taza and husband

Postcards From Italy from andrew+carissa on Vimeo.


my favorite love story ever! it's not all sugar-coated and breezy, but that's what makes it so real.

picturesque things I want to do in 2012

In mid-March last year, inspired by  Summer Pierre , I made a list of 100 things I want to do in 2011. Within 8 and a half months, I crossed off 68 items on my list, which left only 32 undone! (if I did my counting right) It is heart-warming to look back and see how far I've come and how much I've grown in less than 300 days. It really feels like quite an accomplishment.

Although the year did not start out on a fantastic note, I am certain that it is all part of learning to accept the fact that life is about working around plans that sometimes go awry, body system that once in a while go haywire when under tremendous amount of stress and too little rest. Today, I am down with a flu and am trying to come up with a list for this year while waiting for the doctor to be available after lunchtime. It's taking me a little longer as I find it so difficult to think of a list of 100 things that can match the awesomeness of last year's. Last year was about the predictable fun; reliving my childhood joy before I turned twenty one.

This year is about discipline and doing what fears me the most. And of course, having fun in the process, and feel the great spontaneity of being alive. As my body and health is the most important thing that belongs to me, I aim to take extra good care of myself this year by eating healthfully, exercising once a week, getting at least 7 hours of rest every night and avoiding excessive caffeine, sugar, trans fat, meat, processed food from the supermarket shelves and fast food. This year is also about consistency. Doing something once is one time not enough. The key is to lather, rinse and repeat. Keep doing what you love; what challenges you; what makes you who you are and what you are ultimately meant to be.

1. Learn to swim.
2. Eat piping hot thick-cut French fries with ketchup as a reward for learning how to swim. (I hope the canteen is still there after 10 odd years)
3. Sign up for driving lessons. (No more letting BTT, FTT and the car parked outside go to waste)
4. Attend a spinning class.
5. Visit the dentist. (Not so fun but it's about reliving my childhood and teenage fear)
6. Build a mini snowman.
7. Eat sushi, ride the shinkansen, shop and navigate around Tokyo.
8. Make a snow angel and snap a picture of it.
9. Create new (positive) memories in a beer factory.
10. Document a hand-made shoe manufacturing process.
11. Bake hot cross bun.
12. Make poached eggs on toast.
13. Wear an outrageous-looking dangling earrings and not feel weird about it.
14. Drink green tea with brown rice. (To replace the morning coffee)
15. Go for an whole body check up. (Blood test, urine test and the full works)
16. Play a game of badminton.
17. Go to bed at 9pm on a weekend.
18. Eat delicious grilled squid in China.
19. Watch Westlife perform live one last time.
20. Study a minimum of 12 hours per week.
21. Buy a hammock.
22. Spend an afternoon swinging and lazing in that said hammock by the seaside.
23. Sleep alone in a hotel room in a foreign country.
24. Take a picture of a cat.
25. Eat ice cream when it's below zero degree Celsius.
26. Complete my first uni examinations.
27. Get wonderfully lost in a shoes wholesale centre.
28. Unsubscribe junk mails from Reebonz, Voucherlicious, Made With Love, The Outnet, Jobs Central, Jobstreet, Expedia and the like. (I always delete those without even reading the subject header)
29. Swing 180 degrees from the swing in the park.
30. Read Roald Dahl 'The Boy' once more.
31. Connect with a few of my favorite authors. (Twitter has allowed me to thank Nick Johnstone and of course, Summer Pierre)
32. Go for a run along hydroponics farms near what I live.
33. Bake my favorite Rococoa cake!
34. Hand-make a gift hamper/kit for someone special.
35. Watch Titanic in 3D!!!
36. Keep a monthly desk calendar and actually make full use of it.
37. Compile my recipes from dozens of tiny notebooks into recipe cards and book.
38. Re-watch A Lot Like Love for the fourth time if it shows again on TV! (which has to be coincidental, because I probably watched a total of 3 hours of TV the whole of last year!!)
39. Dye my hair dark again. Back to my roots, pun intended. (Read about my urge 2 years ago)
40. Kiss a dog.
41. Kiss a baby.
42. Kiss a person.
43. Go on a "date" in London.
44. Snap a picture of an orange sky.
45. Reread one of my favorite childhood novel 'What Katy Did' and finally start on 'What Katy Did Next', which I had put off for more than ten years.
46. Blog with more substance and keep from using the f word. (I hardly use it in real life, promise)
47. Love what I love.

