Individual Preference

"If you like it, get it. No one can judge you."

Whenever someone asks whether something suits them, they often get confused on whether their image towards others might be awkward. However, more often their peers will reply, "If you like it, then buy it!"

Take me for an example. I plan to buy a new headset. Why is this so would be because of this fat ass dude who sat on my previous headset by accident and broke it with a 'thud' sound. It was really expensive for a headphone. Though it broke my thrifty heart, I decided to forgive him for being so careless. After all, he's my friend who loves joking around in class and not doing his homework to get into trouble with teachers which his excuses sets our days bright.

Anyways, I wanted to get a new headset with the 3 weeks of allowance. It was really hard work, you know. Fancy trying to fast from morning to the evening, with the exception of being able to drink from the cooler. Also, my mother backed me up with a red packet of $40 inside for my birthday. So I counted, and I have a total of $160. I decided to spent only $120 and keep the red packet as a charm from my mother.

Red, blue, green, black, white and purple. The colors available. Previously I bought blue, so might as well skip it. I don't really fancy emotionless colors like black and white, so I skipped them. Oh yeah, there was also hot pink, but... Nah... I asked for opinions from my peers, and they chose either red or purple. The majority suggested red, so I'll go for purple. Yay :D

This ain't a post of reflection for just this day. In fact, there is a lesson learnt here in this post. I don't really understand the minds of some girls, because they can be really sensitive to choices of colors to represent their self image to others. There was also once when I went out with a couple of friends on early March. I went out with some of my friends and a group of girls. We went to Causeway Point to chill. Then when it came to buying some K-pop stuffs and clothing, the girls kept asking for MY opinion on whether the color suited them. Back then I didn't have this "suit yourself" mindset, so I just agreed on their second choices. Of course, they weren't suspicious of me for the "anything is okay" mood, so... yeah...

In psychological terms, actually, choosing what one likes would be better than to choose things based only on the opinion of peers. Sometimes we are given choices, but have not the courage to get what we want. One should never represent oneself with an image from others' opinions, but rather what one wants to be. This is just like the rude example of when someone asks one to eat poop. Okay.. If someone were to ask you to eat poop, would you?

Birthday

Okay... I take back my words that the world is corrupt and stuff...

However, it still remains as a fact that my family(the paternal family tree) are all heartless beings. My elder brother's more like my mother? My younger brother is the soul of the party? Bah!

Although hanging out with friends beats hanging low at home, I was still left choice-less and needed to keep my ass down at home, despite the fact that no one bought me a birthday cake, nor pizza. This year is so different as compared to childhood. My mom had always bought me this awesome ice-cream cake back them. I would chop it into half, then split a half into four pieces and gave them to my family, then savor the icy charms of the cool, soft, creamy vanilla ice-cream cake. With a teaspoon, scoop by scoop, I would let the sweet ice-cream melt in my mouth like cotton candy(I thought I could breathe fire, because the ice-cream melted in less than 5 seconds...).

Now everything is different, with much more complications as unintentionally inhaling noxious tobacco waste gases coming out from my old man's stunk-up litter bin of a mouth chewing tobacco while eating plain old rice and disgustingly sour pig skins and rough, tough trotters. I would daydream of how life could've been better if the adults stopped smoking, and how things could've been different if I was outside the house screwing around with friends like street 'half-in, half-out'-laws. KFC would have been a better sensation than tofu soup with fish-balls and pig skins.

I also remember that time, when I was Primary Six, I suggested a house party and tried inviting as many friends as I could. Although I only managed to invite 3 guys(Mr 'General Election' and Mr UV Ray, along with Andy Mok) and 3 girls (couldn't remember that much. Think they were Valencia, Vanessa and Carissa). At that time, my cute little pet dog was still a puppy... We had so much fun screwing Mr UV and spectating an in-house war between the girls and Mr UV the lone wolf. My mother bought a cake with the face of a talking idiot sponge. Too bad there were never anymore house birthday parties afterwards...

I don't want to resent anymore. Don't want to cry over history. Birthdays have somehow erected a phobia within my mind. Especially when it comes to... gifts... I don't think I need any gift though... Because I'm sure it is a sin to demand for friends to waste meaningless time and effort to please a pleased soul.

I have one wish right now. It is a birthday wish: I wish for a pink pony.

...Okay. That was mostly a joke. I wish for just one thing which I hope will be fulfilled subsequently, or maybe some days after today: Confidence. Not just from me, but the people around me. A drastic change that robbed everyone from their basic manners since puberty. I have regained it and cherished it. So as the wisher, I hope everyone else will fight shame and pessimism to gain their own pride and resolve. Many heroes of the past could've had this mindset to overcome obstacles, from molehills to mountains, deltas to oceans. This kinda came from my gut feeling... Personalized quote(Note that it doesn't rhyme):

"Violent storms and heavy rains
can be gentle breezes and water drops
when one believes them to be."

Reputation

"One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation." --- Oscar Wilde

Can't believe I could place a quote of Oscar Wilde, which can really fit this one...

How does it feel like to be noted by everyone in school or the community for something one has done them good? Holding a name for oneself sure isn't easy. Reason being: One needs excellence to be prestigious, as well as excellence to hold on to his or her prestige. There was once this case when I topped my class in POA. I just needed 1 more mark to score full marks, so I got first in class. That was history, though... Moments later, my concern shifted to excellence in Additional Mathematics, so I spent less time in revising for upcoming tests in POA. And then what happened next was... "BOOM!" Gone is my hard-boiled reputation. Gone it was, with the wind. Of course, my Additional Mathematics was not an excellent subject. So I kinda underperformed that time. My prestige was gone. My hard-earned reputation was gone. That time, I learnt that when it comes to spotting for excellence, there are two options to choose from: One is to excel in one profession, and the other is to give in 110% for more than just one excellence. As for me, lesson of humiliation learnt, I would want to go for the latter. 110% ain't uncommon for me. I do hope the same goes for everyone else. After all, reputation ain't for the poor-resolved people.