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My subconscious tore me to pieces.

Ariadne: Why is it so important to dream?
Cobb: Because, in my dreams we are together.

Cobb: Dreams feel real while we’re in them. It’s only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange.

Cobb: I miss you more than I can bear, but we had our time together. I have to let you go.

Mal: Do you know what it is to be a lover? Half of a whole?

Mal: You keep telling yourself what you know. But what do you believe? What do you feel?

Arthur: With the slightest disturbance, the dream’s going to collapse.

Cobb: Look at you. You’re just a shade, a shade of my real wife. How could I capture all your beauty, your complexity, your perfection, your imperfection, in a dream? Yes, you’re the best that I can do. But, I’m sorry, you’re just not good enough.

Cobb: She locked away a secret, deep inside herself, something she once knew to be true… but chose to forget.

Cobb: The moment’s passed. Whatever I do I can’t change this moment. I’m about to call out to them. They run away. If I’m ever going to see their faces I’ve gotta get back home. The real world.

Some lines from the movie really strikes a chord in me, just sharing with a slight re-arrangement to match how I actually feel or hear from the whole story. Guess I could relate to it in a different aspect and in general, life.

People dream of happiness, to know how it feels like to be in love, to be in control of something that makes them happy in life. Yet not many people know the true meaning behind a relationship and how little things can affect the feelings between 2 people. Sometimes people hold on, for different reasons – mainly because they knew what they had before and believe that things will change for the better. However, when this dream collapses, you wake up to reality that is harsh and you realize that you have been obsessed with your own dream and never realizing that the moment has long gone – nothing is going to change. You come back to the real world eventually because you choose to lock yourself away and try to forget, be it returning with regrets, hatred, remorse or simple happiness that you once remembered from these memories.

On a side note, Leonardo DiCaprio definitely has a home run with Inception. Ellen Page is as usual, just an eyecandy with the average sidekick acting skills, along with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. But best film I’ve watched so far this year. Christopher Nolan, impressive !

Tags: ariadne, arthur, christopher nolan, cobb, dream, ellen page, eyecandy, film of the year, happiness, homerun, inception, joseph gordon-levitt, leonardo dicaprio, Love, mal, reality, relationship, sidekick

“Does it matter?”

Elena: “Things are different this year. Everything that used to matter doesn’t anymore.”
Damon: “So don’t let it. Quit, move on. Problem solved. Ta-da.”
Elena: “Some things could matter again.”
Damon: “Maybe. But… seems a little unrealistic to me.”

I recently discovered this yet another vampire series (slow, I know) called ‘The Vampire Diaries’. Hate to say this but it’s equally ‘trashy’ as Twilight is to me. The only thing I like about the show is Nina Dobrev whom I think is pretty and Paul Wesley with his really gorgeous eyes. Oh, the soundtrack isn’t too bad either. Will watch a few more episodes before I decide if I like it or not.

In this scene, Elena was talking about how she is tired of cheerleading and suddenly things that used to matter doesn’t really matter anymore. However, we see that a part of her is still holding on with the belief that perhaps it could matter again. Damon (Ian Somerhalder), as Stefan’s (Paul Wesley) elder brother, was convincing her to quit cheerleading and move on as he sees that she is not longer passionate in it and it is unrealistic to hold on.

Sometimes there are moments in life where we keep that thought of ‘ Hey, perhaps I should still hold on because I think things might change.’ or ‘Perhaps one day it’ll matter to me again, it was important afterall.’ I guess as much as we ought to be sentimental or giving ourselves second chances – sometimes it’s better to let go and move on, especially when nothing really matters anymore.

Tags: damon, elena, friday night bites, Ian Somerhalder, Nina Dobrev, Paul Wesley, season 1, stefan, the vampire diaries, twilight

‘He’s Right.’

