Gratefulness

Grateful = Feeling or showing an appreciation of kindness; thankful. (thankful - appreciative - beholden). 

As mentioned before my January theme is Grateful. The theme was up for a challenging start. In early January I did not feel grateful at all. I am relatively certain I was not alone in this feeling as Januray is one of the suckiest months, especially in Sweden. We are all broke, pale, have our fingers recently blown off by firecrackers and there is approximately another six months until we can step outside - some days - not wearing a jacket. 

Anyhow, I'm in Singapore right. Grateful to me, has an element of guilt, or a "must" or some sort of reciprocate obligation attached to it. You have to either do something good, or be at the mercy of someone else's grandness in order to be thankful, or grateful. Or you have to be religious.

By mid-January I realised that I could not seriously think I was completely ungrateful, so I started thinking about little things. Like how I'm kind of grateful for the balcony, especially on a cool yet sunny day. Okay, first of all, the entire look and feel of the balcony is 100% hard work and lots of money. The wooden floor is not only surprisingly costly it was also heavy as h#ll to carry up all the stairs. Not to mention all the plants we bought and with blood sweat and (allergy infused) tears carried up to the little rooftop palace. Then it takes a daily watering of the plants and regular maintenance of the wooden floor to keep the whole concept alive. And though sunny days are common in Singapore, cool and sunny is not that common. 

So when I was lying on the balcony floor, sunbathing, reading a book and casually pondering upon if I was able to feel grateful, I decided I am grateful for the balcony. I am also grateful that it is possible to sunbath on the balcony without being seen. *Knock on wooden floor*, since that statement is only true if the neighbors stay on their side not peeping through the cracks of the separating wall.  

Now, by the end of the month, I have decided I am grateful for a whole bunch of things that is beyond my control. A few examples:

- That ice cream was invented and is being popularly developed and sold all over the world.

- That Singapore allows foreigners to come live and work on this tiny little island.

- That there are an abundance of options, in today's globalised and tech-driven world, for me to stay in touch with my family and friends, when the traditional face-to-face is not possible.

So all in all, I think I can comfortably say that I do feel grateful at times. And I feel really happy about a gazillion things in life, so maybe grateful is just another way of being happy. Like happiness defined by an action or a cause. Because sometimes I just feel really happy. Like if I see a puppy. I would never say I'm grateful for seeing a puppy. But it makes me happy, and then maybe I'm grateful that I'm easily pleased, and have the ability to see the litle things in life with a smile on my face and a bubbly feeling in my chest.

Not entirely sure what the February theme will be, but there's a few more days to think that over. Hereby sending some sunshine to all my wonderful friends and family in Sweden, I know it's a little horrible right now, but at least it's going in the right direction right, eventually the sun shall return. And aren't we all grateful for that. :)

Peace! 

Apples instead of lesbians

Fringe festival part 2. I go see a dance act called Xtra Large from Belgium. The dance caught my attention as I thought it was about being a fat teenage lesbian with a passion for life. As the show started it became clear the three dancers in fat suits had no lesbian aspirations whatsoever. It was more about apples.

A Chinese girl, a Chinese boy, an 'other' girl and lots of apples. The music was really good, and the one hour long dance act was good. The person next to me (not my friend) whispered OMG three times in a very high pitched excitement. First time when the guy pulled down the zipper of the clothes he was wearing on top of the fat suit, to reveal, yes you guessed it, an apple. Second time was when Chinese boy and girl balanced each other on the corner of a table. Lastly the most excited Oooooh my God came when the dancers stepped out of their fat suits to freely roam around the stage, loving each other and all the apples. 

I have to say the lovemaking was not very creative though. First both the two girls try to seduce the boy by rubbing apple against themselves. Finally the Other girl wins the boy over by playing some sort of catch me if you can goes "No you can't have my apple. Yes you can. No you can't". Oh Lord my inner warrior got pissed off at the stupidity of letting kids see a play where the boy is firstly hypnotized by the girls acting sexy, followed by a complete inability to actually pick one of them, he just drools and follow whoever pulls him forward, and then finally the girl who does no-yes-no-yes until her friend is securely thrown out of the competition, gets the boy and have sex with him. I mean what's the moral in that? Fat kids are just as stupid as the rest of us?  

