when i watch america's next top model, i see one beautiful girl being cut from the running, week after week. they get comments like "you don't want this bad enough" or "your eyes are so dead, there's no fire in them."

that got me to looking into the mirror at my own eyes. i wanted to see if they looked dead to people, to myself. the eyes tell all, it seems. your yearnings, your wants, your passion, it's all supposedly seeable through your eyes.

i couldn't see any drive in my eyes, to my charign. i couldn't see any passion or fire. just a pretty pair of brown almond shaped eyes.
and i didn't see hunger in them. you know what i saw? i saw sadness. i saw wistfulness. i saw pain. there was a haunted look about them, in spite of the cheery lashes framing them and the brightness there. why? i'm asking myself why.

the eyes tell a story. when you look into the eyes of a seemingly happy person, sometimes you see the sadness lurking behind. just a quick glimpse, but still, you see it. that's what i saw when i stared into my eyes in the mirror. like, they were happy and bright for a while. then as i looked harder and longer, i realised there was something different. like, a different quality about them. then i realised it was a heaviness that had come over them. a strange quality of heaviness and sadness. then when i blinked, that flash of hurt had gone and hidden behind the brightness again. but i knew it was there. i'd seen it.

i don't want my eyes to convey sadness. i don't want my eyes to convey pain. i'm an optimistic person. i love life. i don't dwell on things for long. why can't my eyes shed off the vestiges of past hurts like how i've told myself i have and shine with hope instead of bottled up bittersweetness?

i'm sad that my eyes show all these. it just shows that some past baggages, you never completely leave behind. i think that when you look into the eyes of an eighty-year-old woman, you'll get completely freaked out. so much you'll see in them. so much pain, so many memories, so much quashed hope, so much fear of what lies beyond this life, just so much. too much.

one of the girls in ANTM said something that made me think.

sometimes you cry cos there's just nothing you can do.

and i think she does make sense. when i know what to do, when i know i can change things, i'll set myself onto doing what i can. but when there's absolutely nothing i can do within my means, when there's absolutely nothing i can do to change anything, the tears come. when you realise you're completely helpless to do anything, when you realise that even the tears won't help, you cry even more.

what do i want to do in life? i want to find happiness. i want to find love. i want to love. i want to bring happiness. i want to lose my inhibitions.

if you asked me why i wanted to do what i want to do, why i want to travel the world as a journalist instead of just staying put where i am in my comfy fishbowl, why i want to do things i couldn't possibly do by staying here, i'd tell you because i want to live. i couldn't be happy here, i couldn't be happy in an office cubicle in front of a computer, i couldn't be happy caught up in the rat race of earning money to pay off loans.

my soci text said something that made me really nod my head and go OH YEAH when i read it. you know what the Werkglock is?
let me tell you. it is the one thing that everyone on this planet lives by. oh, okay, practically everyone in the developed world, anyway. it's the one thing that people wake up in the mornings like clockwork for. it's the one thing that makes people leave perfectly enjoyable situations. it's the one thing that makes people fidgety and impatient about.

it's the bloody clock. it's time.

life for so many has become one cycle after the other of 6am mornings, rushing the kids to school or rushing yourself to school, for that matter, making it for the 10am lecture, the 12pm lecture, the 4pm tutorial, catching the 5.10pm bus, making the 6.15pm evening mass, getting home before 8pm for dinner, switching on the tv at 10pm to watch Desperate Housewives, turning off the lights by 12am so you'll get at least 6 hours of sleep. and when you get up at 6am the next morning again, the whole cycle repeats itself, albeit perhaps slightly differently. but we all have a schedule to adhere to every day.

stifling, isn't it? we've become slaves of the Werkglock. i've become a slave to time. i'm constrained by time, i can't talk to people i wanna talk to because i have no time, i need to do my work by tomorrow. sometimes all i want to do is smash all the clocks in my house and live perfectly unhassled and unharried for just a while, to see how deliciously free life would be like.

we have all allowed the clock to precisely regulate our activites and even our entire lives, and the best thing is that it seems like the most natural thing in the world for everyone. no one rebels against it, no one thinks that clocks cause any harm, no one blinks an eye when someone rushes from one place to another cos "i'm gonna be late".

when i retire, i'm gonna live without a clock in my house. or, if i ever get round to writing my first book, i'll do it without a clock in my room. i'll write when i feel like it, and not be pressured by time constraints to produce one chapter in one hour. when i get married, i'll live the first day as a wife without a clock too. enjoy the company of my husband, just enjoy being together without worrying about the stupid time.