All posts tagged: personal

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Dearest, In this world you will be derided for caring too much. Care anyway. It is a lonely world and there are many paths you have to take alone. Do not be afraid of the truth. The fights will not get easier, but you will be more ready for them. Bitterness is the aroma in every cup of healing. You have parted ways with being nice but found more: how to be kind. Remember to love your hands whether they are wide open or tightly fisted You will not always be able to find the words. Keep looking. Make peace with the night time. The moon is a whole other thing waiting for you. When the world expands, you will find it difficult to breathe. Slow down for a while. Teach your ears to listen for that which is unsaid. Grief is a kind of embrace. Remember to come apart. Hold it with your palms flat on your sternum, with your fingers on the collarbone. Try to find the lit windows at dusk, they will remind …

OOTD: The Last

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I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, and have decided this will be the last OOTD post on my blog for the foreseeable future. I first started doing OOTD blog posts because I wanted to affirm that the self was not a thing that was a formulaic list of compatible and complementary things. The labels that we often use to identify what kind of people we are, are boundaries that demarcate the places where we are always escaping our selves. This just means that I can’t even really begin to define myself in wholeness and completeness because there’s too much to cover. Isn’t that something marvelously wonderful, worth affirming and celebrating over and over again? I didn’t always think this way, and I think most of us don’t. Or we are afraid of what it means for us to be fluid, blobs, spillages. Labeling who you are is not a bad thing at all. Sometimes the labels allow us to leverage principles that we might otherwise find difficult to grasp. Sometimes the labels …

OOTD: A Flash of Foresight

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I have never been fond of orange and yellow tones. My wardrobe is an overwhelmingly cool – neutrals palette, from the black-white-greys to the blue-purples. A few years ago (in the era of the high-waisted skirt but before the crop top came back in), I decided I wanted to be experimental and bought a longer skirt that cut at my calves in a shade of orange I found bearable. It was a failed buy at the time. I couldn’t figure out how to match it to anything in my wardrobe, nor did I enjoy the way it sat on my body and the silhouette it created. I couldn’t really see it at the time and so I decided to throw it at the back of my wardrobe and forget about it. It survived multiple rounds of spring cleaning, I guess I felt that I had to wear it at least once before I donated it out, or that maybe someday I would grow into liking this length and this shape of a skirt. However many …

OOTD: Tamago

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I’m in the final week and a bit of writing papers that will gesture my way out of the MA program for good. It’s exciting to be in the final stretch, but when each day is bookended by the number of words I put into the word document sometimes I just need a bit of time to remind myself of other things. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the things I can do once I am done with the semester, and I am tempted often by the many projects that I would love to get started on. I turn over those things in my mind, they remind me that I am a creative person and that the papers I am writing right now are one manifestation of that creativity. I want to hold creative processes as a formless blob in my mind, so I hopefully never box myself into a method, a medium or a product. If I am a creative person then any act I engage in has the capacity to be a …

OOTD: The Other Side Of Strength

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Spring time for those caught in the academic grind is probably the most exhausting time of the year. The novelty of learning has worn off, replaced by the monotony of repeating class timetables, looming deadlines, and washes of fatigue.I no longer quite remember what I came to university to achieve, instead what I know is how many papers stand in between me and the end of the semester. Working back to back jobs for almost 2 whole years, stacking jobs on top of each other and also finishing up my Masters has definitely tested the ends of my capacity. I chose to shape my professional choices into this kind of life, but there are days where I feel the tiredness seeping all the way into the littlest parts of me. Some days I work toward the singular goal of a cup of tea and my music at midday, or a bubble tea in the evening and a couch potato session with an episode of something not in English. Simple things I use to hold on to …