The Anatomy of My Thoughts = Rowan-ism

I seem to be perpetually exhausted these days. I hope it is merely the cyclical affliction that accompanies womanhood and nothing more serious. Maybe its also because I don't quite feel motivated to do anything. Even my usual propensity for hedonism seems to escape me. Again I have missed out on my promotion. I feel as if I am wasting away while I trying desperately to retain what mental faculties I do have by reading, and listening to podcasts/audiobooks. I don't think I am doing enough though. I can barely imagine living the rest of my life like this (with little challenge) but as of now, one day at a time is tolerable. Just do not think of tomorrow. Deal with the present whilst I build up my reserves. I feel indifferent, numb. I suppose its better than feeling miserable. It is what I need right now actually. I just need to continue doing what I'm doing till I find something that ignites my passion again. Lately it seems that certain interpersonal rela

Yes I love makeup. And perhaps I am vain - or at least highly particular about how I look. Is it because I'm insecure, to an extent I suppose. I was never the most feminine or prettiest amongst my peers and the way I was raised, it was important to be feminine. I grew up a bit of  a tomboy/bookworm. The constant moving around made me weary of making friends and for the longest time I felt awkward in my body. I felt it looked more boyish on the top and a bit too plump in the bottom. When I looked in the mirror I saw this round face that in my mind does not have an ounce of sex appeal. I guess playing with make up made me feel as if I was matching my insides to my outsides. It also felt like I could put on different personas, I could have a rocker chick vibe when I wanted or something less innocuous like just hiding the miserable pimple that was making my life hell. Makeup has become somewhat of a hobby for me. Its a fun form of self expression - just like choosing the clo

I came across an interesting idea recently while reading a book: Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. The book is about how we came to be from a biological and historical perspective. The part that interested me the most is the idea that the reason we have certain psychological yes psychological not physiological traits is because it has been evolutionarily selected from. We like sweets because in our hunter gatherer days it was useful to eat as many sweet things as possible because you could never be sure when the next meal could be and eating calorie rich foods were important to get early humans through harsher seasons where food was not abundant. We feel lonely because we have evolved to be social creatures. We seek members of the opposite gender (usually) because procreation has become enjoyable to ensure our evolutionary success. Individuals who enjoyed having sex were more likely to have offspring. We end up raising our offspring in familial groups because it was the m

I realize that I'm a lot harder on myself than I should be. I forgive other people easily, but I seem to have difficulty coming to terms with my own mistakes. It is almost as if I expect more from myself than I do from other people, which is a ridiculous double standard because I am just another person as well. Maybe this is because of how I was brought up. I'm supposed to be proper and "better than those other people". Maybe my folks had some sort of superiority complex or something. LOL! I guess when you learn your morals, its a sort of "copy paste" mechanism when you just adopt what your parents tell you without questioning them because questioning these age old morals would be "disrespectful". I think I was going through this phase of pushing the boundaries and had to find out my own reasons of why wrong was wrong instead of trusting with blind faith what I was brought up to believe. I'm not a goddess. I'm not supposed to be pe

I'm done dealing with hypotheticals, what should, could and would happen. It doesn't really matter because hypotheticals are not what I have to deal with on a day to day basis. I have to deal with reality. As sucky as I claim my life is, I'm sure I have  a lot of things to be grateful for. I can't help but feel down though. I don't quite understand what is going on within me. I feel like life isn't fair, but I've known that for the longest time. Logically, this melancholy doesn't make sense. I can do a few things to help myself. So here it is. For myself as well as all of you who may be feeling the same way. Long sunset/sunrise walks or bike rides Exercise Hanging out with friends Making new friends Hyper focusing on a project or projects Listening to music (not Grunge or Emo) Making music Playing games Cooking Learning something new Traveling I can't say I love my life right now, but there is a lot of potential there. I just have t

I feel like I want a fresh start, a clean slate. Each experience I have feels etched into my skin and I feel like as hard as I try to scrub it off, my skin is stained. Never to be clean again. I scrape against my skin leaving more marks than before. Uglier. I want a do over. I no longer want to be the person that I am. I feel dirty. I feel like I am worth less that I used to and that doesn't feel very good. Granted the vacation has renewed me to an extent. It has erased fatigue and awoken in me a desire to be somewhere else. It is silly to want escape. It is impractical, but I just don't want to be here right now. I don't want to be me anymore. There has to be more for me.

