rawk out!

ispeakquotes:

1. Practice mindfulness

2. Play, laugh and enjoy the simple things.

3. Develop an attitude of gratitude.

4. Invest in, and nurture, your relationships.

5. Give up your attachment to outcomes. 

6. Decide to be adventurous and try new things.

7. Choose to live life at a slower pace, and don’t be driven by a sense ofurgency. 

8. Give up the need to be in control.

9.  Accept that you are human and life won’t be perfect.

10. Don’t compare yourself to others.

So 2012 is over and the world didn’t end and before I realize it the month is already half over. This year hasn’t been especially good so far since I fell sick immediately on the first of january and have yet to fully recover from it thus seriously derailing my plans to exercise. Another thing that hasn’t been going well is school. I have not yet gotten sufficient modules to graduate and the appeal process is slow and getting on my nerves. If I can’t graduate this semester it’s gonna seriously piss me off.

In spite of this rocky start to the year, I have decided that this year will be a good year. Things will be fixed, work will get done, things will go well. Not that I have a particularly good feeling about this year but simply because I have declared it to be so and I’m going to make it so. This is the year SHIT WILL GET DONE.

So it’s been 4 months since I last blogged anything at all. It’s just somehow been a chore but I’ve realized that the longer that I remain silent and uncommunicative the more I feel my ability to communicate deteriorates. So I’m taking the risk and going to try blogging a bit more now.

So the semester has recently ended and finally I can let my brain drift away from economics and land ashore on some more fertile creative ground. As much as I do enjoy learning about economic theories, the academic environment is just a shitty place to learn anything. It seems to just suck out all the enthusiasm I have for learning about anything at all. So my plan for this short holiday is to read lots and lots of books from the library so I can just indulge in other interests.

Additionally, I’ve been doing very badly in my gym attendance during the semester. So it’s time to start going more intensively. The aim is to get my third Brazilian jiu-jitsu white stripe before February. In fact, it’s my intention to give myself the gift of fitness for my 25th birthday. 25 seems like an age where I should be at the peak of my physical fitness and if my current state is going to be the peak then I feel really sad for my body. So… Some clean eating, healthy habits, intensive exercise. Hopefully by February I’ll have something to show for it.

So for today, the plan is to head down to Arteastiq for some fun painting and delicious tea. I know my artistic talent is dismally non-existence but I like to try anyway.

My first exposure to Murakami was IQ84. I must say that I only bought the book because I had been hearing a lot of good things about it and there was a lot of hype built up about the book. After reading it, I was left feeling unsatisfied. I felt it was a good read but not great enough to justify all the praise being lauded upon it and the hype surrounding it. So the book left me wondering what was so great about Murakami and that maybe it was all hype and no substance. Or perhaps I was just too dense to understand what was so great about Murakami and his writing.

 Then recently, I went to the library near my house as I usually do. I was just searching for an easy read and I decided to browse near the fiction section as I had recently spotted “The Evolutionary Void” by Peter Hamilton and thought I might find something good there again. Then I spotted the name “Murakami” and I thought to myself why not. So I randomly chose one without even looking at the title and I’m glad I did.

I must say that I really like this book. The emotion and the desperation of wanting to find meaning comes across so much stronger in this book and I firmly believe it is due to the first person narrative style that Murakami uses in this book as compared to IQ84. There’s a lot of good things to say about how the narrative style affects the thematic issues. By being limited to one character’s point of view, we are better able to experience the loneliness and isolation that Murakami puts across. At the same time, we experience the mystery and frustration of not knowing what is happening to other important characters. The lack of fantastical characters compared to IQ84 also made it all much more relatable to me. 

If there’s one word I would use to describe this book, it would be ennui. This book is full of it. So much that it caused a physical discomfort in me which is one of the signs to me that the book is engaging.

So thanks to this book, I am intrigued and I’m going to give Murakami’s other books a look-see too.