Hey guys.

RE: Weighing in

I just got my hands on COC 8 and 9. I want to check out 9 first because I'm trapped in fucked up ways of thinking about things but have issues getting it onto my iPod. Some of my TDD buddies back here have noticed that I have two issues.

1) I'm not assertive
2) My thoughts are a confused mess

I've been working on these for a while and here are the updates

1.1 you need to have something to assert before you can be assertive
1.2 so you need to know what is going on before you make a decision
1.3 you cannot afford to be lazy of apathetic about things around you

In school, I ask for an opinion, knowing what mine is. It's no more, "Hey where are we going?" It's "I am really hungry and going for lunch, are you coming?". Even if no one is, I know enough people to not have to sit alone in college.

I used to get this in subway and restaurants a bit. The waiters/ service staff hmmm and haww when you make a special request (I'm vegetarian, and like my sandwich toasted AFTER everything's been put in). In my head I'm thinking, "This is your job, I'm making a reasonable request, you have no reason to not obey". And it's ok. And you thank them for entertaining your special request. They get the warm fuzzy feeling of having made you happy and you're enjoying the special service.

I've started to take charge. I wanted to get my hands on CoC, badly but didn't have a Credit Card. I tried getting people to help me pay for it etc. And eventually signed up for one affiliated with my college (It's a cool one with a lion on it, I'll show you if you ask =P ).

I think that should be fine with a bit of daily effort.

Discipline is another thing that's been an issue alll my life.

It's easy to blame it on my parents and it might be true. But what am I doing about it now?

For a start, keeping my room in shape, waking up on time, studying on time etc etc. The really basic stuff. I had my mom do it for me most of my life. I kinda handled it alright when I was in the military but honestly, it hasn't sunk in. I'm pretty much starting from scratch here and boy there's sooo much inertia. So here's what I am going to do next term. I am moving to the dorms at college. I'll convince my folks. And get there.

I think that's it for now. I'll check out the podcasts and put up an update. It's now or never.

Cheers
Maya

Great start and a realistic game plan, Maya. Keep it up.

Hey.

An update. I applied to stay in the dorms. My folks reluctantly agreed because we live next door to college but I thought I needed the space. My application still needs to be approved and results come out on Dec 14th but its a step.

So here's the funny bit. My folks set two conditions

1) Don't go out late at night
2) Don't have an affair with anyone

Well, Here are my priorities

1) Study hard
2) Work on my fitness (gym's next door)
3) Party hard ( I think I can go out with Jiron on fri nights and still stay on budget)
4) Study anatomy with whichever chick's in my bed the next morning.

Cheers
Maya

Updates.


I want to keep this short although at the time this happened, I had so many things to say, it doesn't matter anymore.

I recall chatting with Troy about this chick I met at my course at the monastery. We cuddled and stuff and things never got beyond that cos logistics sucked. People got thrown out of the course for smoking and shit so we left it at there. He's like, it could have atleast been a makeout. And I'm thinking, yeah, Troy has a point.

She sends me stuff by courier on my birthday and it's really sweet. I decide I wanna visit her city when I head to India so I go ahead and book a ticket.

Logistics is no better once I'm there. I'm staying at the Religious Mission's centre. She comes to visit me everyday but we can't do much for obvious reasons. We are almost always surrounded by people and I cannot pull her into the boys dorm without causing havoc. The next best thing is that I pretend to fiddle with her phone and key in flirty messages. Or grab a pen and scribble on her hand (like its some master piece) "I wanna do things to you". What things? She asks. "Whatever comes to my mind". In front of everyone. Right on her hand.

On one occassion, I go over to her house for a while but she has two friends waiting there who want to meet me. They talk for an hour plus and I'm fucking pissed. When they eventually leave I'm still pissed and my blood is boiling. We cuddle in the basement and ten minutes later, her dad shows up.

Small talk with her dad and we head back to the mission centre. She rides a scooter. I'm sitting behind her and I grab her waist and tell her how nice it feels. We tell each other we've been thinking about each other for a while and she just pips in and says "By the way I broke up with my boyfriend". rather cheerfully. High point. I tell her we need to fix something tmr.

That night I'm talking to milfton. He encourages me to go for it. I start texting her. [Note: I deleted these msgs from my phone]

Me: I was really hungry and was tempted to tell the cook that I wanted *her name* for dessert.

....

Me: Rmb your dad invited me to stay over? [Note: her sis stayed over at my place in Sg] I soo wanted to say yes.

...

Her: I'd love to be with you for the night :-* or some smiley

It is so on.

The next day we head to a coffee shop. We talk quite a bit and I look at my watch and I have fifteen minutes. I look at her, look away, look again and move in for the kiss. She's like, "Hey, not in public". It's my last day in the city so I know my chances are zero. We head back to the centre. She gives me her last hug and I go cry my sorry ass off in a corner.

Learning points : Focus on what you can do. Flirt undercover. Don't worry about things you can't do. Retrospectively, it was entirely feasible for me to have pulled her into my dorm room [Hey, I got something from Singapore for you] for about two minutes and made out and leave her out without anyone suspecting anything.

Don't be a needy bastard. There was a point in that trip that I was so focussed on her alone that I didn't pay attention to all the other awesome people and opportunities around me, even if not necessarily romantic ones.

Prepare for small escalation windows. The bit where I was too pissed off to do anything was a big miss. I notice this in clubs too. There is a short period where you want to go in and start and interaction on the dancefloor before she cools down and moves away.

I had to get this off my chest.

Cheers
Maya

Considering my logistics and my interests and values. I have decided that my niche is going to be international/exchange students. because

a) they have their own accomodation (they rejected my dorm application)
b) I am very international, no one belives im singaporean
c) culturally flexible
d) I can be their window to Sg, they can be my eye to the world
e) I am a cool medical student =P

Things I realised I need to work on
a) alertness/awareness.
I had this today when I realised the date is only for half an hour
and I know this when I have 5 more minutes left. She had to leave =(
b) lifestyle
mostly intellectual pursuits
signed up for salsa because I like to dance and like to be social
c) geography
know where all the fun things are, have my own fun things I can invite people
to

Gosh, everything seems so out of reach.

Cheers
Maya