UltraCrepidate

“He’s a good guy, but he isn’t extreme enough.”

So short and to the point. It sums up the whole of my existence, struggle and desires.

“Why did you come here?” Is the first question and I found the answer, but I wish I didn’t. It opened up doors leading to other questions about myself.

I like being lost. Putting myself in a vulnerable position, forcing myself to trust others and to open up my mind to all possibilities. Without shame I accepted being lost and not speaking the language. I accepted being different and lived while being different.

So much happened, leaving question marks for me to ponder. Soul searching and exploration. I learnt about what I want. What I don’t want. What I desire and what others desire. Mostly, I learnt about what I can do and cannot do.

There is something I want… and I know I can get it. But there’s something else I want, preventing me from this. It all comes back to the choices I make. I make extreme ones, so I can understand how I function like that, then settling back to the middle.

Met alot of travellers going around Europe. When asked about anything exciting that happened. They couldn’t say. They rush into a city for 3 days, watch, observe the building and the people and leave. Forming an impression of the people in their mind based on that. Blocking their heart from others because you won’t see them again the next day…

So much… So much. I don’t know if my brain can digest everything. Maybe the movie Lost in translation can explain part of what I felt.

NB: The political situation is better than I thought. No violent outbreaks or gang duels. Just big fat ass mob rallied in front of the parliament and town halls of different county making noises for a whole week, while making decisions for themselves that the election is declared nullified etc. etc.

Taiwan’s president and vice president has been shot. The day before the election. I watched the news with amazement as I discovered a distance inside of me that tells me I don’t love this country. I should be angry and swearing at the opposition party or China for being scheming bastards. But I am not. Whichever one of them became the president holds no meaning in my life. All I am here for, is to get the job experience that I need to get another one in North America.

The possibility of a riot hangs in the air. With a generation of population experiencing their first democratic government. Emotional ties are stronger than ever. Politics turning brothers against brothers, fathers and sons.

I am curious. When a riot escalates into a civil war, what will I do? I was born here, but will I be able to shed blood for a country I didn’t grow up in.

Being called on emergency idle duty sounds like the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, but alas, I’ve been on such call for 3 days now. It is the final stage of the production cycle, where we, the engineers run around with nerves shot and bad temper.

We await for the factory’s dreaded call for a final checking before the machines starts burning metals. The rest of the time we just sit there idly. Thinking. Having too much time to think. And hating having too much time to think.

I am going to Vienna tomorrow. Somehow the fear of the unknown never struck me. I mean; shit. I have no plan what so ever. Whatever comes will come.

Ever paid attention to what make the most expensive dish stand out from all the other expensive dishes? Besides the chef’s ability to feel the state of the ingredients and the cost of them.

Of course, expensive food taste better… but its feel, is that of a constant and unexciting good. Kind of like descending from a mountain. You do it slowly.

Now, imagine eating the food and suddenly feeling the explosion of a hidden spice that the chef prepared for you. Put at the right spot so the customer would experience it after the base taste of the expensive ingredients have settled in. Isn’t it like a hard penetrating dive into a layer of soft snow? Comfy and tense at the same time.

And that is what you’ll remember, instead of how much the beef actually costed. Ironically, the spice probablly cost $1 while the rest of it costs $1000

Being ganged up by three gold diggers is a very new and interesting experience for me. I’ve never cared about my personal worth, nor did I ever attracted anyone due to my personal worth. It had always been my character… it left me feeling like an object.

I managed to deflect a few of their interrogations and turned it around back to them, but everytime I succeeded in doing so, another would just ask the question again:” So… you still haven’t told us how much you are spending on your trip to Vienna”.

Afterwards I reflected back on the “why” of differences in what turns women on between different cultures. I realized that it has alot to do with what the “norm” chases after. As a norm, people here struggles throughout their life to acquire money and understands more the hardship that one has to endure to get a scrap of riches or to keep oneself from hunger. When all that the government would do for a homeless person is to say “Screw you”, people are scared of reaching that stage. Death seems nicer than a life of hard work. Suicide is as natural as a walk in the park. Not often, but not surprising either.

