rapture

for alien


Mesmerising, liberating, emotional, unbelievably satisfying.......that's what the art of dance means to me. I did ballet for 9 years before and those 2 hour classes twice a week were amazing breaks from the hum drum of my daily existence.
You went to the class, did the plies, did the pa da chats,tried to do splits(operative word here being tried!!!).....got told off by the archetypal perfectionist ballet teacher for not holding your head up, or not turning out your feet as a ballerina should.....and worst of all, for forgetting the routines..........SACRILEGE!!!!
Nevertheless, it was alllllllllllllllllllll worth it!
Whether your dancing the Swan Lake, or trying to do the Moon Walk.......dance in my opinion can be one of the most fulfilling and beautiful ways of self expression.
You could be dancing in the street or against an opulent backdrop on a larger than life stage, but that does not diminish the aesthetic value of this art form.
Even a fight can be perceived as a type of dance.....one that is spontaneously being choreographed second by second.
Haha! Confucius once said "Never give a sword to man who can't dance" .........now whether he meant that literally or not , I don't know,but if you think about it, even a sword fight is a dance in its own right. ....one with a rather fatal end.

With that said, even life is a dance....well it can be if you want it to be.
A beautiful, intoxicating, passionate waltz....tango.... samba....ballet...whatever rocks your boat. Live in the now and embrace all of IT......... enjoy this dance while the music is still playing.
For so many of us, the music fades out too early and that's when life turns clockwork.

So yeah, free your minds and let loose!
Dance like no one's watching.
Dance like a whirling dervish.
Doesn't matter if you can't dance....no one give's a rat's ass.
Just get up and shake that ass!

how about you

I like New York in June.
How about you?
I like a Gershwin tune.
How about you?
I love a fireside
When a storm is due.
I like potato chips,moonlight and motor trips.
How about you?
I'm mad about good books,
Can't get my fill,
And Franklin Roosevelt's looks
Give me a thrill.
I like banana splits, late suppers at the Ritz
How about you?
I'd love to dream of fame, maybe I'll shine.
I'd love to see your name right beside mine.
I can see that we're meant to be,
Looks like we both agree on what to do.......
And I like it, how about you?

(from The Babes of Broadway soundtrack)

my blessings

for Dr. P and Dr. H Louis


Just because I don't say much,
Doesn't mean that I don't care.
Just because I am just as such,
Don't think that I am not aware.

You were there when I was a born,
Through my childhood and when I was a teenage drama queen.
You are always there,when everyone is gone,
You shower love and support, you make my life serene.

You are kind and patient, generous and limitless,
Subtle and quiet are your ways.
Your hearts and souls reflect a grace that's ageless.
You will be my pillar of strength,now and always.

It is only because of you that I shine.
I love you with all of my heart, it's about time I start confessing.
You are the unsung heroes of this life of mine.
YOU ARE MY PARENTS, YOU ARE MY BLESSINGS!

blueprints

They say everything happens for a reason. All events that occur throughout our existence continually shape the lives we lead and the people we become.
I am Karen, you are you.....but I think that everyday there is this portion of us, however miniscule it may be, that morphs.Just like how you can never stand in the same river twice, our souls and minds are in a constant state of flux. When things go awry, people tend to reassure themselves or others that it is all for the good, that what's meant to happen will happen and it is only in hindsight that we will see the significance of such events and how they made us the people we are today....whether they be great, ground-breaking, jaw dropping happenings or the most trivial of occurences.
How true is this ??? Are our lives already predetermined? Are our lives an illustration of The Butterfly Effect,whereby the cumulative effect of one event sets of a chain reaction of subsequent happenings, some of which might only be appreciated decades later. I do believe in fate to a certain extent.... when it comes to matters of love and the mystical aspects of life, yeah sure. But I would like to believe that we do have some control over our lives and that it is not all a causal nexus. Then again is what we chose to do and what happens to us already written in the drifting landscape of stars....so us being 'in control' of our lives is in actual fact us just retracing the blueprints of our lives. ( Does that make any sense??)
Here's another thought- maybe we hold fate and the whole 'what must happen will happen' idea responsible for things that are unfathomable and beyond our comprehension. We fear that which we cannot understand and it is the only way of coming to terms with the various phenomena that colour our lives ...especially those tear jerking, heart wrenching, "Why did this happen to me?" moments.
That is the only way we find acceptance...the only way we can move on.
On the whole, I think we are master of our own lives, with God's blessing of course. Nevertheless, there is an element of fate to our earthly existence.....life wouldn't be half the challenge without it.

