For we must all learn to howl.

I don't know if I've ever talked about this before, but anime saved my life. It's when I watch anime that I don't hear the voices, that I don't hear my dad commenting that I eat too much, that I don't remember the numbers on the scale. When I watch anime, I don't feel fat - because in anime I can at least pretend that if I were in that world with all those characters it wouldn't matter. When I started out with Death Note, it helped me channel the voices and made it easier to cope with the everyday urges to hurt myself or do stupid things to myself. When I watched Prince of Tennis, the Seigaku boys felt like a huge family that would welcome me back no matter what, and didn't care what I thought about myself - I was a part of them either way. This is why I watch anime. Because when I watch anime, I can pretend for the duration of each episode that I don't feel the fat endlessly pressing against my sides, my legs, my arms, my face. ...

Ah, graduation. I honestly never believed I'd even want to go through the pomp and ceremony just to receive that piece of paper - I told my mum from the beginning that I didn't want to attend the ceremony because it was a waste of her money, but she insisted and I really couldn't say no to her. The ceremony itself was nothing more than a waste of time, but I guess mum did have a point when she said it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience because the pictures we took were pretty amazing and they'll make for some pretty happy memories when I look back at them years from now. MUM GOT ME A GRADUATION BEAR AND HE WAS SO ADORABLE. Honestly my mother looked so proud, it was hard to remember that graduation was nothing more than a ceremonial waste of time and money at that moment. The typical wefies that we took just before heading into the convention hall for the ceremony.  Everyone was scrambling to get their gowns fixed because they were so huge and billow-y,...

It's that time of year again - that's right, I'm talking about AFA. This year's AFA takes place over the weekend (25-27 November) but I was only able to attend the Friday event because the weekend is absolutely packed for me. The thing about cosplaying at events like these is that you get so used to cosplaying after a while that attending an event like this without cosplay feels a little odd and truthfully more than a little boring - this was the reason why I was so conflicted when Kira told me she didn't feel like cosplaying for this year's AFA. I was tempted to just go without cosplay, but then decided against it - attending a cosfest just wouldn't feel the same if I wasn't in cosplay. I'd initially planned to cosplay as San from Mononoke Hime again, but then remembered that I'd worked on some props for Misa with a friend last year - I'd forgotten about them when I started working on San's costume, and so I felt that AFA would be t...

So tonight I attended my second Story Slam, and was so proud to present my first-ever story submitted for the night's theme. The audience was really cool and everything, but I was so nervous about the length of the story and what I was trying to say that I guess I couldn't really put across the points I wanted to make in my story. What I'm putting up here is the story itself, only cleaned up and rewritten for clarity and to help it flow better. I hope it reads well! Dear you, You don’t know it, but it started from primary school, when you thought boys were gross, and continued all the way into secondary school, when you started to think that hey, maybe boys were pretty alright after all. It continued into the crushes you had, whether on the boy in your class or the senior who would never look at you that way. You’d never really thought about it, but all your silly schoolgirl daydreams about being with someone only ever consisted of holding their hands or maybe,...

Life has a funny way of pushing you towards certain situations, in my opinion - take tonight, for example, when I was walking home and heard someone crying by the canal. In all honesty, "crying" was a bit of an understatement - when I heard it I thought someone had either just been broken up with, or was in the running for Argument of the Year with someone else. It was getting late, and I really needed to be home in half an hour or so (because curfew), but I was both a little curious and a little more than slightly concerned , which was what made me walk towards the source of the wailing instead of away from it like my gut was telling me to because hey , this was sounding a little too much like a horror movie for my liking . I really didn't want to walk alone , though , which was why I was grateful to be accompanied by a passing cyclist . The source of the wailing turned out to be a lady crumpled a...

