Wilfred Owen

A picture of the poet - Wilfred Owen

You know being an English lit major in I got to indulge in poetry and Emily Dickinson was a favourite among my many female English Lit. friends, but of course yours truly, needed some blood and gore and a bit more drama....always more drama. In fact, that should be my motto. Anyway, in looking at the many great poets of all time, I stumbled on a British poet who was also a soldier in the first world war. His poems are often, gruesome and grey but they are powerful and very emotional pieces. Although I think it is unjust to categorise his poetry, he is often known as a war poet... His poetry moved me as a teenager and continues to be a great source of inspiration for me in my life. Since I felt such a connection to him, I wanted to share on of my favourite poems with you....





Greater Love





Red lips are not so red


As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.


Kindness of wooed and wooerSeems shame to their love pure.


O Love, your eyes lose lureWhen I behold eyes blinded in my stead!


Your slender attitudeTrembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed,


Rolling and rolling thereWhere God seems not to care:


Till the fierce love they bearCramps them in death’s extreme decrepitude.


Your voice sings not so soft,—


Though even as wind murmuring through raftered loft,—


Your dear voice is not dear,


Gentle, and evening clear,


As theirs whom none now hear,


Now earth has stopped their piteous mouths that coughed.


Heart, you were never hot


Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot;


And though your hand be pale,


Paler are all which trail


Your cross through flame and hail:


Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not.





-Wilfred Owen-

Too much?

I have to say I love what I do, so when it comes to my carrier sometimes I get slightly carried away working. Okay, I am a workaholic, I have no qualms working mornin, noon and night. In fact, I welcome it, that way I really feel like I have deserved my weekend. However, in the process of doing this, I have lost friends and the closeness that I used to share with my family. I know that I should make time, and I think I do within reason but lately the voice of reason in my life ie. my bf has been telling me to relook at the way I do things. "How long are you going to keep doing this? You mean, you are going to keep this up all your life?" "I don't think I can," was my reply. But while I am still young I feel now is the time to do all that I can do. You see I feel that I am very well-adjusted. When I was in school I was very involved in the theatre and the like so besides the usual education that you get out of your primary and secodary school, I also learnt confidence and how to express myself. In college, I worked and studied for most of it and managed to graduate with good grades. I made the most of the experience while I was away from my parents and took baby steps in learning how to be a full-blown adult. Now that I am one, I feel the need to work hard and take care of the people that I love. I have always been doing more than what is expected and I have been pretty successful so far, so I really don't see what is wrong with that? But just because that is what I am used to, should I continue doing it or should i take more time to stop and smell the roses? What do you think?

Cashing in on Your Misfortune: Turn Your Frown Upside Down

Some people have a knack for making lemonade out of lemons, taking a rainy cloud and turning it into profit, fame and fortune. If I could do that, I would be a trillionaire. But somehow I fail to see how my uncle’s recent passing or my mum falling ill somewhat of a cash cow. One thing is for sure, misery loves company that would explain why most people who are unhappy would usually, very readily share their rainy cloud with you. I digress, sharing your misfortune with others help them cope with theirs.

Recently I wrote about Eat, Pray Love…I seemed to have missed the point completely. Although I wasn’t particularly impressed with the book and the movie is supposedly even worst. Here is a woman who has turned her divorce, a crippling experience for most into a New York Times Bestseller. She has turned her inability to hang on to a union made before God and man and turned into an adventure to foreign countries, sampling food, spirituality and romance. She didn’t sit around mope and cry over her spilt milk, she made it into a Hollywood hit! So now I look at Elizabeth Gilbert through new eyes. I heard of a man here in Malaysia, who was so moved by the tsunami that hit Asia in 2004 that he traveled to all the countries hit by the raging waters and made a moving documentary of the people and their lives after the storm. He is now immortalized in the hearts of the people that he encountered and the people that he has touched through his film. While another radio personality who survived the tsunami in Sri Lanka and went back a year later to help the people there. She looks at life in a way that most people could only dream about, she is fearless.

So what have I learned about life’s tragedy, that some people handle it much better than others. Some people can cash in on it while other grabs life by the horns…make it almost seem silly for all that crying fussing now but I am gonna try it…the next time something bad happens… I am gonna turn it around…How? You will just have to wait and see.

Sticks and Stones Will Break Your Bones & Words WILL Hurt You

Whoever came up with the term “sticks and stones may break your bones but words can never hurt you.”….LIED!! I have grown to realize how hurtful words can be. I never thought that they could be that damaging but sometimes a rash and rude word can change the way someone looks at you for the rest of your life. Don’t get me wrong this is not some preachy blog about how we should all be nice and get along but a recent realization that nothing good comes from saying something bad. This problem is particularly bad for me cause I have rage issues. In my younger years, I have surpressed a lot of hurt and anger and only recently did I start dealing with it. A friend helped me with NLP and that has worked for the most part but every now and again it rears its ugly head to come back and haunt me. So how do I make sure that I don’t lose my head the next time I have an argument with someone. Before I get into that, I wanted to find out where this anger stems from and I stumbled upon this finding:Where Angry Feelings Come From?University of Pittsburgh researchers found that anger and hostility in women could be caused by biological factors, such as an alteration in a serotonin receptor gene. Low serotonin levels can also lead to depression and obsessive compulsive tendencies -- and possibly even anxiety disorders.Now this fact makes me feel better, my anger is not a conscious decision but a chemical imbalance. This doesn’t mean I am not about to start drugging myself to diffuse my anger but it simply helps me accept the fact about me losing control a little better.Now that I understand the anger, all I have to do is….

