Hello 30!

It's almost midnight and I'm almost 30. Truth is, I don't know if I'll freak out or just accept the fact that I really am that old. This-very-moment sucks, BIG TIME! Sitting outside my balcony, hearing how busy the street while celebrating the eve of my birthday (alone) by drinking a bottle of beer makes me wonder, contemplate on life and write this blog.

In the past 29 years of my existence I must say I've been a lucky person. Lucky enough to still be in a normal state of mind, having a decent job, money to spend, very supportive family, and a loving kid to raise. I won't say I can't ask for more because there are so freaking much to ask. I'm ambitious, I tell you. I'll be lying if I'll say I'm not. I guess this is human nature. We all can't be satisfied on whatever it is on our plate.

When I was 26 I told myself "I'll be a millionaire when I reach 30!" That... didn't happen. Nevertheless, I am happy on where I am and where will I be. Okay, maybe not that happy but someone once told me, there are a lot more better things that's gonna happen in my life. I was quite skeptical to believe that. I have loads of things on my mind that I wanna do, that I wanna accomplish (career-wise) but there are also gazillion of reasons that I'm being held to do that. Reasons that I can easily bend but with sacrifices.

Love life? I'm trying not to get into that but I know you know how juicy this is to talk about. Well, for almost 3 years I thought I have one or at least HAD someone to trust my stone-cold heart with; apparently, I'm still a sucker in terms of lurve: naive, easy to manipulate and helpless. I now doubt the saying, "Actions speak louder than words." As far as my honest opinion is concerned, all men are exactly the same. They'll give you the moon and stars, you'll hear them say all the sweetest poems in the world but it all goes down to their one true intention - they'll break you into pieces. Tear your life, and worst, your heart apart. Love is such a joke. A delusional thing!

Yeah, yeah, I guess 30 is hitting me hard though I have all the reasons to be thankful for and be satisfied with. I should prolly give credit to those people who hated me, people who accused and judged me of what I'm not and people who bullied and mocked me - without these implicit stereotypes around, my life will be boring as hell. So, thank you a-holes!

Okay, enough of the pathetic lamentation and sentiments. My blog says, "Hello 30!" Should I challenge it? Definitely! Despite of struggling events happened I wanna be hopeful. Good things do come from the bad times. So cheers and hello 30!

Yield

Nobody can ever explain why we can smile all day long but cry on ourselves to sleep at night. How pictures remain the same but people in them do not. How your best friend can become your worst enemy, and your worst enemy becomes your new best friend. How forever turns into a few short months. How the people who once wanted to spend every second with you, think a few minutes of their time is too much to spare. How people make promises despite knowing how common it is for promises to be broken. How people can erase you from their lives just because it’s easier than working things out.

Sometimes, there is nothing to be said. Sometimes, nothing should be said. We all want to find someone who will not run away. Someone to look us in the eye and tell us it’s okay. That things don’t always go right. That this is how life works and how it will always work. That it’s not going to be easy today, tomorrow, the next day, but it will somehow get better. However, there will come a time, a time which neither one of us can control. That someone will walk out of our life and because we love them so, we will need to let them go. Many of us say there’s no use in wasting our time on people who leaves us. What we make of ourselves and our future are no longer tied to them. You will miss them, yeah but always always remember that you were not the first one to give up.

Letting go doesn’t mean giving up. It means accepting things that weren’t meant to be. No one ever gets tired of loving. But everyone gets tired of waiting, assuming, hearing promises, saying sorry, and all the hurting. We've got to do what’s right for us even if it hurts.

Truth is we have to accept that there will always be people that stay in our hearts, even if they don’t stay in our lives.

Dram drama drama blah blah blah... I hate love.

UAE West Coast Road and Camping Trip

Gloomy day last Thursday but who cares? That doesn't stopped us from our camping adventure in UAE West Coast Region!

