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Flagged it

I realised recently that I have visited a whole bunch of countries whose flags have just white and red in them. As someone whose knowledge about flags is zero, this was quite eye opening. So I thought, why not visit all countries whose flags just contain white and red? Life is long enough :) Soooo I've been to: 🇯🇵 Japan 🇵🇱 Poland 🇭🇰 Hong Kong I must go to: 🇲🇨 Indonesia 🇮🇩 Monaco 🇦🇹 Austria 🇱🇻 Latvia 🇸🇬 Singapore 🇨🇦 Canada 🇨🇭 Switzerland 🇩🇰 Denmark 🇧🇭 Bahrain 🇹🇷 Turkey 🇹🇴 Tonga 🇹🇳 Tunisia 🇬🇱 Greenland 🇵🇪 Peru 🇲🇹 Malta

Sunday Selfing

How well each day turns out is pretty much equal to which version of you decided to play frontwoman that morning. Today, being a Sunday, seems to have allowed my inner disciplinarian to show up. Of course, she does show up unannounced, but my other alter ego - insufferably spoilt child-adult is always armoured and ready to beat her down to a pulp. I wonder a lot about self-love and I know now, probably always have known, that self-love is almost entirely dependent on self-discipline. It's crazy how much leeway you can give yourself in the name of being lazy, or tired, or lazy because of being tired, or worse: both. I initially opened up my laptop to binge House of Cards but then somehow landed on here, writing about what I'm feeling, rather than doing what I seem to do every Sunday anyway. I am guilty. I am guilty of letting my life pass me by and it's because I am Brutus-ing. I am torn between doing something and doing nothing about my problems. I am slowly inching

Zooming Around Zebras

Always be alert Because cities burn Cared? Didn't care. Didn't even dare. Eventually fire enveloped Four gardens faraway Good hearts grieved He instantly headed Inside Jameson Island Jack's kinda jacked Killed lovely kids Lost men's lives Mainland never mattered Neither orders nor Others' polite offers Probing questions perhaps Queries retracted quickly Radio silence replies Sadly terrible situation Tomorrow under tornadoes Using ventilators until Very wonderful vividness Watching x-rays with Xeroxed yellow Xboxes Yelling zoning yes

No thanks I'm a Title Phobe

My friend Dennis whose friend is a menace plays tennis Not the friend that's a menace but Dennis He plays tennis and he went to see the dentist The man went all the way to Venice Not Dennis but his friend who is a menace To reconnect with his woman then miss Now missus she still wondered if men kiss Each other in public like a pub is Back to my friend Dennis His molars are happier so he smiles like Elvis

Whatever

I like the coming together of two words. My favourite words are compound words. Bookcase Watchmaker Meanwhile Seashore Airplane Moonbeam How dare you sneer at the sniggering nigger near you? Just because you're wearing a Kimono over your monokini doesn't make you an anagram queen Fortune is such that after you've gambled and struck gold, you could end up on the streets mangled and stone cold How tightly you hold on and how much you surround yourself with clutter is in direct proportion Which is why it's not entirely shocking to see a hoarder declutter The science of clutter is intriguing Zero utility with a generous dash of emotional security If utterly neglected garbage is powerful enough to contribute to your mental health It makes you wonder What else is keeping a human mind stable? How ironic is it that lack of sanitation enables sanity! Decluttering can be very cathartic It's like a cold shower after being outside in the hot sun all afternoon

8 Observations about Japan as a Tourist

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It's been a few days since I returned from my holiday with my sister in Japan and I'm still happily recovering from the sights, sounds and smells of that literally fantastic country. 1) Amazing sanitation systems Japanese cleanliness is simply unbeatable. Their toilets are the most elaborate you'll ever see. Self flushing? Check. Self cleaning? Yes. Self opening?! YUP . They even have toilets where you can turn on recorded water flowing sounds for those who are self conscious about having too noisy a pee. My mind is most blown by the sheer options of ways your poop taking experience can be enriched. I'm so tempted to start a retail business of Toto/Panasonic washlets! 2) Stations, JR Lines, Subways & Shinkansen To a tourist, the public transport systems in Japan can be quite challenging to figure out just because of the complexity of various service providers and lines. Compared to the London Underground, which I found to be large, Japan's railwa

Arigato Gozaimashita!