Bizarro: You spent the last month telling me that you finally felt like we were meant to be together.
Clark: Don’t listen to him, Lana.
Bizarro: I know what’s in his mind, Lana. He doesn’t love you like I do.
Clark: That’s a lie!
Bizarro: You’re lying, Clark – to yourself! You’re so worried about doing the right thing, you don’t even see it.
Bizarro: [to Lana] You know he won’t commit his life to you like I will. You know that.
Lana: He’s right, Clark.
Clark: What?
Lana: I’ve never been more in love than I have the past month. Only it wasn’t with you. It was with him.
Bizarro: [extends his hand to Lana] Nothing will ever come between us again.

Was watching Smallville (kinda watch some episodes here and there, on and off basis) Season 7 Ep10 ‘Persona’ whereby Bizarro was playing the role of ‘nice Clark’ to Lana who was obviously unaware and smitten. Honestly, as much as I like the idea of Lana and Clark being together, I do think Clark treats her like crap sometimes. The way he ‘protects’ her is not what I see as love but created more misunderstandings as well as problems between them. If he has been honest with her right from the start, well..I guess there won’t be so many seasons ? (haha)

I think it is rather sad for Lana to come to realise how happy and in love she was for the past month with the man she thought has changed to someone who is completely new in her life. (Obviously she chose the right guy, else there won’t be any seasons after season 7 here!) But I guess in reality, there are times whereby you wake up to reality and see the differences – be it in a relationship or friendship. Whatever you were happy with, may not be entirely true or sometimes, it may revert back to how it has been (we see at the end of the episode, the relationship between Clark and Lana worsens)

So why didn’t Lana choose Bizarro instead of Clark ? Is it out of love for Clark or was it just morally right ? (since in the show, Bizarro is the ‘bad guy’ )  Why be in love with a guy who can’t commit to you or love you as much as you see as how it’s ‘meant to be’ ?

Tags: bizarro, clark kent, lana lang, Love, persona, relationship, season 7, smallville

‘Rough Patch’ vs ‘Relationship Chicken’

Marshall: If they can’t stand each other, why don’t they end it?
Ted: Neither one wants to be first. They’re playing relationship chicken.

Disclaimer : I really love HIMYM and I am actually re-watching episodes from  the 5 seasons when I have the time to, so bear with my random quotes/reviews of the episodes.

I think in ‘How I Met Your Mother” season 5, Barney and Robin’s relationship was mainly to  satirize everything couples  go through – from the mushy stage to hating each other’s guts.  The episode mentioned the term  ”relationship chicken”  which refers to the situation when neither person wants to admit the relationship isn’t working out.  On the other hand, Lily pointed out that all couples go through the ‘rough patch’ – getting used to each other and understanding each other better.

So when do you know you’re being ‘relationship chicken(s)’ or just going through a ‘rough patch’ in a relationship ? If there are times when you feel unhappy about everything – but that not exactly bad enough to kill the relationship – are you just undergoing this so-called rough patch?  Or are you playing the ‘relationship chicken’ by refusing to see the depth of the problems and brushing it off as it is probably just the usual lows that couples go through and that you should be working out over? When do you know you should hold on to that faith in the relationship ?

Sometimes you have 3rd parties who comment (be it knowing the details, or not) and you stop to ponder if they have a ‘clearer view’ over the situation than the deluded self you’re being. In chinese, there’s a saying that goes ‘當局者迷，旁觀者清’ which roughly means ‘the onlooker sees more of the game’. However, I think it is really up to the two parties involved to actually see for themselves for what they truly are. Like Barney and Robin, both of them were starting to lose themselves and you could tell that they were unhappy – even if they seem to be happy in each other’s companionship. They were better off as friends – and the breakup ? We know that it was not the end but just returning back to how it has always been for them – friends.

Would that be possible to happen in reality ? Does it really means happiness when Barney returned to say ‘Daddy’s home.’ ? (Of course in later episodes, we see that Barney isn’t entirely truly happy after returning to his old single self.)  It’s really kind of hard to tell isn’t it ?

Tags: Barney, daddy's home, HIMYM, How I Met Your Mother, lily, marshall, relationship, relationship chicken, Robin, ted, the rough patch, 當局者迷，旁觀者清

Love Yourself.

Future Ted : Kids, there are two basic philosophies of how to handle yourself after a breakup. Some people throw themselves into..

