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Archive for January, 2007

Birthday 2007

Posted in Recent activity on January 14, 2007| 2 Comments »

It’s been a week since I turned 24. And although I didn’t plan any events or celebration for my birthday, it was a peaceful and enjoyable day. My flatmates surprised me when they knocked on my door at mid-night and sang me a birthday song. We then went to the kitchen to have some chocolate over a glass of wine and spent the night chatting, playing guitar and sang songs together. Then on the 7th, I received a call from my buddies from Bangkok, which was very sweet as I haven’t heard their voices for a long time. They was celebrating my birthday for me in Bangkok (having dinner and cake together) and sent me a video afterward.

 

Since I didn’t get myself anything during birthday, I treated myself a free day today. After my morning interviews, I went to the National Gallery to see the exhibitions on Velazquez and the Impressionists. Then I walked around Covent Garden (for the first time), tried out a restaurant in China Town, and got myself a hair-cut. Given a full day rest, I’m ready to get back to work happily and productively (hypnotizing myself).

 

Even though I’m 24 now, perhaps because I’ve never had a full-time job, I never feel like I’m an adult. Lots of people I know don’t want to grow up. Being a child allows us to dream, to do foolish things, to take risk and to enjoy life. Growing up, on the other hand, entails obligations and responsibilities. Most of all, we’re afraid that we might get used to the society’s norm, living an aimless life, forget our dreams, become a cynic, or lose our once hopeful and romantic self.

 

I don’t mind growing up. Being self-sufficient and having autonomy are important to me. And as long as I’m working on things I enjoy and do them well, I should be happy. But I would try to make sure that I don’t let myself get carry away and becoming what society expects/wants me to be, but rather to always keep my perspective and live and enjoy life my way.

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Stay Strong and be a Man

Posted in Uncategorized on January 6, 2007| 2 Comments »

“If”
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!

By Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936).

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