growing up

"Adolescence is a time where you act upon your impulse and you leave the tangled knots as is, ignoring loose ends. Adulthood is a time when intuition and reason mix, and I'm not ready for that just yet."

I wrote that when I was just about to turn eighteen, when I thought I was grown just because I was old enough to buy my own cigarettes. Eighteen. Reading the entries eighteen year old Hannah wrote in an old diary, she seems a lot wiser than twenty-three year old me right now. Though, of course, it's different when it comes to how things played out; back then, I thought I knew the world and I thought I knew what it meant to be an adult, to be grown. Back then, I lived inside my head, wrapped around in the shell of my unpleasant and unfortunate experiences, and I analyzed and thought I understood what it meant to be grown without really paying my dues to the growing process.

I guess it's slightly true, what I wrote about adolescence. In retrospect, I was such an impulsive creature, and I couldn't tell the difference between speaking up and speaking out. I've tangled so many knots and just cut them free without even bothering to try to smooth things out, and heaven knows just how many loose ends I've just let hang.

It seems fitting that I came across this old diary of mine, and it's so fitting that this particular line caught my attention. For the past couple weeks, I've been looking into myself, rearranging and discarding a few things here and there, slowly realizing that I wasn't ever so far away from being an adolescent all this time. I kept speaking out when all I needed was to speak up, I kept rebelling with no real cause, and I kept displaying an array of false confidence, like a vain peacock, taking on such a misogynistic air (what an oxymoron!). Through these two weeks of introspection, I realized that I was still acting like I needed to prove something, still acting like I was bound by social and cultural obligations and norms. What a dramatic teen!

I don't think I've ever seen her, the woman I want to be, so clearly. I don't know why it just dawned on me to do the things I've already known for so long to get to her. I guess, I still love to learn things the hard way.

So, here's to me, finally ready to mix intuition and reason. To finally untangling knots and tying loose ends. However, I don't think I'll ever really stop acting on impulse, but I guess it's not really an impulse when you contemplate the action for a couple days after the urge, haha.

carly rose sonenclar

i have been blown away by this little girl! so much soul, so much power, at such a young age! feeling good by nina simone is seriously a hard song to cover, and wow is all i can really say. i even got a little teary! she reminds me of christina aguilera a little, with so much range and jesus fuck such a powerful voice...let's just hope she doesn't end up the same as xtina.

space

I saw your face in the crowd last night, I saw your face for the slightest glimpse of a second too short. I hoped it was my mind playing a terrible trick on me, malicious with its intent to agonize my heart, but it was really you. Who can ever forget those brown eyes, that crooked smile of yours that added to your own personal charm...I know I couldn't. I can't, and it torments me.

Though I wanted to see you again, more than anything, I wish I hadn't. Now, my thoughts are filled with you, of us, of what we had and what we used to know, and without realizing I'm scanning my surroundings for you. Wherever I go. Because, foolishly, I'm hoping to see you again, by luck, chance, fate, whatever force, cosmic or not, I have on my side. I didn't realize until last night, when my eyes fell on a glimpse of you and my heart jumped up to my throat, just how much I miss you still, how much I haven't let go, forgotten, how much I yearned for you. Your voice, your gaze, your crooked, charming smile, and your touch. Of all things about you, I wanted to hear your laugh again while you held me close as I snuggled up to abolish what little space there was between us.

Space. Almost instantaneously there were miles between us as soon as the word escaped your lips while we sat just a coffee table's length away. Soon enough, there was no more shared closet, your toothbrush was gone and the nights we spent cozily spooning while drifting off into sleep was no more. Your side of the bed turned cold, empty. Then, there were episodes of pride between us that turned those miles into lightyears, my ego in the way of the matters of my heart, and I continued to busy myself in appearing okay, alive without you. I was too busy pretending that I became numb, and seeing you again, quick as it was, brought a wave of feeling over me that I don't know how to handle. I feel young, foolish, full of regret and vulnerable all over.

I saw your face in the crowd last night, and I saw the girl that made you smile your crooked smile, the smile that I still love and cherish, and I realized that the lightyears of space between us didn't exist anymore, because the world we had, the world I couldn't let go of, ceased to exist for you.

FYGWSH

i'm on my way to being tumblr famous!

haha, not really. but i submitted and now

my image is circulating around the tumblr

universe (kinda cool!). i absolutely love this

blog, hair inspiration and beauty galore!

went tres fou

smart went crazy, truth went trendy,

the story got lazy so i rewrote the ending.

smart went crazy, the rubber band went snap,

this goes to those who hold it down 'til i get back.

hold on to me, grow along with me, i don't know

where i'm going but i'll end up in your arms.

feelin' red

i've been drawn to the color red lately

and since i've cut my hair, i haven't left

the house without donning matte red

lipstick from nars. funny how i always

feel more feminine whenever i chop off

the puffy lion's mane i have on my head.

and hooray for me using my camera again,

though it was to entertain the little vanity i have.

sunset boulevard

joe: i didn't know you were making a comeback.

norma: i hate that word. it's a return, a return to the millions of people who's never forgiven me for deserting the screen.

birthday wishes

i just want to take this time out to thank everyone for their birthday greetings and well wishes! every one of you are amazing, i definitely felt all the love around me. i do want to apologize for not thanking you guys sooner; i'm afraid i'm just barely recovering from the most wildest birthday weekend i've ever had in my life! from truck stop (best. experience. ever.), to last night's korean barbeque, the intoxication and "oh fuck, why did we do that?" didn't end. now it's monday, i'm so worn out and i really wonder how i used to do this every damn weekend for the most part of 2010. gahdamn, i really must be getting old.

happy monday, everyone, and thank you for celebrating with me :)

oh, and ps, i totally fell in love with this video over the weekend.

used books

i went to one of my favorite used book stores, which i now live very close to (thanks to the recent move into a new place) and i went ahead and indulged. i absolutely love this place, and i bought most of these books for less than a dollar (heaven, if you ask me).

gangnam style

i heard gangnam style on the radio today,

and i'm not gonna go on about how genius psy is

and rant about the deeper meaning of this song + video.

all i'm gonna say is that i'm proud that kpop finally brokethrough

into american pop culture after years and years of trying and falling short

and also that i find it highly ironic that psy was the one to succeed what the

rest of the cookie-cutter kpop celebrities couldn't, despite all the $$ their labels spent.

if you really want to know what "gangnam style" is, click here.

mes cheveux

impatience is taking over me.

this is me, right now, puffy-eyed and half-awake,

lying on my stomach doing homework i've neglected

in just a mere two hours before i have to leave the house for

a 1.5 hour metro commute i have to make to get to school.

right now, i wish i had a desk, and i'm thinking that

maybe i should just miss out today and fight this sore throat +

cold combination i feel coming on like the trickling sense of

dread you feel when you wake up in the same clothes you wore

last night in a place you don't recognize next to a plastic bag.

i mean, not that that's happened to me but, you know, one can imagine.

and...is it really drizzling right now?!

change

new school semester,

new apartment,

new layout.

update soon!