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Call me a creature of habit, but I have this complacent, almost romantic idea about travelling the world. I indulge myself in consistent, predictable travel quite unlike a adventure junkie with eyes pouring with wanderlust. Two weeks ago though, I felt a change in this attitude when, ditching the usual Uber called 45 minutes in advance, I stepped out of my house and hitched a rickshaw ride to the airport. While the aircraft was taxiing the runway, my fingers refused to search for my take-off song ("Bed" by Jahzzar). Instead, I surprised myself by just listening to whatever the iPod god decided I should hear then. 15 days later I'm sat at the boarding gate for a flight that will take me home just overwhelmed and grateful for all I've had the opportunity to enjoy in the Land of the Rising Sun.  Harshita, my sister who lives in Australia, was my companion for this wonderful holiday and thanks to her diligent notekeeping, I've decided to do compile it all to

I've Decided I'll Be Fine

There I said it - I have recklessly been wrecked Kimya Dawson said this when she heard about MJ dying: “Having been fucked is no excuse for being fucked up” So am I to drown in self-pity? No thanks When you splash water in your eyes, your eye socket is practically gargling your eyeballs I never understood people who splash water in their eyes And movies where you see people underwater with their eyes wide open My instinct tells me to close my eyes the second there’s a chance of water seeping in But I don’t understand the world and its people Nobody wants to take a godless decision and funnily, the god needn’t be God No one ever dies from lack of attention It’s better to fake being in love with a real person than admit to being enamoured by a Googlebot But sometimes it is nice for someone to crawl over you regularly Reading you, understanding what’s new Even if it’s so that they can go behind your back and tell the world about you You can’t hear someone else’s thoug

Rhyme & Mime

I'd like a good night's sound sleep More than a night spent cruising the streets I'd like a long face to face conversation More than a short instant messaging chat session I'd like a lovely summer spend swimming in the sea More than a dull winter holed up in bed in front of the PC I'd like strong drink: some gin or maybe some wine? Why not passively lounge with no attention to time? Life has its own mind - it's neither yesterday nor tomorrow So I've decided to live in today - without any sorrow So find me a quaint cottage made for six Housing a quarreling old couple a dog can fix

No Man (or Woman) is an Island

The finality of death is in such stark contrast to the predictability of birth. Being a psychopath is better than having a psycho in your path S ipping from a juice box titled "Compliance" may give you the courage to step on stage But what if you fell in love with love? And when you fell in love it was to the sound of music that felt like love What if you understood both the value of meaning and the meaning of value? And what if you understood that love was meaning? Then living with meaning would mean living for love When are you really strong - w hen you're strong enough to show weakness? Or are you really strong when you show strength despite being weak? Meaning can be found in another things though Because love's not nearly enough for most people Love has a shelf life Love needs preservatives My heart is still mine And if I choose hope It's my choice You don't get to dictate how much and for how long I should care

Quotes Quotes Quotes

I can't believe my last post was 3 years ago. Anyway, here goes: If you don't build a dream, someone else will help you build theirs. The mind is not in the body. The body is in the mind. The extent of the love of women is not known, even to those who are the objects of their affection, on account of its subtlety, and on account of the avarice, and natural intelligence of womankind. Love is the world's infinite mutability; lies, hatred, murder even, are all knit up in it; it is the inevitable blossoming of its opposites, a magnificent rose smelling faintly of blood. A coward is more afraid of being discovered than he is of anything else, even dying. You have to learn to drive your own car before you call shotgun on someone else's You need to know that no one else's opinion can invalidate your own Once you cultivate the habit of being with yourself no body else's company will come close