The only way I can describe how I feel right now is grief. It could be over the loss of a special familiarity with someone. Yes that person is still alive and around, available for you to talk to but things aren't the same. Conversations are the shadow of what they used to be. Initially its easy to pretend that things are going to be the same, but reality strikes when you realize that what is lost cannot be regained, that leaves you wanting for more. I feel this way about a lot of people. I feel grief over the people who are slowly losing function of their bodies. They are haunted by things they used to enjoy doing but now can only relive in their heads. Seeing people participate in the things he/she loves while feeling envious and nostalgic. Leaving them hoping for the discovery of a cure within their lifetimes. Life is cruel sometimes. It gives us something we don't know we wanted until it is taken away. I suppose we just take on the world with our new normal, and as

I've never been good with words, I always seem to have to rewrite things because things never come out quite right. You can't do that in a conversation and that's one reason phone calls are especially frightening. I'm not here to talk about phone calls though.   Firstly I want to say thank you to my friends who have constantly told me to say what I mean instead of alluding to it. Speaking about my thoughts has always been easier than speaking about emotions so as a rule, I try not to...because no one does.   No one ever speaks about how they feel, at least in this day and age. We're left guessing what the other person is thinking. Dating is terribly difficult because neither wants to be the loser - as if its some sort of macabre game with emotions and esteem at stake.   That said being able to express myself feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.I feel like I can breathe again. Its funny how small conversations can change perceptions. You

I cried in the shower today because of a little poem I read, right as I woke up. Its on @milliemoonhouse 's Instagram.  At first I didn't know why I was crying then I gave it some more thought. "I fall in love, I fall to my knees, I'll love you more if you catch me, I'll still love you more if you change your mind." I don't know who wrote it. Its like taking that leap of faith. Its about acknowledging that vulnerability and possibility that you won't stop loving that person even after your chance is through and he or she has changed his mind. The prospect is utterly sweet but immensely frightening. Maybe I'm projecting, but hey, the brain works in mysterious ways. It makes me sad. I see it as a tragedy of unrequited love coupled with the inability to move on beyond it, but of course, that is only if the poem's protagonist changes his/her mind. It is a completely different story if he/she doesn't. See how the little thi

Its easy for me to get carried away sometimes, I am after all a hopeless romantic. Sometimes I fall into the trap of thinking that maybe, there is a chance that there is more than hedonism involved. I get carried away into thinking that I have managed to do more than hijack the pleasure systems in my brain and I am not just a mindless mouse pressing the pleasure button over and over again leading to my ultimate and eventual self destruction. A mouse may ignore food. My self esteem erodes away if I don't get the high I am used to - as the feedback loop breaks down. I hate that idea, but sometimes the highs and lows that come with talking to someone makes me feel that way. Inattention produces a low. Reciprocation produces a high. Maybe I am just a mouse. Maybe not. Is there anything wrong with being a mouse? I guess that depends in where you are in your life. I recently reread my open letter " Dear My Blank " and maybe being a mouse isn't such a good idea at the

My aunt recently sent me this picture. Look at me and how cute I was! For all of you who can't guess which one I am, I'm the child on the left. See when I look at this picture, it doesn't just remind me of that day, it reminds me of my childhood and how unusual it was. If you look closely, the beads on my dress are slightly different from my cousin's. It was made in a rush, later than the others' because I had flown back from somewhere to attend the wedding. My childhood was unusual because in my formative years (3-8) I was constantly being shipped between my grand aunt and my parents and for years after, I would spend my time studying in HK/Singapore and "playing" in the Philippines. Any vacation time I had, I would spend in the motherland. As a result, I never really made many local friends. As a child I longed for stability. I hated going back and forth and living my life with one foot in either country. I had no friends back in the Philippines 

