the IF -s Yin&Yang

If there’s no yesterday, there won’t be the day after tomorrow. Everyday will be a today kinda -days.

If there’s no regret, there won’t be introspection and reflection and the phrase ‘strive to improve’ will be overrated in general.

If there’s no future, there won’t be wishes and hopes and faith to keep going; for beautiful/better tomorrow(s).

If there’s no conflict, there won’t be life’s lessons & mandatory struggles & victorious smiles to end+make peace with one’s battles.

If there’s no me *plus* a you, there won’t be us BUT there will always still be Me. You. :)

Them or not them .. (according to many them-s)

Its not about them. Its about you re-telling those stories as the[M]aterials.

Its not about them. Its about him/her telling his/her side of the story about him/her & him/her.

Its not about them. Its about that certain part(s) of the world watching and then concluding stories about them.

Its not about them. Its me telling you its not about them and makes you think it might after-all; is about them.

Almost midnight

He was inhaling and blowing and had them eyes glued to the telly when She walked in. Then, there’s that short silence.

She was blowing and inhaling and watching the sky scrapers. He was somewhere inside. Inside one of them (still)unknown doors.

She was inside. Reading/writing and half-listening to the sound of the silent corridor. The telly is on again. She wondered if its the same He.

He coughed once and She ...

There is .....

There’s that roller coaster ride. Annihilating crazy bumps. Tingling ticklish vibes. Many sheepish smiles in between suppressed annoyance(s).

There’s that lane. Advance route for labyrinth experts. You cry. You scream. You blush. You giggle. You bask in the silence of one final road.

There’s that pace. You accelerate. Others speed up to keep up w/ the speed. You halt. You observe. You decelerate with bold freeze, smiling.

There’s the mingle-r. You move around. They assume you flirt. You couldn’t care less. You interact. You lock & you move forward with a grin.

There are the special-s. They demand zero attention. Stick to their ways of doing things. Stand out without having to. Ultimate effortless.

There’s karma. You believe it. Some don’t. Nobody’s proving what’s what or the otherwise. Retribution happens. Everybody introspect.again.

constructive mindfucking momento

one day, we gonna look at that biting past as nothing but mere strings connecting distorted puzzles of the former jaded labyrinth.

by jaded labyrinth, i meant multi lanes & channels of the unknowns. accompanied by diff states of confusion and breakdowns.

then... you, me, him, her and us gonna snap out of it. and looking back to retell the tale. to the right ppl. right timing. with a smile.

real, unmasked smile that's not gonna trigger mellow memoirs to revive. for they are mere tales thats not worth re-pondering about. anymore.

NOW. cry if you must. scream if you wanna.
THEN... smile. :)

Moving on isn't about never looking back, it's about taking a glance at the past and seeing how much you've grown since then. (via @epiclifequotes )

rollercoaster travel

You can’t time travel but you could start " sense[s] exploring. "
Travel to me.


Crack my head open.

Can you see the layers and hues representing different aspects of bittersweet life?


You don’t have to taste it. Or try to understand it. Just hold me close when I have to walk through that colorful labyrinth.


Pull me. Hold these fingers. Don’t let go until I blurt ‘the rollercoaster is over.’
Then… let’s synchronize the victorious smiles.

If sharing is caring… Caring is serving infatuation.

flow

di kala kamu menyapa.

sewaktu aku membalas, diam diam tersipu.

di kala kamu bertanya.

sewaktu aku memilah dan membuat teori bisu.

di kala semua tersenyum.

meresapi yang tertulis. merasakan yang tidak terlalu jelas terungkap.

adalah satu aliran air.

bukan air pancuran. bukan juga ombak.

hanya suatu air yang tenang dekat sebuah sungai.

saat senja datang dan siluet siluet menghampiri.

siluet awan, lampu jalan dan gedung gedung.

siluet saksi yang tiada akan pernah berkata.

siluet kita.

siluet yang terus mencoba berdiri kokoh dan berharap untuk saling menyambut.

one evening, our eyes will meet and we’ll watch all kinds of silhouettes. together.

the analogy: bitter sweet taste of caffeinated fluids

am not denying the pleasure of bitter black caffeine. too bad, tummy protests. so yea, adding sweetener to the chosen bitterness, i gotta do.

same goes in real life, no? the bitter symphonies. we like some, we ditch some. at times, the preferred bitter vibe demands sweet inputs.

realistic cycle. am i right or am i right?

if you were to believe in happily ever after tales with zero insertion of sweetened essence[s]?

well, try smelling.the.real.world.

if you were to believe that everything is nothing but BITTER taste here and there, take a break and chill for a bit. isolate yourself and self-reflect on what’s going on. isolate yourself for constructive self-improvement outcome[s]

NOW…..

for those who have just experienced ‘recent exposure of bittersweet world?’

little bitterness + adequate sweetener = hello, optimistic tendency whilst accepting the bitterness as it is.

extreme bitterness + less than moderately amount of sweetener = a challenging era to test one’s patience + THE chance to learn to be stronger + to survive that true definition of REAL world.

i wish ‘you, you and you’ not just luck but the determination to: stick with persistence and keeping optimism in between cynical thoughts when the world crumbles.

let’s be survivor[s].

physically. mentally. spiritually.

