The Properties of Being a Woman

So, as some of you know already, I get bored at work sometimes. And what do I do? I surf the web. The usual destinations would be Facebook and YouTube... and my newfound interest, Urban Dictionary. I was bored today and so I looked up "women" on Urban Dictionary. I'd like to know how some people attempt to describe or portray women... I ran into this one and would love to share it with you.

WOMEN - A CHEMICAL ANALYSIS ---------------------------
Element: Women
Symbol: Wo
Discoverer: Adam
Atomic Mass: Accepted at 53.6 kg, but known to vary between 40 & 200 kg
Occurences: Copious quantities in all urban areas

PHYSICAL PROPERTIES:
1. Surface usually covered in painted film.
2. Boils at nothing; freezes without known reason.
3. Melts if given special treatment.
4. Bitter if incorrectly used.
5. Found in various states from virgin metal to common ore.
6. Yields if pressure applied in correct places.

CHEMICAL PROPERTIES:
1. Has a great affinity for gold, silver and a range of precious stones.
2. Absorbs great quantities of expensive substances.
3. May explode spontaneously without prior warning and for no know reason.
4. Insoluble in liquids, but activity increases greatly when saturated in alcohol.
5. Most powerful money reducing agent known to man.

COMMON USES:
1. Highly ornamental, especially in sports cars.
2. Can be a great aid to relaxation.
3. Very effective cleaning agent.

TESTS:
1. Pure specimen turns rosy pink when discovered in the natural state.
2. Turns green when placed beside a better specimen.

HAZARDS:
1. Highly dangerous except in experienced hands.
2. Illegal to possess more than one, although several can be maintained at different locations as long as specimens do not come into direct contact with each other.

Please don't fight...

Why are you striving these days
Why are you trying to earn grace
Why are you crying
Let me lift up your face
Just don't turn away

Why are you looking for love
Why are you still searching as if I'm not enough
To where will you go, child
Tell me where will you run
To where will you run

And I'll be by your side
Wherever you fall
In the dead of night
Whenever you call
And please don't fight
These hands that are holding you
My hands are holding you

Look at these hands and my side
They swallowed the grave on that night
When I drank the world's sin
So I could carry you in
And give you life
I want to give you life

And I'll be by your side
Wherever you fall
In the dead of night
Whenever you call
And please don't fight
These hands that are holding you
My hands are holding you

Cause I, I love you
I want you to know
That I, I love you
I'll never let you go

And I'll be by your side
Wherever you fall
In the dead of night
Whenever you call
And please don't fight
These hands that are holding you
My hands are holding you

- By Your Side, by Tenth Avenue North

So about a month ago, I realized I was at the lowest point in my life. I am the kind of person that have always been confident of what I want to do in life. I remember back in high school, when he was told to describe me, my teacher said that I am the kind of person that loves life. A month ago, that was not the case.

I was standing on a beach, by the clear blue waters. I have always loved the beach, the feel of the warm sand the cold, refreshing water. That was my definition of peace. But not this time. I felt like a big wave had crashed over me, engulfing me with its strong arms. I was pushed down. Deeper and deeper. I got to the point where I need oxygen. The panic, the desperation, the fear was all around me. I tried so hard to push my way up, trying to swim against the pressure. I finally saw the light of day and quickly gasped a mouthful of air. The next second, another wave crashed on me, pulling me down. Deeper and deeper. I tried to swim and fight the pressure. This time, I felt my muscles ache. There was no ounce of strength left in me to swim up. So what can I do. I let go of all hope and drift further and further down.

I wasn't really on a beach. I wasn't really drowning. But it felt like I was.