Anyhow. The lovemaking dance was passionately performed by the Chinese boy and the Other girl to some sort of tango or flamenco sounding music. The Chinese girl gets very jealous and angrily stomps around smashing apples. Later she also gets a shot at "sharing her apple" with the boy (I know, he is one lucky apple boy). But instead of twirling around biting on the same apple and feeling each other up, the Chinese girl simply takes off her clothes and sits down. The boy shyly takes off his clothes as well and sit down next to her. Then they call out body parts. Nooooose. Kneeeeeee, Teee-Teee (boy points in between his legs) and Titty! (girl points at her breast)  - followed by heartfelt laughter from the younger audience. Then the girl stands on top of the guy's feet and they balance at the end of the table. Followed by some sort of dance where they are not really touching each other, it's more a moving across the table quite similar to how kids that barely know how to walk interact with each other when there are a shiny toy around (or in this case, an apple). I really don't want to have sex with an Asian after seeing that, at least not a Belgian Asian. 

Other thoughts that popped up during the apple filled hour:

- What if the best dancers were allergic against apples, like me. Could they change the apples to lets say donuts?  

- Being fat means one have to make larger movements while dancing, it's simply put more difficult (the fat suit thing was really good, and the dancers were really very talented).

- How hard does one have to throw an apple to the floor in order to make it splash?

- Big is beautiful. The word fat is in my mind equal to fluffy, and that makes me smile. Thank you Gabriel Iglesas. 

- I think it's possible to make something similar to apple pie in a frying pan. Must google. 

- What if they weren't supposed to have dropped the apple? It happened a couple of times, but it looked natural and fitted the choreography. Then again, it's not like they could snap out of character, pick up the apple and continue. 

- To me an apple is green by default. Google apple however, and in addition the Apple logo, most apples are red. 

- Not to self. No more fringe. 

Get lost

The local festival Fringe is back, so this week I went with some friends to see Going on the way to get lost. This play was a 90 minute long internal monologue of a 30 year old girl from Tokyo, played out through her and her dead sister, unborn child, ex-lovers and parents.

There was definitely some good stuff, like how the scenes were woven together in the weirdest ways, the very same way our dreams and daydreams can go through time and space with little effort. A very tall mother reveals the father upon whose shoulder she is literally sitting, and the father becomes an old lover, who then gets a toothache that turns into a gynecological scene with plenty of Japanese porn references about the aching hole and then she slips into herself (in classic Pedro Almodovar style, think Habla con ella) rents out her inner space a combined uterus and heart with a great view over Tokyo and eventually she climbs up Tokyo Tower and the play is over.

A minor detail that pissed me off was the translation that was shown on a screen above the actors. Five minutes of Japanese chattering and expressive "ooohhh's and aaaahh's" gets a freaking single line at the translation board. It felt JUST LIKE the scene in Lost in Translation when Bill Murray gets a really long speech from the director, and the translator just says "turn and look into the camera" (YouTube clip here where some wonderful people have actually translated everything in the comment section). Operas are okay in a foreign language with subtitles. Theater not so much.

As getting lost, losing one's mind and the general feeling of not knowing what the f#ck life is really all about, is as we all know a very common feeling, unfortunately this particular play didn't exactly contribute to neither a sense of "yeah that's like my life, right there!" or some sort of revelation that
'getting lost was an illusion I'm so on my way to success and eternal happiness". Nevertheless, I enjoyed the gathering, the play and the hot chocolate at the after-talk with my friends.

Moving on. Where I live one has to walk 4 flights of stairs before reaching home. There is no elevator, no light and basically no isolation so we all hear what happens out in the hallway. In addition I think the stairs are uneven, and they turn around in a very unsatisfying way at odd levels, which makes a discreet homecoming from late night adventures very close to impossible. I have indeed managed to walk straight into a couple of people, I have fallen and I have stumbled.  Still someone has mysteriously managed to bring a huge refrigerator to the second floor of the stairs. It looks old, so maybe it is on its way out. But how how how did it get there?!?! Who carried it silently in the middle of the night? Because it appeared overnight. Suspicious in itself right?!

