alas, the wasteful book gluten, i am.

I am not sure what to make of this demented epiphany. I have this exasperated greed for preloved books. Sort of the cadence that sings: I am cultured; I am knowledge hungry; I am literate! This arrogance I wear in thin plastic smirks everytime I make boasts of my exuberant collection. I do not, however, read any of them. I haven't finished a book since high school - yet began my selfish storage after establishing my skewed refusal to drink in the binded forms of ink riddled pages (save the occasional children's picture book). Yet I frequent second hand book stores and charity op shops at least weekly in the hope of purchasing well-versed and purty pages; consequently depriving a willing reader of an enriching opportunity - simply because I think it'd look handsome among the piles of similarly neglected books forlorn on my bedroom floor.

I even have the audacity to say loudly - that I know a good book when I see one. I know it when I fan the pages from front cover to back, inhaling the musky sighs of an eloquent book. And like a cruel new master, I buy them off forgotten shelves to pretty up the humdrum of secluded life where no other lover would chance to find them: in the chaotic labyrinth that is- my hoarded "stuff".

I tell myself I'll read them when I'm older, have more time and/or retire. I hope I do. I'd like to one day do them the justice deserved them, treating them as more than decorative pretties. But all that later. I am young and selfish, yet it hardly matters... because you are too.

thank you Ashes.

I've just discovered the beauty in the controversial sport: cricket. Like licorice, you either love it or hate it or care nothing for it.

My fondness for cricket is conditional. I believe that it belongs in Australian summer. Were it not for my Sister's passionate devotion to it, I wouldn't know it was remotely alive the rest of the year. The past few days since The Ashes commenced, the house has been awake later and full of moans, laments and repremands by couch coaches.

There's nothing more heartwarming (with hint of jealousy) than watching the Mother and Sister converse eagerly about LBW's, wickets, the wisdom of declaring so early, the intimidation of England's fielders huddled around our dear (poor in form) batters and Ponting's form as captain. Since Father's been away for 3 weeks, the females of the Fong residence have condensed and bonded sufficiently to make us all glad that Father was out for a little...well I think anyway. When you remove one part of the family equation, the remainders try harder to balance. Ultimately, however seasonal the Ashes Series is, the bonding established is the securing sort of reinforcement, requiring heart-breaks and hurts to fight harder to tear us apart. The walls of absence are quickly eroding. Thank you Ashes.

roots.

Had a very heartening, informing, interesting and curious exchange with Mother Dear this morning on the drive up to uni. Amidst a boast of my ability to live off a dollar a day, in my latest adventure of "poverty" (which actually was more of a discovery of how much I actually have rather than not), we begin to exclaim who's life was harder. Then Mother enriches my knowledge and experience of poverty with her own- a stark contrast- my present and her past. Hers, much less rich, fortunate and sheltered as mine. Allow me to share with you a glimpse of what Mother shared with me. She didn't vomit out her life story but mentioned mainly how her mother worked herself deeper than the bone to lift her children up to the "satisfactory" standard, where they themselves took flight and tamed success bearing new and old scars of trial and error.

My mother was the second youngest of nine children. Her father died when she was ten. It cost 15c one way to take the bus to school on any given day since the distance would have been back-breaking to walk. However it was becoming an overwhelming burden for the travel expenses to be met and the children to go to school. Mother mentioned how she and her siblings would line up at the nearby orphanage at lunchtime for free lunch. Nothing remotely luxurious, of course. She couldn't count how many different jobs her mother had had or had changed. Anyway, there was a hero- apart from my grandmother. The priest at the catholic church was kind and compassionate. He took my grandmother to the public transport head office, and somehow managed an audience with the CEO, who, as any CEO, was balling off his brains and couldn't see the harm sympathising with one poor woman. Because any hard-working person can recognise another hard-working person coming to wits end. He gave her four monthly tickets, for each of the four children still attending school, with the only condition that they collect the tickets monthly for as long as they attend school, which for my mother meant 7 years of free transport to and from school. Even if the distance to the public transport office was as stink to walk.

Mother actually recalled how she had resented grandmother's work and being forcibly required to help distribute a display of food and noodles and lunches upon bicycle. A food cart for most of the year was the predominant occupation...if I'm not mistaken.
Starting about September, my grandmother would work morning till nigh making biscuits for Chinese New Year which wasn't usually till january. Apparently the average per day was 400 units, making 4 tins which would sell for $7/tin. $28 a day. She was renown around the area for her cooking and her devotion to making, and so was never short of clientèle, resulting in relative success, but she hardly got by for the large family she never intended to groom by herself.

How this family became so suddenly established is very unclear to me. Something about the children growing up and getting jobs and something more about my uncle winning the lottery of a couple of thousand, which apparently helped them out of the rented place into a house of their own, which replaced rent money (dead money) with loan repayments.

Then Mary met Michael, as they both worked in a bank in Malaysia and tied the knot. Father studied at Monash University's Clayton campus and taught Mother how to drive around in the carparks there on the weekends. They lived very earnestly and owned a milkbar, then sold it and had a German Shepard, then gave it away because lo, I was born and they thought it'd eat me. Then my sister came and I learned how to fight...and how to cower. I think this last paragraph is out of order. I can't remember when they migrated to this brilliant desert of a land, but glad as heck am I that they did. Because I live the life of luxury as a middle-upper child of very hard-working former children of poverty.