A little throwback to a post I wrote before, titled " Late Nights ". Bring it all back to me, won't you darling the green, the green The bed is really quite comfortable, and it's soft If I could just... "11:30PM __________ is calling." !!! let me swipe right -quickly!- hello there, I've missed you How was your... I mean your... your... Heavy eyes, weighted down with sand Shh. Go to sleep. I'm not sleepy... A soft sigh, a tired smile - Yes, you are. You can barely keep your eyes open. Frowning; fussing. I want to stay awake.  I want to see you. I haven't seen you all day. Refusals to look at the clock, ticking away on the wall deafeningly quiet. And then comes the bargaining. You've had a long day- I can stay awake a little. I'm not tired. It's just six hours, it's not much. You balk when tired fondness melds into a hint of frustration. I'm sorry.  Sorry for? For - the moods, the silences, the c...

The smell of joss sticks always makes me think of too much. When I was younger, the smell was uncomfortable - it was smoky and burned my eyes, and I didn't like it because I felt like I was choking, like the tendrils of smoke were coiling around my throat and slowly but surely squeezing the life out of me. It didn't help that I had a fear of going to the temple when I was younger either - the bright-painted deities sitting on the shelves of the temple scared me, like they were watching my every movement and didn't welcome me because I didn't know what to do in front of them - and I soon learned to loathe and fear the smell of incense. Things tend to change as you grow older, though, and when I finally learnt to accept my Chinese heritage and culture I learned to get used to the smell of the smoke - it wasn't as though you could avoid it when you visited the temple, after all. Over time, I actually learned to like the smell of the smoke, and I used to think ...

It's true that this is a cliche picture (he laughed at me when I took the picture), but I felt it was appropriate. This is my view when I'm too tired, when the days and late nights and sickness have worn me down - this is when I'm too tired to keep up with him and choose instead to lag behind him, letting him pull me along with every step he takes.  This is the view I admire, the boy he is right now, the man he hopes he can and will be.  He's someone not everyone approves of - this is also true. But he's always here for me, and he's always so supportive, and he truly cares. I know of no one else who worries about me the way he does, or listens to me the way he does, or loves me the way he does. We may be young, but we know what we know, and I know that he makes me feel incredibly lucky sometimes, and he makes me wonder what on earth he ever saw in me that he thought was so special. It's sappy, but it's all true. Happy 7thsary, baby.

It's on hot, sticky lazy days like these when everything feels like it's all caving in, and there's too much to do in too little time. Fuck everything, I say. Fuck it all, and come join me in bed - wrap those warm arms around me and let me fall asleep to your breathing, your heartbeat, your safety. Come kiss me to sleep.

Tick Tock.

I am tired of coughing, so very tired. Everyone has a remedy to offer, be it to take hot honey with lemon or to gargle warm water with salt, to take pills and syrups and so on and so on. I am tired, tired of coughing, tired of the rawness that is what's left of my throat, tired of anything hot searing through it like a hot knife through flesh. I am tired of having these feathers in my throat tickle and stab like the knives they are, tired of seeing the nonexistent red that spots my palm, tired of having my words, my voice cut off by this sudden restriction in my airways. I am tired, so very tired, and I wish I could take my lungs and my throat and tongue and drop them into a hot pan, fry them till they sizzle and drip, and the very air smells warm and savoury and copper-tinged. Will you take them? Take my lungs and throat and tongue, and coat them with salt and honey and pills and syrup? Send the doctor my regards, dear daughter, he'll be glad to know you enjoy his medici...

It's interesting, isn't it, the then and the now? It's interesting. When you stop and think about it, how things were so different. The then of red-rimmed eyes, of messily gluing the broken pieces back together, of not knowing what fit where anymore.  The then of bright orange, of ghastly smiles and cackles, of candy and alcohol - way too much alcohol. The now of beaches, of mid-class glances, of smiles so feather light and a warmth comforting in its weight. The now of late-night phone calls, of pixels and laughter, of strain and tension and the wire going taut only to relax again. Then's clumsiness has led to now's warmth, has led to what feels right. Of what was then and what is now, though, one thing still remains- The coffee.

