I can already hear fireworks in celebration of the new year. I thought I’d make a mini post about what is currently going on with me but I don’t really have much to say tonight. I’m home playing Persona 3 and I’ll probably be asleep within the hour – and I couldn’t think of a better way to spend this evening. It’s great having tomorrow off because we planned to go out. Although I thought we were going somewhere else I’ll just have to make the best of our destination.

Here are a few of the things that I did or happened this past year:

• Travelled to England for the second time ever.


• Learned to jump horses, but then went back to working on the ground because at that point I could ride better without stirrups – and we wanted to correct that.


• Finished an acrylic painting but only Anne and Rosalyn have seen it. I am sure Ai has passed by it in the hallway at some point but I never thought pointing it out.


• Faced my fear of jumping when I skate, and we’re not sure if that’s a good thing or not.


• Got a new pet, a bunny that thinks he’s a cat. That is in addition to the duck that thinks he’s a cat, and the cats that think the duck is their father. But they’re old news.


• Found out that my mother wants a chihuahua.


• Learned to type in Arabic better through wontada.


• Attended French lessons and enjoyed it – especially now when we’re covering verb tenses and composition.


• Got my hair permed but I haven’t decided if I want to get it re-permed next summer. Then I got two semi-hidden strands highlighted and I think they look aweasome because they only show if I do something with my hair.


• Got addicted to several games: Phoenix Wright 3, Lifesigns, Persona 3 and Equestrian Challenge.


• Went back to writing my stories.

So, what did you do this year?

As part of a course requirement, we were supposed to give seminars today. Throughout the time I spent researching, I’ve been pretty indifferent about the whole thing. I felt confident that I had enough sources and had all the information I needed. But yesterday I was taken by a complete surprise – a panic attack! Except, at the time, I had no idea what I was panicing about. That is so strange, aren’t you supposed to know? I kept fussing about everything else, things that are supposed to happen in the long term, little habits, how disorganised everything was, and so on. I could not even get myself to eat anything (haven’t had a single bite in about 18 hours). It was only when I went to bed and had dreams that I was reading my seminar notes did I come to terms with what has been driving me so crazy. I spent a good part of this morning dreading it.

As my seminar was going on, a transformation occured. I did not even notice it occuring and cannot even imagine what caused it to happen. My feelings of nervousness and dread were replaced with something else; pride, pleasure, happiness. I enjoyed my findings on the topic I was presenting and wanted to share it with my audience! I think the people who were supposed to ask me questions and discuss things with me felt bad that I was the only one who did this without a partner, and didn’t ask me anything fearing that they’ll make me nervous. They don’t realize that one of my biggest challenges in this college is working with others! Unfortunately, failed group experiances far exceed the successful ones for me and it’s probably not all their fault.

When I try to think back, the things that helped calm me down were probably sitting there smiling the entire time – it made my audience smile back. Then looking at my instructors and seeing that they were nodding. I am definately not a networking expert but I think this was a fun little project. It’s great that the things we do only enforce what we already know; I did not make a mistake by coming here.

Gosh, I had been so worked up that I somehow managed to step on my shoe laces and fall down the stairs.

Is this not one of the cutest boxes of breath mints you’ve ever seen? There’s a mirror somewhere in there, too!

We convinced my mother to come to the riding school with us. It was amazing. I rode S and he was a perfect angel since he wasn’t fresh anymore. We went back to having the bond we usually have. When I have a lesson I am usually with 3 of my siblings and they get more attention than me – which is perfectly fine with me because I still get pointers about what I’m doing every now and again. Besides, in the “big arena” I do well exercising the horse I’m riding (warming up and warming down, trotting on either reins sitting and posting, and cantering both ways) while still getting out of everyone else’s way.

The whip I was carrying only served to enforce the fact that my legs meant business. Even then my leg aids were very light, I only had to get a bit tougher when I saw that he was about to ignore me and go eat off a tree. He didn’t succeed, by the way! There were a few incidents where he tried to ignore me again and go stand where my sister and her horse were standing (usually if I let him have this he will stop listening to me period). It went something like this:

S: Oh look! K is over there, let’s go hang out with him!
Me: No, we’re not. Come on, let’s go the other way.
S: But he looks like he’s having lots of fun! Let’s go hang out with hiiiim! turns his head towards K
Me: I. Said. No.
S: Ok ok!! I get it!