I was at the point where I had let go of all hope and drift further and further down into depression. I know what God's promises are for my life. I know that his plans are supposed to be good. But I couldn't see it. I couldn't see it ever happening to me. Everytime I think about it, I cry. What else could one do? I was at the point where I could not trust God anymore. I literally did not have the strength or the ability to trust God. I was just there, falling deeper and deeper to this abyss. I told my parents this, the only people I talked to about this. I knew it hurt them to see me that way, but I was unable to do anything. My mother kept on telling me that I have always been a strong, confident girl. "Get up and fight it!" was what she said. And I told her, "I can't..." I did not feel that girl in me anymore. I felt a totally different person, a failure.

It's funny that the prayer intern could not find it in her to pray. I literally could not pray.

The story did not end there, though. After a while, I started to become angry. I was mad at God. I was angry because he was not doing what he promised me he would. I was angry because I was heartbroken. I was angry because I was alone. I was angry... and I told him. I prayed, but my prayer was anger... I told him everything, everything that was wrong with my life. I told him that I was sick of my life. I asked him, "If you love me, why am I hurting?"

This song came in the picture. I twas in the playlist I was playing at the time. I felt God was speaking these words to me, as he held me in his arms. No matter how hard I fight back, his arms were still there. And then he tells me, "Please don't fight these hands that are holding you."

I felt like a hand grabbed mine and pulled me out of the deep water. It felt good because, finally, I was able to breathe again. Oxygen felt so strange, but good at the same time. I was in someone's arms. It wasn't cold and dark anymore, but warm and light.

I was looking for love and searching as if God is not enough.

I'm not saying I have it all figured out. But it's a journey.

I am falling more and more in love - with God. All the others? They don't really matter.

FRUMPED

WARNING: This blog post is most definitely what I would clearly label venting. Please understand.

I was in line to talk to the receptionist at the doctor's clinic and, while waiting, have been engrossed in a quite passionate rant concerning a friendship in my life that is coming to an end.

"You've been frumped," Anna analyzed.

Naturally, I was perplexed at the use of the foreign word. After seeing the perplexed look on my face, Anna explained that it is an expression coined first by our friend, Ashleigh, pertaining to the situation in which a friend ended the friendship. Much like being "dumped" in a romantic relationship. When one is being "frumped," he or she is being "dumped" as a friend. I thought the invention was ingenious.

Anna was right. I was frumped.

One of my friends, who will remain unnamed, has ditched me for the last year or so for a boy, who will also remain unnamed. Reading this, you might think that this is a normal case of friend jealousy. However, I might have to disagree, since I can produce witnesses who would testify to the truth of my case. I think that there is a healthy way to be in a romantic relationship yet still preserve friendships. Apparently my friend have no idea how that can be done.

I have made a promise to my friend - let's call her X - to do something for her. I, mind you, made that promise when we were still friends. Then, the frumping process began. What I'm wondering is: does she still have any friends left? Apparently X has only one friend in her life, her boy. People might think that it is cliche to say that relationships need work. But they do. And my friend, X, completely did not care about our friendship. As a result, I - being the independent person that I am - moved on with my life, without her. And now, much to my regret, I was called to act on that promise I made.

You see, X still very much thought that we are friends. She still calls me "friend" and tells me she misses me. Every time I hear her say that, I have to exert every effort I can to control myself from regurgitating. I am quite disgusted. When we were still friends (and my definition of friend is of true friendship, where friends hang out with each other and actually are interested in each other's lives), I would jump at the opportunity to spend time at her place. Not anymore, though. Recently, she asked me if I'd like to come and spend the night. As you probably could tell, I'm not jumping for joy.

Anyways. I just needed a place to channel my exasperation.. frustration.. disgust..

You might be wondering what I'm going to do next. A promise is a promise. I make sure this is completed, then she'll go her way and I go mine. I'm not saying that I hate her and will never talk to her again. No. What I'm saying is that our relationship have changed throughout the course of the year from close friends to mere acquaintances. It's sad, I know. So sorry. Wished it was different, but it's not. I've moved on with my life.

A disgruntled ex-friend, signing out.

Flying Solo

I'm 6,742 miles away from home... and 3,601 miles away from my other home.

