Here I am, as per usual in the library with a deadline close at hand. The difference being here, I’ve come to the library the NIGHT BEFORE my all nighter. So I’ll fit two in! Awesome. Unless I collapse from sleep deprivation tomorrow, which is unlikely considering how I sleep too much these days thanks to my fucked up sleeping patterns. I usually sleep at around 5am these days, so lasting all night should be a piece of pie, surely?! Probably not, the library has a habit of taking away the desire to stay awake or live. I like the prison feeling, there’s less to do here except read… but of course as I mentioned yesterday, the internet provides far too many distractions.

I must get this essay done soon. Alcohol commands me to do so.

Okay, so what’s distracting me now? Well a good one is the supposed meteor showe that was meant to be happening earlier. I left the library around 9pm and wandered up into the back of campus, up a grassy hill and into the darkness of the fields. It was pretty cool, like some Blair Witch shit, but scarier. And the only thing scary about wandering up that hill is the thought of stepping in fox/cow/badger/rabbit/cat shit. It reminded me of the good old days when I had many adventures up there.
Tonight was not one of them. Even though the skies were clear as day – well maybe not as clear as day, as it was 9:30pm which meant it was night – there was no meteor shower amongst the sparkling stars. I could have stayed there all night, but this essay dragged me kicking and screaming back to the library to NOT do work.

So a meteor shower didn’t provide the distraction I was looking for. ONWARDS, TO YOUTUBE. And I have to report the greatest thing I’ve ever seen on Youtube, ever. It’s not actually a video, which says a lot about Youtube I guess, but the advertising.  You know those little banners they put at the bottom of videos? Shit just got serious, y’all.

Isn’t that the greatest thing you’ve ever seen? Perhaps it’s because I’m a Michael Jackson fanboy (he didn’t touch ME) but I think that’s amazing. I wasn’t watching a plain black screen, I just took out the content because I don’t want anyone knowing I was watching animal porn. Oops! No, it’s really because I noticed the ad stand out on the black backdrop (ironic, considering it features Michael Jackson. Racial connotations yay!).
No fancy text, no stupid slogans or vomit inducing rainbows or seizure summoning animation. Just plain, sophisticated style. It’s probably the only thing I’ve ever clicked, partly because I thought it was an amazing ad and partly because it aroused such curiousity in me. Yes, Michael Jackson has finally aroused me.

God damn, that’s some effective and cool advertising. Sure, it’s down to the fact MJ is dead now and his fame has skyrocketed to epic proportions once more, so it doesn’t need any excess stuff to sell itself. But this epitomises MJ’s star power perfectly. He doesn’t need any of that other stuff, he’s just chilling in his throne, the King of Pop.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get back to watching animal porn writing my essay.

Okay, I’ve been dying to post something here, so what subject matter shall enter my head? For the past week I’ve been failing at starting an essay due for Thursday, discovering just how awesome I am at this procrastination shit. Seriously, I’m amazing at it. I should write my own book. I can take an infinite number of naps throughout the day – well, probably not infinite. There’s only so many naps you can have in 24 hours. Facebook is a distraction that is so fucking useless, yet addictive that I wish I could permanently remove myself from it, if I wasn’t such a weak pussy with no will power. And of course, now, posting useless shit here will become a new one to add to the list.

With all this reading I’ve been doing, I’ve started to come to the realisation that I’ve completely floated through University without thinking about things properly, and that I’m trying to get a degree in something I have absoloutley no passion for. Which is English Literature. I also study Media Studies which is a lot more entertaining and fun, and I’m sure if I took that straight I would be flying through school right now like a mad genius who genetically modified his genetic code to shoot lasers out of his eyes and seduce women and dolphins with the blink of an eye.

But they both contain something that I just can’t wrap my head around anymore; interpretation. It just makes no sense to me. After a gap year of trying to make little sense of a big world and how I can have some kind of place in it, I’ve filled my head with all kinds of social, philosophical and psychological bullshit and logistics, making my perception of things quite clearcut… at least in my own head. I kind of like facts, I like things to make sense but I also like figuring things out when they don’t. But all this interpretation shit? FUCK IT.