And our work out continued. Remember the other day when I said I will probably get dumped the next time I go riding? Well, I did! But it wasn’t much as S wanting or trying to dump me off his back as it was more of … well … I wouldn’t be quick to say it was a fall because it wasn’t really that much of a fall. We were starting to canter, but again – the sharp corner I ask for near the jumps makes my weight shift that that has him quickening his canter. It wouldn’t have been fine except I’m not that good with 90° corners, so I lost my balance. My trainer was saying that it looked like I was doing a forward position but I knew I had already lost my balance. In my struggle to regain it, I forgot what my legs were supposed to do and my heels ended up asking him to gallop. By then I was hugging his neck wondering how I should dismount, but it turned out I didn’t have to worry about that because I was on the ground a few seconds later; wondering if he was about to step on me.

I sat there on the ground taking deep breaths hoping my right lung goes back to its original size/state. S ran over to K and started to nuzzle him. I’m sure I heard my sister scream because one of the little horses tried to bite the other. My trainer, then, brought S over to me, asked if I was ok and we ended up talking about what happened. S looked at me really weird like he was saying, “What are you doing here? You were supposed to be on my back!” and I pet his head as I talked to trainer. When I think back to what was going on before the fall… it was brilliant. It felt very similar to what I feel when I watch those videos on youtube, where people are galloping their horses and holding a camera in one hand. It felt very very cool! I was actually laughing my head off (as I do nearly every time I fell off a horse). It wasn’t very long till I was back on S’ back.

Trainer was concerned that my mother was around. Since my mother wasn’t used to watching us ride, her first evening there and one of us falls, she was sure to get worried. I told her that it was ok, every time one of us took a fall we told my mother about it right then – and made it sound funny, too, alongside explaining to her how it happened. I’m just glad I adjusted my helmet strap earlier today so it fit me better.

Mother and little brother appeared as S and I were walking around the arena. I told her, “did you see me fall just now?” she laughed and asked if I really fell. She must have realized it was no big deal because I was back on the horse and we were walking around calmly and quietly.

Just so people don’t think I’m pretending to be a great rider; I’ll admit I was scared. I was completely terrified, and it was like I was hearing all these different things being said in my mind. One part tried to play tricks on me saying the horse sounded lame (if he was lame my trainer would have seen it). Another just wanted to get off and run away. The other was reminding me that if I get off now, it will be a long time till I can do the things I can do now without being scared, reminding me that even though I fell, it wasn’t really scary because I was perfectly fine. Another told me to just trot. To take things little by little, prove to yourself that if trotting is no big deal then cantering was going to be the same.

So, we trotted. Sat half of the arena and posted for the other half. Then I realized that all the other riders were on the other side of the arena, we had a 20×20 side all to ourselves. I hadn’t planned on cantering right then but I thought it was the perfect opportunity. So we cantered. Reminded myself how not to ask him to gallop, so the canter remained slow, collected and fun! We did it on both legs and only stopped when I asked S to stop. At some point during the lesson, I tried to ask S to reinback. I dunno if he knows how to do it but I reckon I asked him for it incorrectly, because he turned back and gave me this look that said, “I have no idea what you’re trying to say, you want me to go but you’re not letting me go forward… whaddya want, man?”

My mother said that she could really tell that we were all very happy to be at the riding school, and that we liked it there.

I got my ravelry invite but unfortunately images are imported from flickr and that’s blocked on my home connection. In related news, though, I did finish those mittens but I think next time I take on a similar project; I will do it differently because I may have figured out how!

I’m still thinking about what she said. How does one seperate and differentiate between a short term obsession and a long lasting passion? She said she is worried that I will get bored and start hating it, because eventually I get bored of everything and can’t really settle down on one thing. I’m almost always accused of having no direction and no clear idea of what I want.