....and all that jazz

The dawn of summer is welcomed with open arms and celebrated with music festivals of every genre. Yes, its that time of the year where all the across the globe, gigs and concerts are in abundance. Here in Glasgow, the annual jazz festival is currently undeway and I've been a faithfull member of the audience at quite a few events.
So far, the best gig I've been to was The Kyle Eastwood Band. Yes, he would be the son of one legendary Clint Eastwood.
Well, to succintly put it.........BLOODY BRILLIANT !!
It was a 5 piece jazz ensemble, with the saxophone, trumpet, grand piano, drums and Mr. Eastwood on the bass. A small cozy perfomance, it just blew the crowd away. Each individual was just gas like. In a industry where everyone is just that good, how do they define themselves from the rest? That's what I wondering. How do you become the best bassist of your time...the best trumpeteer.... ?? Chris Botti, Charles Mingus, Marcus Milner,Jaco Pastorius.....legends I tell you. ....I'm sure you have others to boost this list Wei Jin....;)
Anyway, it was a good evening, and as for Kyle, well he is a splitting image of his father. There was a sweet shyness to him when he was meeting with us after the gig. Strong,silent and simple. When he plays the double bass, his fingers seem to be engaged in this intricately choreographed dance. Beautiful...absolutely beautiful.
Jazz music has the ability to represent so many things all at once....love, romance, anger, enigma, confusion, bliss,simplicity.... all these can be heard and felt within one composition. Its a pity that some people try and analyze jazz and conform it to an intellectual body of material. Its not an exact science...its a feeling.
Whenever I listen to jazz, the word free springs to mind. The freedom of winds can be felt if you listen hard and listen good.
I love this quote Herbie Hancock said once..said so well...
"Life is not about finding our limitations,its about finding our infinity"

rite whussians

Recently I celebrated a friend's 24th birthday. His one birthday wish was that he not be able to walk back to the halls in a straight line. Needless to say, he achieved 'nirvana'....and boy oh boy did he put up a show.
It is quite entertaining to observe the varied, colourful manifestations of drunkenness.
You have the infamous drunken speeches. This is when those who are completely shit faced start spewing crap like how 'you're are the light of the world' and 'you're heaven and earth and all things in between'. Hahaha... I've been audience to some pretty memorable speeches. A dear dear friend of mine is a natural when it comes to alcoholic elocution. (Fatso, this post is in memory of you;) )
Then of course, you have the drama queens and suicide kings.
Drama queens tend to start wallowing in shit (not literally)....past shit happened, present shit happening and .... they anticipate future shit to come. Its a complete productionas they launch into bitter diatribes about life and the world as the mascara drizzles down their faces.
The suicide kings are those inebriated jacks who get into fights with anything and everything. J.Daniels and Jim Bean lead them to gross delusions about being macho and the alpha male, further fuelling their already colossal ego.
Testosterone and ethanol......LETHAL COMBINATION!!!!
One of my friends here tends to get his words mixed up when he gets tipsy. He swaps the syllables of words for each other....absolutely hilarious when you are trying to eat dinner with spork and foons, or cuss the batch home. Hahah... priceless... (hence the title of the post)
Its not all masculine pyrotechnics and damsels in distress.You have that spectrum of people who get drunk and then dissapear within themselves. They become eerily quiet.......and slip into an alcohol induced catatonia.
It has to be said that all those legendary arguments/conversations about life,religion, politics, love,science, art, philosophy tend to be hot favourites over wine. Suddenly, everyone's Mahatma Gandhi..Socrates.... Jesus....Einstein......!!!
So there... if you're wondering whether there' a point to all this ...there is none!
I wrote this just because.

intermission

Didn't feel like writing anything really...... instead these are some legendary lines/verses from some of my favourite songs.......



All things must pass. None of life's strings can last.So I must be on my way,and face another day.
-all things must pass; the beatles-

Maybe redemption has stories to tell.
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell.
Where can you run to escape from yourself?Where are you gonna go?
Salvation is here.
-dare you to move-

Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place.
Suddenly it moves with such a perfect grace.
And there's no mountain too high,no river too wide.
Storm clouds may gather,and storms may collide
But I love you until the end of time.
-come what may;moulin rouge soundtrack-

Ave Maria.
Gratia Plena.
Ave ave dominus.
Dominus tecum.
-ave maria; johann sebastian bach-

'Cause nothin' lasts forever
And we both know hearts can change
And it's hard to hold a candle
In the cold November rain
-november rain;guns & roses-

We're born to shimmer
We're born to shine
We're born to radiate
We're born to live
We're born to love
We're born to never hate.
-shimmer; shawn mullins-

There are promises broken and promises kept.Angry words that were spoken, when I should have wept. There's a chapter of secrets, and words to confess.
There's a chapter on loss and a ghost who won't die.
There's a chapter on love where the ink's never dry.
Though the pages are numbered I can't see where they lead,
for the end is a mystery no-one can read
In the book of my life.
-the book of my life; sting-

the wonder of you

Doesn't concern me if you were black, brown, or white,
You are strong and full of might.
You give me wings, you give me drive,
I can't live without you, I would never survive.