When Father returns on Monday from his visit to Malaysia, I'll ask him about his side of the family. He was the eldest son of seven children. Go figure half of Malaysia is related to me.

My children will hear horrific stories of how I lived on a dollar a day under the roof of my parents' newly built home, driving a car I didn't pay for and my father's credit card for buying uni books and transport.

Now I just need to collate properly the histories of my beloved parents and bind it into a book that will be passed down from my generation till ever, so that children never forget appreciation, and gratitude and to do away quickly with complaint and laziness. Because only the resilient fly over and beyond the circumstance dealt them. Only my parents could have paved such a life for me... Maybe I'll pretend to be poor for the first half of my childrens' lives so that they learn character richer than dollar signs.

Maybe I'll learn myself.
Maybe...I'll never know.

who me?

y'know being a cool kid is hard. which is probably why i'm going to stop convincing myself i am. i figure, if you're a loser, you have rungs of coolness to ascend and a contentment about your current position. however, if you're the cool kid, you have reputations to keep and a loong way to fall, in the case of missing a step. with shame i confess i used to frequently look down upon people for all manner of reasons, convinced i was, somehow and magically better than them.

it's been about the length of a week that i've come to terms with my uncoolness, and i'm totally rocking it! amidst my lisp, dagalicious laughter and lameness beyond comprehension, i've come to see that people around me are so much more beautiful than, yours truly.

i'm not all that. i'm not the one with a kazillion friends or a fashionesta's way of strutting a beautiful body. i'm the complain-at-the-wrong-time and the ask-about-the-obvious. i'm the trip-over-myself and opposite of photogenic. i'm the too-keen-to-get-to-know-new-people and the accidentally-make-encouragements-sound-sarcastic-or-condescending. i'm the only-get-my-cool-clothes-from-the-op-shop and the i-still-blush-profusely-at-age-20. i'm the parachute pants and the never been kissed fridget.

but i'm totally glad i'm not a cool kid - because then i'd never be perfect enough.

as a loser, i'm the poster girl.

bright eyes

i'd trade your company for my goldfish, anyday!

sorry for doubting

An infant believes everything seen. For example, playing with a ball could result in the ball rolling away and disappearing under a couch, suddenly unseen. The infant would recover from a few seconds of bewilderment and accept that the ball is now non-existant. Time to find a new object of entertainment.

I want to apologise to my dearest friends who don't even know how bewildered and disappointed I just was, for accusing our friendship of dying or being non-existant. You're so much more than I credit you for. I'm just missing you. Sure we have our differences, and I throw pity-parties when you don't invite me out. You're still closer than many to me, we're just not as close as we used to be. Seasons wash in and out and it's time for this here child to grow up. I'm sorry I doubted this, us. But it's true that gold is refined through fire and I appreciate you a little more now. I really do have the best friends in the world. Full stop.

she wrote to me 2months and 5days ago

I got a letter from Emmanuella today! Apparently, as mentioned in the title, it took 2 months and 5 days for the honey dipped well wishes and encouragements of my nearly 5 year old to grace my letterbox from Haiti. Just wanted you all to know, she's doing brilliantly!

Glory Sunshine! The sun made an appearance this morning and I reveled in the confused crisp of the morning; strutting around in a singlet, jeans and boots, allowing the accusing eyes of other early birds, wrapped in trenches, inquire with frowning gazes if I was cold. No. Actually, I wasn't. And I loved it! I'm going to do a little research on an well positioned abandoned building today. See what I can do. I started dreaming ideas for it two days ago. However, I know I know, I need first to finish the little projects I swore devotion to prior to these new ideas of trying to resurrect a large abandoned building on the outskirts of the city, where I intend to lure my generation into social experiments and realisations of urgent issues regarding humanity- or the lack thereof.

I really need to be faithful with the little before I'm trusted with larger amounts. This has nothing to do with financial figures (I've now learnt to live on $50 a month) and everything to do with my ambitious dreams of countering some of the horror Gen Y and our predecessors have unleashed on planet earth and our poor children. All this while completing uni in a passable fashion, being a decent daughter, supportive sister, attending and being church and trying to sustain a life complete with the best friends in the world (yes, mine are better than yours).
All glory to God, who is the strength and hope and love I could never be alone.

OH HUMANITY!

Sometimes, when you're quiet and curious you'll hear somebody sigh. Sometimes that somebody is beside you. Sometimes that somebody is you. But most times, that somebody is somewhere they didn't need to be. Most times, that somebody was the unfortunate victim of preventable sorrow. Some sighs are like gale force winds, violently shaking the white washed walls of a hospital wing or spiraling up elevator shafts because humanity forgot how to be human. We, Generation Y in particular, have traded skins of vulnerability for shields of greedy gain. Somehow self-preservation was tortured past recognition and renamed narcism. It's ironic though, how we torture ourselves with insecurities and inaccessible desires. That we would dare to want and want and want and scarcely get, yet we desperately grip onto the lifestyles that burn our souls and let our wants cost others when the taste of these wants makes us sick!

