Cultivating ordinary courage

I've been wanting a new tattoo since I had my last one a long long time ago. I was thinking of birds lately. Most of the time, I'm sitting on my computer desk listening to songs next to my window at home. Beautiful birds sometimes sit by the edge and chirps in the morning, sometimes in the late afternoons. But I'm not too sure of birds tattoos are too cliche? Birds symbolizes a lot of different meanings, depending on what type of birds you are getting. The common ones are little silhouettes of tiny birds flying away or swallow on hips or anything THAT cliche, like hummingbird, a Robin, and also a chickadee.

Hummingbirds symbolizes timeless joy and accomplishing that which seems impossible, moving forward and never dwell on the past.

Robin represents the coming of spring and the return of warmth after hardship. HOPE.

Chickadees symbolize cheerfulness, being optimistic through most difficult times.

Birds in general just symbolizes freedom and finding your own path basically. And of course breaking free from anything (i.e pain, sorrows, anything)

I DON’T KNOW.

I have been contemplating getting what kind of birds tattoos. or maybe I should just get a flock of swallows?

Traditionally, a person would get a swallow tattoo after making a long significant journey but swallows are monogamous, which is rare among bird species. They will choose one mate and nest with no others. Thus they often symp=bolizes loyalty and fidelity. This is also one of the reason why I am choosing to start my "flock" of swallows - starting with 3, one for me, my boyfriend and my dog. As the relationship expands, so will be the tattoo.

It is very meaningful as it also symbolizes hope and freedom. I've done some reasearch that in the Egyption mythology, swallows are symbolic of fertility and a renewal of life. I wanna keep the tattoo small and wanted it on my wrist, but i already have one there. so I'm up the next challenge, that is my ribcage.

Here are some of my inspiration :

I'm in love with all these pictures. I don't know why people get themselves inked but when I do, it symbolizes something very meaningful and important. Something permanent to remind me of every second. I dream  of a simple life for a long time , and to start a new one this year, right after my birthday. Just like a rebirth. 

Yeap. This is me.I was bored and was trying out some drawings. So I drew birds on my arm. Not bad I think. I could feel it, the freedom and the joy, an indescribable feeling. I am gonna get it done on my ribcage as planned. 

The pain behind that no one knows.

There are different kind of misunderstanding and of course there are different levels of misunderstood. All of these, they're never fun to deal with. The worse part of it is being misunderstood of something that you didn't do when people give wrong accusation and assumptions on their own and carried on labeling you with it. Just because of ONE MISTAKE, they sentenced you for life. It's almost like a lifetime imprisonment where you can never get out from it no matter how hard you try to escape. You can only escape when you die. 

There are about 7 billion people in this whole world, and we are all different individuals. We may have the same name, some of us do lookalike , but we are still different individual. Being misunderstood it's a potentially dangerous situation being feelings can get hurt, no matter how many times you explain, the person who "thought" you meant it in some other ways just refused to accept.

So, which means either way you are dead. Being misunderstood in the first place it's already bad enough when people start be wary of you, thinking that you are a bad person but YOU DID NOTHING AT ALL. No one bothers to confront, okay not confront ( it's a harsh word), let's use clarify the situation. NO ONE. Why? Just because they think that YOU should be the one explaining to them because YOU DID WHAT YOU DID. ( when you've done nothing at all). 

Then, there comes the part where people ignore or treated you in a different way as before that makes you want to clarify. The war somehow begins, because they have already label you and when you decided to clarify with them, they start saying you are being defensive and trying to make the situation right when YOU DID NOTHING AT ALL. 

It's never easy. It's very hard to convince others when there are people out there who wants to harm you. IT IS DIFFICULT. Last resort, just pray, pray to GOD, just pray that whoever that is out there with ill intention will stop all these and God to forgive them for behaving such way. There's always a saying, " NICE PEOPLE ALWAYS GET TREATED LIKE SHIT". It's true. 

People changed from experiences. And certainly, when a person change they do not bear grudges. But NO ONE WILL BELIEVE YOU BECAUSE THEY CHOSE TO BELIEVE WHAT THEY BELIEVED. That is "you" before you changed. 

It's a tough year for me. I hope my Mom will watch me from above. Whenever I thought of all these unhappiness, I see Mom. She told me to ignore and be forgiven. She said it's never easy to deal with them and being accused of what you didn't do but look at Jesus. Time will tell. I took her words in and put everything at the back of my mind. They will realize someday. I really hope. Because if they don't and they continue to behave this way, it's not gonna work. they've sinned.

The situation did make me resolve to be careful in the future. Words are so powerful. It doesn't matter in what form they leave your body, i.e gestures, expressions, thoughts and of course through speech and in written form - THEY HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE THINGS. 

