清明節 Qing Ming Festival

It's the time of Qing Ming, the sky seemed to be very emotional, always becoming grey in the evening. It has been raining for the past few weeks, almost everyday. The atmosphere around is quiet and lifeless, and the air is cold and still. While you lie on the bed resting or sitting on the chair in the office under such settings without much awareness, sad past memories just take the chance sneaking into your mind silently. Unconsciously, they start to play with your mind, of slides of memories in and out, mixing up all your feelings. And all the lost beloved ones, those that were so close to you, and now have moved to the other world, you started to miss them, and gradually depression takes over everything...

This is the time of Qing Ming, where Chinese people go to cementary and visit their ancestors' tombs. It's part of Chinese traditional cultures, has nothing to do with religion at all, as ancestors plays a signicant role in our cultures. Respect, appreciation, love, contentment and a whole values are embedded in this occasion, and everything should be back to the root now, and never forget the root, our origin.

Went hometown this weekend, for this important event. Supposingly the real date is on this coming friday (4th of April), but since we can go to visit the cementary 10 days before or 10 days after, so my family had decided to do it this weekend. Woke up in the early morning as to avoid congestion, and after breakfast, we all departed to the cementary. Arrived at the hills where all the tombs are located, all over the hills. There were so many people, and it was a good sign, at least most of the Chinese people still remember of their roots and cultures, and not to be consumed so much by the influences of other cultures. Some were walking up, some were hiking, some were crawling up the hills, trying to get to their ancestors/beloved ones' tombs respectively. We have a few ones to visit, and since each located at different parts of the hills, so one by one, we visited and cleaned up the tombs. Put up some food (to share with them) and prayed (as to talk to them, if they can hear from the other side), then we burned some paper money (for them to use,if they can). After that we continued to move to the other tomb which located on the other side of the hill. The sun was shinning brightly, and the weather was sizzling hot, not for very long though. After we were done with the last tomb, the sky became dark, as it can feel the grief and sorrows deep inside everyone's heart...

The rain still continues, life still goes on, but certain things such as feelings stay on, and well, this is part of life...

清明時節雨紛紛,

路上行人欲斷魂;

借問酒家何處有,

牧童遙指杏花村。

Stress

I know it's part of life, when you will get angry, feel so helpless as the world is pressing you, and all sorts of thoughts keep smashing your mind, giving rise to heavy unpleasant feelings that you want to destroy anything and everything. Completely out of rationality, and tornados are swirling inside and yes, you know that's stress.

It's been really stressful recently for me, my schedule is always full of classes, and every little things in life are sort of messed up. I lost my money, i needed to buy some stuffs, i needed to read up, i needed to wash my clothes, etc etc and 24 hours doesn't seem enough for me, maybe 36 will be ok. Sometimes the flames ignited on its own, and start burning every piece of my feelings. There were so much to scream, just felt like everything was difficult. Doing nothing but battling with all the fire in my mind, i ended up wasting my time. Getting crazier and crazier each time the bomb exploded, so stressed out that i hope i can do something to kill it.

Maybe all i need is just some rest and calmness in mind, and learn how to manage my time. It might be hard, but it's not impossible. Will have to take things easy, step by step and of course don't think too much. I bet things will take its own path, and yea, life is beautiful even though it might be stressful.

Beauty And The Beast

There are lots of Disney animations, and honestly i have watched only a few, most i just read from the story books while i was a child. So, recently i bought from nearby DVD shop when i saw it, Beauty and The Beast. Since i like music a lot, especially the soft smooth hearing one and was told that there are lots of good songs in this movie, so i have no much doubt on buying this one.

Watched it, and ended up crying at the ending part. Quite embarrasing actually (though it's said that a crying man is a sexy man), but my tears dropped spontaneously. Maybe knowing the depth of love between Beauty and Beast has actually reached to the level where it overcomes the value of life. They don't mind to change for each other, learning their own mistakes smoothly as the feelings grow, as if the love is the enzymes for the chemistry reaction between them. Somehow, fall in love with each other, and so strong that looks, lives, properties, money and etc meant nothing compared to the love. Can a Beauty falls in love with a Beast and can the Beast change for the Beauty? I was touched to know the truth, it was beautiful...

And the songs - brilliant. Some songs are cheerful enough, and the theme song Beauty and The Beast, it can make you cry. The song is full of hopes and essence of love, that it can be said one of the best love songs ever. I doubted if anyone with heart will not like it. Sing this to your lover, and it can melt him/her down for sure.

Really felt so much watching this movie that it gave me more strength, more confident, more faith and more love. If a Beauty can fall in love with a Beast, and the Beast can change for Beauty, i believe we can do it as well, in the name of love...