:)

Why I love my strict Chinese mom [By Sophia Chua]

Writer Amy Chua shocked the world with her provocative essay, “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior,” when it appeared in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month.

The article, excerpted from her new book, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” described “how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids.” It led with a manifesto: “Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do: attend a sleepover; have a playdate; be in a school play; complain about not being in a school play; watch TV or play computer games; choose their own extracurricular activities; get any grade less than an A; not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama; play any instrument other than the piano or violin; not play the piano or violin.”

While Chua says she has received death threats for her comments (one critic called her the “worst mother ever”), the question remains: What do her own children think? Now Chua’s eldest daughter, Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld, 18, tells her side of the story exclusively to The Post . . .

........................................

Dear Tiger Mom,

You’ve been criticized a lot since you published your memoir, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.” One problem is that some people don’t get your humor. They think you’re serious about all this, and they assume Lulu and I are oppressed by our evil mother. That is so not true. Every other Thursday, you take off our chains and let us play math games in the basement.

But for real, it’s not their fault. No outsider can know what our family is really like. They don’t hear us cracking up over each other’s jokes. They don’t see us eating our hamburgers with fried rice. They don’t know how much fun we have when the six of us — dogs included — squeeze into one bed and argue about what movies to download from Netflix.

I admit it: Having you as a mother was no tea party. There were some play dates I wish I’d gone to and some piano camps I wish I’d skipped. But now that I’m 18 and about to leave the tiger den, I’m glad you and Daddy raised me the way you did. Here’s why.

A lot of people have accused you of producing robot kids who can’t think for themselves. Well, that’s funny, because I think those people are . . . oh well, it doesn’t matter. At any rate, I was thinking about this, and I came to the opposite conclusion: I think your strict parenting forced me to be more independent. Early on, I decided to be an easy child to raise. Maybe I got it from Daddy — he taught me not to care what people think and to make my own choices — but I also decided to be who I want to be. I didn’t rebel, but I didn’t suffer all the slings and arrows of a Tiger Mom, either. I pretty much do my own thing these days — like building greenhouses downtown, blasting Daft Punk in the car with Lulu and forcing my boyfriend to watch “Lord of the Rings” with me over and over — as long as I get my piano done first.

Everybody’s talking about the birthday cards we once made for you, which you rejected because they weren’t good enough. Funny how some people are convinced that Lulu and I are scarred for life. Maybe if I had poured my heart into it, I would have been upset. But let’s face it: The card was feeble, and I was busted. It took me 30 seconds; I didn’t even sharpen the pencil. That’s why, when you rejected it, I didn’t feel you were rejecting me. If I actually tried my best at something, you’d never throw it back in my face.

I remember walking on stage for a piano competition. I was so nervous, and you whispered, “Soso, you worked as hard as you could. It doesn’t matter how you do.”

Everybody seems to think art is spontaneous. But Tiger Mom, you taught me that even creativity takes effort. I guess I was a little different from other kids in grade school, but who says that’s a bad thing? Maybe I was just lucky to have nice friends. They used to put notes in my backpack that said “Good luck at the competition tomorrow! You’ll be great!” They came to my piano recitals — mostly for the dumplings you made afterward — and I started crying when I heard them yelling “bravo!” at Carnegie Hall.

When I got to high school, you realized it was time to let me grow up a little. All the girls started wearing makeup in ninth grade. I walked to CVS to buy some and taught myself how to use it. It wasn’t a big deal. You were surprised when I came down to dinner wearing eyeliner, but you didn’t mind. You let me have that rite of passage.

Another criticism I keep hearing is that you’re somehow promoting tunnel vision, but you and Daddy taught me to pursue knowledge for its own sake. In junior year, I signed myself up for a military-history elective (yes, you let me take lots of classes besides math and physics). One of our assignments was to interview someone who had experienced war. I knew I could get a good grade interviewing my grandparents, whose childhood stories about World War II I’d heard a thousand times. I mentioned it to you, and you said, “Sophia, this is an opportunity to learn something new. You’re taking the easy way out.” You were right, Tiger Mom. In the end, I interviewed a terrifying Israeli paratrooper whose story changed my outlook on life. I owe that experience to you.

There’s one more thing: I think the desire to live a meaningful life is universal. To some people, it’s working toward a goal. To others, it’s enjoying every minute of every day. So what does it really mean to live life to the fullest? Maybe striving to win a Nobel Prize and going skydiving are just two sides of the same coin. To me, it’s not about achievement or self-gratification. It’s about knowing that you’ve pushed yourself, body and mind, to the limits of your own potential. You feel it when you’re sprinting, and when the piano piece you’ve practiced for hours finally comes to life beneath your fingertips. You feel it when you encounter a life-changing idea, and when you do something on your own that you never thought you could. If I died tomorrow, I would die feeling I’ve lived my whole life at 110 percent.

And for that, Tiger Mom, thank you.

********************************************************

Sophia's original article. the link: HERE

Amy Chua's Why Chinese Mothers are superior? <-- click to view

Amy Chua is a professor at Yale Law School and author of "Day of Empire" and "World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability." This essay is excerpted from "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" by Amy Chua

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