Fancy looking but not so helpful book :P

It was planned to go camp somewhere west where we can swim so we chose Al Gharbia. According to reviews, this is the place where you can find a vast amount of dessert plus a never-ending coastline with stunning beaches and islands. Btw, going to this place by road is approximately 250kms-ish.

Huge trucks on the road starting from Musaffah to West Coast!

First stop, Mirfa. We went to Mirfa Hotel as we read that there's a public beach right beside it. Surprisingly, there's a huge warning banner that welcomed us saying "photography is prohibited" and "swimming prohibited - deep water". What the heck?! I can't help but think how funny it is to drive all the way there and stay in that hotel right infront of the beach where you can't even swim. Lol. So we decided to look for some other place to stay.

Nice view eh? But oh no you can't swim!

Since we had this book as a guide, we looked for a decent place nearby where we can camp. Next stop - Jebel Dhanna in Ruwais. Allegedly, this place is one of the "best" places and something tourists need to check out for when going to this part of Abu Dhabi. Apparently, this place is an industrial town with two fancy hotels and private residential areas. Again, a no-no for campers! There may be parts where you can put up your tent but we found those areas filthy and abandoned.

It's past noon with all our stomach crying for food and we still haven't found our perfect spot. As we keep driving further, I'm seeing that we are going far from the coastline. I started to think this part of the country sucks. Turning every page of this unreliable off-road book that we bought and checking on some answers from the gps and map, we decided on going to Sir Baniyas Island. I was like, "OK" since this is nearly 30minutes drive from where we are right now.

As we approached Sir Baniyas, I was pleased with the quietness and calmness of the place. Seeing brownish to white sand and different shades of blue sky/sea around it made me happy. We saw a few cars parked right beside the road while the owners are sitting laid-back with their fish gears. We went off-road to find this suitable spot. T'was a bit of a Maldivian style beach except for those huge rocks scattered in every place. But it's alright. That's the thing with camping - you won't be able to get everything perfect. We made a joke like "What's the point of having hundreds of kilometers of coastline? People here don't understand why we need beaches but on the other hand we don't understand why they don't need beaches."

Look at that! Yes, it's in UAE! :)

 

Vlad enjoying this low tide Maldivian rocky scenery and thought
of doing the bbq in the middle of the sea!



There's a port in this area where they transfer people (even cars)
to Delma Island and Sir Baniyas Island.

Free as a bird! :)

I made a friend, a really gorgeous one! His name is Errol. :)


Overall, I would say it's a good experience going to Al Gharbia but I wouldn't really recommend it. For me, in this country, if you wanna go for camping, best place is still over the dessert and if you wanna go swimming, just go to Corniche Beach. But who knows? Maybe there are places out there that's worth visiting that I'm not aware of. So far, the book guide and some links over the net are not so reliable so we'll see. Till my next adventure! Ta-ta!

Dim Christmas

It's almost Christmas eve and here I am sitting on my bed writing this blog post. I was about to experience one of the best holiday with a very special person yet for some insignificant reason, all the bliss just completely vanished.

Why?

Maybe I was really trying so hard competing with time. Maybe I always make myself available every time I am needed. Maybe I am wrong expressing my affection through words. Maybe I should stop being silent whenever I am disappointed and pretend everything is okay and that I am all okay. I think I should change MUST CHANGE because being like this hurts so bad that you will be accused as a demanding and negatively cold as a stone, easy-going fake culprit.

I couldn't explain what or how I feel at this very moment. I wanna cry but tears doesn't want to come out. I feel like any moment am gonna burst and the whole world will explode. This is so fucking soul-hurt, like a knife stabbed straight to your heart kind of hurt.

Camping at Fujairah

It's holiday and it's winter season, meaning - it's camping time! We planned and decided to go to Fujairah to see some rocky mountains and at the same time, to swim in the beach.

I'm telling you, camping preparation was not that easy. There are people who you would think would come and will end up backing out, there will be fights with regard of who does or buys what and all kinds of inevitable shitty things.. but I think it's all part of the adventure. So yeah, before we even enjoyed our winter camping trip, of course, there were few dramas we surpassed. I think life will be so boring without these. Hehe..

