It's hard to set about describing yourself, for it takes a certain amount of 'looking outside yourself' to actually be able to come up with a good, objective character description that gives a relatively realistic view of yourself to someone you've never seen before. Moreover, physical descriptions don't suffice; indeed, my description will consist of more emotional, mental and spiritual aspects than anything else. For some, I may become a clearer person to understand -- for others, I may be as foggy as ever.

I'm not too outgoing a person. It's not that I don't talk or that I hate social events and I prefer staying at home-- on the contrary. I love socialising, talking, having fun. I guess I'm just not good at expressing myself. Especially when it comes to love and such, I can hardly know what to do. But that's a bit off the point, at least for the moment.

I laugh with my body. I know that sounds strange, but laughter is just something I love, both when it concerns me and others. Something of the utmost hilarity will most certainly involuntarily render my body into strange contortions, be it my head (tossed back) or my body. Not like weirdly. Just full of expression. (Which is strange, because I thought for a moment I had said I wasn't too good at expressing myself. Oh well.)

What I like the most, following laughter, is the smile. (Not in particular mine, but in others). I often wonder if I end up looking like a grinning, freckled kid with pushed out ears (not that I look like that, but you all know the image) because people (especially the female kind) look their best when they smile. Unfortunately there's the thing with cameras and photographs that renders natural smiles into mechanical figures that look like halfway between finding out you've been accepted into Harvard and at the same time finding out you have severe acute diarrhoea. Who, in their right frame of mind, would look at a photograph of themself and say, "This is really how I look"?

I don't drink and don't smoke; nor do I plan to anytime soon. For those of you who do smoke and/or drink and recall saying those very same words when you were 14 but giving up that promise a year later, you'll soon come to recognise a fundamental difference between you and I.

Not that I'm always trustworthy, or that whatever I say is the purest and most complete truth and/or promise that will, under no circumstances, be altered until the very day the shovel sends dirt over my coffin. I, for one, exaggerate. I know exaggerating things you say accounts for lack of credibility, because at some point people might ask, "Did you win $100 or was that $1?" I don't (at least I don't try to) mess up facts (but isn't that what exaggerating is?) but I do exaggerate for the sake of conversation.

I get really cold easily. Not that I'm physically frail and thin-boned like a matchstick. I don't know why, but if I immerse myself too long in the pool, I come out looking considerably bluer and shivering like a twig in a gale. It's quite embarrassing, really.

I like keeping physically fit. I know it's weird for someone who looks like a nerd (glasses) mistaken for a boxing bag (my crooked teeth) to actually think about anything in the domain of sports, but I actually do enjoy several sports: namely swimming, biking, climbing/hiking, archery (although I've never done it as part of a club) and canoeing. I have a few dream situations in mind:

1) Spending the night on a boat and sleeping under the stars
2) Spending the night suspended on a cliff-side tent (the ones that are hung by a few ropes stuck into the rock. If you drop your toothbrush it's going down for at least 200ft. Never look down. There's only a sheet of canvas or two that separates you from life and sheer insanity.)
3) Hiking to a very high and remote but beautiful place, seeing the sun setting over the horizon, perhaps with a significant other who enjoys such passions, and sleeping under the stars.

Hey! Don't you dare think my dreams revolve around sleeping (under the stars). Well, wait a minute, maybe you're right. Funny how my dreams reveal that I dream about dreaming, if you get what I mean.

I'm quite sarcastic, if you haven't gathered that by what you've read so far. I find sarcasm to be an art that is at the same time hard to conceive but easy to appreciate. It's a delicate art, because if you don't choose your words carefully you end up either offending someone when you had no intention to do so, or you end up being thrown into a pool, clothes and all (provided you have one).

I'm a nature person. (Quite evident, I'd say, by my choice of sports). I sometimes get overwhelmed by the beauty of things around me. I know these are no exactly teenager-things, because most kids my age talk about women and dancing and clubbing, which usually leads to conversation I'm sure you're all very familiar with. I prefer spending my time walking around a forest or sitting on a dock watching the star, and it's what I enjoy quite a lot.

I like writing. Not that I'm spectacularly good at it or that I spend hours upon hours scribbling on toilet paper my thoughts and ideas and stories. (Well, not on toilet paper, but I do have a few stories I'd like to publish here soon, provided there'll be someone who wants to read it) Rather, there are moments I get inspired and others I feel trite (yay! SAT word) and stale.

Which reminds me of a particular adage I think can be claimed to be my own original and that applies particularly to me:

What you keep you don't need -- what you throw away you do

I have a tendency to keep some junk out of pure sentimentality and/or pre-emptive necessity. I don't care what you think of this packet of sand-- it's my only part of an empty collection of sand I gathered from around the world (laughs). Or, perhaps I'll need this piece of wood for who knows what, so I'll keep it. And what do you know, the day after I throw that piece of wood away I find myself fishing in my drawer for a piece of wood I need for a science project.

I love animals. Especially dogs. They always evoke a certain foolish grin on my part every time I pass one on the street and it looks towards me (or the Puppy Chow advert directly behind me). Since I've never actually kept a dog I cannot be certain if my excitement and dedication towards having one will always be as present.

I'm more of a doer than a thinker. I learn best when I manipulate, design, construct, destroy, assemble, disassemble (and so forth) with my hands. I learn least under pressure and when confronted with a piece of paper with writing on it. Except books.

So there you go, a bit more about me that you otherwise might not have known. Whether it was the varnish on wood or a disaster on canvas I will never know. Your comments always help, as they do with my other entries. Just perhaps my catharsistic tabla rasa? (Utter gibberish, I think)

Written on Thursday, September 2 at 10:33 PM