Nieuw beginnen

I posted this story on my facebook but I think I will repeat it here again. After a huge dark storm has passed, I had a dream. A dream of having a fully tattooed body from head to toes. Some of them was Korean letters. But somehow I regretted having tattoos and desperately wanted to erase everything. But I woke up without doing so. This meant something I thought. This is something extraordinary and it tries to tell me something. I searched for dream interpretations.

Yes indeed. My dream was reflecting my psychological and emotional status. It meant that I suffer from not being able to express myself and my emotions. And I just endure these sufferings. How great. This was so accurate I was little bit scared.

Anyways like I said the huge dark storm has already passed. It is calm and I hope this continues till I die. It is such a waste of time and emotions. I hate playing emotions. It is not productive and not healthy.

To compensate my shredded emotions, I hurried myself to buy tickets. Tickets that will send me to some other places. I initially wanted to go to Paris with Shan in the fourth week of February but since I have a vacation in the third week, why not go somewhere then? Getting some fresh air as early as possible is a better idea.

So I bought return tickets to Madrid! Only if I had more time, I would've gone to Barcelona as well but I can't skip my classes. I am a very strongly-study-committed student :-) In Madrid we can also practice some slecht Spanish as well! Haha.

Another friend of mine who is studying in Finland also suggested to travel Helsinki together with her. Yes waarom niet? Just thought of travelling already made me so up-beat and happy. And I believe this is also a very good idea for a nieuw beginnen. There will be some financial crisis over the next few months, but what the hell! I just go for it.

It is only good for me. Getting some fresh air and travelling with old friends of mine :-)

Belgen zijn koud

I was threatened to leave this country. I became almost a homeless. Everything was useless. He was cold - te koud. 

Geen belgen begrijpen mij. 

Everybody has their own reasons to be like themselves now. I don't comment more on that. It's pitiful and shameful, so I don't have any more things to say. Maar belgen zijn simply koud - te koud. If you don't know about something well enough, please be careful with your words on that.

I am totally an outsider. Niemand begript mij. Niemand! It is sad but true. Your narrow-mindedness and stubbornness will slowly make you realise what you've done to me. Slowly but eventually.

Wat kan ik nu doen? Niks.

 

Osho moment - Right NOW!

Yes, I desperately need an Osho moment. So I opened any pages of the book 'Bliss: living beyond happiness and misery', and read. 

Bliss p.61

You are ill, you are in distress, life is filled with problems, so you get drunk and everything seems to be alright. A bum walks into a pub, and when he leaves there is a song on his lips. You buy happiness at the cost of losing the small ray of consciousness that you have. But these things will never bring bliss to you, because happiness is nothing but the forgetting of sorrow, whereas bliss is the remembrance of your being. It is not the forgetting of something, it is a total remembrance of something. It is not a forgetting, it is a total remembrance.

p.105

People have to be ready to suffer for the joys of success and ambition they pursue their whole lives, to suffer in the same proportion as the amount of happiness they pursue - and those hardships and sufferings will break them completely. Long before they have experienced any success, they will have become almost a failure. Nobody ever succeeds in this world, because you have to go through so much insanity, so much madness as the price for this success, that by the time success comes it is not worth having.

The bliss of self-realisation is totally different: you don't have to pay any price for it, because what you are trying to reach is already present in you, here and now. It is not somewhere in the future - that you have to go in search of it and work hard for it. It is present here, it is present now. You already have it; it is your intrinsic treasure. There is no need to go through any sufferings as a price for it.


DUS!!!! moet ik mijn 'intrinsic treasure' vinden. This is the time I need a break and a sound meditation.

silver nails?

The name of my blog or website always has been 'moonlight flitting' since I was in Middle school (junior high school). There were two reasons why I named my blog like that. Firstly, I liked and still like the moon. I love anything to do with the moon and moonlight and don't know the reasons why. I just like it. Even my first tattoo is a crescent moon. The second reason was when I made my first blog, I was in love with this Korean band 'Moonchild'. They were four but after the two albums (I guess), one left the group and they changed the band name to M.C the Max. I still loved their music. And I still do now.

Anyways, I made a blog and a fan page named 'moonlight flitting' as if I wanted to flee somewhere with the members of the band :-) And the matching word 'moon' was very important. I remember when I was deciding how to call the name of the fan page, I went through my dictionary starting from MOON of course. And then I chose that name. That was almost 12-13 years ago. Time flies!