Anyway, so we left Abu Dhabi early morning as travel time is roughly 3 hours. The exciting part? It was raining cats and dogs on our way there! During the trip, I was skeptical to go any further. We even stopped not so nearly halfway as Stewart couldn't see anything on the road with this heavy rain. We warmed ourselves with some coffee and waited for a few minutes and then we went on and stopped, and went on and stopped, so it goes. I was like, what the heck?! I just kept on thinking or should I say praying for the rain to stop.

First stop for coffeeeeeee.

Once upon a wet day...

Our second stop.

Strike a pose. Third stop.

Eventually, after quite some time, we arrived at this camping spot. The place is okay. Good side is that there's a beach, downside is where the f*ck to pee??? This is not the same as in the dessert where aside from the moon and the stars to watch over you doing your thing, you will only expect camels to catch you off-guard! Of course we managed but in a very uneasy and uncomfy way.

We arrived about lunch time and we started putting up our tents and do some grilling. Since the weather is acting up that day, we just ate, entertained ourselves by playing cards while boozing and then slept cuddling eachother inside the tent around 6PM. And oh, one more thing I hate about this place is that it's so crowded. We couldn't feel/hear the nature because of our neighbors' heart-thumping lame music.


Wot?



Our bad moods were changed the next day - the sun is up, shining and smiling at us! We spend the morning barbequing, swimming and sunbathing. So this trip wasn't so bad after all. At least we enjoyed half a day of our almost two-day adventure. We packed and returned back to AUH in the afternoon.

Goofing under the sun.

with Cora

Going home. 

Honestly, I didn't enjoy this trip that much. Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't mind going back there but I prefer to go some other place. For me, camping over the dessert is still the best.

Stay tuned for my next sandpit adventure! Toodles!

DDR

I am writing this blog because I am helplessly in full rage and wanted to scream!!! I just don't wanna sound selfish so I am keeping my cool. I'm trying really hard but I always fail, ALWAYS. I'm not changing someone else's attitude or personality because it's the part of who they are that I liked in the first place. All I'm saying is that, nobody is perfect, YOU are not perfect! People make mistakes and it's okay. It's even better if you will accept and try to correct it, most especially for someone you really care for.

I don't understand what's the big deal of apologizing or just saying "I'm sorry" if you did something wrong. It's actually an act of being brave, brave that you have accepted you aren't some sort of a god and that you are trying to be a better person. Personally, "I'm sorry" is one of the hardest words that I could or will ever say BUT if I think I should say it and I've been really a douchebag -- I would really say it without hesitation or without somebody pushing me to say it and of course I will mean it, simple as that.

Just bear with me, I just want to rant because I have been pushed too far and this is my only way of calming myself. Sometimes I feel stupid because people have their own differences yet I always compare myself to everyone. This can be right or can be wrong.

Okay, enough of this bullshit. Delete don't respond - that's what I'm gonna do! I still feel awful though.

AvPD vs EN

It's 12 midnight and I'm suffering from pain. My molar hurts so bad that I couldn't even buy some sleep. Trying to distract myself I came across this "intriguing" page over the net that made me research and learn a little more. So what have I found?

Avoidant personality disorder. Yep, crazy as it seems but I can totally relate as I'm a bit experiencing this for a few months now. Don't get me wrong though. Neither I felt any traumatic condition nor abnormal situations but I have a strong feeling I am labeled with this state of confusion.

Anyhow, the more I look or search for details, the more I realised it's maybe just emotional numbness - and it's normal (I guess?). People undergo this from time to time and on my case, it's prolly because of stress. Whew! I thought I'm going mad... on second thought, I am already mad!

I think I should try out Mr. Usui's five precepts. Time for some Reiki!

He said, and I quote:

"At least for today: Do not be angry, Do not worry, Be grateful, Work with diligence, Be kind to people."

There. I still can't sleep and I think my molar's becoming worst! Ugh. :(