»¦ 心愛欲™ ¦« Passion of the Heart ::«

It seems like everyone is getting emotional over the fact that this decade is ending as well as saying goodbye to another year. Judging from various status updates on Facebook and their comments, I’m not the only one who had a horrible year with 2009. Maybe it’s coincidence, or maybe it’s written in the stars. That’s something that we cannot determine, but we all feel a sense of satisfaction being able to say goodbye to this year and to this decade as we look back at see how much has changed.

Ten years ago was when I first became an aunty at the age of ten. For me, it was a big turning point in my life – I had a generation under me to guide and look after. It was the beginning of a responsibility that most other kids my age would not understand until much later in their lives.  My love for children exploded as I gained more nephews and nieces – truly, there is no better gift than new additions into the family. Bonds of love are formed without words and are understood within each embrace; in every kiss on the cheek, smile, laugh and moment of silence. No matter what, these kids have always been able to put a smile on my face and in my heart. I love them so much, and I feel like such a sap as I watch them grow and see how wonderful they become. Needless to say, I’ve influenced these children without even trying – my two nephews both hold an interest in Japan which was aided through me watching anime and them becoming interested. My nieces are still very young and admire anything which is in my room or belongs to me, and I find it heart-warming to say the least. It’s the way they show their love, and I adore them for that.

Nine years ago in sixth grade, I experienced my first serious crush. He was one of my best friends at the time, and we did lots of stupid things together. I even used to kick him – I was the type who didn’t want to show how I felt. In the end, he found out, and he was really happy about it but nothing happened between us – I knew who he liked and didn’t pursue things. I was happy enough to talk to him, play games with him and have his trust. That was enough for me and I think he was glad about that too. Little did I know that this was how my attitude towards dating was formed – I won’t pursue something if I don’t see it going anywhere, regardless if I like the person or not. It’s just the way I am.

Eight years ago was the first time I ever had a serious fight with a good friend. We ended up dividing our grade because of it, and I’m not boasting but most sided with me and my other friend. That was because the friend whom we were fighting with was the one in the wrong for trying to break me up with my other friends by telling me they did horrible things when they didn’t. She was also dating one of my best guy friends and proceeded to flirt with his friends while he was around. He broke up with her after consulting his feelings with me and I told him to do what his heart told him, so he did. It was the first time I had ever been backstabbed by a friend, but sadly not the last.

Seven years ago, I entered junior high, though for us the junior and senior high school were mixed together. It was a new experience and I made new friends, found new interests and started my journey towards self development – I joined various extra-curricular activities such as debating out of interest. Then my homeroom teacher signed me up for various other activities and soon I was juggling between various commitments like the girls soccer team, Tournament of Minds, debating (in which I became team captain), student representative council (I guess you could say I was the equivalent of class president in my class) and continued to enter competitions such as the National Australian Maths Competition. This gave me a kick-start in various areas as I was constantly stepping out of my comfort zone, doing my best to take on new experiences to become a better person. It is because of this that I seem to comprehend many things different from my peers around me.

Six years ago was when I first fell in love and when I had my first boyfriend. I’m still trying to finish up the story of this in the form of “Memoirs of High School Love” which I will get to, eventually. Other than this, it was also the year I first had internet at home and I started chatting online and made various friends all over the world as well as across Adelaide. I frequented on a forum called Utherworld which focused on Final Fantasy and Peacefuldays, which was a fan community for Martian Successor Nadesico – my favourite anime series at the time. As for chats, I was on mIRC on #asianadel and #asianmelb quite frequently – I met several friends that way, including the guy whom I split my server with at the moment. It was also the year that I received a distinction award for the National Maths Competition the year before – I placed in the ranking of the top 15% in Australia. In that year, I also went back to visit my family in the Philippines for the second time in my life and we all watched my grandfather die before our own eyes. I was the only who cried – no one else did because he told them not to. For me, I felt as if I was the only one who didn’t know him. I am the youngest granddaughter and never had the privilege of growing up with him unlike the rest of the family. Even until this day, I want to take up some sort of martial art in remembrance of him, for my grandfather was a judo master. It will be my way of expressing my love for him. In addition to this, I also joined Youth Parliament that year on top of debating, Tournament of Minds, student representative council, attending leadership conferences amongst many other things. I also rebelled heavily in this year by skipping many days of school each week, yet I still maintained high grades – something which my friends found amazing and only further used that as ‘evidence’ to me being the smart Asian girl in our school. It certainly was an eventful year, and I learned a lot about being street smart as well as book smart during that time. I also overcame suicidal depression in this year through the help of friends and learning that there was more to life than what I saw and experienced up to that point.

