Isn't this little dog picture cute????

I like writing to people, not via email, but instead, pen in hand, on nice stationery decorated with all manner of cute and pretty things (yes...i am a girl in this respect...) and rattle on and on on the way life is.

Email is the easiest method of communication, but so impersonal and distant. All i see are the same fonts in the same size, in the same color, just phrased differently. Where are all the unique littles swirls of the tails of letters or the abbreviated dashes of the crosses of 't's that makes letter writing so much more alive and immediate?

It's the same with journal writing - I liek writing in thick journals on good quality paper, feeling the lazy slide of pen nib on smooth paper. It is a sensuous luxury that I try to afford myself these days, one of the things that reminds me that I am alive. E-journals are good things for getting thoughts like these out to many people, but my most private thoughts I lay down on paper, to make tangible their presence such that they live and breathe and are another mark of my existence in this reality.

i'm on a blogging spree today...i should be doing homework or something, but oh well...

so anyway, to the topic of friendship - a recent event in my life got me thinking how well i know my friends and how well they know me. i've known someone for the past...wow...almost 8 years even though we only began talking to each other 6 years ago. i thought that we were friends who knew each other better to recognise the differences in one another and hence know how to react to each other - well, it turns out that time doesn't matter at all.

I always did know that time didn't matter, but my thoughts now turn to that intangible thing that makes friends friends. It's so fleeting and elusive that the moment you know have it, you hold on to it for dear life and don't let go. It's hard to make friends whom you can truly count on, but harder still to find those that can truly understand you and whom you feel can complete the other half of a sentence that you started or in whose company you feel nothing but safe and totally accepted for who you are.

Here's something that may get me flamed.....but I have to say it, so apologies are in order first.

I was reading a comment on someone's blog, about the commentor subscribing to that someone's blog because the someone subscribed to their's......

maybe the commentor does truly enjoy reading stuff from that someone's site (which does have substantial stuff), but I thought there were better reasons than "you scratch me I scratch you back".

there's more to that than what i have written here, but I would just run on and on, so i better not!

oh well, c'est la vie!

Update on my drain guppies

I don't know how many of you remembered about the drain guppy incident that i posted a while back, when I was back home and catching guppies in a monsoon drain to ensure that the guppies i had at home wouldn't die out due to inbreeding....well, they all died, except for the drain guppies. Arrghs.

I forget how hardy those drain guppies are - the whole family had been living in that drain for close to a decade at least! To live in a place like that, they must have developed some sort of resistance to all sorts of parasites and diseases....I think so at least, because all my pretty multi-colored little guppies started dying out, leaving the ugly and blandly-hued drain guppies behind. So much for my smart idea...

well, the only good thing that comes out of this all is that now i am sure these guppies won't die of fright when we release them into the new pond (when it's finally built) whenever my dog comes to paddle about in the water. In fact, I think they will be smart enough to hide when my dog tries to chase them. Hopefully!

I dream of rain

I dream of gardens in the sand

I wake in pain

i dream of love as time runs through my hand

I love these lyrics from sting's desert rose. so evocative of another time and place, desert rose is truly the "sweet intoxication of the fall"

dreams falling from the open sky

breathless and wondering through the yearning trees

light upon the shadows break

as i return to me

Back in the Snow

i'm finally back to blogging after a rather long hiatus - no excuses other than the fact that i was coming home at times during which it was inconvenient to use the computer if at all, as it is in my brother's room.

so i am back at school, having not accomplished any of my holiday goals of reviewing art websites or losing weight. instead, all that i achieved was a massive weight gain of about 5 kilos (that's about 12 pounds...) due to the delicious mountains of local food that i consumed over the break...mmmmmmm...

i did however get to see some local exhibitions which were quite interesting. Plum Blossoms Gallery had a charity exhibition for AIDs awareness, featuring the photos of Thomas Kelly. The photos come from his book, Fallen Angels and depict the prostitutes of India and the places where they work. In my own social context, it is difficult for me to relate to the subject matter, but i nonetheless appreciate the way that he has painted a thought-provoking and starkly beautiful narrative of the life of this group of people. to him, he has captured them exactly as the title of his book suggests - in his photos these prostitutes are the angels that have fallen from the sanctity and grace of society. one of the hardest things for me to accept though, (it is partly the result of cultural differences) is that the women are dedicated to a goddess and are known as her handmaidens. i do not quite know what to make of it - religion and the world's oldest profession working hand in hand...

Generational gaps

acccks....e.ach time I go out clubbing and come back late, i inevitably get the how late did you come home, who did you meet, did any guys try to do anything funny spiel the next morning from my mother. not that I mind it that much, but she also expects me to conform in some ways to the social norms observed in her times, i.e. if i were to go out with a guy, he would pick me up at my doorstep, and send me back to my door before midnite.

hmmm....this is all well and good, but what happened to female independence?? not that it is a bad thing to have someone driving you around, but I personally dislike having to impose on someone, especially a guy who is trying to pursue me if I discover somewhere along the way that i am not all that interested in him as i was at the beginning.

arrghs. society here has changed a very great deal since my mother's dating days and she knows that. thankfully, she doesn't insist that I truly conform to the standards of that era. phew! but she still expects that guys should conform to the standards of that era in the respect that they should do all sorts of things for girls (my dear old-fashioned mummy ). I do think i know better.....it's not expected of guys anymore, but hey, if a guy were to do all that for me, he'd be a real sweetheart .

It is nice to be back, but how many of you discover that you are still on leashes the minute that you are staying under the same roof as your mother??? My mother sadly told my dad that I no longer wanted to hang around her (I do, just that I spent the first 2 weeks back home with her practically 24/7...). My dad is actually better about this than she is - he has resigned himself to my leaving the nest.

I didn't quite realise that the leash would still be there, especially since I haven't been home in a year. i came to the conclusion a few months back that even if I were to be married with kids my mother would still treat me as if I were 5 years old and didn't know how to discern people's characters...i.e. don't talk to strangers....i appreciate the concern, but i do have a life!

I think my mother has finally started to let go....if only i can stop her from asking me about each and every call i get from a male friend.