“Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man … living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money.” ― George Carlin

“If you end up with a boring miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on television telling you how to do your shit, then you deserve it.” ― Frank Zappa

“The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.” ― Ayaan Hirsi Ali

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.―Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

“Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.” ―Graham Greene

 “Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height. Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously. The bigger the tree, the bigger will be its roots. In fact, it is always in proportion. That’s its balance.” ― Osho

Humility is perfect quietness of heart. It is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised. It is to have a blessed home in the Lord, where I can go in and shut the door, and kneel to my Father in secret, and am at peace as in a deep sea of calmness, when all around and above is trouble.” ― Andrew Murray

“This is my simple religion. No need for temples. No need for complicated philosophy. Your own mind, your own heart is the temple. Your philosophy is simple kindness.”

—	Dalai Lama XIV

Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done. Now, if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hit, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you are because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain't you. You're better than that!

Rocky Balboa

Stress and Anxiety

Sometimes I cry for no reason. Sometimes I think I'm going crazy. I'm on the edge and I feel scared. I might fall off this cliff I'm on and I feel like I will, and no one will ever know. It's inside me, a hole that keeps folding me into myself. I feel incomplete, and very very alone. It's in little things, like how I'm alone in a free period at school. We don't have anything in common, so I can't really talk to them, my classmates about anything. So I sit silently, trying to sleep but can't, trying to stay calm inside but can't, trying so hard to not show it on my face and I don't know how that turned out. I'm very very lonely and very very alone.

My exam is in a month. I remember when I noted that I had two months to my final exam and now I have one. I feel like I'm taking one step forward and two steps back. My room is never clean and when it's clean, it gets messy. It's the same number of walls and the same colour since when it first was and I can't help feeling trapped. Playing a good song on repeat helps sometimes, like right now. I've been avoiding my Driver's computer test and I've decided to keep on avoiding. I'm going to enjoy being a child while I still can, and put that on my dad's plate instead. Because everytime I think I should study for it, I think of all the other things I should be doing like studying for my exam, cleaning my room, decorating my class, homework, that alternate month class bulletin, drawing something decent, or something. I end up not really doing anything because I keep thinking that if I zoom in on one thing, I'll lose sight of the big picture? But what is the big picture without the meticulous details, and larger details and the strings tying them all together. Which reminds me, my strings are thinning and I feel like i'm falling apart inside but on the outside I'm just a failure like all other over-emotional hormone-raged teenage girls my age. And of course don't forget the old 'at least you ain't starving and homeless on a street in China'. So what is the big picture? Because I've lost it in the deep dark folds of my mind and as I keep searching within me to find it, I find myself lost in my own mind.

I'm afraid of failing things because I've failed so many already. All my accomplishments are just words and strings of letters on a resume because inside I feel like shit. I want to go to a good college and do A-levels but I'm a small fish. I'm so very scared that I'll just drown in the midst of other billions of small fish swimming for the same bait. And there's only so much bait, and I'll be the one starving and it'll be my own fault. All because I couldn't keep my head straight. Because I can't cope. Because tiny piranhas and eating away at me, and I'm in the dark blue void of my mind cowering away.

I read about strong female characters in books and classy ladies in movies. I tried to be like them, I tried faking it until I make it. I kept my voice down, and giggled more. I stopped making weird hand gestures and faces and kept my hair up. When I go home, I'm tired and all alone with my thoughts and I'll think about all the things I should be doing and other things that I should be doing and it's all a jumble of things I should be doing. And every day after school, I'll choose the distraction of a TV series and try to sleep away all my problems. The next day will be the same as this one. I'll feel lonely, alone and scared. I'll try to push down my problems and compress them like pushing a syringe piston. To take the edge off, I'll draw. A bad drawing adds another stack to my accumulating mountain of anxiety problems. And I'll push that down with a facade I'll invent to be able to live another day with thinning strings holding me together. I'll worry about failing my SPM next year and not being able to take A-levels in Taylors because I'll screw up my finals this year. I'll suck it up, and end up doing last-minute studying. I'll suck it up because at least I'm not starving or dying in a ditch.