Robin : My career. That’s my number one focus right now. From now on, no more dating, it’s all about work.

Future Ted : .. while others throw themselves into..

Barney : Every woman in New York City ! That’s right, Barney Stinson is back on the market ! Mothers, lock up your daughters.. Daughters, lock up your MILSWANCAs !

- How I Met Your Mother “The Playbook” (S5E08) *awesome episode by the way*

Very much like Robin, I have been throwing myself into my summer part time job and planning for the upcoming term. Number one focus is to get my life back together, find and love myself again before I learn to love another. Cliche as it sounds but I think it’s the better than the latter option because 98% of the time, you end up hurting someone new because it ends up like a rebound or you don’t learn from your previous relationship mistakes but rush into someone new and continue to make the same mistakes over and over again.

“Don’t rush into any kind of relationship. Work on yourself. Feel yourself, experience yourself and love yourself. Do this first and you will soon attract that special loving other.” – Russ Von Hoelscher

Some people think that it is a good way to move on when you find someone new, in fact, I had friends offering to ‘matchmake’ or introduce guys to me (which I’ve all kindly refused).  During one of the conversations, my friend asked “So what kind of guy do you like ? Can’t really tell your ‘pattern’ apart from the fact that you always end up with ‘hot tempered/emo people’… ” (in which I laughed out loud because come to think about it, it’s quite true..hur) So she suggested that I should write a letter/blog post to remind/prevent myself from making the same ‘mistakes’ – like how Ted would write to Future Ted after each breakup…just that this will be a summary of all the past relationships (haha)

So Dear Future Ingrid,

Remember this : “When you struggle with your partner, you are struggling with yourself. Every fault you see in them touches a denied weakness in yourself. “- Deepak Chopra

If you start to feel that your partner is having expectations of you, that’s because you feel that you’re not good enough. Instead of complaining or finding faults in the other person, remember a relationship is not just something to ‘take’ from but to ‘give’ as well. If you feel that you can’t meet the ‘expectations’, don’t be afraid to voice it out and find other ways to fill that ‘gap’.  Trust is the main key to effective communication and foundation to hold any relationships.  It can’t be found in words but through actions. People will find out the truth no matter how hard you try to hide it so don’t bother telling lies or covering up. To love is to risk not to be loved in return. When you love someone, it may not mean that you have to be with that somebody. Find someone who shares the same mindset/beliefs/values. Love doesn’t count on the laughter that you shared but on the pain and tears you tried to get over with just for the sake of holding on. To understand is to listen, not what your partner says but what he/she does not say.

Actually, enough of all these nonsense. Just be yourself and love yourself. Like what Ted Mosby said :

“Kids, you may think your only choices are to swallow your anger,or throw it in someone’s face.there is a third option you can just let it go, and only when you do that is it really gone,and you can move forward.
And that, kids, was the perfect ending to a perfect love story. It just wasn’t mine.

Mine was still out there waiting for me.”

God has his plans for you. =)

So…Thank You(s) for the calls, the SMSes, the DMs, the tweets/plurks, the msn conversations, the talks, the meetups with attempts to make me feel better lately. I am truly blessed with wonderful friends around me and I really appreciate all the effort ! Sorry to cause all the worries but like the following quote :

“But in the end, the most important thing to accept is that no matter how alone you feel, how painful it may be, with the help of those around you, you’ll get through this too.” – Scrubs

Just give me the space and time too eh ? Thank You once again =)

Tags: Barney, breakup, effective communication, expectations, future ted, How I Met Your Mother, listen, Love, love yourself, perfect ending, perfect love story, quotes, relationship, Robin, russ von hoelscher, scrubs, ted mosby, the playbook, trust

Moving On – Easier Said Than Done ?

Life can still change with the blink of an eye, so does relationships with others.  Sometimes when a relationship has been damaged, we learn to deal with them and move on. “Time will heal” they say, but how ?  After a term of reading about relationships (one of my module in school talks about such things) and personal experiences, here’s 5 tips that I gathered :

1. It takes time to repair a damaged relationship. You will experience resistance initially but you have to commit yourself to doing what it takes to get the relationship back on track.

