for a prior blog. Oh well.

Earlier this year, 2011:

Sure, there were many people walking in a drunken stupor, but better drunk and happy than sober and moody. What happened to the saint-like Logen who didn’t associate with booze and drunkeness? Well, he had sex, enjoys the occasional whiskey on the rocks, got pissed drunk twice and grew out of sainthood…

– Excerpt on having a disappointing and melancholic new year this year (2011)

2010:

It doesn’t matter if I will take on a path less taken. No matter the difficulty. Even if there is little proof that my principles, ethics and path will enable me to succeed, I will push on. I will be the exception because I’m not mere statistics. I am Logen, the god of my own destiny. And I don’t give a fuck of what society expects me to do.

– Excerpt on my vow to reach happiness. Incidentally, I had an awesome new year at Siloso beach party (pictures included).

Prelude to 2009:

So, whose hairstyle to choose: Uchiha Madara (or Sasuke) or Yondaime Hokage? My hair still isn’t long enough… and I can’t seem to forget that bloody hair dresser who butchered my long hair.

– Excerpt on choosing what cosplay hairstyle to have in the new year. And my grudge against the hair dresser.

2009 Resolution:

[…] conquer my fear of cockroaches and any other creatures with more than 4 legs, bigger than a 20 cent coin and living on land

– Excerpt on resolving to kill my horrible fear of cockroaches, which I have already achieved in the stinking dirty building in armour camp.

 2008:

Not unlike Christmas, the ushering of the new year has little significance this year. I feel especially lonely as others celebrate their friendships and relations.

– Excerpt on loneliness. Enough said.

2007:

Last year had been a true challenge, which I have eventually pulled through. At the beginning of yesteryear, I aimed to rise above the two-year long depression that had clouded my mind; I succeeded.

– Excerpt on ‘conquering’ depression temporarily. Melancholy comes back eventually.

2012:

Happy New Year my friends. I will be going once again to Siloso Beach Party this year. In fact, I’m supposed to meet my friends in 2 hours. See you.

Logen