There's no guarantee that vindication will come in this life, when and where. But I personally think that it doesn't matter because what matters the most is how you deal with it. 

God will clear a man's name in advance of the judgement seat of Christ. That is His sovereign prerogative. 

Did it happen? Is that true?

But He may want to continue using you while still letting some people question your service. You may have to live with that. Remember that Joseph was falsely accused of sexual advances to Potiphar's wife. Are you aware that Joseph's name never was cleared? The Bible does not say that his name was ever cleared, but God still went ahead and used him. No doubt Joseph would have wanted his name cleared. You may have a similar experience. But God might just want to use you and let this aspect be left as a sore spot in your life to keep you humble.

Here is the good news: God wants to vindicate us. Here is the bad news: it has to be done His way and in His time. A verse that confirms this is found in 1 Peter 5:6: "Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time."

Back to basic

Getting back to basic photoshop today. Honestly, I don't remember how to use photoshop anymore. And the whole of today, I was just taking pictures and learning photoshop from scratch. Well, this is the end product.. with a little help from you tube. 

Spent a bomb getting my new camera yesterday.. YAY! My DSLR!!! woow wow wwaawwwooowowo!!~

and i didn't just get the normal canon lens.. i got Tamron AF 18-200mm. and a a tripod, and extra batteries and of course... a filter. yeaps. Ka-ching... now i'm officially broke. and the next thing I should really do is to set up my webpage very very soon to get the shop running. It's not easy, there's alot of hardwork that needs to be done but suffer now and enjoy later.

The weather lately was real crazy, hot and cold and rainy most of the time.  I don't mind if it's cold but wet is something that i don't fancy at all.  My dog, Shiro, has been pretty moody as well because of the rain. I wouldn't mind bringing him out to dog cafes but its raining heavily every single day and Shiro prefer to stay in with me. 

Bascially this is what I did the whole day.  Photobooth , photoshop . And of course I took some pictures for my new upcoming blogshop.  I was bored editing pictures and ordering goods. 

I love the little bug face in the last picture. I cannot believe that I looked soooo cuteeee! 

Just posted an entry on my old blog. Since i've registered my own domain, it makes alot of sense for me to just stick to this.  Still waiting for my website to be up before launching the first batch of MaybelleKym. Yup. That's the blog shop name. A name that named after me.

Argh.. it's time to get back to work. And blog about the progress soooon!

XOXO.

Maybelle Kym

Well, once again I'm back to blogging.
I've been away from blogging for many years, 5 years at least I would say. Actually I don't quite remember when I stopped.
I did set up a new blog with wordpress but I feel more comfortable with blogging over here. I find wordpress kinda complicated.

Well, since i mentioned that i've been away.. here's a little update from my life.

Recently, I've set up two companies. ha. yeah t-w-o.

I'm sure the question "why" will be asked next.

Let me give you a brief introduction of both.

Shirobi is a company that i set up with my current boyfriend. We travelled to Japan recently and was inspired by a lot of things that they have over there. Honestly , it is a great place. And they focus on perfection, which i admire the most.

Fashion, technology, music, beauty products, services, art, anime, and culture, simply perfection.

As a female, I'm sure all of us are vain and wanna look good inside out.  So, we both came up with this idea... that is to bring japanese products and fashion to Asia. We wanna get them inspired too. And sometimes branded bags and goods doesn't really make you pretty or classy. It's the style that matters the most.

Most of the designers I met in Japan, They are not quite known in the world but they produce really really good design and clothing.

I became a totally different person ever since I got back from Japan. The culture inspired me the most. They are absolutely polite. But when they are rough, they can be extremely rough.

Here's a short clip I got to make you understand more about the culture.

They are united and considerate to certain extend. They are taught to be kind, polite and have manners.

Some of you may not agree with me because history tells it all. Japanese were cruel, they raped and they kill. But that's war. It's different. When you are trying your best to conquer a place I'm sure you will do the same.

i've said enough about the culture in Japan.. let's move on to fashion.

Famous bloggers like Cheesie, or Audrey and famous FashioninJapan blogs about the latest fashion available or in trend in Japan.

Some people thinks that Japanese are freaks because they dress odd and weird. Thats what make them special. Look at well established companies like Uniqlo and Muji and Yohji Yamamoto, they are awesome. They provide good quality and colorful apparels of all kinds and they set it as a trend. It's affordable and its worthy of price.

I wouldn't give a damn about Japanese fashion last time. I'd always love the westerners, but travelling to Japan changed my mind totally.

I guess now my boyfriend should be afraid as I have wider range of different styles and different trend that i would wanna follow , i.e more shopping needs to be done.

More updates on my Japan trip in my next post.