I am not a quitter and I will not allow anyone to convince me that I am, or even for the slightest moment make me doubt myself. If you don’t know the whole story, then yes, you might go back and see the choices I made and might deduct that yes, there are a bunch of things that I quit. And that yes, there are a lot of things I was never sure if I wanted to do or not. But like I said, the keyword is not knowing the whole story. It’s not that a quitter will always have an excuse, it’s that if you must judge then listen to what I have to say first.

In terms of hobbies? You could say swimming. But we only went swimming in the summer and the conclusion was that it dried my hair and skin out. It was only for two consecutive summers and when we stopped going to that club, it wasn’t my decision, it’s just that we started going to a different club and the swimming pool was disgusting and crowded. Ice skaing? I was not really into it as a child and only did it at summer camp. Karate I was kind of serious at. I was a green belt at shotokan when I was 12. But then middle school started and I had to attend tutor sessions afterschool, there was no time for karate. Reading? I still read, not as avidly as I used to, and certainly not the same type of books but I do still read.

Education? To people that don’t know me, they might think that my change of major is about “quitting when the going gets tough” and “being indecisive” or “having no direction/goal/hopes/dreams”. During my foundations year I was in a group that considered going into the Education Major. 90% of me knew I didn’t really want to be a teacher, and the remaining 10% said let’s go into this group anyway because I’m really into English and was interested in writing. Some field visits to schools ensured me 100% that I did not want to become an English teacher. This was still in foundations year, if anything my foundations classes were spent wisely because our English classes were intensive and I believe that really helped my writing become better.

The year after that was the one where we were supposed to choose our major. My first choice was Information Technology/Business (in later years we get to choose if we want to be in IT or Business only, it’s the way the university works). I was placed in one of my other choices, Graphic Arts. My curiosity and passive nature allowed me to stay and see if I liked it. By the second semester I decided that Graphic Arts was becoming a chore. A chore is not the way I want to start a career with, determined that there is something more suitable for me out there I left graphic arts to repeat my second year the year after that, a year after all the friends I came to college with. But at least I was much happier there, and I still am. It’s been two years and I am expected to graduate in June. I stuck it out, didn’t I?

Now let’s get to some other things that I did stick with. My high school math teacher was a bully that frightened me. I couldn’t concentrate on anything because I was too busy being afraid of what she might say to me. Two hours before her classes, I would start shivering and my surroundings became a blur, and that continued till a few hours after her classes. I hated high school and stopped wanting to achieve anything. You know what really sucks about that? I wasn’t one of those people that hated math, I loved it and I was good at it. My fear started affecting everything else. I stopped caring since then. My parents did not even begin to understand how deep that problem was, so I couldn’t change class/school, even though I really wanted to. I stuck it out and finished high school in that particular school, with the shadow of that horrible teaching looming over my head. My grades went from 85% in semester one to 58% in semester two. But I didn’t quit, did I? I saw it through till the end, albiet numbly and completely detached from the rest of the world, but I saw it through.

If you still think I’m a quitter, fine. It doesn’t matter to me because I know that I’m not.

I did say another entry will come up soon, but aaahhh! A whole day later! I just have not had the time. I am working on my vb.net project and somehow I’ve managed not to rip my hair out. We have two more projects due for this subject, another project due for database and a seminar integrated between two classes. Everyone is dreading the coming two weeks. We are going to be stretched to the very limit.

Although the family decided to use the excuse ‘your old dress is a bit small’ to have me get a new dress made, I decided that I need to get a little bit more serious about the diet issue. Yeah, I did say that I won’t trouble myself thinking about weight loss when I think I don’t need to… but now I think I need to, haha. The positive side of this that I thought I started to gain weight in college, but now I think RO was probably one helluva diet. I was incredibly skinny in high school and up to my third year of college. I think I only started gaining weight when I started doing gym and lifting weights that year. I do recall that on my first trip to England people were asking if I weighted 40kgs. It’s not that I think I’m fat now, but if I’m having so much trouble keeping just a bit of weight off my legs when I’m this young… what’s going to happen when I’m older? Am I going to turn into this lazy person that uses “I’m getting too old now” as an excuse to not work out? No, never. I refuse to let that happen and intend to stay athletic for as long as I can!

