But meanwhile, outside of the news world, my life is on a downfall. The reason? — just because you have ideas lined up in the back of your mind and dexterous fingers to type out English words, doesn’t mean you can write a logical prose. I don’t know what is wrong with me– oasis is right across the river and I, with my feet all wet already, just couldn’t tumble through. Perhaps, I’m in fear that the water is too deep. And, yes– I watched too much ANTM, which explains why I now feel like a plus-sized model trying to break into the fashion industry. But a plus-sized model CAN rock a runway show, and I knew how to swim, and if scuba diving ever helps, I’d even do that… There is no excuse, just an easy way out. And I’m gravitating toward it. It’s all physics, nerd.

The good news is I’m not too crazy (Does saying this make me sound more so? lol) While the country is embracing this cathartic celebration long overdue, I just couldn’t let go of my pent-up tension. One death is not the death of all evils. Terrorists are still there and crises are still lurking. I heard blogging is a good way to break a writer’s block. And I’m doing it, hating it, killing it.

Those books were my attempt to reconcile pain with the joy of reading. But ironically, I have never read anything cover to cover, so despite the good intention, the secrets of these books were never thoroughly revealed to me, although there was one night when my sexy roommate was again humping with her sexy boyfriend behind the thin wall (Oh, trust me, that was traumatizing), I found one of my happiness books at hand, and decided to read it out loud while pumping up the volume of my speakers to play Kaiser Chief, the only rock-like music that I found in my iTunes collection. Excuse me that there weren’t any rocking elements in my life, because all I did all day everyday was glueing back the shattered pieces of my old life. And of course, my reading experience was subliminal. It was just unfortunate that those books taking out of the university library were too theoretical for anyone who wasn’t ready to turn themselves into a professional psychologist. I, too, couldn’t afford the seriousness. So that was the end of that.

These days, all I feel is happiness. Every pore in my body breathes joy and every nerve ending electrifies happiness. Sometimes, I just want the world to feel exactly how I feel– happy– pure and simple, and at heart. Of course, I still worry a lot and am still confused very much, but at least, I don’t need my “happiness sequel” any more. Perhaps, I never did. And as much as I like to hold on to my things, now I would like to let go of these books. These books that had been standing on my bookshelf, lying on my table, leaning on my beanbag and sleeping on my carpet for months and months, now it’s their time to go, and soon everything will change.

I don’t want to feel sad about leaving them behind. I can, but I choose not to. There is no time.

Was I being completely honest?

I had a conversation with my writing professor about if I’d prefer to go by my Chinese name in its original form– what I was called among my Chinese friends, or stay with my western name, which apparently does not say everything about ME. I have been thinking about it a lot lately– to use a name that says more about ME, a name that allows me to not lose my voice as an individual, and find my voice as a writer.

Things always happen, when I’m thinking too hard. If there were any lesson learnt, I burnt two pots of spaghetti– two in a row– on Christmas Day. So as a continued education, my advice is– you shouldn’t be thinking about it when it’s too hard. Let it come to you!

And in my defense, I did not break the pipetman– the pipetman took the wrong name, slipped off of the bench top and broke itself.

But this year, I found it hard to pull myself into the high-spirited holiday mood. Not only is there little to celebrate in my life right now, but along with that “little” thing come a ton of big things to fix. It’s good to feel in charge, which is an equal term of being hold responsible for one’s own actions, so let me quote Mr. Spiderman one more time, “With greater power comes greater responsibilities.”– It’s never easy.

And in it or not, I cannot escape the curse of a good Chinese tradition to observe, especially this one is purely familial. No high-spirited celebration, no cheerful social events, but plenty of obligated phone calls– the briefer version of “Bai Nian.” It’s nice when the conversation stayed polite and “distant” as it should be, it only turns into a problem when one of the family members tries to bring up the substantials– you know what.

Luckily, I never expected my parents to observe the rituals. Once they open their mouths, you just know, the polite thing I was talking about is completely out of the window– they always make sure the conversation goes right to the point, for which I make no comments because I’m just very much a part of the parent-daughter conversation. However, the worrisome part is when they start to talk to me about each other. For someone like me who bears no talent for conflict resolution, being dragged into other people’s deal is just a no-no. As it always happens that I become the first to lose faith in their marriage. With the lost faith, I begin to wonder if they are not meant to be, then maybe I’m not meant to be as a person, my existence is completely faulty? I don’t intent to assume any cosmic self-significance. But if that is the case, I then become one of the many faulty elements of the universe (I mean doesn’t anyone else have the same worry???), maybe to the extent that the operation of the universe has to stop somewhere, unfortunately, must be somewhere that cannot be seen.