It's really quite interesting the set of circumstances that brought me to this very moment. Oh yeah, I should probably give more information about what my situation is right now. I am sitting in the Sakura Lounge of Japan Airlines located somewhere in the depths of the Narita International Airport.

To all of the people out there that don't know me, I want everything to be in control. My control. (And that's an understatement.) What happened to me these past couple of days just can't be further from that.

On Monday, June 15 I was dropped off at Sea-Tac Airport by my lovely roommate's mother, LaVaughn. I know. It's kind of bizzare that your roommate's mom drives you to the airport and not your roommate. Long story. But LaVaughn is a good friend and she's like family to me, so I was quite content with the arrangement. After checking in and the usual stuff that pertains with getting on International flights, I got on the plane just in time.

My flight made a short stop in Honolulu to re-fuel and all that good stuff. And then we were off to a 7-hour flight (Yes. I'm serious. No. This isn't a typo) to Tokyo, Japan. Throughout this first leg of my flights, I watched a few movies. Okay. Maybe a little bit more than a few. Hotel for Dogs, Last Chance Harvey, Race to Witch Mountain, New in Town, and InkHeart. Yep. Just a few. It didn't really sink in to me that something was wrong until the time they handed out immigration forms for Japan. Of course, I was like, "I'm going to Hong Kong and then to Jakarta. I don't need these forms." But they gave me the forms anyways. I started looking at the itinerary I had printed out and stuck in my purse. The captain had said that we were going to arrive at Narita Airport at 9:30pm. Wait a second, I thought to my self (or maybe out loud). The flight was supposed to have landed at 4:40pm and then I should have departed on another flight to Hong Kong at 6:40pm. I could literally feel the ground underneath me crumble. Okay. Maybe it was some turbulence the flight was experiencing.

You see. For a control freak like me, having your flight itinerary changed, being dumped at a foreign place with lots of people who speak some kind of English you don't understand, and having no notion of how or when you'll get to your destination is a bad thing. I still smiled and was still polite to the people I encountered, but deep inside I was hyperventilating. (Is that even possible? Internal hyperventilating.)

When my flight landed in Narita, I had to wait in line to get my little "situation" figured out. In line, I had the chance to observe human nature put under a series of misfortunes uncontrollable by anyone. People are rude. When people's comfort gets threatened, they get rude. As I was waiting in line, I had a revelation. Whatever we are experiencing right now is not the people manning the counter's fault - and why do we unleash 3 hours worth of delay anger on them? They weren't the ones flying the planes or manning the control towers.

So I resolved on shutting up, be polite, and muster up whatever strength left in me to smile.

It worked. The guy that helped me told me that they have booked a hotel room with complimentary dinner and breakfast on them. They also arranged a new flight itinerary. The guy saw that my final destination is Jakarta, and so he asked me if I would rather have a direct flight from Tokyo to Jakarta. I did not hesitate in agreeing. So it was settled. My flight to Jakarta was to leave the next day at 2:10pm. That left me enough time to rest, clean up, and lounge around.

Japan Airlines has a lounge with complimentary food, drinks, and wireless internet. It was paradise for me.

It turns out that the circumstances played out better than what I had planned myself.

What I planned consisted of waiting for 9 hours in Hong Kong International Airport - sleep deprived and alone.

What I got was free dinner, breakfast, and a great place to stay and sleep. I got a full 8 hours of sleep.

Accept the unexpected. It may end up being a whole lot better than you have planned.

Season Finale

So, I finished watching the last season of Veronica Mars. My roommate suggested that I move on to more bad boys. In Buffy, for example.

Sigh. But alas. My heart is still captured by the teenage detective series.

I think it's public knowledge now that one of the reasons for my unending love for Veronica Mars is the presence of the hot boyfriend (or ex-boyfriend, or whatever Logan Echolls decides to be). Nevertheless, there are other aspects that contributes to my love for Veronica Mars.