Five years ago, I met a girl who quickly became my best friend. She was a new student at our school and I was always asked to guide new students in my grade on their first week. When we first met, we had the strangest connection – we both looked at one another and felt a strong feeling of familiarity, as if we already knew each other. As an outsider on her first day, she noticed the tension between me and my first love – I promise I’ll get to that in my posts later. She lived around the corner from me which resulted in us spending enormous amounts of time together. I also pulled her into a lot of the extra-curricular activities I participated in and quickly brought her up in social status. We accomplished many things together, such as interviewing Baroness Susan Greenfields, who was ranked as one of the world’s smartest women – I think she was at number twelve or something. We were student photographers and journalists for our school’s online paper and did many events together. In this year, I also joined the local Youth Advisory Council for the City of Salisbury with a childhood friend whom attended the same high school. It was also a year that I experienced more backstabbing from people who I thought were my friends, but it turned out that they were only using me to get closer to my male friends. I was so humiliated. I didn’t understand how people could do such things, but sadly that’s how life is – not everything makes sense. I also joined an online community in this year where I made some lifelong friends such as James, Clare, Ashley and many others. They are proof that deep friendships could be formed across the distances.

Four years ago, I took the initiative to learn Japanese at an after-hours class – although I had a strong interest in anime, learning the language was something that didn’t strike me until later. It was because of my wonderful sensei and my classmates (which until this day I still believe to be the best class I ever was in), my love for the language grew immensely. This is when I started to also look into the music culture which is now a large part of my life. Crystal Kay was one of the first Japanese artists that I got into and fell in love with her voice. I also finally looked up bands that friends had been recommending to me for years such as L`Arc~en~Ciel (I fell in love with Hyde’s voice too), Dir en Grey (YEEEAH KYO! <3 Still love him even now, though I prefer their older albums) and Malice Mizer/Gackt (I preferred Gackt as a solo artist). I wasn’t new to the Asian music scene – my god brother had gotten me into Kpop back when I was in seventh grade, and so I shared my new found love for Jpop with him. He wouldn’t have been too keen on the Jrock side of things, and I kept that mainly to myself. This was also a year I discovered various things about my family which upset me – it didn’t make it any better that my parents were on a three month holiday to the Philippines when I uncovered various truths. My sister Daisy also had cervical cancer at this time which made it very hard for me to concentrate – she is the one closest to me in my family. Luckily I had many supporting people around me, including my sensei. I told her about the situation and she assured me that she was there if I needed to talk and would hug and comfort me in various times. There were also times when it overtook my mind in class and she would allow me to just get up and walk out of the room for a few minutes to allow me to clear my head. I only told one person in that class what was going on, and that was Mii-chan, a girl who I became friends with quickly over finding out we had the same interests in anime amongst other things. Little did I know that taking one Japanese class would be the start of a new world for me – I always had an interest in Japan because of their kimono back in fifth grade, but after looking into martial arts I became thoroughly interested in their weaponry and started looking more into their culture because of that, which led to enrolling into this class so to speak. This was also the first year that I cosplayed (Kuchiki Rukia from Bleach, Shinigami form), admitted to guy personally that I liked him (but that went nowhere and we stayed friends) and realized that Asian gamer girls who like anime really are popular otaku men and how creepy otaku guys are (being tsundere doesn’t help my case either).

