I can't help it; Cirque du Soleil productions always make me smile.

I grinned all the way through "Quidam" when I watched it last year, when they were here in Singapore. I laughed and cried while watching "Alegria" over and over again on tape. When Arts Central aired "Varekai", I felt a warmth and a smile that went right down to my toes.

And after the last two weeks of missing it, I've finally managed to catch their series "Solstrom" on Arts Central (which airs on Monday nights at 10 pm; I know, that's the same time as Desperate Housewives, but I promise if you choose to watch Cirque instead, you won't be disappointed ;D).

It's a 13-part series which focuses on the effect of a strange "solar wind" and the magical properties it imbues upon anything and anyone it touches, and the episode that I saw just now was the one entitled "Wind of Courage".

The boy performing the Aerial Straps took my breath away; he was just so goshdarned good. And he's only 16! Well, at the time of filming, that is.

Recognised a couple of acts from "Alegria" too; the Hoops act and the "Fire Dance"-- "Alegria" will always be my first Cirque love. :)

If everyone has a little child deep down inside them, then mine must linger a lot nearer to the surface than everyone else's.

I get amused and absolutely taken by the simplest and most everyday things in life. Jackson once said that I'm "like a small kid", always touching things, picking things up, putting things down, fiddling around with everything. But so what if I am..?

"To grow up is to grow used to the world". So while everyone grows jaded and whines about how everything is boring, why not refuse to follow the trend? Why not choose to laugh at the most trivial things; why not choose to smile in the face of everything that stays the same; why not pause to look longer at everything we take for granted, and appreciate it simply because it is here, here and now?

It's become a common saying among youth nowadays to claim that they're crazy. Well then, BE what you say you are.

Laugh as loud as you want because the next day the sky might fall down.
Scream at the top of your lungs because in the next hour, you might lose your voice. (And if you go on screaming, you might, heehee.)
Run as fast you can, jump as high as you can reach, dance till your feet are sore, because the ground might fall out from under you the next minute, or your legs might give way.
Dream as big and as much as you want because the next second you might never imagine again.

And when everyone turns to stare, know that for however brief it was, you lived just that little bit more than they have.

In so many ways, I conform. In so many ways, I don't. And thus, it is one of my favourite sayings: "You all laugh because I am different. I laugh because you are all the same."