This year, I’m heading for a change. Instead of being all ceremonial and immersing myself in a good dose of holiday fun, I decided to confront my problems head-on. But the good question to ask right now is “HOW?” I was so good at hiding my problems and pretending they don’t exist. Now I say “head-on” not “train wreck,” because I don’t want extremes to meet.

I went grocery shopping today, and came across a wall decor that writes, “faith makes things possible not easy.” Have a happy Rabbit Year!

Answers?

If four years ago, the Black Parade was about a clown-shaped soul singing about its pain and desperation, then Danger Days is all about the clown. Technically, even just with the clowns, they are doing a more-than-decent job. The songs beat and a few singles, like Planetary Go! and Bulletproof Heart, are quite heavy and tasty.

It is the same makeup, the same concept, the same heartfelt screamo from one very endearing Gerald Way. How could it ever go wrong there??? Nevertheless, when you look inside, residing in these Danger Days sound tracks are a gang of clowns trying to get lost. Cheap costumes and plastic toy guns? Maybe I’m just not that much of a comic book fan, but seriously? What are they trying to say, that they are a little inflicted about their post modern fame? Or, that they are the copycat who can regenerate its own success? Or, that they profess the pains they may or may not have caused to their fans? I don’t have an answer. I don’t know if I would wanna know the answer or not.

The soul fled, and the clown stayed. Our once favorite rock opera finds itself a new backdrop. Now, who is our hero?

Give it a little time, a little.

And time, like everything in this physical world, goes unnoticed until it makes a move. I don’t exactly excel in physics, but I think– in a flashback of my high school days– that Newton’s first law of motion applies here with a twist.

Think time as an object. Zero or not, velocity doesn’t matter. It is the acceleration rate (yes, that little “a”) that counts. This week, my little “a” has been assigned a monstrous negative value, so you must know how I feel– FREE.

The thing is… I wish I could sit back and enjoy, and not be taken over by my anxiety. But if time can be elaborated by the amount of work one has accomplished, due to the inversely proportional relationship of the two, given equal life pressure, my anxiety acceleration is probably reflected in a gigantic positive value.

So the equations come down to… take a pick!

Viola carved out human consciousness and its finer details in this video installation. But everybody has his or her own story to tell. So people can bask in the glory of art and chew up its benefits.

Thanks to you for disrespecting my petty gifts for my parents. Thanks to you for taking such a liberating care of my broken digital world– two computer hard drives loaded with three years of my scattered memory. Thanks to you for giving me a reason to think “huh, with the bless of all these shared family traits, there are lots of ways that my life may not work out.” But it is not what “I” think that matters. Because more importantly, a big capitalized THANKS has to go to you for preexisting in my parents’ mind as a horrible example of an emancipating spirit, so that YOUR loser-shaped image never gets off MY back ever since your return to my parents’ life.

Thanks to him for all he has done, or didn’t do. NOW, I’m pretty sure that despite all the efforts, my three-year long digital memory is reduced to a void.

Bye Bye, frontal lobe!

Maybe it’s time to let go. What’s so good about those “memories”? If the good and bad had to be blended, and be seen as the famous “bittersweet” name brand, why can’t we ditch both? Let the bad ones find the way and the good ones follow, if they have to stick together.

Sometimes, it is a bless to not have a memory of the past, so that instead, we could focus on making new ones for the future. But it is easier said than done for a keeper like me, who freak out about even missing a tiny piece of anything that’s labeled MINE. Back in the school days, if my notes were missing, even it’s for my least favorite politics class, I’d be upset for days. Not to mention, the classes I do enjoy. That’s how much my quirk has gotten into me.

Other times, my tight grip on memory is more of a curse. I build my world from the past because I have to know that I’m making the most of what I had. But I’m also taking a toll for never letting go of anything, because not everything from the past is honey and sunshine.

So I’m uninviting the past to my world by having part of my frontal lobe removed (sadly not by choice). It ends up leaving a small amount of pain running through my body. But the past is effectively cured.

Ahoy!

Recovery is easy. I will be hailing to the new life in its making. I will feel the privileges of someone innocent again. And I will laugh away the heaviness and be liberating. But UNCLE, YOU need to get off my back!