Sometimes you're cold, sometimes you're hot.
Sometimes you're smooth, sometimes you're not.
I love your scent that wafts through the air,
I succumb to your charm, completely unaware.

We've had good times I have to boast,
You, me and cinnamon toast.
Together we'll be eternally,
My high will be constant and not diurnally.

This is my ode to you dear friend.
I don't think anyone else will comprehend.
COFFEE, oh COFFEE, this one's for you,
COFFEE, oh COFFEE, you rock through and through.

love;fact or fiction

I've been dodging creating a post about love, just because I think the topic has been exhaustively discussed since the beginning of time...but all the same I couldn't help myself and here I am.
You can talk about love till you're blue in the face but still, when the time comes, and you fall in love, it won't be anything like what you imagined and idealized it to be.
And the more you try to rationalize the feeling, the more you diminish its value.
Everyone has their own notion of what love and don't worry, I'm not about to bore you with mine. As the title says, what I would like to know if whether everlasting, true love does exist, especially these days when flippancy has infiltrated our lives like a cancer.
I think that most of the time the driving force behind people coupling up is fear.
Fear of ending up alone at the end of your life and feeling like you weren't worth shit.
Fear that you won't be able to fill that big black hole within. That emptiness can only be filled by you and you alone. I think when we expect relationships to bring a sense of completeness and it fails to do so then, we assume that the 'so called love' has dissipated and the relationship has nothing to offer you....and BANG.....another colossal breakup to add to the repertoire.

Is love real? Or is it a form of escapism? We're afraid of being left to our own devices so we lose ourselves in someone else.

Is love real or do we just delude ourselves into thinking that we are truly, madly, deeply in love so that we wouldn't have to feel so small and insignificant?

For me, love can only be true if there are no expectations and no conditions. No ulterior motives. Only then can it be real....otherwise its all just one big bloody masquerade.

postscript: to all the couples, don't mean to rain on your parade or diminish the beauty of what you've got.

if

If I met God, I’d ask Him why he created man.
What was the reason He created this world, only to have it eventually come to an end?
Will there be another creation after this world, as we know it ceases to breathe?
If I met God, I’d want Him to give me an insight into infinity…..what would it be like to free-fall through a bottomless pit till kingdom come??
I’d ask God to explain (that’s too earthly a word) His existence….where did He come from….
how is it that He just exists? Can something come from nothing? Will we gain enlightenment upon entering the gates of heaven ….or will it always remain a beautiful mystery?
A friend of mine sent me a quote once that went
“ Try and understand God and you lose your mind, Try and deny God and you lose your soul”

If I met God, I’d want to know if He foresaw all that was to happen here on the earth in the centuries passed and knows that which is yet to come. I’m guessing the answer to that is YES…duh!!! But then why create if He knew that we were going to be such self-destructive offspring. Why do we live and make choices, right and wrong ….and then die. Will we have any recollection of our life on earth… will we remember that ‘I was the best student in my class’, ‘I was the richest man in the world.’, ‘I was a child starving on the streets of Calcutta.’???
Will it be a tangible memory or just a dream like feeling?

If I met God I’d thank Him for my family.
Two amazing parents whose blood, sweat and love are putting me through medical school.
Two beautiful people who are my best friends. It is only because of them that I AM!
A brother who is wise beyond his age, kind in his ways and is such a trip to talkto.

If I met God, I’d say thank you……. for the charmed life that I lead. It’s not glamorous, its not of any paparazzi value…. Its simple and ordinary, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

18+

Remember the weird and wonderful people I briefly mentioned earlier yeah well this blog was inspired by them. I stumbled upon this whole section on fetishism in the encyclopedia....what?? I was guided by a force much stronger,I didn't have a choice. Anyways, I digress....... Back to the matter at hand.....Sexual fetishism was first described by the legendary Sigmund Freud (the man who brought us the Elektra Complex and Oedipus Complex) as a form of paraphilia where the object of affection is an inanimate object or a part of a person's body. Fetishism however existed even in ancient times..... just that there wasn't a defining word for it. Yeah so anyway,as I read on, I was horrified at the list of various fetishes that were documented. Here some of the more bizarre,whacked ones.