2. Share your feelings, listen to each other’s concerns. Sometimes what we end up saying might just be plain outrageous and hurtful – sometimes we don’t even recall saying/doing whatever that was shared. It is hard not to get defensive but resist the urge to act on these feelings and be patient with each other.

3. Apologize and seek for forgiveness, even if you don’t feel like it’s your fault. It removes the barriers between each other and it is important to spend time together and talk about various issues that might affect your future relationship with the person.

4. Don’t let pride get in your way. There’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in a relationship, if you start to justify your actions (which is most likely to happen) – stop and listen.

5. Make a sincere effort to get back on your feet, on your own. If you’re strong enough to face yourself, you can face anything in life =)

Relationships with people are a funny complicated matter, in which I think we all go alil mad sometimes. It’s definitely easier said than done to repair a relationship and there are tons of books out there which act as  ’guidebooks’ in a way or another. Who should we listen to ? What’s the right step ?

I guess I chose to observe and learn from my own past experiences – follow your heart.

Tags: apologize, damaged, feelings, guide, life, moving on, pride, relationship, resistance, tips

Lack of Update(s)

Enjoying my pretty much ‘disconnected’ summer so far.

Quick movie reviews :

Kickass - Hitgirl is the new hero in town ! I’ll give it 3.5 popcorn for its awesome 2D animation and cute girls.

Iron Man 2 – Must watch movie of the year for me. 4.5 popcorn for this totally awesome sexy film.

Other  Updates :

- Loved the Whisper ‘Happy It’s Here’ cupcake decorating workshop where I got to play around with the icing and decorated my own cupcakes ! Wish I can do it everyday (without the baking and cleaning up the mess of course)

- Visited Marina Bay Sands and thought…well, certainly living up to its name..sand kept blowing into my eyes due to the construction sites. 100 bucks just to enter the casino is madness but I saw a crowd, guess money is not exactly a stopper but main motivation to even gamble more huh ?

- Currently helping out in school (SMU) as events associate.  Having fun and keeping myself busy so far.

And that’s not an excuse for the lack of updates but do let me catch up with my ‘real’ life before I return to the virtual world once again.

Goodbye April, Hello May !

If I were a Swede…

Food for Thought : If you were a Swede living in China and looking at the countries around you, how would you communicate across national, cultural, linguistic and technological boundaries?

Looking at this question from a personal perspective, as a ‘partial-foreigner’ myself in Singapore (I came over in primary 2), I understand the pain that one has to deal with when it comes to a new environment. To put it simply, let’s break them down into 3 main challenges.

Speak thy language

Interestingly, the very first obstacle that comes to everyone’s minds is probably the language factor – which I won’t deny that it’s going to be a huge issue if you can’t even utilize the language that the country you’re residing is using. However, I believe that language can be easily picked up and with the help of technology and tools such as NJStar CJK Viewer and Firefox plugins that makes things easier.

Power of Weak Ties

We’re lucky that Singapore is a country that supports multiculturalism. China is known for its strong nationalism which unified the people and its culture. It is important to understand one’s culture, be it via blogs that fellow foreigners living in China share or researching via travelling sites from a tourist’s point of view or even finding fellow Swedes in China via social networking sites. Do your homework ! At the same time, it is important to keep an open mind to other’s opinions as it may differ from your own experience. Embrace and respect one’s culture and you’ll learn that it is not too difficult to be welcomed into the community.

The Great Firewall

As much as censorship is concerned in China, I won’t say that China is not open up to technological advancement but perhaps in their own ways. Looking at the list of ’60 Best Blogs on China in English, it may seem like Google-China case is not going to affect the social media scene as much as the outsiders would assume. Who are we (or Google) to claim that China is wrong ? Instead, I think we should start exploring their internal networks and reach out to the various target audience from there. It’s all about connecting with the right people.

From a business pespective, in several decades to come, China or just in general – Asia will emerge as the primary growth market for the world. Looking at this economic reality, how do one or a company position himself/itself better in Asia? I believe that there’s no tailored solution or template to follow as how Professor Dan Ryun Chang puts it and having a Pan-Asian Strategy might hurt your business in the long run.