Three years ago, I discovered my all-time favourite band Alice Nine through the second season of Meine Liebe ~Wieder~ – an anime which I liked for the character development, art and settings. When I first heard Akatsuki as the opening song, I was blown away. I tried finding the full version of the song but didn’t succeed until later because I didn’t realize that it hadn’t been released yet. I kept them in the back of my mind for a while, and later was met with a shock after befriending someone who is now the closest person to me. I won’t go into details with this one but she helped me broaden my views in Jrock, introduced me to many bands and showed me the ‘visual’ side of things, especially in visual kei. Up until that point, I never looked up anything related to the band members themselves unless it was PV clips on YouTube. She kept me updated with various things for a long while – if she didn’t, I wouldn’t look it up unless I was bored. In the end, for me, the most important thing is the music. Also in this year, I became very recluse compare to how people were used to me being at school – a few thought that I had suddenly developed and ego and thought I was ‘too good’ for the rest of them which wasn’t true. For me, I realized at this point who I did and didn’t want to associate with in the future and began making my moves earlier. One of the people who ended up being cut off was my ‘best friend’, only by title then. We had reached a point where we had drifted apart so much that I no longer felt a connection with her. Many people say what I did was harsh, and I guess that’s true. However, she relied on me too much and needed to learn how to stand on her own two feet – perhaps I pushed her into the deep end too quickly. I also gained a lot of weight over this year due to always being at home attempting to study – even now I’m trying to lose this excess weight.

Two years ago, I entered my first year of university. However, I wanted to try a different course – business to be exact so I enrolled in subjects in my first semester that were not part of my program and did not do well. I went back and followed the structured program for my degree and realized that I should have stuck with it as it was truly my calling. In this year, not much happened physically but I became more open to various ideals and was stepping into a new world after being in high school for five years. It was a great eye opener, and I was able to spend lots of time with friends throughout the year.

One year ago, I landed myself full-time employment working for the Australian Government at the age of 19. I worked for the Administration Unit of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship for ten months, and only left because I want to continue on with my university education and pursue a dream of going to Japan. During this time, I met many wonderful people at work who helped me open my eyes even more to the world – there was no boundary in age groups as far as I was concerned. I made friends with women who were in their late twenties and early thirties and engaged in many meaningful conversations. I learned many lessons from them, and I also learned to take many stands while working in that office. I was favoured by the boss for my work ethic (when applied) but I did not want to be as I felt it was unfair on other workers. In this year, money actually created more problems for me rather than solving them – many which included my family. It was something which really upset me over the year but endured so I could get to my dream destination. Although I am in debt now because of succumbing to the whims of my family instead of holding money back from them, I do not regret it at all. On December 19, 2008, all of my hard work and effort was rewarded as I saw Alice Nine, the band that I love with all of my heart, play my favourite song “AKATSUKI” on that stage at NHK hall in Shibuya. I still remember that my heart had never been overflowed with so much joy before and that I was fighting back tears in order to see the show. I only wish I had a recording of that concert, because I admit that now, my memory is a little fuzzy but I still remember that one song in particular and the joy it brought to my heart.

This year, I experienced various joys and losses. Many times throughout the year I wished to return to Japan and just be free like I was for those six weeks of my vacation, but remembered that I had to finish what I started here before I could move on. I lost a friend who I considered dear to me, and it devastated me for a while. However, I had to pick myself up and keep going. On top of monetary problems, more family problems arose which should no longer surprise me. My grades suffered due to emotional circumstances but I still managed to pass everything. I yearned to fall in love again, but remembered that good things come to those who wait. I did manage to set up my own personal website and get my writing back into gear though, which I consider an achievement. I made new friends – ones who I know I won’t forget in a long time to come, and rediscovered various passions. I’ve made my plans, and now it’s time to execute them once again.

This year, which seemed like slow progress, was just me wrapping myself in a new cocoon, ready to emerge again as a new butterfly with bigger and brighter wings, looking forward into the future.

I’m ready 2010, but are you ready for me?