I don’t mind too much in the media context. I like the media, it’s logical from a business perspective. Everything is designed with an audience/market in mind and everything is there for a reason such as the design and content in a magazine. Directors in movies attempt to manipulate the audiences with camera angles, symbolism and it’s all groovy because it’s easy to arouse emotion and responses in this way, through visuals, music, etc. It’s fun!
But English Literature? Jesus Christ, I can’t believe I’m ’studying’ this shit. Well, I rarely study as alcohol is much more fun, but I’m talking about the rare points in time when I try. What is all this interpretation bullshit? Now I’m thinking about it more and more, I can’t see any sense in looking at words scribed by a deceased writer, trying to find some cryptic or political meaning in them when for all we know, the dude just wanted to write a fucking poem for some chick that he didn’t have the balls to talk to!

It just doesn’t make sense to me. Of course, there’s the writers who are still alive, in which case why don’t we just track the bastard down and interrogate the fucker under a spotlight and get him to settle once and for all what his intentions were behind all those letters and words? There, no need for that text to be in an English Literature course ever again, because all further interpretation and guestimations are officially BULLSHIT.
Perhaps the writer wants people to delve into the deep and rich meaning behind his writing to find some kind of deep and rich meaning? In which case, I wouldn’t hesitate to say such authors are pretentious idiots who are getting ahead of themselves. If you have something to say, I see no reason why some people can’t grow the balls to just SAY IT. Get a diary, fool. Why dress up your personal feelings behind all these irrelevant events and magic, adding strange metaphors in the hopes that someone will buy, read and decode the text? As if it’s some kind of modern day version of an Egyptian Hyroglyphic, except a lot longer, less pretty, interesting, and, oh look, it’s the cure for insomnia all of a sudden.

The other day I had a bit of an epiphany when I was telling some friends I have no idea how to approach English Literature. I explained to them that it’s stupid and involves blowing things way out of proportion and how most people studying it will take something simple such as:
“The young man crossed the road.”
And transform it into some cool allegory. There’s no chance in hell the guy wanted to cross the road, that’s just stupid. Fuck narrative progression or any sense of logical plot; no, this kid crossing the road REALLY MEANS that he was leaving behind his childhood and stepping into adulthood.
As I said this to my friends, I realised that despite how fucking stupid that shit was, this was English Literature. This is the weapon I had not equipped myself for far too long; I wasn’t taking shit and exaggerating it as much as I could! Of course!! For far too long I was taking things literally (in literature. huh) and at face value. A dog was a dog. A Church was a Church. A woman was a woman. When REALLY the dog was a representation of man’s manmade war on anything that isn’t man and bending it to his will. The Church wasn’t a Church, it was a symbol of consumerism and that fried chicken is what Jesus actually died for, when you think about it. What the woman REALLY is – when you think about it with your scientific brain of facts and data – is a type of fleshy robot socially contructed by the male species to do our bidding and spells the abundance of discrimination even within our own homes and families.

I MEAN HOLY CRAP. THIS IS WHAT I’M STUDYING.
I’m ‘learning’ how to make a mountain out of a molehill. Shakespeare is probably rolling around in his grave, thinking “dude, Hamlet was just tripping out on crack the whole time, chill the fuck out, shit happens.”

I sit in lectures and watch old men sit in front of hundreds of students, reading notes of a piece of paper he read the year before about how many meanings the word “uncanny” has. “The uncanny is the unexpected. The uncanny as explained by Ralph Nobodygivesashit describes the uncanny as strange. Someone once said he was hungry and wanted ‘a candy’ but it sounded a lot like ‘uncanny,’ so the uncanny can be related to a sugary treat.” Are you fucking serious. You’re getting paid for this. With money. REAL MONEY. Not Monopoly money which is also too good for you. REAL MONEY WHICH BUYS REAL THINGS. LIKE A FUCKING DICTIONARY SO YOU CAN LOOK UP WHAT THE FUCKING “UNCANNY” IS.

I sit in seminars and stare blankly at my classmates who read the same book as me and got a completely different meaning alltogether out of it. I read a book about a very boring butler who does very boring things in a very boring way. As a narrator, he is very boring and my perception of him is very boring. My classmates unearth that the butler is actually the descendant of Hercules, but is working as a butler to hide his indentity until he can pass on his genes for another century before the new heir to Olympus will rise once again to take his place as King of the Gods and restore Greece to its former glory… OR SO THE PROPHECY SAYS…
He will have very good table manners and etiquette. He will shoot silverware from his sleeves.
He will be named Forkulese.