To sum it up, it is about an open mind, basic respect and mutual understanding.

Find out more about communicating across Asia, click here !

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Note : If you’re wondering why the sudden post after annoucing a ‘Time Out’, this is an assignment for my Digital Media Across Asia Module. Thank You !

Tags: blog, boundaries, censorship, challenges, comm215, community, connection, cultural, firefox plugins, foreigner, google, great firewall, iammyy, language, linguistic, national, njstarcky viewer, pan-asian strategy, swede living in china, synotrip, target audience, technological, travellerspoint, weak ties, wetpaint, wiki

Life,in general.

From How I Met Your Mother (awesomest show ever)

I guess no one can predict how our lives would turn out to be though I believe  we can decide what we want to be. Things won’t always run as how you’ve planned. We can hang on to our dreams or just let it go. If it’s meant for us, there’s always a way that will lead us to there. Else, just carry on with life and take the leap.

Afterall, the world is constantly changing and you won’t know what will knock on your door next.

Tags: How I Met Your Mother, life, quote

Blog A Trend: Forging Our Future Friendship

I forgot where I’ve heard this being questioned : ” Who on earth still receives mails in their mailbox from friends anyways ?”

I still do ! But that’s beside the point – it’s just so amazing to see the ‘revolution’ of friendship with the help of technology. I still remember writing letters and notes to keep in touch with friends, say 10 years back. It was a regular thing to do with my overseas friends and funny enough, I still keep most of them since I’m pretty sentimental. But with the introduction of emails, IM and mIRC in those days, writing and snail mails are long forgotten.

One thing that really allowed me to make more friends was those mIRC days in secondary school. Who can possibly forget the numerous nights you spent infront of the computer at various #, ‘fighting’ to become @op/+v  randomly having people asking you “a/s/l?” Surprisingly, I’ve met several friends on mIRC and we’re still friends even though mIRC is like, dinosaur era for us.

Not forgetting social networking sites like friendster and facebook ! Many ‘old friends’ are found when everyone starts using facebook and looking up for eachother via the internet. I’m happy to have found most of my friends back in primary school and of course those who are overseas, facebook really made everything more convenient for us to keep in touch.

Having friends overseas is a huge problem back then, because it takes weeks to exchange letters ! Now we can just skype or call directly from computer-to-landlines to keep in touch. I really survive on skype with my friends on exchange although my current dinosaur laptop doesn’t have a webcam *coughs* (haha). But it’s almost like we’re at the same place when we do get to ‘see’ eachother…perhaps next time it’ll be a 3D-call ! Who knows, that might just be the new trend in years to come.

Moving on, now we have Foursquare which is a mobile app to ‘follow’ your friends when they are out. I don’t know if I want to let my friends know whether I’m a few blocks away from them or ‘stalk’ me virtually. But I see the advantages for those who are around the area and wants to meet up for a short gathering. In fact, if you’re adventurous, you can probably meet new friends if they happen to be on Foursquare too ! Mobile is like the next important thing now, I definitely think we will be relying on the mobile platform to keep in touch – and not just via calls and smses.

It’s probably a good thing that we have so many various platforms to keep in touch with our friends and technology has indeed make things alot easier. However, I think having such ‘virtual relationships’ still can’t be compared to a ‘real friendship’. Worst of all, now we have robotic friends/pets that keep the next generation company. Will our future generation forget how to interact with a real human being and just maintain such virtual/digital relationships in the future ?

It’s rather sad to see couples or friends sitting at the same table with their faces plastered to their mobiles/laptops. As much as I appreciate the technology, I truly agree with this quote I’ve found off the net,

“True friendship isn’t about being there when it’s convenient; it’s about being there when it’s not.”

So spend time with your loved ones, not because it’s ‘convenient’ but because you love them and want to be with them. Technology can only help you that much, it takes your individual effort to keep in touch afterall !

Tags: 3D, blog a trend, email, facebook, foursquare, friendship, friendster, futureis, HP, hp mini, laptop, mirc, netbook, skype