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R.E.M.

"Nightswimming"

Nightswimming by REM. I can’t really explain why but I’ve found this song so captivating and beautiful since the first time I heard it, I was probably 13 (?) at the time. And it’s been my favourite song since.

“You I thought I knew you

You I cannot judge

You I thought you knew me

This one laughing quietly

Underneath my breath,

Nightswimming”

Sometimes you have to accept that there are certain people you will never truly know, no matter how you try. And you have to accept that it’s not your fault that they don’t want to let people in.

News

Hello Tumblr,

Long time no see! Long time no update!

In the past few weeks that I haven’t been on here, I have graduated (caps gowns, the whole shebang - I even gave a speech, waheeey!) It’s the first proper cap + gown stand alone grad ceremony my school has ever had, and I am glad my grade was the first to experience it. Our school is so new we don’t really have much established tradition yet, but I hope this one stays.

Then straight after grad, we all went on our graduation trip to Mui Ne - a really nice beach area of Vietnam. A couple of my friends rented motorbikes and we drove around on them - it was so exhilarating! Here’s some photos from one of our bike excursions:

(The Ho Chi Minh City Opera House on a Sunday morning on Dong Khoi street. I remember taking this photo) I can’t believe that I will be leaving behind this crazy, beautiful but dirty, chaotic, constantly changing city, far far too soon. What will I do without the noise of your masses of motorbikes? What will I do without your narrow roads, your uneven pavement? How will I keep my conscience in check without your beggars to remind me that I need to cherish my life? How will I do without your onslaught of neon lighting to light up the night sky? How will I feel when I no longer hear the babble of Vietnamese, a harsh sound that I’ve come to know and love? How will I feel without your perpetual summertime weather, your six months of humid heat, six months of daily rain? Your days are always the same length, the trees and grass always the same green. What will it be like when their colours change around me? I have spent a decade in your city, your suburbs. I have spent a decade surrounded by the most brilliant, diverse, interesting, open-minded people. I have spent a decade wowed by this city’s energy. I love Saigon, and I love its people. I will never be a local, but as far as I’m concerned you are my home. I’ve learnt enough Vietnamese to shop, to take a cab, to introduce myself. I wish I had learnt more.  The year I moved to Vietnam my entire life changed. It represents a new stage of my family and my life. I feel like I belong here, in a way so much more deep and poignant than the way I feel about the countries that I am actually from.  This place made who I am, and though I hate to leave you, I must. But I will always come back.

(The Ho Chi Minh City Opera House on a Sunday morning on Dong Khoi street. I remember taking this photo)

I can’t believe that I will be leaving behind this crazy, beautiful but dirty, chaotic, constantly changing city, far far too soon.

What will I do without the noise of your masses of motorbikes? What will I do without your narrow roads, your uneven pavement? How will I keep my conscience in check without your beggars to remind me that I need to cherish my life? How will I do without your onslaught of neon lighting to light up the night sky?

How will I feel when I no longer hear the babble of Vietnamese, a harsh sound that I’ve come to know and love? How will I feel without your perpetual summertime weather, your six months of humid heat, six months of daily rain? Your days are always the same length, the trees and grass always the same green. What will it be like when their colours change around me?

I have spent a decade in your city, your suburbs. I have spent a decade surrounded by the most brilliant, diverse, interesting, open-minded people. I have spent a decade wowed by this city’s energy. I love Saigon, and I love its people. I will never be a local, but as far as I’m concerned you are my home. I’ve learnt enough Vietnamese to shop, to take a cab, to introduce myself. I wish I had learnt more. 

The year I moved to Vietnam my entire life changed. It represents a new stage of my family and my life. I feel like I belong here, in a way so much more deep and poignant than the way I feel about the countries that I am actually from. 

This place made who I am, and though I hate to leave you, I must.

But I will always come back.

Updates

JFC FML FML FML.

I used to pride myself on not being particularly fanatic and crazy and nutso over any celebrity.

But everytime a new vid gets posted, my mind stops working, and I melt into an unintelligible puddle of mindless fangirl.

I swear to you, I am much smarter than that, please allow just this one thing to be irrationally happy about.

On a better note, :) I have one exam left…which is next week! And its French, which I actually like, so its not as much of a headache as everything else.

;)

Do you feel an incredible wanting in your heart, for no one in particular? That lies there, dull, dormant, but constant. A desire that subconsciously fills your entire being, but renders you empty? You’re lonely. So am I. So is he. So is she. So you know what? Let’s sit and be lonely together.

—

About Asian Guys…

I know this is completely irrelevant to the few people who follow me, but please, I ask that you hear me out.

I’m half Asian, and in general for most of my life I haven’t really found asian men to be that attractive. When people would show me photos of asian male celebs I wouldn’t pay attention much and continue on with my belief that Hugh Jackman is the sexiest man alive (I still think so btw).

I am now beginning to appreciate the good looks of male asians (though, I can tell you Asian Women > Asian Men for sure, at least in Vietnam)

Please, if you find an Asian man who is smart, funny, can speak my language and dances+looks like the guy below, hit me up.

Lee KiKwang of Beast

(via moronicbeauty) I’ve grown up where the landscape doesn’t look like this, where we don’t have quaint farmhouses. Or trees like this. I sometimes wonder what it would be like to live somewhere with four seasons and rolling pastures with a variety of multicoloured birds and flowers… In poetry that comes from writers that have lived/grown up in countries with four seasons, spring, summer, autumn and winter can be used to signify so many things, or used as extended metaphors, or personified…the way seasons are used in poetry are endless. I was thinking about this, thinking about how in the poetry I’ve been studying so many things have been likened to an aspect of one of the four seasons - they seem to feature in poetry so often. But what of the poets that come from places where there aren’t seasons? Simply six months of wet, six months of dry - (if you can even really call it dry seeing as it’s so, so humid) we can’t write about the golden colours of autumn, the new life and buds and showers of spring, we can’t right about winter’s white purity, or the biting cold. We can write about the heat, the saturated air, the awesome, blazing sunlight. The monsoon, the drizzle, the shower, the downpour. These things are important and beautiful…but I still envy those who have lived through four seasons.  No matter what time of year I look out my bedroom window, the plants outside always look the same.

(via moronicbeauty)

I’ve grown up where the landscape doesn’t look like this, where we don’t have quaint farmhouses. Or trees like this.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to live somewhere with four seasons and rolling pastures with a variety of multicoloured birds and flowers…

In poetry that comes from writers that have lived/grown up in countries with four seasons, spring, summer, autumn and winter can be used to signify so many things, or used as extended metaphors, or personified…the way seasons are used in poetry are endless.

I was thinking about this, thinking about how in the poetry I’ve been studying so many things have been likened to an aspect of one of the four seasons - they seem to feature in poetry so often. But what of the poets that come from places where there aren’t seasons? Simply six months of wet, six months of dry - (if you can even really call it dry seeing as it’s so, so humid) we can’t write about the golden colours of autumn, the new life and buds and showers of spring, we can’t right about winter’s white purity, or the biting cold.

We can write about the heat, the saturated air, the awesome, blazing sunlight. The monsoon, the drizzle, the shower, the downpour. These things are important and beautiful…but I still envy those who have lived through four seasons. 

No matter what time of year I look out my bedroom window, the plants outside always look the same.

NIGHTNIGHT by DEDDY