Finally a little baby talk, as the whole getting lost thing gets so much more interesting when you throw a new little person in the mix. One of my friends just had a baby - big up and major congratulations. Another friend is in her fifth year of trying and hoping, another friend just found out she's accidentally pregnant. Another friend is missing her lost child and it pains me to tears every time I think about it. And lastly another one has decided she does not want kids at all, a decision she has to fight for on a multitude of levels.

In discussions of me leaving Hubby, it is one of the most common things people have said. "At least you don't have any kids, so that's good." Yes, naturally things would have been different if we would have had kids. We might not even be in Singapore if that were the case. I find it an odd, yet understandable thing to say. I say it myself at times, as it makes conversations easier and to cheer up the topic somehow. Our choice to not have a kid in a situation where we were happily married, has now become a trump card when separating. Great.

'Nuff said, the weekend has arrived and it's time to get lost in the glory of Friday fever, Saturday boogie-woggie, Sunday brunch recovery and unwinding. Next week I'll apply for a million jobs and get lots of stuff done. :)

I promise...

I LOVE "new year's". A chance to start over (again!), get inspired about great things to come, and look back at awesomeness found, achieved or simply stumbled upon. The December-January New Year that was recently celebrated with fireworks, party hats and bubbles is probably my favorite.  Especially now that there is no need to worry about blistering cold weather and the phobia of eternal darkness. I just stepped into a cocktail dress and started gathering wishes for the new year to come.

In return for making 2013 Absolutely Awesome, I made some promises that includes actually writing this blog (so watch out, weekly updates to come!), find a new job, try something new and a bunch of other bigger and smaller goals. Naturally they shall all be posted and bragged about, as they are ticked off my list.

Honestly speaking I actually have a list. I have one for every year. Usually it's 12 promises/goals, big and small, one for each month, to be reached at whatever time suitable. And most of the years I managed to make around 80% of the list. Thinking back, this is a clear indicator of how great my life is and how much I enjoy living in this world. Wonderful feeling. In English the word Grateful is totally applicable, thankful to myself and grateful for the opportunities found given and taken. Grateful is also my January theme. More of that later.

Christmas is definitely over, and so the fake snow and Santa's are being packed away to make room for New Year number two. Chinese New Year. This New Year is really big here and it is not my favorite at all. Though I will rant about it later in February, when it actually happens.
Second best New Year is the Persian one, coming up in March. Goldfishes, fire jumping and oh glory to the food. Already looking forward to that! For an extremely organised planner-freak like myself, the coolest thing about the Persian New Year is that there is no result tracking or goal setting whatsoever to be done. Well, naturally you CAN do it, but I don't feel the need to. I just enjoy the festivities and that is more perfectly enough.

I saw a You Tube clip the other day about a girl that made her new year's resolution (Dec-Jan new year that is) very public in a beautiful video clip where she simply tells her story holding up handwritten notes. As the horrible gang rape in India is being frequently discussed among my friends, I found this video timely, and it struck my heart. The clip is in Swedish, so I'll just translate the actual promise, which I think was fantastic: I will not ever again, for all years to come, be ashamed of what someone else has done to me.   
Sara Stille: Den delen avmig ni inte viste fanns.


So lastly, and to end on a more happy note. I promise to write here every week, about my life and whatever is happening here in Asia. I most certainly hope you will enjoy it, and this is just a great way to stay in touch. So my wish (that's how it works, you promise something and then you get to wish for something) is that You, my wonderful friends and family (and possibly strangers), want to comment, "like" or just stay in touch with me. I don't need super analytic insights and answers. Come on, if I can spend a couple of hours or so writing every week, a few seconds or minutes to appreciate, bark or just holla' at me will go along way... Okay, can?

Wishing you much love, blessing and best wishes for the new year. And don't forget, this year will be awesome, I just know it.