So far, I have 30 47 and I'm think it's enough for now. How in the world did I even come up with 100 things to do in one sitting last year. I'll leave you with one quote!

If life is a really short journey like it is, nothing should ever be considered as a failure. They should be setbacks. Obstacles that prevent us from reaching our destination earlier. Detours that can lead to the greatest things you never thought you will ever find.
- OHX

The only time I feel alive

Is when I'm crying.

I'm crying for the number of hours I've wasted crying.
I'm crying for granting despair and desperation to take over.
I'm crying for having made others done the same.
I'm crying for the love lost, found and lost again.
I'm crying for allowing myself to feel small and inadequate.
I'm crying for the sake of doing so.
I'm crying for the need to let go.
I'm crying for every second closer to home.
I'm crying for each day spent happier away from home.
I'm crying for the elation of belongingness.
I'm crying for the desire to let them flow.
I'm crying for inspiration of how things drove.
I'm crying for the stuff which never fill the void.
I'm crying for friendship turned sour and spoiled.
I'm crying for the ways that no one will see.
I'm crying for uncontrollable laughters.
I'm crying for the tinge of sadness that often accompanies them.


p.s: Just found this post in my draft and I totally forgot when I wrote it. All I remember was standing inside the train on the morning commute, feeling like I didn't belong.

Kiko Mizuhara 水原希子

Fear: It's all in the mind

If I told you my fear

will you accept it
will you try to help me overcome it
will you believe me
will you understand or attempt to or pretend that you do
will you laugh
will you tell me that there is nothing to fear
will you ask me why
will you tell me a story of your own
will you jeer at me in a taunting manner
will you give a scornful remark
will you listen and not say a word
will you share your own deepest thoughts
will you think of me any less
will you put yourself in my shoes
will you feel more bonded like we shared something more
will you push me further away like we're from two different world
will you force me to look you in the eye
will you avoid my gaze like the blazing sun
will you hold me like a mother afraid of losing her daughter
will you treat me like a lioness longing to let her cub go
will you hand me the first bite of a tiny tart
will you finish it as I stare sideways at the crumbs
will you fully embrace the the uniqueness of every individual
will you be ashamed to face your own shortcomings
will you let your own emotions gush out like the blood from an open wound
will you bottle up your feelings like the stubborn cap of a badly-designed drink
will you live each day like it's your last day on earth
will you live each day like you have to live forever with the consequences of your own actions
will you love me any more
or any less

That is all I need to know

37 Things Left.

Coincidentally, 37 is also the the idea that the book I am currently reading started out from, where the writer's stepdad found out he had cancer and died 37 days later.

Just crossed out 25 items from my List of 100 Things to Do. Some are stretched truth, others were done more than a year ago, only a few were accomplished with dignity and pride.

I often think I should also probably make a list of 100 Things I wish I hadn't done, things I should have handled more carefully, done more wisely, with more thought and spontaneity and effort and recklessness and love and strength and commitment and tact and humility and pride all at once and all the oxymoron you can think of. 

Do they count?

Have you ever opened your eyes in the morning, got out of bed, get dressed, the usual morning routine and then realize you don't know why you are awake for?

The constant flow of messages in your mind goes like this: "Shit! It's almost cut-off time to leave the house! Oh darn, I brought my pencil case out unintentionally on a non-school day!! F the train is so crowded. Oh f now I really missed my stop!" All this on-going one-way conversation goes on in my brain and I'm getting increasingly aware of my own internal vulgarity, even though I almost never verbalise them (okay except THAT one time when my foot suffered a wrenching, gut-twisting cramp, researchers claim that cursing can trick our mind into feeling less pain, and I do believe in science) Still, all these made me ponder if I am really a horrible person inside or that I simply enjoy a colorful vocabulary (love that one) even when society says that it is unlady-like and crude.

The thing that bugs me the most is, I don't even blink, my body doesn't reject those words out of my system.