1) AMPUTEE FETISHISM
This fetish is focused on amputations, generally of the limbs.There are 2 subtypes a) the desire for one's partner to be an amputee (acrotomophile) b) the desire to be an amputee themselves(apotemnophilia)......Fancy words for SICK!!!!!

2) DIAPER FETISHISM
This is term coined for someone who feels the intense desire to wear diapers eventhough they do not physiologically need it. This obviously stems from a childhood problem and according to what I read, most diaper lovers are male.

3)HARPAXOPHILIA
This is an 'interesting one'....... the person is aroused by being a victim of a robbery or buglary. Bloody hell....these people are either disgustingly rich or just desperate. So how does it work exactly... do you post an ad in the Classifieds 'Wanted. Tall. Blonde.Blue eyes. Good physique. Most importantly, must be able to burgle my house to the best of his abilities.'

Yeah,so these are just a few of the types of fetishes that I read about ......there is like a whole list of these.... if anything it makes for an interesting read.....and for those spelling bee buffs... its definitely a way of learning new,long, multisyllable words.

involuntary opening of the mouth

This post is a hideous result of too much time on my hands

I went looking on the internet as to why we yawn, the mechanics that are involved in yawning and all things like. My quest turned up no substanstial answers.
No one really knows why we yawn.For a brief time,scientists believed that we did so when there was too much carbon dioxide and not enough oxygen in our blood. Part of our brain realized this and triggered the involuntary act. As our mouths stretch we inhale deeply, sending a shot of oxygen to the lungs and into the bloodstream. That theory went out the window because nobody could prove it.
Sneezing,coughing,vomitting,burping,farting...all these phenomena( if you can call them that) have a scientific justification.The secret of a yawn however is yet to be unlocked.


What is the function of yawning? Adelie penguins actually yawn as part of their wooing ritual. Penguin couples face each other and the males stand with their beaks wide open and face towards the sky. Nooooo, I'm not insinuating that yawning might be instrumental in the forces of attraction between two people. A big gaping mouth in your face and what with bad breath and all....urghhhh! Then again with the 6 bilion weird and wonderful people that populate this earth, I wouldn't be surprised if one did come up with something along the lines of like
" I loved the way she yawned.....that's what drew me to her...it was like a song"....or some cheesy shit like that...I don't know!!!! (GEMMA,ARE YOU CRINGING IN DISGUST YET???)

Also, why is yawning contagious? I'm sure you've noticed that when the person next to you yawns, you inevitably follow suit.
You yawn,I yawn, We all yawn for......well we just YAWNNNNNNNNNNNNN.

YOU'RE yawning just reading this aren't you...heheh.... maybe out of boredom and possibly wondering whether this girl is on something.....or perhaps its the power of suggestion?!
So I'll put a cork in it already.....

I apologize for the trauma inflicted on those who sat through this.

the den of lions

Today as part of my Special Studies Module in Clinical Neurology, I had to attend a Neurology Department meeting. This takes place everyday Wednesday afternoon, whereby junior doctors training in this branch of medicine have to present a patient case to the senior- I’m going to make you regret the day you decided to study medicine- consultants. So the Junior House Officer (JHO) presented the case as eloquently as possible, trying desperately to mask the nervousness that was brewing deep within.
At the end, there were several questions posed by the consultants, actually it was more like a firing squad and the JHO was target practise. In their archetypal contultants' pose (i.e. clad in high power suits, arms folded and head tilted down at an angle that gives off the optical illusion that they’re all the way ‘up there’ looking down at we who have not yet reached the heights of their glory…yeah) they sit and listen to the JHO’s answers and subsequently they reciprocate with appropriate responses i.e. nodding, a lot of ‘hmmmm’s, small chuckles bordering on sarcastic scoffs, and they might throw in a sigh or two …you know for variation .
I guess its part of the job description.
In 2+ years time, it’s going to be me in that den of lions. As I am plagued by terminal stage fright, my public performances were rather short-lived, and I shudder at the thought of having to stand up in front of all these Grand Lords of the medical profession. My puny excuse for medical knowledge will make for an interesting expose and the only question they’ll be wanting an answer to is “How the dickens did you manage to get this far?”
(complete with the 'Oxfordian' diction and all)
Hahaha, truth be told, that is something that mystifies me to this day.
So yeah besides the fact that there will be an inevitable face-off with the powers that be in the not so distant future, life’s grand and I’m loving every minute of being a medical student,affectionately known to senior staff as Space Occupying Lesions.