Jolly Folly, Mighty Morphin'

How is it that one can feel so happy and sad at the same time? So much to be merry about, but so much to dread and fret.

Love has a big heart. With someone whom you share this big heart, you can talk all day, in person or over the phone, even if it's pointless teasing each other, even if it's silly banter on the details of the enjoyable Subway dinner. At the end of it, you feel like you've had such a meaningful time. A farewell marks a sweet meeting all round, but concludes a markedly sweet meeting. You leave with an aftertaste of bitterness and sourness but you know you have been showered with saccharine bliss.

Hate too has a big heart. The veins that don't go with the arteries. The pump that drums your head too hard, it's all going to burst. The flaps that hide the undercurrents of tension. The rubber tubes that connect the heart to parts of the body, poisoning it, spreading dislike down to the very vessel. Hate can only grow bigger and bigger, and as we grow up, hopefully gets weaker and weaker. That's all we can hope for.

Posted by Brandon at Saturday, March 31, 2007 | Permalink

Was halfway through a swim on a clear Thursday morning.

Then a message arrives, "Congratulations on being admitted to the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration."

It has been quite a long time since I felt ecstasy. It was such an invigorating feeling. Finally, finally, something out of the whole uni/scholarship shit that I've been messing around for a year now. Looking back at all the silly things I did - penning an essay on "the time you provided the most outstanding service to a customer" when I had no experience at all, retaking SATs to beg for assurance of a better score, working at a coffee shop during the weekends, going through an awkward interview with a Merill Lynch manager, writing an appeal for re-consideration when my first Early Decision application was turned down- wow, it has been quite a journey.

Makes me wanna kill those who just apply and voila, get it at first shot.

So now, the last hurdle. That coveted scholarship.

And I think I'm beginning to see the whole picture, the whole package. The idea of a scholarship is really not what alot of people think it is (or what I thought of it to be initially). It's not an award (far from it), it's making a choice to work. To work for an employer you are convinced in fighting for - for the rights of the organisation, for profits, for improvement.

I'm so going to get it. Swear.

Posted by Brandon at Saturday, March 24, 2007 | Permalink

When I sit down after a long hiatus at blogging, and want to conjure something to pen down, what follows is an intense rememory of the happenings for the past month, past weeks. It becomes sometimes a struggle ("Hmmm, what epitomises/encapsulates the past month?") and the best thing to write is about just any random thought. Spontaneous, unfettered and mostly nonsensical.

Things haven't changed. Well, a wave or two, perhaps in an ocean of calm. But just like how despite some wafer-thin models die and stir debate over the meaning of beauty, we still somehow find ourselves entrenched in the old definition of it. Got to be thin, got to have a flat torso. Like how there's all the talk about pulling back the US forces in Iraq, about Hong Kong wanting to abate pollution, nothing much is done in the end. Perhaps, things much reach catastrophic levels before we take action (global warming?)

Cannot wait to ORD. I feel like I'm ready to burst into the world outside me, and fill myself with more happiness. I feel like I'm ready for something big out there, running on greener pastures rather than charging up green knolls, churning creative juices, moving to a different beat. I'm kind of running low on motivation, to be very frank. One thing learnt, you've got to believe what you do before you can do it well. So for those choosing career paths and universities, please look deeper, search further, don't just choose something good, better or best, got to choose something you really really really want to do. Something which you would wake up everyday, and say, "Hey I'm ready for this. Here I go again."

Being the idealist I am, yes, easier said than done.

Posted by Brandon at Wednesday, March 21, 2007 | Permalink