Sure, it's one thing to say all this. But what on earth am I doing about any of it? Hopefully I'll be accredited and approved to teach CRE soon. Which is a small step to implementing what I believe is one of many beautiful opportunities to demonstrate love, hope&joy. All of the invisible qualities humanity is both drawn to and sceptical of. But I'm not here to reel out my boasts of charitable acts: of which I have little anyway. I just really need to know I'm not the only one in here realising I wake and walk daily through this deceived planet, imagining petals on a dried stalk. This world is in ruins, and the reality is that we've become so desensitised to heartbreak, or we've become so patterned to our own pain that we forget most of it is preventable. PREVENTABLE! I have much and much and much to learn about acting like a Christian and caring half as much as Jesus did. But it would be a heck of a lot easier if I wasn't the only coffee bean trying to flavour my vicinity. I'm trying to help. But I actually need help helping.

Oh Humanity! I thought we agreed on this!
"Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of themselves and their family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond their control."

-Universal Declaration of Human Rights

oh boy,

I've been reduced to a dim-witted love hopeful teenager. Courtesy of the fairytale British flick Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging. Oh Em Gee, Brits are undeniably beautiful to watch. Topless and with accent. Bloody Hell.

I'll be over it by morning. I hate chick flicks for this reason, although I'm not usually so susceptible to symmetrically ideal yet rubbish plots. Except this one had dreamy boys and hilarious one liners.

Like I said, I'll be over it by morning.
Anyway, It's out of character for me to have a celebrity crush on the character of a beautiful pansy. I like the butch charmers like Hugh Jackman and Brad Pitt, or the dorks like Rupert Grint and Josh Thomas. Where the bloody hell did Brits spring from? All I know is screw asians, I'm getting a British husband.

the beautiful kind of poison

Hello sunshine,

It wasn't meant to be this bad. Things weren't meant to go this wrong. We weren't supposed to compromise. But y'know what? It did and we did. Regardless, it's time to throw these stale regrets off the thousandth storey of our buildings and to start making new regrets. I'm ready to jump and, daresay ready to fall.

Trial run soup kitchen this coming thursday. Children's puppet play to be downpat in two weeks. Charity event Sep 5th. Getting there. Beginning to care. My steps become lighter and flights become longer. Drops of care are taking effect- poisoning the selfish child in my deep. I think. One could only hope.

Chin up, Sunshine. I'm doing it for you.

what if the children are dying?

I wrote something a while ago, when I was passionate about my influence on children. When I remembered that the few hours I see my 20-30 children each sunday was all I currently had to work with and to teach them how to be resilient.

Because I don't know them outside of sunday school...sadly enough. I don't know their struggles, their hurts, their joys. I don't know whether they are happy, excited, sad, angry, alone. But the most heartbreaking unknown is that there are far more fears outside the church now, than there are joys. It is a brilliantly terrifying life of new age and modern, or "compromising" beliefs. I need to make sure my children are safe. I need to make sure they know how to rise above sorrow. Because most of my children are not yet secure enough, in their identity. A few of my children know brokenness and some, broken families. Yet I cannot protect them everyday nor hour nor minute that they taste fear. But I need to try harder to teach them resilience, joy and hope. I need to love the hell out of them. I need to be stronger...for them- I cannot cave to my own frustrations anymore! These children may be dying, and they are much too young too! Such a dark awareness has clouded my skies this past week. I'm so afraid I'm about to loose a loved one, or many.

This is what i wrote earlier this year (about March) regarding my perspective and hope and dream:

strange indeed is the call to choose to love in the most inappropriate of times, just because it can be done. stranger still are those who decide to answer this call and attempt to defy the selfishness of human instinct in a culture of narcism.
So we love, or we try to. And we teach the children how to love, or to try to.
Because love changes everything...and children change the world.

And all thy children will be taught of the Lord and great shall be the peace of thy children. ISAIAH4:13

rebellion.

Tomorrow I'd like to throw myself off the Rialto and close my eyes during free-fall for the 20seconds it'd take to reach ground level- gradually slowing my rush to the bottom, make contact gracefully and walk back to uni. I don't need anybody to see me. I don't need anybody to witness or to know my invincibility. I'd just like to do it because I'm pretty sure It'd make me laugh and smile til at least the next day. Because the gravity of common sense, the government of media and the protocol of social conventions are too heavy. They've kept my feet chained to the surface of this earth when all i want to do is fly. Or even fall.

I'm going to start breaking rules.
I not going to be like you.

Freedom is something we do not understand. Just because one prison cell is one metre by one, we call it third world conditions and feel sorry for them five times a year. The remainder live fed and clothed and sometimes spoilt, yet unaware they are detained in a ninety mile radius. We are all prisoners here, to concrete ideas, traditions and mindsets.

I haven't tasted freedom for more than days in a row.
If I leave though, I'll miss you.

I'll write.

rewind

Did i say Johnson Street?
I meant Johnston Street.