So instead of 30 minutes I do 45. And I’ve doubled the sets of sit ups, push ups, etc. I spent over two hours in the gym at home yesterday… I didn’t think that would ever be possible given the room’s condition and the fact that it’s not inside the house! I will try to do this again tomorrow even though my French lesson finishes kinda late. One of my tracksuits has a stuck zipper. It was not like this the last time I wore it.

I showed my classmates the mittens that I’m working on (I haven’t had the time to work on them more), but they are nearly done! I will get a picture when I’m finished. I want to figure out how to turn them into actual mittens, and not just fingerless mittens. I bet I can if I find the time to sit down and experiment. Maybe it’s time to try and find out what things are called in crochet so I can read patterns and stuff. It’s so troublesome that the book I have is in a different language than the one I learned in! The problem is I can’t really relate pictures to what I already know how to do so it’s more difficult that way.

My sister finally decided to get an iPod Nano. It took her six months to think about it but now she finally did. My cousin took over and put all the songs and videos they like on it already. Here’s a pic of their matching iPods taken during the holidays. Excuse the fingerprints!

This mini holiday has been getting to my head. The semester is not over yet and I seem to have been living with the fact that it has. I don’t want to go to school tomorrow.

We decided to go riding this morning. We were supposed to have our lesson yesterday but the school was closed for the holidays. The horses were fresh as a result of not being worked for a few days. S, a funny little Arabian, has been my regular mount up to the time that we stopped riding and I’ve mostly been on him lately. I finally feel like I probably found my balance spot on his back so that whatever he does – he won’t be dumping me and bolting! (And I’m sure after saying this I will get dumped off next time I go!). I guess my main concentration was being balanced that I forgot about everything else. I’m a passive rider that won’t be that tough on the horses – if I use a whip, I won’t be using it repeatively till they do what I want, and I don’t even use it that hard.

Normally, if my legs won’t make S listen, a light tap with the whip does the trick. Today was a constant fight for power and I’m not really sure who won, you guys can be the judge. Early on, I was too impatient to wait for a “certain someone” (who was being lazy and timid standing really far away anyway) to come hold him for me so I could mount. S ran off into the field and started to graze. I got him to raise his head, and as I tried to ask him to turn back towards the riding school he turned his head away and cantered/trotted off. I managed to stop him, but I couldn’t make him come back. I mainly ride in arenas so I don’t feel that comfortable being out in the open yet so I just stood there with him till someone hand walked us to where the lesson was going to take place (how embarrassing!).

As soon as we were in the arena, S was off running. But it wasn’t up to him!! (yeah … right … ). I slowed him down to the pace I was comfortable with and we started our exercise. He broke into canter several times, but we went back to trotting soon after. There was this one spot at the arena that most of the horses don’t seem to like because the torn waterhose seems to surprise them. As soon as we passed by it, he leapt up, bucked and then broke into gallop. I tried to calm him down and by the next corner, he seemed fine. The arena is pretty big and there are several jumps all over it. There were two jumps near the rail but with the poles on the ground. I figured it would be ok to trot over them, since they are on the ground. But S had other ideas in mind. He jumped over them, not that high – but it was a jump at least! He jumped over the first one then cantered over the second. I should have changed my “route” the next time we had circuled the arena but the jump was fun. So we jumped again, lol. Upon noticing this, my trainer ended up removing the poles. I wanna go back to having jumping lessons.

One thing I recently heard about this horse was about his attempt to dump riders off his back. Well, I dunno if he really wants to dump them off but I guess he figured that once he’s dumped people off they won’t get back on and he gets out of being worked. He gallops, then goes into a sudden halt and lowers his head really hard so if a person was in forward position they may be thrown off the saddle. Now that I knew this, whenever he does that I keep my regular position/back straight and all. So this one little round I won! But gosh schoolies are so smart. Trainer told me that he’s dropped a rider that way twice in one lesson. I feel brave for riding him when he still had so much energy. He was actually the first horse I fell off last year and one of the few that I feel safe enough riding bareback.

Even though we’ve had a lot of strange ordeals, you can’t help but love him. Such a pretty face!

Note: I actually wrote this yesterday but didn’t finish it and couldn’t find the time to post it. I’ll have another type of entry up later!