Most of the time, when I’m back home in London, it’s a chance to catch my breath and reflect on events that have gone by, in addition to be massively lazy. Since going to University, trips back here have been infrequent and quite strange and mundane. More often than not, I’ve always found it disgustingly boring here and couldn’t wait to get back to Brighton, where a five mile smile would spread itself across my face once I was back.

Being here for five days now with swine flu has made me realise a few things, other than the fact I’m suffering from insomnia, the apex of my thoughts has led me to this conclusion: I am a PUSSY! I mean, in a year I decided to try living like a nomad, went travelling around India by myself, took my first solo plane journey to LA to get my heart broken, spent almost an entire year of University homeless, befriended a pack of American people and would be able to walk alone into a room full of strangers and walk out with a new network of friends. There was no such thing as ‘impossible’ or anything like that, only exciting challenges and obstacles to overcome.
Now, I’m sitting in bed afraid to go back to big, bad Brighton because Mummy and Daddy won’t be there to wait hand and foot on me and I’ll actually have to leave the house to do things including schoolwork. Sort it out, dude!

I remember my Uncle in India telling me one of the most profound things I’ve ever heard: “It’s easy to go up, hard to come down.” That’s certainly the case here. After a month of all this lying about doing nothing for everything, it’s all become too easy and the thought of actually having to make an effort for anything is daunting and a little scary. Coming back for a week has only made this extremely apparent to me. I’m not opposed to the idea of having a nice bed to lie in as food is put in front of me, but dammit, what happened to the challenge and excitement of life?! The thrill of tomorrow and the potential of today?! You lost it, boy. Go get it back.

I think it’s about time I popped this here bubble and put my feet on solid ground. Get busy living, or get busy dying, right? Also, I think I’ll ignore the fact I spent/wasted most of today updating this very site I’m confessing my lack of  a life to. I just gotta geek out sometimes!!

Once upon a time, I was a kid. One evening at my uncle’s house, I sat on some gym equipment in the conservatory as I watched my Dad smoking by the door. A light bulb went off over my head, informing me that one juvenile threat would make Dad’s addiction go away. I figured if I told him I would one day start smoking, it would make him stop. Instead, he threatened to break my neck after exhaling a cloud of toxic shit. Daddy wins.

Or does he?

If I have to trace back my inclination to inhalation of tobacco to a time, I’d say it was earlier this year after going through my first (of many) midlife crises when I started being more impulsive and saying ‘yes’ to things a bit more. That included a spontaneous trip to Oxford with friends, following them into the girl’s bathroom and trying a cigarette in one of the cubicles. Being a lightweight, the buzz was GOOOOOOD. One was enough I think. But then part of my “yes” crusade led me into the hands of some very messed up people, claiming to be “pickup artists.”

LONG STORY.
A lot of it is made up of being in the most chilled out, quiet part of the clubs where all the girls are. Yes, I’m talking about the girl’s bathroom again. No, not really but it holds some truth. Compared to the guy’s, that shit is FANCY. Some even have bloody sofas in them for Christ’s sake!! What else they got in there? A bar? Roller-coaster? I really shouldn’t paint it out to be the most glamorous place in the world, considering the majority of women go there to PISS.

Anyways, enough about urination, where were wee (hahaha)? I’m talking about the smoking area of course, the perfect place for a social whore like myself to run his mouth at people he doesn’t know, but will surely have on his Facebook friend list within a few short days and never speak to again. In that little fenced off circle of cancer, people tend to smoke. Spend too long there and eventually you’ll become one of them, like some delicious, smoky virus. It proved a bit too much for me one time though, as after smoking a WHOLE ROLLIE (like a big boy who can run and jump and everything) to myself, I kind of forgot what that whole ‘balancing’ or ‘gravity’ business was about. A bouncer angrily accused me smoking weed, then looked like he felt a bit sorry for me when he realised it was just tobacco. Ouch.