My old fan page no longer exists but my other blog is still 'moonlight flitting'. As logging into Naver server was so slow when I was in Australia, I made another blog 'Kika y Shortbus'. I think it was mainly to keep my detox diary in Canberra. I still wrote after the detox programme but abandoned it again after abusing it to express my extremely hurt feelings. Anyways it was called Kika y Shortbus for the obvious reasons. I love the movies 'Kika'(Pedro Almodovar) and 'Shortbus'(John Cameron Mitchell). By the way I don't think I posted any movie related stuff :P

And why silver nails and brussels for this blog??
I knew I was coming to Brussels and thought it would be fun to record my life in Brussels. It hasn't been really fun so far (haha) but anyways I continue. So the 'brussels' part in the name of my blog is obvious but why 'silver nails'? I hardly wear nail polish. I used to wear only in Uganda where I didn't need to do all the house chores that would ruin the nails and the nail polish was dammmmmmn cheap.

Silver nails, this is again related to a singer (not a band this time). While I was in Korea before coming to Uganda/Belgium, I enjoyed watching some singing competition TV show and there was this girl called '이하이' whom I really really liked. I loved her voice and style. One day, she wore this very cool-looking silver nails and I found them so so so fascinating I even bought myself a silver nail polish. I tried only once (haha) anyways that is the reason why I named this blog 'silver nails and brussels'. Maybe I instinctively wanted to be like her in a mysterious European city.

Now I gave a thought and summerised on that, I should wear silver nails tonight. :-)

 

Sapiosexual

something that is stuck in my head today
sapiosexual, dat ben ik

memories

A thought on memories from the past

Someone told me our past is everything.
I think what he meant was that our past has led us to the present and finally define us.
Past is important in a sense that what and who you are is all based on your history. Experiences you've had, people you've met, difficulties you've gone through... everything makes who and what you are now. Yes I agree on that. But is it necessary to always refer to your past when you are living the present?

Maybe it is if you are old and have not to much adventure ahead.
Maybe it is if you are not happy with the current situation.
Maybe it is if you are not sure about your life now.
Maybe it is if you studied history.

Till the point I was busy pursuing my dream and when also being disappointed by reality in Uganda, I was always a future-oriented person. Thinking about the present and how it would affect the future in general. Past was simply something irreversible and something that happened which I couldn't do much about it. If you are stuck in affairs or memories from the past how will you go forward?

It will swallow you up. It will slowly rot you to death. There is no progress - this means end to me.

I think this attitude helped me survive this harsh world. All the nasty things happened to me.... I couldn't take them with me so I abandoned everything there... sometimes even good things too.

Now I think again, whenever I had a conversation with my friends from high school, I seemed not to remember or even I didn't think I was part of it. Some friends said it was because I went through so much after high school unlike others. That might be true but even things happened in Uganda seem so long ago.

I don't seem to hold so much memories or histories within myself. I just live the present and things pass by. I don't embrace much of the past. Is it because I am such a selfish cold-hearted bitch? Or simply because I have short-term memory problems? Or do I regret so much about things happened in the past and just try to justify myself by not remembering/ reminding myself?

My brother once tried to define me or try to make me define myself but I don't even remember how it ended and the questions is still there.

My history defines me. I have no doubts on that. But living in the past destroys you. Trying to correct wrong things from the past is justifiable. Reflecting good things from the past to the present is also what we do all the time. But being stuck in the past does no good. No good at all. 

Amelie Nothomb

자주가는 카페에서 내가 쓴 글에 어떤 분이 아멜리 노통에 관한 덧글을 남기셨다.
(여담이지만 그 분의 덧글을 보고 아멜리 노통이 벨기에 출신인 걸 처음 알았고,
벨기에 외교관의 딸이라는 것도 처음 알았다)
그래서 가만히 생각해보았는데, 내가 유일하게 읽어본 소설은 '반박' 밖에 없는 듯.

그래서 혹시나 해서 예전 블로그를 뒤져보니 -
역시나 2004년도 수능 끝나고 한창 여가 시간이 많을 때 읽었더랬다.

그래서 다시 그녀의 quotes를 여기다가 옮겨 적으련다.


사람은 스스로가 어떤 인물인지 알지 못한다.
자기 자신에게 익숙해 진다고 믿고 있지만 실제로는 정반대이다.
세월이 갈수록 인간이랑 자신의 이름으로 말하고 행동하는 
그 인물을 점점 이해할 수 없게 된다.
그렇다고 문제가 되는 것은 아니다. 
자신에게 낯설게 느껴진다고 한들 무슨 불편이 있을 것인가?
그편이 오히려 나을지도 모른다
자신이 어떤 인간인지 알게 되면 혐오감에 사로잡힐 테니까. 
.....

피해를 입는 경우에 장점이 있을 수 있다면 그건
피해 당사자가 자신의 인내력의 한계를 시험할 수 있다는 점이다.
내적 성찰을 해본 적이 없는 나는 내 마음속 깊은 곳을 들여다보고는 깜짝 놀랐다.
마치 거기서 미지의 힘을 발견하기를 기대했던 것처럼. 


