Where your treasure is, there your heart will be

I've left my job at the Ministry of Defence. So the last two weeks have been days of rest and relaxation for me, spent with loved ones and doing things that are important to me, along with the redefinition of what is important. After all, where my treasure is, there my heart will be also.

I'm both excited and apprehensive about my next job. It would most probably require a lot from me work-wise, a lot more than I've been putting in the last year and a half, for sure. But my main reason for switching jobs was actually to ensure that I don't stagnate, both mentally and career-wise. My deep interest in learning has and always be a great asset of mine, and I didn't want to get too comfortable where I was. Yes, life was definitely good at my previous job, affording me awesome work-life balance and a more than decent take-home salary. I loved my colleagues and genuinely enjoyed passing the time of each work day with them. Many people could not understand my decision to leave my job. Why walk away from a good thing? But I believe that there are good things, and then there are good things.

I've made my choice to expand my knowledge and learning opportunities, so here I am, waiting.
In the meantime, I've spent a lot of my time expanding my mind, reading and reading and then reading some more.

One of my favourite reads this break has got to be Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus.



It is immensely magical and beautiful, and her prose has painted such an exquisite circus, replete with the burnt taste of caramel popcorn and the wonder of a room full of clouds. I loved every minute I spent in her circus, relished the time I spent wandering among the fantastical tents of each act and wondering at how all my senses took flight, and I never wanted it to leave. But leave, it must, for the book had to come to an end, and it left me wanting yet more. It has been a long time since my imagination has been so captured by a read, so much so that even my soul felt gripped by the subtle undercurrent melancholy. I loved that the way the plot was weaved into the tapestry of the details; I'm personally a fan of books high on lyricism and exquisite style, probably because that's how I like to write.

How I can tell when a book touches me particularly is when I feel moved to pick up my own pen and write again - and I felt stirred to write days and days after I'd finished the book. Something in me just wants to recreate the magic in my own way.



Anyhow. Other than reading my eyeballs out, I've been trying to become more financially literate in earnest. It's been tough going, that has. Reading up on concepts and financial products aside, this journey has made me come face to face with all my bad habits, and forced me to acknowledge them for what they are. It's made me a whole lot more self-aware. While I'm on one hand still reeling from the magnitude of my ignorance, I am also very grateful that I've started now rather than later.

Clem and I have also started running again in a bigger way. Longer distances, a bit more frequently (trying to up our frequency from twice a week to thrice, but it's not easy to find the time!), more exciting and beautiful running locales... All in our bid to be more healthy all-round.

Tomorrow is my last real day of holiday, since the weekend doesn't really count! I shall try to be as productive and savour every single minute of tomorrow. I will try to be back again with a picture post from last week, but I'm really not too hopeful, given my lousy track record!

Honeymoon Part 1.1: On stranger, sun-drenched tides.

What wouldn't I give to be back in Phi Phi or Hong Kong, on my honeymoon, with no care in the world except "What shall I eat for dinner?" or "Should I take a nap out by the beach in the hammock or in my bed in case it rains in the afternoon?"

It truly was good for the soul, being so away from everything with my love for sole company and nothing else to distract me except the big wide world and everything it held.

Walking on the beach hand-in-hand, tasting the salty sea breeze on my tongue and brushing off the crystallized salt on my arms from sea spray, hearing the howling sea wind rip through the coconut trees at night, the waves lapping up against the top steps at high tide and feeling just that tiny bit deliciously scared of the awesomeness of nature and how powerless I really am, taking those private boat rides out across the choppy sea to snorkel among the curious fishies, eating some simple but delicious noodles at night accopanied by my favourite chili sauce (sugared fish sauce with sliced red chili).... The four days I spent on Phi Phi made me know what it's like for people who keep going from beautiful beach to beautiful beach, all in search of their version of paradise. Because really, everyone's paradise will be different.  

Recounting all that makes my heart literally ache with yearning to be free to travel once more, with the husband alongside, no less.

I'm really looking forward to our next getaway, whenever it is.

I wonder if other people feel it too - this constant wanderlust that seems to grow in its appetite with each trip I take.

So, part 1.1 of my honeymoon in pictures which I don't think do justice to the entire experience of Phi Phi island, which was like a little slice of paradise for me - but it's all I have to look back and remember, and know that it was real.

Really hot and sunny that morning when we set off from Krabi to our little spot on Phi Phi island.

Loved my hot pink bikini :D

The water was such a pretty shade of blue-green, I had a lot of trouble capturing it on film. This is the closest I could reach, but it's really a hundred times more beautiful in real life.

And the rocks that tower over the lagoons and beaches are absolutely majestic and so lush!

  

Washing my feet before entering our villa and after traipsing around on the sand was really nice.

  

We hired one of these private long tail boats for our island-hopping instead of going with the hotel's. It was nice cos we got to choose which islands in particular we could visit and it was probably about half the price of the hotel's boat tours for the same amount of time spent and islands visited. :)

Really good Thai massage in the main town centre on Phi Phi that we went back to two days in a row!

 We would not have survived our 4 nights on Phi Phi if it were not for Jasmin Restaurant, which served up some decent, simple Thai food for reasonable prices. The Holiday Inn Resort restaurants were really disappointing in terms of food quality.

My staple noodle dish almost every night, with no carrots :P

And the really breathtaking sunsets. Gorgeous dusk colours in the sky as we sipped on our drinks.

"Not all those who wander are lost."

J. R. R. Tolkein

Literature & Life #1: To Live

For memory's sake,

especially since there's just too much going on for me to keep proper track of things:

TIME's All-Time 100 Novels List.

I should be reading a lot more than I have been;

the world's vaster than my desk at work, my bed at home and my upcoming wedding combined.

So I have a new resolution: I shall read one book off TIME's list every fortnight.

Last night while sitting on the swing, Clem and I were discussing about how the society we are a part of inhibits fullness of being, clips the wings of our imagination, sucks us dry. We are myopic, flat, uninspired, tepid - too focused on what we stand to gain from our successes than in how these experiences have enriched us and added another facet to our lives. Pragmatism is the disease of our society, the cancer that leaves us so empty with no space to dream and pursue those same dreams. There's no place for romance, no space for doing things solely for the heady rush of doing them, no time to savour each moment. I'm not saying these don't exist, but they're rare and sparse among us who are bogged down by neccessities.

This might perhaps illustrate my analogy above a little better:

I see myself as a raw gemstone, with every experience big or small, significant or seemingly insignificant, adding another facet to me. Adding to my brilliance, changing the way I reflect and appear to others, changing the way I am made up, changing who I am. In that same vein, all the arts should function that way on top of their entertainment value.

So in short, books feed my soul, are a means for me to experience the larger world outside my current circumstance, shape me. Some people have their music, others have their art, theatre or dance. I have my literary pursuits, for a lack of a better word. Reading, writing, reading, and then writing again - all in the attempt to add on layer upon layer of vicarious experience and ideas onto myself.

Travelling, too.

But I tell myself there's a time for that, there will be a time for that, though that time is not now.

(Can't possibly be travelling to one new destination a week - much as I would love to - , can I?)

So many financial responsibilities, so little time, and just one of me.

Some Instagrams that sometimes seem more accurate in their filtered distortions than real life itself.

After all, perception and life as a whole, is a lot more subjective than we'd like to admit.

  

In a (poor) attempt at captioning:

Dusk and night sky, twilight interstitiality, pop colours, sameness/difference, glass half full.