Then came my Summer of FFFUUUUCCKKK.
A fun filled Summer of stress and excess. To prove that, I kicked started it off by losing my job and consulting half a bottle of vodka over the matter straight afterwards. Smoking naturally followed as my friendly friend of friendship Jamie was always around and rolling and so, a puff would put me at ease and almost on my knees because I’m such a sissy. In all fairness, I only ever gave smoking a mere thought when I was drinking.

Being an alcoholic, this statement doesn’t really count for much.

I spent most, if not all my time around my friend alcohol, and the ones made of flesh and blood were smokers so as time passed, I became quite good at the whole smoking gig. At first I was always worried I was killing myself and would quite frequently look around, expecting my Dad to fall from the sky like an Indian Batman and snap my neck. I got over it pretty quickly.

Now term’s started, I’ve been going into an excessive frenzy of replacing my intake of oxygen with as much smoke as I can. I’ve spent 21 years of having perfectly healthy lungs, and for what?! HEALTH? Fuck health! I want to be unhealthy! DUUHHH INTELLYGENSE ME ARE.
I blame women, personally. I usually use asking for a cigarette as an icebreaker to talk to the foxy girl in the corner, who I would be slightly more attracted to if she was an ACTUAL fox, which might seem weird, but it isn’t. The problem with doing this, is a lot of the time the said girl will actually give me a fucking cigarette. Bitch, are you crazy? You want me to get addicted to this shit? I think you’re cute, fuck your cigarette! Jesus, what a whore.

In hindsight, this would probably be a better response than accepting the death-stick and stupidly choking the whole thing down trying to act like you LOVE IT. Which I do, for a few seconds until I’m ready to stop, what with being a lightweight. But you can’t waste it now, people in third world countries would give their legs for it. I mean, even frigging MONKEYS will take that shit off your hands! Also, I’m not being ignorant and implying people in third world countries and monkeys are the same, other than the fact they both live in trees and have tails to help them swing from branch to branch.

So yes, women are to blame for smoking, cancer and everything else that is wrong in the world. I think I’m onto something here. Which reminds me, my friend – who is a girl, who smokes – used some big word at me today… “scapegoat” I think it was? Mental note, look that up. It might be relevant to this whole evil woman thing.

It’s time to give it up, me thinks; I’m becoming quite annoying amongst the smoking community because of my constant hounding people for cigarettes. I’m assuming that because they always reject my friend requests, although that might be because they’re drowning in envy that I’m a genius who is saving money at the expense of their addiction. I don’t see the big deal, I’m like a feminine version of Mother Teresa who’s helping take part of the cancer attack for them, like some kind of meat shield made of leeches. I’m not doing it because I like it… I’m doing it because I care.

In addition to becoming an annoying, thieving twat, it’s doing me no favours in my life ambition to die from kidney favour. Lung cancer seems to be taking the lead, what with the smoke wielding a samurai sword and hacking away at my vocal cords. It’s great in the sense that I’m starting to laugh like Muttley and breath like Darth Vader, so my skill as an impressionist has gained new heights, and my voice has become deeper in tone, so I can finally trick people into believing I’ve hit puberty. But the insanely bad sore throat and lifetime supply of phlegm followed by what appears to be swine flu has made me rethink the ecstasy of a short nicotine rush.

I’m not even sure if I’m craving one right now, writing about it so extensively or if my mind is fucking with me. In the long term, if I need a 5 second thrill coupled with a deadly disease thrown in, I could always invest in a cheap prostitute. But I won’t, because I’m sticking to my guns and concluding women are the problem here, not tobacco, nicotine or my own lack of self-control. I’m going on a woman ban from now on and sticking to foxes. Their tales are sexy as hell.

‘Love‘ ain’t nothing but a feeling and feelings ain’t nothing but temporary.

I promised myself that tonight, I would kick my habit of sleeping late. I wouldn’t waste time looking at bullshit on Youtube, I wouldn’t download any porn or look for any other stupid distractions as I have to get up early tomorrow to pack for Brighton. In the midst of all this stress, severe bouts of cabin fever and midlife crisis depression I can’t even cry myself to sleep! So the stage was set, the bed made and I was ready to get (at least to) sleep. But, then I had some sudden urge to track down a song I heard ages ago on a Youtube video (I guess I was wasting time looking at bullshit on Youtube in the end afterall).