100 Things I Love

I wrote this post as an answer to a very dear friend's request a couple of years ago. Nice to have a log of these kind of things. 1. Pugs/Dogs 2. Pirogi 3. Jigsaw puzzle 4. Oranges 5. Sleep 6. Knitting 7. Long walks 8. Singing 9. Listening to music 10. Dreams 11. Period dramas 12. Travelling - train, bus and plane 13. Chocolate 14. Tea 15. Love 16. Roller coasters 17. Long drives 18. Having a quiet conversation when it is quiet 19. Animated movies and cartoons 20. Playing with babies and infants 21. Taking photos 22. Painting my nails 23. Wearing eyeliner 24. Oiling my hair and tying two plaits 25. Looking through old things I have saved for memory safekeeping 26. Dancing with abandon 27. That energetic healthy feeling after working out at the gym 28. When my hair is played with 29. Way 'he' smiles at me 30. When I shower after sweating a lot in the heat and sun 31. New shampoo/soap/conditioner 32. Lip balms

Spoken Word #1

"Let me tell you a story." Everyday I would ask, "tell me something scary, I want to hear something that will freak me out. I want to get really messed up in the head. Tell me something scary." And everyday she would come and say, "let me tell you a story." And everyday it was the same story. And everyday I used to wonder, "there's nothing scary about this story. Why does she keep saying it the same way in the same delivery and tone and with the same pregnant pauses." Fear belongs to the unknown. It cannot be anticipated. It can't be measured. It can't be bound by a limited imagination. Fear knows how to take and take it does, very well. A morbid interest in dark unknowables Anxiety to keep the sheets warm but your feet cold Fear that's anticipated but always fucking underestimated Nightmares that put Alice to shame You would think it's the perfect recipe for insanity She will tell you all y

Pleasingly Positive Post for Posterity

Vacant with a few rooms to rent Or a buzzing hive Or calm like the ocean with volcanoes on the floor Such elusiveness Much appeal No? Please don't mind me while I mine my mind Bad kidneys make you disturbingly obese when you're approaching senility (in other words, oldage) I walked out this morning and passed a hawker by my gate Hawking is great skill Had me imagine a sweet father-son relationship Regular training sessions Where a little boy of four gazed in wonder and admiration As his father taught him the art of hawking The twang the throat had to create To create an echoing reverberation Throughout the entire society Thoroughly​ throughout four buildings How lovely it would have been: the days where he would hold his father's little finger while they walked through the city's suburban lanes Selling and buying rejected old books And old paper He learned how to read from given up old school books How to write basic English words by taking a penci

Mildly Mindless Mindfulness

There is a lot to be said about not knowing Would we know everything we know today With the confidence with which we know it If we started out with the premise of imagining all that was unknown to be inherently unknowable? And if we were pessimistic fools Rather than arrogant buffoons How real could this confidence possibly be? Till the day one lives in a bodysuit under serenely blue earthlight, if that day were to ever come, all that is unknowable is likely to stay that way What's going to happen to all the orbital debris? Look at the mess we've made in such a huge space Who's going to want to visit when the front lawn is filthy? My friend Toby, being honest told me one day, that one day the water will go bland But Toby was misinformed Because water was always bland He took to the bottle and the bottle took his life My last text to him was a typo I said "Sea you" What an unintended curse Sometimes the mind is so quiet All you can feel is someth

Gauged, Waged, Raged, Bandaged & Caged

A life where it's assumed that there is life after work. Where you can afford a big house and a car in a good suburb. Where little puppies can run with abandon in wide open dog parks. Where simple joys like sunsets and sand and moonlight and fresh air are hungrily devoured. Where you can climb mountains weekly. Where your knees, not your very soul, could possibly pose the only true threat. Where evenings are open to indulge in your surroundings. A truly liveable life. An idyllic reality a mind like mine struggles to fully fathom. A life where work consumes your mind and practically every waking hour. Where owning a one bedroom apartment is an impossible dream. Where billboards and smog continually dissipate all ideas of natural beauty. Where all imagination endures a silent death. Where a mind, however motivated, is constricted by the lethargy of a increasingly unhealthy body. Where there's not a fortunate moment of privacy. Where the crowds only exaggerate solitude without th