*Note : This was 2 days ago, on 3/9/13. I accidentally didn't post it then, and some few sentences might be missing. I feel much better now. (Y) 

1. I've started inventing rules. Maybe more like guidelines because, yeah, I hate being strict to myself. These rules/guidelines are going to make me a better, more organized and confident person.I have a vision for the person I want to be. I'll create my rules along the way as I see fit. It'll help me solidify or bring substance to this vision of the person I want to be so as to make me easier to achieve my vision. I've never put any rules on food though. I can't do that to myself. I love food. I eat what I want. Pizza, chocolate, cookies and cakes. 

Rule Number 1 : 
I have to sleep by midnight. I almost always sleep way after midnight. When it's late at night, everything seems to be much more interesting. The internet, organizing files on my laptop, reading, doodling, drawing, doing homework and the such. When people ask me when I do my homework, I say that I start at midnight with music playing on my laptop. With the establishment of this rule, I'll have more hours of sleep and thus perhaps wake up earlier such as at 7 A.M instead of 11 A.M on holidays and weekends. 

Rule Number 2 : 
Breakfast in the morning. At least a banana. Helps with brain function and such and it seems like an easy thing to do. Easy as in unlike exercising which I've tried before to make a habit of but as I said, I don't strictly enforce my rules upon myself. Honestly though, I went through a phase where I tried to make myself go jogging a few times a week and I just ended up walking more, jogging less, and hating it, wondering why I did it at all. 

Rule Number 3 :
Grow thick skin. It's not exactly very definitive, but it means what it means. Ignore snide remarks, be less sensitive to what bad things about me I think people are thinking. Be less conscious of my every little move and face expressions. Stop being so easily upset by people. This one guy describes it as "the ability to adapt and roll with changes and challenges common to life, as well as the ability to bounce back from particularly difficult times." 

Rule Number 4 : 
Save RM100 per month. My weekly school allowance is RM25. I have this minor rule of spending no less than RM3 a day. So far, it's holding up. I tried a minor rule of saving RM6 a week but I could never keep track, weeks pass by in a blink of an eye. Months, however, pass by slower. A lot of the time, my parents give me a lot of extra money. Despite the financial journal I kept for June and half of July - which I discontinued due to my lack of determination - I've been doing a lot of spending and little to none of saving. I ended up spending my KFC jar -temporary savings storage- money too. That was a sign that I was letting my finances burn in chaos. This rule is redemption. Scraping up a hundred a month shouldn't be too hard, right?

Rule Number 5 : 
Wash my hair every alternate day. I love my hair, I hate my hair. It's pretty, ugly, unmanageable and hell. It's really a girl thing, a guy wouldn't understand, but hair is crazy. It never goes the way you want it too. Sometimes it's all obedient and calm and then it's a rampage of messiness and anarchy. You never even know what you did wrong! So I thought maybe some kind of structure will help. A system. Washing it every alternate day. If it doesn't work, at least you know it wasn't your fault. Hair's just naturally a bitch and a pain in the ass.

2. I want to go to Ireland. I kinda dig Ireland guys now. Well, at least the ones in the movie P.S I Love You. Besides that, it looks like a wonderful place to visit. 

3. I'm doing fine. It's school holidays now, we're celebrating Raya Aidilfitri. I've got tons of things to do that I'm putting off, namely my motor licence test that I failed and have to redo in the near future that which I am putting off. Bad, bad I know but it's terrifying. It is, it is. I also need to get back into tennis, another thing I'm horridly putting off. I hate myself for that, but it's scary. It is, it is. Everytime before tennis, I get that feeling in my tummy. A nervousness of some sort. Every god damn time, but I go anyway. I like tennis, I do. I suck at it, compared to other amazing, annoyingly disciplined kids on the Pahang team. Honestly it's like a childhood trauma. Tennis people scare me. They make me feel like I'm a silly girl who neither has the passion or discipline to play tennis. Which is true, but I shouldn't feel so offended. I get offended because I have thin skin. Which is why I invented rule number 3, to get thick skin so I'd forget this childhood trauma. It's working a bit, but I guess not much since I'm still putting off the tennis training. 

4. I finished 4 books in less than a fortnight, what do I do now?

I'm sad.