The video was by a charming young Chinese creature – who wasn’t even a dragon or ninja, but a normal girl – who was just having fun with her sister in a park. Even though this sounds like the setup for some pretty intense hentai or something, it was INNOCENT I TELL YOU. Way too innocent! It was pretty beautiful with the two just walking through the grass and exploring what’s beyond the trees like we used to do when we were kids… well, I still do it to this day, most notably for around 3 hours in India. The video had a Chinese melody in the background which just suited the video perfectly, capturing a sense of peace, soul and innocence that I LOVED.

I would find myself humming the tune sometimes over the last year, but haven’t bothered to check the video. A while ago I went to check and found that the girl had deleted all her videos! I sent her a message on Youtube asking the name of the song, but no luck in a reply. I kind of remembered the title, but that didn’t help much with a foreign singer and probably mistranslated song title. The lyrics were beyond me, so no searching would help… I guess the melody would just have to loop in my head as I hummed the song with no name or words.

DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF PROCRASTINATION.
I sat in bed, ready to sleep tonight because important things must happen tomorrow. But hey, I’m Kenny. Fuck important shit! I must have this song, and I must have it now. This is the internet, where all your wildest dreams come true! Encyclopedias and knowledge at your fingertips! Television on demand! Foreign brides wed against their will!

I searched the girl’s username and a few keywords and found the description of one video logged on another site. It wasn’t the one I wanted, but then in a moment of either great rememberance or disturbing stalker power, I recalled her sister’s name and tapped it in. YES! The video’s description shows up with the title of the song and singer:
“Love Apple” by Joey Yung.

I scoured the whole of Youtube and Torrent websites but couldn’t find anything. Her discography on Wikipedia gave no results of such a song either, and our good friend Google just brought up loads of crap about Macs and Ipods. The fruit is at the mercy of bloody MP3 players, it seems. I tried listening to every one of Joey’s songs on Youtube but none of them rang familiar and as I was about to give up, one more Google search gave a result! In her album “Gorgeous Show” was “Love Apple!” Yes! At last! Clicking it gave me a preview which I quickly recognised and closed as I wanted to listen to the full version, but Itunes prompted me to pay for it. Fuck that shit, this is the Internet, bitch! I don’t pay for nothing!

But no search results for MP3s came up for Gorgeous Show or the song even if I searched in that strange Chinese writing that looks like gates and pencils. I was going to comment that I’m not sure how famous Joey Yung is, but Wikipedia tells me that she’s one “premier Cantonese singers in the world.” Well, why is it so hard to steal her stuff, then?! I suppose being able to read and write in the language would probably help here, but my simpleness got the better of me here. Even though I waste time for a living and I should actually have a master’s degree be giving lectures on it, I wasn’t going to let all this internet searching go to waste. I was going to have to buy it.

And I did!
Damn, I haven’t paid for music in YEARS. I think the last time I did buy a CD was around 1995 I think, either Seal’s “Kiss From a Rose” or Simply Red’s “Fairground”. I have a hard drive with more music than I know what to do with which I collected from a few friends but my songlist is still pretty limited. I think my collection amounts to 1GB so I wouldn’t know what to do with one of those Ipods which contain every single song known to man, ever. Except those sung by Joey Yung of course, which are so hard to get your hands on you have no choice but to spend hours searching for and converting to MP3.

But you know what? It feels kind of good! It was only like, 79p for a really beautiful song which for all I know, could be about the most awful and disgusting thing in the world but I’m completely oblivious as I have no idea what Miss Yung is singing about. I am quite sure it’s lovely, though! Out of all the things I waste time and money on, I’d say this has been such a worthy purchase. It’s got me writing again, it’s got me at peace with my current situation… I could sit here… I HAVE sat here for hours just listening to her breathing out the most soothing melody in a while,

I’ve never thought about how some musicians provide us with this artform, these feelings and share their gift and how amazing that is. Just neglecting all that and downloading and in turn, stealing their time, effort and talent seems like like a crime. Well, I guess in the eyes of the law, it is. Stealing a great painting wouldn’t go down well, it’s a shame that music is so easy to copy and steal that it’s become the norm now. I really do think that they don’t get what they deserve. Having said that, even with all this piracy these people are stupidly wealthy anyway and I’m sure all the funds go to greedy corporations and record labels anyway. But now, I’m thinking I’ll cut back on all the downloading I do, despite only adding one song to my music collection every 3 months. Today’s music industry is pretty bad, I think with talentless, idiots so on the rare occasion that I feel I should, I’ll definitely be paying. It’s totally worth it, despite being a broke student.