Mystery novels. Murders. Who did it? It's like the CLUE game, where you try to find who did it, where, and with what. Do I have to spell it out again? Hint: it's the whole thing about humankind loving danger and adventures. Yeah. That's the one.

Okay. Forgive me for I have sinned. It's been xx days since my last confession. The big reason why I'm oh so head over heels about this tv series is Logan. Okay. Here comes the analysis.

I've watched a few episodes of Veronica Mars in the past - just a few, not all of them. After these few days of Veronica Mars marathon, I have come to the decision that Season 3 wasn't as good as the first two seasons. To be honest, I am biased. Can you blame me? Veronica dumped Logan and hooked up with a guy named "Piz."

Seriously?

At first glance, the end of season 3 seems to be a depressing moment in the lives of those who want Logan and Veronica to end up together. (In case you don't know, that would be me.) However, after thinking about it and consulting the special features in the DVD package, I received an epiphany.

Scenario #1: Saying, "You're stupid," to someone. Direct, to the point, plain and simple.
Scenario #2: Expose the person's stupidity in front of an audience, causing humiliation... This to be done without a single time saying "You're stupid" to the person. But boy, oh boy, they get the message clearly.

The difference between scenario #1 and scenario #2? It's called literary genius.

And I think that was what the creators of Veronica Mars wanted to accomplish in the Logan/Veronica relationship as portrayed in Season 3. Brilliant. Astonishing. Simply a masterpiece.

Let's take a look (figuratively, of course) to the last scene of Veronica-Logan-Piz in the season finale. At first I hated the scene because I thought it wasn't powerful enough. I changed my mind. The scene became one of my favorite Logan-Veronica scene in this season.
She was in the cafeteria. Logan came to apologize to her for beating her boyfriend up, which was, of course, an amazingly intense yet exhilarating scene. Veronica told him that it was going to take some time for her to be able to get over what Logan has done. After finding out the perpetrator behind Veronica's raunchy video footage, Veronica decided not to do anything, for it was a politically weighty matter. The scum said some things that he surely would take back if he knew who Logan was. Surprise, surprise. The Echolls' temper came through. Logan completely beat up the guy. I love it that the guy said, "Whoever you are, you're going to die." And, Logan charmingly replies, "Yeah. Someday." Pretty amazing line there.

After this little witty comment here, the rest of the scene involves the power of facial expressions more than verbal attempts. Logan looks at Veronica with his usual bad-boy-and-knight-in-shining-armor mix. He smiled, and ran into Piz. He apologized to Piz about everything and walked away. Veronica was looking at Logan with this unexplainable adoration in her eyes. She had this look that said, "This is the man I love." And then she looked at Piz. I guess she had to realize that sooner or later she had to come to terms with the fact that Piz is her boyfriend, not Logan. She couldn't even look at Piz for too long. Piz, on the other hand, realized his defeat. He knows that at the end of the day, there was only one man for Veronica, and he's not it.

Powerful, isn't it?

Mind recalling that Veronica did storm into Logan's hotel suite in an earlier scene and told him that she did not want him in her life anymore. Ah. The things people say and what they end up doing rarely matches.

I feel that this method of telling their story is simply brilliant. The creators didn't just write the story and handed it on a silver platter. The ambiguity of the scene was golden. It draws out feelings, rather than describes plot.

Of course, no one knows whether those two stubborn, thick-headed people will end up together again. They each have their own pretty ornaments that decorate their lives: Logan with his irresponsibility and temper inherited from his family, and Veronica with her deep-seethed need to be suspicious of everyone. But no one can really doubt that these two flawed personalities share a bond that even their own corrupt lives can't seem to break.

Yes. I'm talking about cinematography.
Yes. I'm talking about script writing.
But I guess I'm more talking about powerful expressions.

Sometimes. It does not require words to communicate how you feel or what you think. When words fail (And trust me. It will.), actions and expressions scream the point across.