The problem with being trusted too much is that you sometimes have to sacrifice your own needs in order to fufill the beliefs that others have in you. 30 minutes before the end of work, and I discovered a bug that’ll kill our soon to be sent to fabrication chip… but telling them also means I’ll have to skip my dance class.

I told them and hell broke loose… Sometimes being good at what I do makes my personal life just that much more difficult. Before long, I’ll be turned into a workaholic robot.

Work has finally slowed down. The everlasting pressure and overtime suddenly came to a halt, when everyone decided to give up. We, as a team, have exhausted ourselves both mentally and physically. But we, as a team, has grown. One chip, taped out, in under 8 months. Unbelievable.

Listening to music, is never the same anymore. My ear can now pick out the faintest of noises that is usually filtered out by our brain. Am I blessed with such skill? Or cursed by my newfound ability?

I remember a time back before… I remember for the longest time in my life back then, that I used to put one girl in my surrounding on a pedestal and worship her. Fearing, all the time to approach her. Or to even understand her. There’s usually a sense of awe and adoration with a hint of fear whenever that person is around… The typically case of a crush, where your heart rate increases and you blurb out random incomprehenble words.

I asked myself today who is that person now and found myself without an answer. I simply don’t feel that way anymore. Is that sad? Or should I congradulate myself?

I hate it when I am happy and feel like the top of the world, because I get this annoy feeling… The feeling of an upcoming downfall that’ll be equal in magnitude to this new high I am feeling.

On a side note. I think that I get a big rise out of seducing women. The more I seduce, the happier I am and life, is a blessing. Shallow? isn’t it? But what else can you feel when there are women tugging and pulling at your arm trying to get your attention while a constant stream of jealousy shoot from other women towards the one you are talking to…. The constant sidelong glances, and the weird way people’s head seems to turn, in order to better hear what you are saying to that girl sitting next to you.

A colleague whom I never talk to made the first move today. She spun around suddenly and made an open waiting gesture for me to catch up to her… after I smiled at her on the bus that is. But why am I not happy? With so many wanting me? Why am I not taking advantage of every chance and move it to the next level… Hardcore fucking?

Am I gay? I doubt that… for I do want to make love with them. There are two women I constantly fantasize about making love to, so what the heck is my problem? Is my childhood upbringing really this binding on my actions? Anyone care to explain?

2 months passed by since I made the decision to cut away from the internet, but I never really did. I believe that I’ve reached a point where I can’t completely change anymore. I cannot throw away what I don’t like about myself, because they exist to accentuate the part that I like. Without the latter, there’d be no former. I’ve come to accept the fact that I will not be able to stop dancing. Nor will I be able to stop wanting a girlfriend who’s a competitive dancer like me. No, dancing can never be a sport. Not when it is meant for two people of the opposite sex. A couple can never reach the true meaning of dancing without the sexual tension and chemistry.

What then should I do? If my lifestyle does not allow it? Does any lifestyle allows it? To be success in one means sacrifice in the other. A dancer’s lifespan ends at 30. After that, if you are not good yet, you’ll never be good… But a buisness career, carries over to 60. Both requires the person to give it everything in the twenties.

There are reasons to aim for either one , with unfroseeable outcomes. The choosing though is not related to the choice at all, but rather, the environment surrounding it. People and place. Ever since I graduated, I’ve been asking myself this question. Am I more of a dancer? Or am I more of an engineer? I wonder no more, for I am both. Being an engineer is what I wished for, but now that I am. I know that simply being an engineer is not enough for me. The passion for dancing, the desire to move takes over, whenever the music turns on. It singes the flesh that envelops the steel prsion encaging my heart. But have I made the right choice? Leaving everything behind and coming here, to work like a robot. In the harshest possible environment? Yes. Am I crazy? Maybe.

Depends on which standard you base craziness on. Here, it is the norm. Without coming here, I cannot have realized what I really wanted. I’d take everything for granted. I’d live in happiness, but still be sad.

A friend of mine that I’ve know for the past 7 months told me that he admires me… that there’s a confidence in me, a belief in myself that I can achieve what I want. Even in failure, I failed with confidence. But he is puzzled at what I am looking at, when my gaze seems to reach out, into a faraway place.

Perhaps, the search for an equal…

Yes, I am back, but it is not me anymore.