I’d like to think that by buying this song, Joey Yung just got £1 in her pocket and saw that she has a fan in London listening to, enjoying and being inspired by her voice and feels good about that.
But in reality she doesn’t give a damn because she’s too busy rolling around in her swimming pool filled with money from the millions of fans worldwide.

Either way, it still feels and sounds good to me

I seem to be having my midlife crisis right now. The stress is pretty damn bad, but what’s even worse is that apparently, I’m only going to live for another 22 years. 44 was never my lucky number.

Oh boy, the carpet has been pulled from under my overly sized feet. After months of having a room kind of sorted out back in Brighton, I find out 2 weeks ago that the landlordy guy decided to keep the current tenant there. Making me once again, a homeless bastard. After spending over a year without a proper home, you’d think I’d have got used to it, but after spending this month with all my creature comforts in London, it’s a scary thing to have to go back to, especially considering it’s my last year at University and I gots to pick up the pace now!
So for two weeks I’ve spent my eyes glued to this laptop screen to the point where I think they’re bleeding, not eating or sleeping until I’ve got a roof over my head which probably won’t have any hair left on it because I’m constantly pulling it out over the stress.

Right now though, I’m doing an all-nighter. Despite being on holiday. And not having any work to do. Well, not my own, at least.

The girl I tried to chat up and ended up becoming her proof-reader/bitch has returned to England after failing her exams and has been given one more shot at getting into University. I’ve been too busy to get in touch or help her out on a count of becoming a depressed and nervous wreck, but now here I am. One day before her deadline, at 2AM going over her bloody essays. I’m so tired due to being sleep deprived and all the stress of finding somewhere to live by next week, but here I am.

She gets her exam results tomorrow and I’m not sure if she’ll manage to pass… if not, these essays are the last chance to boost up the grade. I’m not even sure if she’s been using me all this time, but I suppose sparing a few hours of sleep so there’s a chance she’ll get into University would be worth it.

Fucking hell, Karma, if you are reading this, give me a frigging break. I need my sleep, I’m homeless and I’m paving the way for a timid Chinese girl into full-time education even though it’s unclear whether she’s cut out for it. Read this and find me a fucking house, you absolute bastard.

Okay, I get the big deal about teeth whitening. I went to LA in December and was dazzled by the smiles of all those people and felt a bit self-conscious about my own smile at times, even though apparently it’s my right as a British person to have bad teeth. So, I bought some teeth whitening strips which I need to start using again and break out of this crappy routine of going to bed late, waking up late and doing nothing all day. I just spent this Summer surrounded by some new friends from California who had the straightest, most blinding smiles I’ve seen for a while. So yeah, I get the appeal of having a nice, white smile.

But seriously?

SERIOUSLY?

I question these people’s marketing intentions. When I saw this ad, it didn’t really make me want to grab my coat, jump out of the window and risk breaking my legs so I could get on my merry way to whiter teeth. It made me grateful that my mother didn’t use me as a guinea pig for some strange experiment to get teeth whiter. Fair enough if it’s a dentist, but a MOM? Mom’s stay home, cook food and wash shit and occasionally cut you if you don’t clean your room. I think this mother needs a day job.

“Smile for the camera, honey! No, smile… that’s not the smile we talked about, honey. You’re not doing it right. Smile. SMILE. Smile now. Don’t make me get the taser, you little fucking piece of shit.”

Opportunity knocks, but it doesn’t beg.

That’s what a friend of mine wrote in her own blog, and only now has the meaning behind those words become quite profound and relevant to me.

The other day, I was shifting through some of my old things, moved from my old room into the shed at the back of the garden along with the rest of the family’s junk. Inside one of the boxes was a CD I backed up all my old files on. As I was such a introvert, geek and socially retarded guy back then (or at least, more so than now) that CD pretty much contained my life from 2003 to 2007. I looked through it all, mainly chat logs and saw how much I’ve changed in those 4 years onwards. The most important thing is developing a sense of awareness and consciousness.