Kira and I popped by the Funan Anime Matsuri (FAM) that was going on through all of last week - we went on Thursday because that was the only day off that I had from classes, and we really wanted to check out the stalls and displays as well as try out our finished cosplays. I'm not sure if anyone remembers a slightly old post of mine when I said that I was working on a personal project, and that I'd reveal all the details in time - tadaa, this is it! I spent the whole trimester break working on the costume and props for this cosplay, and I have to say that I really put all of my effort into it. Yes, I was working on the cosplay for San from Mononoke Hime - anyone who knows me well knows that I'm absolutely obsessed with this movie, having watched it at a young age. As a child I wanted so badly to be able to be as strong and fierce as San was, and this is a sentiment that still rings true even as a young adult. The cosplay wasn't very easy - I had trouble wi...

No matter all the problems that I'm currently facing; no matter the fatigue, the tears, the stress and worrying. A new month is here, and I still think it necessary to treat it as a day to be celebrated. Happy first of June!

Close your eyes, my beautiful soul. Take a deep breath and remember it’s going to be alright. You will fight this, you will win and you will overcome this fear that lies within you. You have been in this position before, haven’t you? And you have always managed to get around it, so what makes this time different? You just need to believe in yourself, you need to close your eyes and take a moment to breathe, you need to place your hands on your heart and concentrate on the beat. You see, your heart beats for you to be strong so please, just hold on a little longer. Who knows, light might be around the corner. -  soulsubmissionn

I am tired. So very , very tired. I tire of the meaningless games we all play, this daily waltzing and spinning around in the intricate webs we lay and the layers upon layers of meaningless meaning that we call social interaction. I tire of having my every word twisted, my every gesture taken out of context and eyed with scorn and hate that burns a dark caramel. Emotions have colours, you do know. And this one colours caramel, burnt caramel that stings the eyes and fills the nose and stays in the back of the throat. I tire of running around to ease the murmuring within, of wearing myself down to the bone only to be able to sleep a restless sleep and dream of nothing and everything. I tire of stressing over everything and nothing, and I tire of filling my days with work only to find myself too fatigued to actually do anything. I tire, dear reader, of being unable to do anything at nothing more than half the speed at which I used to work. I tire of feeling like a broken machine, o...

I can't pretend to have fully read A Midsummer Night's Dream - I know the gist of it and have read a scene or two but that's about it - but I do love this line, and I really hope that I can live up to it one day. That I may be little but fierce and truly fearsome, that is what I want to work towards.

#100happydays: Day 16 Panda said he wanted to buy some stickers to paste over his EZ-link cards (those are like our bus and train passes) because well, they're kind of ugly, and we found these after trawling a boxshop. The funny thing was that we didn't really intend to buy two of the same sticker, but then one of us (I can't remember who it was) joked that hey, we didn't really buy into the idea of couple T-shirts so why not have couple EZ-link cards instead? Long story short we now have these stickers pasted over the back of our student cards, and it makes my mornings a little bit brighter to see the watercolour on the back of my card and to know that he has the same sticker on his student card too, and that this is something we can share. Every time I open my wallet it's like a 2-second bit of happiness that I can take out and tap on the electronic card reader to clock in and out for classes. The complete stash of stickers purchased and pasted - ...

#100happydays: Day 15 I opened my email on Thursday and found this waiting for me - long story short I DID IT, I made auditions! I know I said that it was likely that everyone who auditioned would make it through into either professional or amateur groupings, but even with that in mind seeing this was a huge joy.  I told mum about this and it seems that I kind of have her support about this, as long as it doesn't interfere with my studies and grades - I've promised that I'll do my absolute best to juggle everything. I can't wait to start training next week, I'm super nervous but here's hoping it all goes well! 101 Things I Think About: Day 15 I went to the Super Japan Matsuri with Panda and a few friends from EDIT  to check this festival out - we'd heard about this and requested for media passes to cover the event, and we were really excited to see what this festival had promised to deliver. Well, we were sorely disappointed. The event had prom...