Now this post may be a bit overdue but recent events have come to light that reminded me that we still have a ways to go as women. It was International Woman's Day and here's what I have to say: Women are objectified, and yes so are men. Is there something wrong with that? I don't think there is if the individual does it voluntarily. Showing one's body parts should not be seen as a demeaning thing. It is empowering to own your sex appeal. The same is true should you send nudes or what have you to a partner, where a significant level of privacy is expected. There has been a recent scandal involving the distribution of revenge porn on a US Navy Facebook group. See, THAT is not right. THAT is a violation of trust and that is the deliberate breach of someone else's privacy to humiliate someone. These men victimise these women by sharing and distributing their nudes. This makes me angry. Just because you end a relationship with someone, it doesn't mean that that

   I may not know exactly where I'm going, but I know where I've been. I met with my university classmate and his wife on Tuesday for dinner and the conversation reminded me how much I loved what I was studying. We talked about how outdated the things we had learnt in school had been and about the many avenues for research that had yet to be explored. It was awesome. Despite the 2 years of relative brain inactivity, I was surprised to know that I could still participate in the debate. "I still got it," I thought, and I wanted then and there to join in on his cause, even as a lackey lab rat just puttering on towards an eventual discovery. It awakened a hunger I had not experienced for 2 years. I envied how passionate he was and remembered a time when I too would dream of seeing my scientific cause fulfilled. I feel like I am yet again at a crossroads. The big 30 is approaching and there are many things I have yet to fulfil, and these are things I have been

I ran away to Penang on my birthday and it was just what I needed.   I met new people. Lots of backpackers who made me rethink how I should live my life. Many of them had quit their jobs to travel the world. Some worked side jobs as bartenders or at their hostels for free lodging. It opened my eyes to the possibilities. Life doesn't always have to me some member of an institution. I'm not saying that lifestyle is for me, especially not now, but I admire the bravery it took to drop the norm and just succumb to experiencing various cultures with a wealth of experience to gain.   You can have your cake and eat it too, otherwise what was the point?   Needless to say, if you follow me on social media, you would know that I had a blast.   It was refreashing and in stark contrast to my day to day life in the bowels of this institution. I met challenges in the form of a gruelling hike in Doc Martens and met relief when taken on a scenic boat ride to the pristine beache

In Greek mythology, people had double of everything. 4 hands, 4 legs, 2 faces, but Zeus was afraid of our coming into power so he split us in two, thus condemning us to a lifetime in search of our other half. The intimacy I crave cannot be fulfilled solely by passionate and tender intertwinings between the sheets.   I want a partner in every sense of the word, someone with whom I can share more than every inch of my flesh, but also the deepest innermost workings of my mind without fear of judgment or persecution. I want him to be able to do the same. I thirst for someone to bounce ideas off of, to help me understand the world better or at least how to make the most of it, someone with the same hungers and dreams, someone who feeds my soul. I'm supposed to get my ass out there to look for him or maybe even a her, but I can't bear it, at least not yet. So instead, here I sit in the isolation of my mind. Sometimes its peaceful and content, sometimes the other half is aching to

For my birthday, I want to have enough dough to go back to school. A friend told me that I should get a gofundme page to help fund University. I find this idea unsettling. I don't feel comfortable letting people invest in me. Perhaps its a self esteem thing. If I get funded by other people, I'm going to be held accountable for my grades and I'll disappoint a boat load of people if I fail. Secondly asking for money feels wrong because I am able-bodied and capable of earning it myself. (At least that's what I tell myself) There's a whole lot of people needing charity more that I am. Asking for money means I have given up on trying to obtain it myself. I refuse to admit defeat. I think I can do it myself. My aunt offered to lend me money to finish school too, but I couldn't take it from her. She already does a lot to help out my folks and taking any form of loan doesn't sit well with me. We already owe her so much and I don't want to burden her furth

Life isn't a puzzle or an exam question that requires solving. Granted there are bits of it that require pure logic but most of the time, our lives consists of stories we tell ourselves. Sometimes when it comes to interpersonal relationships, I fall into the trap of thinking that there was one thing... a single point in it in which the fracture originates. Life isn't an impact analysis of failure points upon failure points. Looking back on things and breaking them apart just to look through each of thr pieces again doesn't make you less prone to doing it again. It just hurts more as you relive each moment in painstaking detail searching for the one moment when it all went wrong.  With people, its never just one thing though. Its the amulgamation of many things. So stop reliving the bad, the good and the ugly. Just take new things as they are, bright and shiny - and something to learn from. Coming from me... man. This is a big deal. I always break things down. I am done