I like to break out of conventional thinking and social boundaries and norms. I like to take myself out of the linear bullshit and autopilot mode most people sink into and drift through life, unaware of all the amazing things happening around them. I’m so into the world around me; I don’t wear gloves because I’m afraid that I won’t be able to feel the cold air in my fingertips. I don’t wear earphones because I’m afraid that I won’t be able to hear the sounds of the city. I don’t wear sunglasses because I’m afraid I won’t see the true colour of the grass and sky, even if the Sun decides to blind me for a moment. I’m afraid to neglect my senses and drift out of the present and forget that it’s the only place I can really feel in, hear in, see in and live in.

To learn in.

Last Summer, I made a lot of friends who were destined to leave the country and I at some point, and when thesmiy did I felt the hurt. Bad. I lost some people who were really important to me because of my stupid decisions which then translated into stupid actions. One of my friends advised me to “never get attached, or you’re going to get hurt.” I ignored him and became driven by emotions to set rights wrong, but it was too late. Once it was all said and done, I started to realise what the ‘lesson’ was, but I didn’t learn anything from it, I didn’t have anything to gain. I had been through it all and it was said and done.

This Summer, I made more friends who were destined to leave the country. Amongst them was a girl… OF COURSE. It’s always a girl, isn’t it? You can go through the worst of the worst, but it never gets any worse when there’s a girl involved. You can lose everything, but when you lose the girl, everything seems to have an exaggerated meaning.

This girl, I hardly knew ye. The one thing that was certain, was that she wasn’t going to stick about forever; 8 weeks at most. There was a time limit, a deadline and what inevitably follows those is an outcome, and something that I had been trying to disassociate myself from. Expectations at the finish line, which make you idealise and hope for something that when a third party is involved, is more often than not, out of your control. She was going to leave, and if I got attached, I was going to get hurt.

But then, that web of emotions is far to big and easy to get stuck in, isn’t it? And then the jaws are sunk in and that venom called love, lust, infatuation, whatever you want to call it, courses through your veins and it’s too late. You’re trapped, you’re hooked and it feels AMAZING. Logic will tell you to flee, though thoughts of her won’t allow you to. Run Kenny, run! You’ve been through this before, it all ends in tears and possibly years of therapy. Quit while you’re ahead!

Through the magic of superficiality, I wanted her, right now. But I was in a far off place, stuck in my head thinking of things that were yet to happen, things that probably wouldn’t happen and things that could go wrong. When I was at work, when I was out with friends, from day to night thoughts of her seemed to plague my mind and even though she was a real person, that’s the only place I allowed her to exist; in my head. And upon every meeting, everytime we spoke it was a different reality than what I had imagined. I neglected what I wanted, I restrained myself, I didn’t pursue her and I didn’t take action.

Yeah, she was attractive. Was there more to her? I let the halo effect kick in and fill in the blanks. I left meetings down to chance, and Lady Luck is a busy woman who hasn’t been on the best of terms with me lately. Fear was sat comfortably on my shoulder, persuading me that the best action would be no action and I believed him. Nothing met up to my expectations, the game-plan that was laid out in the creases and folds of my brain and so, the less I did, the more distance separated us – despite living 3 minutes from one another – and the more I willed myself into believing she was something she was not.

8 weeks flew by, nothing came of it and she took off on a plane to travel around Europe.  Did you learn your lesson?
No! Life goes on, there’s nothing to dwell on here, nothing to mourn over. London awaits me, so off I go to a life more luxurious than the one I led yesterday. Free food, good friends, beautiful women and plenty of all of that. Free from worries, it would be time to move on, I believe.

Or not.
Travelling, it doesn’t turn out to be her thing and so she decided to escape the warmth of Barcelona and return to London and needed a place to stay. I looked out of the window and saw no flying pigs, but now my mind was pretty clear and over the whole “Summer of Love.” I invited her and her friend to stay for 2 nights and now there wouldn’t be a context. I had no expectations anymore, there would be no outcome. I was just going to have a guest over, a friend.