1. Take a timeout from the person that I am angry with
2. Deep breaths and calm myself before I even utter a word
3. Write, I have always loved writing and this would be an interesting entry to my dairy ;)
4. When I do discuss the matter, use “I” words like “I feel” instead if “You did” and “You are” and “You always”
5. If possible use humor to diffuse the situation, but if not done correctly… this could backfire so I use step 5 with caution.

I never want to see the hurt I caused recently when my tongue went on a rampage after I had lost my cool. So I hope the Mayo Clinic knows what they’re talking about when it comes to Anger Management. I will let you know if it works…

My weapons in the warfare of marriage (If that day ever comes….)

If you’ve been following my blogs you would have known two thingsabout me, I am a commitment-phob and I am currently in a relationship.Those of you reading this for the first time will laugh out loud andalthough funny at first. I am seriously struggling with the fact thatI love someone and I need to do ME. However because I am in love, I amtaking baby steps to make this one work. Recently I decided to do someresearch to see how much support one can get without having to rely onmummy and daddy when things go wrong in a marriage. In my quest, Istumbled upon this website or rather another blog that I think wouldcome in handy in case I need to keep the flame going in a union thatdooms you to one partner FOR YOUR ENTIRE LIFE.

(And if you wondering, yes my boyfriend has been talking aboutmarriage and yes I am freaked out!)

Simply named http://strengtheningmarriage.com/ it gives you practicalsolutions to intimate problems in a marriage that you would normallybe afraid to talk about. The website has articles and videos that takeyou through the nitty gritty issues that we Asians shy from. Theseissues however are crucial to a successful marriage and I for one, amnot ashamed to admit that probably 20 years into a relationship withMr. Right, might make you look at him as Mr Write-Off. So yes, if itmeans I have to intellectualize something that came naturally before,so be it.

The next tool I came across was a book from John Gottman titled TheSeven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from theCountry's Foremost Relationship Expert. If you ask me, the title isway too long for it to be memorable, but it’s a great book. In thisNew York Times bestseller, the author shatters the common myth ofcommunication being the key to a healthy marriage. Thank goodness,someone had the common sense to come up with this conclusion. Nomatter how much we would like to believe it, sometimes talking tothings out only makes matters worst. So the gist of it is to find asolution that is workable for

My third and final tool is observation, I have the privilege of havinga lot of married friends and although I might not want to confide inthem all the time… I do think observing the dynamics of therelationship between man and wife and trying to apply some positivebehaivours like being your partner’s biggest cheerleaders or justbeing a listening ear without trying to fix the problem goes a longway.
3 tools for a lifetime of challenges, what do you think? Do I have a chance?

Eat Pray Love

In 2007 my close friend Ruby gave me a book as a going away present. (She was the one going away, mind you and I got a present, don't you love my friends!) The title of the book was Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. It's story about one woman's self-discovery. She recently got a divorce and decided that she wanted to find herself again...she travels the world picking the brains of the people she meets and tries to open herself up to new and very different experiences. Her travels take her to 3 places, Italy, India and Indonesia. I can't say that it was the best book that I have read but I took something away from it like I do most books.

Sometime last year, I heard that they were planning to make a movie from the book and Julia Roberts was to star in it. Now the movie is out in the US and it has all these women talking about the meaning of it. I didn't realise what a great marketing gimmick this would be cause when you get a word of mouth publicity about a movie that is meant to be appeal to more intellectual, you really don't need much else before people start flocking into what i would guess to be a less than mediocre film.





The trailer for the movie : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZzmqHJ0gPU

Maybe it would mean more to Americans since a lot of them don't travel outside of their own borders and the mystical Asian ways are all very new to them but looking at it from an Asian perspective and having done my fair share of travels and diary entries.... What I want to know is, what's the big deal?

What a load of....

For fun, I like reading the horoscope section in the newspaper and when you read enough of them, you find a way to relate your life to what is being said, I think I am making it quite obvious here that I am buying into this whole prediction by planets nonsense. I have to say though there are varying degrees, we are all superstitious when it comes to life and love. I remember my mum telling me that if you finished the plate that you would remain a spinster... must have been the curse of the FOOD GOD.... I have also heard such silliness like you should never get married on Friday the 13th or your life will be doomed to misery. But the best one of all was to think of five or six names of boys or girls you might marry, As you twist the stem of an apple, recite the names until the stem comes off. You will marry the person whose name you were saying when the stem fell off. I knew for a fact that I truly did not believe in superstition when I heard this:

Monday's child is fair of face;
Tuesday's child is full of grace;
Wednesday's child is full of woe;
Thursday's child has far to go;
Friday's child is loving and giving;
Saturday's child works hard for a living.
But the child that is born on the Sabbath day
is fair and wise, good and gay.

I am born on a Tuesday and if you know me, I am far from graceful unless they mean that there is a little woman by the name of Grace living inside of me and somehow I imagine her getting bigger by the day (think I just scared myself). Although, I did admit that there are varying degrees of superstitions so although I think that a lot of the superstitions are a load of crock... I have superstitions of my own.

When it comes to my own pantangs, well let's say I never go out with people who are overly-suspicious! :)