Tidal love

If there's any one person who has had experienced the worst in love, I'm pretty sure I am one of them. Throughout my life, I have taken a number of views on love. I had ventured into a lot of things just to try to understand love. But this, until I found out that it is almost impossible for a person to fully understand love as its complexity is beyond our predictability. Earlier, I used to think of a relationship as something that can be consistently and consciously controlled to work smoothly in the direction that we favour. However, experiences have taught me that it does not always work that way. There's always some bumpy roads along the way. As for now, I have come to understand of love and relationship as something that is so close to nature, in which it closely reflects the nature itself. Love is like tides. It always change unpredictably, in which sometimes without prior sign nor warning. This is equally the same to a relationship. Sometimes it feels like to be in a successful relationship is as difficult as sailing a boat in the ocean. To get it moving in the right direction, it involves many uncontrollable factors which can alter directly the direction of the wind and indirectly the direction to where the boat is moving. In most cases, a sailor has to wait for the wind to blow to get the boat moving, but the wind does not necessarily all the time blow in favour to the sailor's wish.In such cases, the only thing the sailor can do is to keep waiting patiently hoping that the temperature will change so that the wind will blow and move the boat into its prefered destination. Similarly, in a relationship, especially a long relationship, we often take some time off just to relax our mind after an occurence of a conflict in the relationship. Some of us even used the time to cool themselves as well as to reflect upon themselves. I always feel that reflecting upon our own self is a vital necessity in a relationship. It helps us to become concious of our own flaws in the relationship and determine the best strategies to tackle the problems that arise. Also, at some points in everyone's relationship, there will be a time where we are obliged to make an important decision regarding the relationship, our partner as well as ourselves. This is like when the sailor decide to row the boat closer to the shore while waiting for the wind to come back, instead of just merely waiting for the winds to blow again. Imagine if the sailor do not row and the wind is never back, he will never make it to the shore. Similarly, in a relationship, when the time come for a decision to be made, it has to be made regardless and running away from the problem is certainly not going to help. The only thing it will help is to make the problem becomes worst. Thus, it is more worth to take the challenge and fight the problem in order to save the relationship.

P.S. A thousand thanks to my mon cheri Jeremy for the efforts in looking for the picture as well as the title for this post.Your love will always light my inspiration.bisous.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

Click here for an elaborated explanation of the novel

"A Thousand Splendid Suns" is a second novel by Khalled Hosseini, the author the international best seller which has been made into a movie, "The Kite Runner". It mainly discusses the issue of vast discrimination against women in Afghanistan. I sobbed and had t stop reading to calm myself down at least 3 times while I was reading the novel. It really touches my heart to learn how bad is women are being discriminated in Afghanistan.They were not granted access to education, were forced to marry a stranger at a certain age (in which in most circumstances the suitor is way older than the girls; for example Mariam, one of the main characters in the novel is forced to marry a man who is 20 years older than her, old enough to be her father!) and were denied from getting proper health care service in the hospital. If I were to live there, I probably could just survive only 5 minutes of my life there! The two main characters in the novel, Mariam and Laila are just two examples of Afghan women who have to suffer from the consequences of war and tradition (which is upheld by religious extremists in the country). The story really reminds me of how I should be thankful that even though there are many things in my life that upset me (for example for having to be far away from my friends and losing freedom), these things or circumstances are not comparable at all as to what Laila and Mariam are going through in their life; being forced to marry a stranger who is 20 years older than them, suffer from physical abuse from their husband (they share a husband, Mariam is the first wife and Laila is the second wife. Laila married Mariam's husband after she lost both of her parents from war and because he was being tricked by Mariam's husband, Rasheed), being beaten from walking on the street without a "Mahrim" (husband) just to get to see her 7 year-old daughter at the orphanage and having to see their parents tragic deaths at an early age( Mariam's mother commited suicide by hanging herself from a tree; Laila's parents died from war, Laila saw her father's headless torso flying in the air from their bombed house).

Pressies

These are the presents that I received from my little boys, I almost went into tears when they gave me all these. I had no idea how much they really loved me before.

I did a farewell party for them on my last day. I brought them some doughnouts and a cake. Glad they enjoyed the party! I so miss them all now!!

These are the pictures from the party!

(From the left: Thibaan, Mitvindra, Sureswaran, Danish,  New Jone, Sanjivan Gabriel, Harinder, Jacky Chan)

(Sanjivan, Oliver Chiam, Deva, Weleon, Shahrul, Harinder)

(My boys with the hamper they gave me: Harinder, Deva, Sanjivan)

                                                  ( Sureswaran, Rajarajeswaran)

(Ahmad Shafiq, Harinder, Sanjivan, Shahrul)

This is the party from another class I taught form 1Tekun (1T).

(Chunkit, Asadullah, Fahim, Sanjeev Raj)

(Syafawie, Basilius, Sureshkumar, Syamil, Naim, Alimi)

Reading like a Vampire

I started to read a lot like a Vampire  (like a vampire cause I read from midnight till dawn , ah well at least like Edward Cullen, haha!). I finally finished reading The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory. A really interesting story about the raising plots mainly in Northern parts of England which are aimed to dethroned Queen Elizabeth and put Queen Mary of Scots on the throne instead. It ventures the possibility of how men can easily be deceived by good looks or beauty. Yesterday I went shopping and book 4 books, all of them are literature piece, one of them is a great work of the legendary Jack Keruoac, On The Road which I am so excited to start reading! Im guessing this one would be similar in its theme with one of the Aussie writer Wayne Grogan Vale Byron Bay. I got 2 books of the writers J.D. Salinger and Ken Kessey free with my purchase of Jack Keruoac! And another book I bought is The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. I also borrowed some books from the library, one of them is my favourite novel the Wuthering Heigh by Emily Bronte. Hopefully I can finish reading them all during the weekend.

My cuz

This is my cuz, he's my childhood crush. hehe. And I think he looks a little bit like my friend, James's little brother, Graeme.

Graeme is the one in the middle, the one in grey-ish shirt. 

Last Day in School

Yesterday was my last day teaching the boys at the school. And today here I am, in my little room, sobbing over the facts that I might not see some of them anymore at all. I have grown myself used to them, I remember the name of each of them,  I even remember some of the students by their full names.I received some pressies from some students, even from the class that I did not taught! I am happy to know that at least some of them if not all really appreciate and love me the way I love them.

The Lake of Innisfree

I taught my classes a poem by Yeats, an Irish Laurette "The Lake Isle of Innesfree" today. Yeats spend most of his life in Ireland which he called home. Some scholars suggest that Innisfree is a place near Sligo, Ireland where he has spent most of his childhood whereas others say that Innisfree does not really exists and just exists in his mind. Whatever the theories are, we know that Innisfree is one place that he is longing to go in his life, the place where he finds his peace. To bring the poem closer to our personal life, we can say that Innisfree is a place where we really longsto go to, a place where we will find a peace of mind. Yeats Innisfree is in Ireland. My Innisfree is in Sydney (Nowra, Narrabeen , Manly, Mosman- i love North Sydney and the Northern Beaches). Where's your Innisfree? However, happiness is really a state of mind which does not always depend on where you are. What do you think about that?

The Lake Isle of Innisfree


I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear the water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.


William Butler Yeats, 1892