just minishorts.

I have found my 'dream'. Sort of. I'm caught up in this silly drama. Every night Mum and I will rush to the idiot box and oogle at Che Cheng Jun, the cutie who owns the Disneyland-like amusement park. And the girl's really pretty too.

I know-lah, the show is a bit gila, 80% of the time the tycoon leng chai isn't working!!! He just struts around the whole amusement park in a black suit, and he's usually flanked by five or six bodyguards (the leader is white, mind you!!). When he's in his office he just broods and hangs around, sometimes he gets angry and he smashes something off the tables.

The girl is pretty, and she's VERY good at crying. Her tears-hoh, just go and go… like neverending Niagara like that (worse than me, but then again, I don't cry that much!).

Mum and me are usually in stitches at every absurd scene, and then we'll go like, 'So stupid so stupid, how come the girl's father doesn't recognise his own daughter.'

Eh, it's almost slapstick entertainment, and very good junk food for the soul. I was having a debate with him over how leng chai the dude was and how nice the show is?eh imagine getting a guy who owns a really huge kiddie amusement park to fall in love with you…. and I think I left him in a trail of his own puke.

Its nice because it leaves us girls with something to dream about. And I really have not been a girl in a very, very long time. It gets tiring being an adult all the time, and the child in me gets let out with this Stairway to Heaven, crap though it may be.

A friend sent me a card with a telling message today?that I should enjoy my birthday, and celebrate the woman I am. I saw that card, and I was actually moved to tears. It was like?'Wow!'?complemented with a long sigh of satiation. *Thank you, Derek!*

The woman I am indeed. 'I am woman, hear me roar??!!!'

This year has been a mixed bag of realisations and occasions in self-empowerment. Honestly, growing up has never felt so significant at all until 2004. And being 24 has never made me feel more Scorpio until today.

I think if you believe in horoscopes, you would be unusually proud of your character traits that those books (nonsense, to some people). The Scorpio is said to be the most determined and strongwilled sign of the horoscope, but the Scorpio also bears the bane of being overtly emotional and obsessive. The Scorpio is intuitive (and usually my intuition comes out so accurate it scares the hell out of me) and the Scorpio is also vindictive.

The men in my life have commented on my tendency to be overtly suspicious, and to have my feelings and anger spill over due to my severe tendency to 'suspect'. It is a curse you see… I know I have a determination that's extreme to absurd heights. It has also led me to be quite the wild-optimist, having hope in even the bleakest of shadows, holding on to hope when there really isn't any purpose to do so anymore. Not that this is a bad thing really, determination. It's just that, it eats into my emotional self, and this terrifies the unprepared.

Oh, but I'm very aware of my character?have no doubt about that. I am aware of what I can do, and what I cannot do. Aware of my misgivings, the problems with not being moderate at all. I do have self-control, if you knew me in real life you'd be surprised at how little I actually reveal to the world, hence, a showingly small circle of trusted friends gain entry into my territory.

I've had two close friends who have expressed disappointment in my apparent 'loss of independence' the moment I give in to love. *sigh*. What a mismatch in understanding! You see, I belong to a category of women who are severely misunderstood. Independent, strong-willed, determined, and highly capable women need to feel like women sometimes. Were you terrified the moment you realised that in closed encounters, where there is finally a complete surrender of the masks you wear to conceal your inner soul, you show-it-all? And when that mask that was worn has been so, so, so thick, were you terrified to realise that behind all that, she was only human, after all?

You can't expect extra-human achievements to come out of a decomposable body. The human soul can only endure so much, and it is in the deepest friendships of trust, that a strong person can let down all his/her guard.

At the end of the day, it's really nice being 24 today, despite the blatantly extreme measures that have stamped a certain level of symbolicness into my entry into 'adulthood'.

*

On another note:

Since I was reading about Scorpios, I decided to read about the other sun sign that has made a *significant* presence in my life. Interestingly:

Virgoans are liable to indecision in wider issues, and this can become chronic, turning molehills of minor difficulties into Himalayas of crisis. Their prudence can become guile and their carefulness, turned in on themselves, can produce worriers and hypochondriacs.

Now, that really made me go hmmmmm… .

I think the nicest thing about talk is letting things out, clearing up your conscience, knowing that you are only human. The nicest thing is crapping.

Nice to crap about black holes and parallel universes. Nice to crap about disappointments and let downs… paradoxal changes. Nice to crap about friendship, the true meaning of it, and how friends don't let each other down.

Nice to crap about unnecessary politics, nice to talk about meanings of words, nice to talk about ex girlfriends (how many SCORPIOS????) and painting the gates red. Shooting chickens perhaps.

Nice to drink to friendship, and be happy. And be glad. And to talk about walking in with your head held high, giving yourself a function and the other, to be thick-skinned.

Nice to talk about being in the middle of a warring feud, that hasn't an apparent reason, and nice to talk about 'confusion', for lack of a better word.

Nice to talk, nice to talk… almost as nice as knowing.

*We are your friends still, and even after everything, we are your friends. Now. Don't let us down.*

Chins up. Heads up high. Continue. Head on. Spine straight. Sit up straight. Smile, laugh. Nothing's wrong with me.

I'm all right. I'm all right.

I have grown up. I'm an adult. I belong to no one, no one but myself. I chart my destiny, I make my own choices. Not my Dad, not my Mum, not my family, not my friends.

I may talk, I may cry, I may think, I may wonder.

But I am responsible for my own decisions, I will take charge of my own life.

No one, no one, no one has the right to come into my life, unless I invite them to.

Don't falter. Don't fade. Don't give a damn. Don't ostracise. Don't bring them down. Don't, don't, don't do unto others, what I don't want to be done unto me.

Sticks and stones may hurt me. But words will not. Words will not.

I refuse to let other people dig their dirty fingers into my life.

I'm my own person. Have always been, will always be.

So you, you, you and you. Go to hell.