글쎄 나는 나를 잘 알고 있다고 믿지 않는다.
딱 일 년 전쯤 런던 포트레잇갤러리 레스토랑에서 동생과 대화를 할 때도
동생과의 대화와 의견 교류가,
나의 존재, 나의 성격, 나를 완성하는 모든 것들에 대해서 곰곰히 생각하게 만들었다.

내 이름으로 무언가를 말하고, 내 이름으로 행동을 하지만
어쩔때는 나는 백프로 솔직하지 못한 사람 처럼 느껴지기도 하거든.

내가 어떤 인간인지 알게 된다 - 이건 어느 경우에도 불가능한 것 아닌가.
누가 어떤 기준을 잣대로 어떤 가치를 가지고 나를 평가 혹은 정의 내릴 것인가.

 it (all) depends

ik ben blij vandaag

생은 얼마나 많은 소근거림으로 가득한가.
스무살이란 원래 막막하라고 있는 나이 같다. 확실한 건 아무것도 하지 말라고 있는 나이.....
어른들은 습관과 의무 속에서 살고 아이들은 충동과 잔소리 속에서 살며
스무 살의 나이는 몽상과 도주의 욕망 속에서 살아간다.
그러니 설사 막막할지라도 슬퍼할 필요는 없다.스무살의 권리니까.

전경린 <나비>中

글쎄 이 구절을 한국의 현 시대에 반영해 본다면 막막한 나이는 스무살이 아니라 이십대이다. 

열아홉 즈음부터 스물아홉.. 혹은 서른까지. 

호주에서 학교를 다니며 막막한 점이 있었다. 공부도 늦게 시작했는데, 졸업 후 일을 제대로 못 구하면 어떡하지 막막했다.

다행히도 졸업 전에 계약직이지만 취업을 했다. 취업을 하고 나니 현실과 이상의 괴리가 너무 커서 힘들었다. 나의 꿈이 망가지는 것 같아서 막막했다. 현실에 안주하며 물들어 가는 내 모습을 보니 막막했다.

나의 선택으로 머나먼 유럽땅에 왔지만 취업이 생각처럼 쉽지 않아 막막하다. 점점 바보가 되어가는 것 같아 막막하다. 프랑스어 실력이 생각처럼 일취월장하지 않아 막막하다.

But I felt different today. In the morning I enjoyed translating an article for ILDA, I enjoyed playing games, I enjoyed eating spicy Korean food, I enjoyed eating chocolates without feeling guilty, I enjoyed a short stroll in the neighbourhood, I enjoyed the party with my classmates and I really enjoyed talking to my classmates and their families. I was actually surprised to see myself having a conversation in Dutch. Maybe I should organise this kind of get together thingy :-)

너무 나만의 생각에 갖혀서 막막해 하지 말자.  내 삶엔 많은 소근거림이 있고, 그것들에 귀기울일 필요도 있어. 하찮다고 생각할 필요없다고. 아무리 작은 것이라도 아무리 흔한 것이라도 항상 pay attention and appreciate. 나의 평화와 행복은 나의 attitude에 달려있다는거.

love from faraway...

오늘은 무려 2004년에 네이버 블로그에 썼던
무라카미 하루키 산문집의 한 구절을 재탕하려 한다.


마음이란 사용하는 것이 아니다. 
마음이란 그냥 거기에 있는 것이다.
마음은 바람과도 같아서 당신은 그 움직임을 
느끼는 것만으로도 좋은 것이다. 

나의 인생은 이미 많은 부분을 상실하고 말았지만
그것은 겨우 한 부분이 끝났을 다름이다.
이제부터 무엇인가를 
거기에서 얻을 수 있을 것이다.

Murakami Haruki <한 없이 슬프고 외로운 영혼에게>



Yes I was sad maybe I am still.
Once I tried so hard to control my and others' mind/heart but it was no use.
Yes it is supposed to stay still. It is supposed to feel the wind, feel everything that passes by.

Part of my heart is severely burnt and now blackened. I lost that part. It is not functional anymore.
I lost half of my cheerfulness. I am sad and lonely which can't be explained by any means.
I am still young and if the world doesn't end this Friday, I will live even longer.

First and a half chapter of my life is closing now but I'd better learn from and use my blackened part.
It is merely a part that has seen the end. Merely a part of me.....

First of December

It's already December. I spent half a year here in Brussels. I was going through my posts in this blog and realised that I've been abusing it.... 격한 내 감정 너무 토해낸 것 같아.

Let's consider this as a new start.. I should act and think more serenely. Serenely.. .. ..

calm?

constant fights seem to be over

ongoing dissatisfaction, still having high hopes...
is it all going to be worthwhile trying..... or simply waste of time..
je ne sais pas...

but at least I have peace. peace that's the most important thing I need now.
so will be fine for the time being. 

should I compromise this much?

Rain.  Cold wind.

Before it's too late...

We played a game yesterday. I told him I could play anything he wants.
He picked up a racing game. Fine.