Or not.
Now I had escaped the endless array of crap running through my head, I was finally able to open up to her and enjoy her company and the feeling was mutual. Gone was the awkward tension! We spent two days indulging in the luxuries of public transport, the streets of London and interiors of malls and clothes stores. I carried her bags, had late night chats with her when her friend wasn’t around and for the first time in around two and a half months, I saw that all along, she was an interesting, funny, witty and… wow. How did I miss this? Why did I let myself miss this? What a complete idiot! For lack of a better word, and even though I hate it… I would say I was in ‘love.’

I loved the way she walked in zig zags when she browsed the endless rails of clothes. I loved how her eyes would widen with wonderment at the smallest of things, and I would get lost in how big and colourful they were. I loved how the ends of her hair had been fried by the permanent straightening she had done before she came to England. The way her smile went lop-sided when she explained things. How soft her hair was. How she would panic when I tried to wake her up. How she just seemed to glow when the makeup came off and how she would squeal when I picked her up to check how much heavier she was compared to her luggage and her infectious feminine giggles. The way her mouth dropped open when I teased her, before she “socked” me on the arm. I loved how tall she was, how her hands and feet were a bit too long and her big toe was HUGE. When she spoke softly to her parents over the phone in Cantonese. The way her voice echoed through my ears as I became entranced by her eyes and stunning smile which completely took me as we looked at one another, and our gaze was held for a moment longer than it should have been… when things should have been different.

I never fall for them, but when I do… I fall for them hard.

I loved how perfect she seemed in all her imperfections, and the few short moments we had together. I hated the night’s sky, for it spelt the end of the day when I would leave her and anticipate the next morning when I would get to spend a little while longer with her. And I hated myself, for experiencing this too late. For biding my time, thinking I was being patient but really was just wasting my time and not going for what I wanted, or taking the time to step outside of my head and see her for what she was.

My journals all at some point came to the same ‘revelation’ for a while that I don’t do enough. And now the moment was right, but I still couldn’t bring myself to do anything. Yesterday morning, I escorted her and her friend to the airport, the tension still there.

Last year, I fooled myself into thinking someone was important to me and gave them a shark tooth I wear around my neck, essentially giving a piece of me away, telling them that it meant I would have to come and get it back. A year on, I thought about how I had learnt a little too much a little too late. Around my neck was a new necklace, one that I had struggled to give meaning to; a pair of jigsaw pieces, which fit together. I reluctantly took one of them off and handed it to her. She asked me what it meant, and I suddenly knew, but I didn’t tell her. All I told her was the same thing I said a year ago: “It means I’ll have to come and get it.”

I guess the romantic thing to suggest would be that she was so special to me that she was the missing piece to my puzzle… but no. It’s a symbol, a constant reminder of the lesson that I’ve neglected thus far and now, I have to learn from it. Not only did I lose the girl AGAIN, but a piece of something that kind of represents who I am. Now I’m minus one puzzle piece; it’s across the Atlantic Ocean, probably sitting at the back of her draw now, a meaningless momento.

This Summer has made that lesson apparent, and I’m determined to drill it into my head. Everytime I look down, I’ll see that jigsaw hanging from my neck, incomplete without the missing piece, because I messed up. I can’t say I’m very fond of this piece of jewellery anymore, I really want to replace it, but that’s what I’ve been doing for all these years: brushing my mistakes under the carpet and forgetting about them. Now it seems I’ve cut myself a scar made of silver, a reminder of that mistake and how I deprived myself of making an action that could have led to something better. I’ve told myself before that I would rather regret something I did than something I didn’t do. The philosophy has hung itself around my neck, weighing me down until I can really LEARN from this experience and grow and take action next time rather than stand down and lose, rather than gain.

Yeah, opportunity definitely knocks, but it doesn’t beg.

Everything we want is on the other side of fear and what we do means a hell of a lot more than what we don’t. Action speaks louder than words, and right now all I’ve done is type around 1970 of them. Time to take the bull by its horns and control of life.

I’ll have to wear this thing proudly, I suppose, even though it’s an annoying reminder of my stupidity… but also the good times which I won’t let escape me next time. I’m not sure if I’ll ever see her again, but letting go of her brought her back to me, so I guess despite what I feel, I’ll have to do it again but remember this lesson…  and when I’ve learnt from it, perhaps I’ll see her again and take back what I’ve been missing.

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.”
Albert Einstein