''Tale as old as time

Song as old as rhyme

Beauty and The Beast''

Gone

Another day, another breaking news. She was dead, after one week of struggle. I was shocked to hear the news, she was gone forever. Never in my mind that thought of her dead came across, she was so young, and it was as if i had been electrocuted by 20000 Watts of electricity, my mind went blank and my heart stopped pumping for a second. My world had stopped for a moment.

She went out that day, strolling around as usual. That was her morning excercise, the cold breeze and the morning fogs, she enjoyed that. Having fun walking and jogging around, she crossed the road without paying much attention to the vehicles and that was how the accident happened. Knocked by a lorry, she survived somehow. Lying on the middle of the road, she cried out loud. She wanted to run back as fast as possible, but she was unable to stand up. Her legs were injured. Crying and her survival instinct told her that she had to walk away from there, she used up all her energy in spite of all the pain, she crawled back slowly to her home. Reached the compound, she used up all her energy, lying under the tree, she kept on crying. The unbearable pain was killing her, as if it was sucking all her life force out and all she could do was just to cry out loud.

Nobody realized the incident. After hours of resting, she gathered all her strength again, continue to crawl back to her house. She did that step by step, with all the immense pain, she just wanna to be home. She wanted to be saved, to continue living and that was the force that kept her spirit up.

Lying inside the drain outside her house, she continued crying, hoping that someone would hear her. She couldn't get up. It was almost evening. Finally, my younger brother saw her, got her up, she was saved, she thought.

Her spinal cord was totally crashed, nothing left. She had badly injured organs with no visible cuts outside. If she could survive for the next 2 weeks, she would be safe. Nothing left for us to do except to pray that she could make it.

She survived, for almost 1 week. Crying everyday, she never gave up, but her body gave up, unable to recover and finally shut down. She died...

She was gone forever...my pretty dog. I lost another beloved one. Another stab in my heart, after hearing the news from my brother, my eyes were full of tears, again.

Rest well, my pretty dog...

A Blue Story

There was once a boy who stayed inside a small world that belonged to him. It was a warm, dark world where everything was simple and easy, with the sky decorated with all kinds of dreams, colourful enough to give strength for him to continue living, hoping that one day all the dreams will come true.

Until one day, under an odd arrangement, he was being brought out to the outside world - the reality. First time to feel the warm rays of gleaming light from the sky outside, and the one that has brought him out. He was feeling happy and lucky, he thought. And so, he dragged out all his crystal dreams from his own world, hoping that the dreams will become reality too, under the name of love. He nourished all his dreams with love, care, honesty and loyalty. Never even in a moment notion of giving up came across his mind, all he wanted was just to keep on going. He believed that he belonged here, he had faith as deep as the ocean, as high as the mountain and that, gave him the unimaginable power to overcome almost everything. He fell down, a number of times, his face had been washed by tears too, there were bruises here and there. But somehow, he was able to stand up again and again. The love, the true love he believed in, the one that he had faith with, made him almost invisible...

However, no matter how deep or high one's faith, somehow there would be boundaries, a line that will determine everything, a wall that supported the faith, a base where all the faith was built on, including his faith. He believed that love is the most powerful force in the world, that it can change everything impossible to be possible. So, either the fact that love is everything was wrong, or the love he gave and received wasn't strong enough, not a true love, instead just like another insignificant ones, his dreams were being crushed slowly and finally was being slapped so hard by the truth that it was impossible. He didn't know what to do next, he was so scared, his had nothing much left, all the confidence, all the faith, and all the love, he didn't know what to do with them, nor how to judge them. His tears were dry, he looked at the light, and it blinded him. His body was trembling; his mind was battling with all sorts of thoughts and memories as it was going to split open; more importantly, his heart was fibrilating, with the cuts here and there, he wasn't sure how long would it take before it broke completely. He was weak, ignorant, stupid enough.

Now, standing in front of the door of his own world, the one decision has to be made. He can either go back to his own world, where there are still some dreams left there in the sky, better than not having one at all; or he can stay where he is now, in the world so called reality, where everything he believed and everything he did were wrong. Deep inside his heart, he swears that he will never step back into 'the world' ever again, he was afraid of the others, he lost everything. He swears he will never come out of his own world again, and once he step in back, he will close all the doors, and shut himself up, and never wanted to see the light anymore. He doesn't want to get involved again, until the day someone walk into his world, someone who will share the same dreams with him, which most probably will never happen.

He is still standing there, not sure what is his next step or more precisely, he is unable to make a move. He doubted time can fix this for him. Nothing much can be done to fix his condition with solely his own effort. He tried so hard to re-build, but it requires more than one person. The heavy rain keeps coming down, and standing there alone where his tears can't be seen, how much he hope that a magic umbrella will appear and help him through the rain. Will there be a rainbow after the rain?