166; it’s going to break my heart every day from today onwards

“Oh, I can’t explain. When I like people immensely I never tell their names to any one. It seems like surrendering a part of them. You know how I love secrecy. It is the only thing that can make modern life wonderful or mysterious to us. The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it.” – Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

This quote applies to me every time I feel like this. The feeling that I’m encountering just happened when I saw Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close movie trailer. I love this book so much that I never tell anyone about it, because it’s like surrendering a part of it. I’ve enjoyed it in secrecy and loved it so much that it hurts me. This is the book that kills me. It’s my most favorite book, ever.

And now there are Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock in the movie adaptation. The chance of it staying away from the mainstream-ness is becoming low. The next thing I know is everyone is going to see it, and everyone’s going to buy the book, and everyone’s going to read it.  Then everyone’s going to have read the book in 1-2 months’ time. And then I’ll hear endless talking / fangirling and that is going to annoy the hell out of me. It won’t be the same again.

I just wish it hadn’t been made into a movie. At all.

I’ll go back to crying. I love it so much.

164; it’s only you

There’ll always be that first true love. The one you first spent the night crying for. The one that never really worked out but you kept your hopes up too much. The one who got away. The one who taught you all you need to know about love. And the one that until now, is still the one you look back to whenever you try to love again.

154; what roland told me

I like this phrase: omnivorous reader. Ha!

Roland is one of the few who still keeps in touch with me after the IPhO. Funny, he wasn’t even from the country I was an officer of. He’s a Physics professor in the Philippines and knows all kinds of things except how to drive.

There’s this quote that Roland told me about that I really like.

When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.

- Desiderius Erasmus

Well, this omnivorous reader needs to go grab some dinner and start studying for the life of her now.

125; i couldn’t have expressed ‘myself’ any better than this

Does everyone feel this way? When I was young, I was perpetually overconfident or insecure. Either I felt completely useless, unattractive, and worthless, or that I was pretty much a success, and everything I did was bound to succeed. When I was confident, I could overcome the hardest challenges. But all it took was the smallest setback for me to be sure that I was utterly worthless. Regaining my self-confidence had nothing to do with success…whether I experienced it as a failure or triumph was utterly dependent on my mood.

- Michael Berg, The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

I read The Reader in June. I came across these beautiful lines. And all I could think about at that moment was, “This is me.”

121; go

He would not stay for me, and who can wonder?
He would not stay for me to stand and gaze.
I shook his hand, and tore my heart in sunder,
And went with half my life about my ways.

- A.E. Housman