babybluemondays

birthdays and such

2011-01-03T12:34:00.002+08:00

its been such a long time, blog. but its my birthday today so i thought i'd do a little post, on this rarest of occasions i'll add another rarity of blogging today.

definitely a mix of feelings. you know how some people love to celebrate their birthday, throw a big party, feel all important and centre-of-attention? I usually want to avoid that, and keep out of the crowds and people who want to wish me well. which is odd, i know, but i just can't help it; birthdays make me feel...oddly detached and unhappy. especially mine. i sometimes just wish people would forget its my birthday, not say hello and happy X to me at all, which would make me feel better because then i wouldn't have to force a friendly reply out to them. this time around, i was hoping people would forget entirely. maybe its weird to feel like this but perhaps i just hate the sense of obligation to do certain things on birthdays. getting presents, surprises, acting happy because you don't really have a choice when you're surrounded by friends who deliberately planned something for you...these aren't the sort of things i'm into.

so when i started getting messages from friends in farflung places and lives last night...it was a strange feeling, but strangely nice too. I didn't expect to be happy about it, but i was.

but anyhow, i'm avoiding facebook and all sorts of mass communications til this whole thing blows over. grant me some indulgent escapism on this day.

i'm going out skating with tsg later. this is the sort of happiness that i'm after, i think. not the woohah one-off birthday tirades but the quiet pursuit of everyday joy that comes with being with the people you love.

What the truck.

2010-04-18T01:01:00.004+08:00

Current obsession: little cars and trucks from gachapon machine. These are so cute, they're the size of a one dollar coin and come with a little pull-back mechanism even.

At 13 out of 15 designs now, but going into serious redundancy cos I churned 27 already! Just how many more to get all 15 designs?! I just can't help myself when it comes to really nice gacha toys.

There's only 8 designs in this pic though.

Bothersome

2010-04-18T00:09:00.004+08:00

The weather is so erratic nowadays. It was cool and breezy, so perfect for sleep in the early afternoon. By the late afternoon it had turned into a humid heatwave, where even a nap wouldn't save you from the irritation of sweat and still air. It makes it hard to study when it's already difficult to start. I realize one of the other post I made was on this very same topic - and nearly exactly one year ago. Mein gott.

I need to stop using my laptop so that I can concentrate on my work.

Maybe tomorrow will be nicer.

blood

2010-04-17T20:07:00.002+08:00

It's curious how blood smells like a new metal pipe.

what's more awesome than a gigantic doraemon? A gigantic doraemon WITH WINGS!! :D

2010-04-11T14:20:00.003+08:00

I've never seen NTUC sell kites before, but when it did, it's really.... special. Only at Fairprice Xtra, Jurong Point.

Happy Campy

2010-03-31T23:27:00.002+08:00

Camping with you. I can't believe we planned to do this within a day and even bought a brand-new tent. Can't believe it, but in a good way.

Just getting to the beach was an adventure in itself. Going for dinner, looking for an AXS machine to print the permit, hunting for apples and barley drinks at shop closing time.

The first time I've spent a night in a tent, and not in the army... I never expected that you would be game for such an adventurous outing, but yet you surprised me. We didn't manage to stay up and talk about deep stuff, like I imagined we might, but I guess in the end you still had a lot of fun just poking me the whole night and refusing to let me sleep. You're so interesting that way - on the one hand not doing some things the way I expect, yet on the other hand being totally surprising. I don't know why I amuse you so much, but maybe that has to do with why I don't know why you amuse me this way either.

And then there were the three bugs trapped in the tent with us, the toilet trips throughout the night, the breeze-less night, among other things. And that we were dressed like we were going shopping, on a camping trip... insane. But I know we'd do it again, you and me.

little green men

2010-03-23T21:20:00.009+08:00

Toy soldiers are the awesomest.

mehmeh

2009-07-03T00:46:00.001+08:00

I have to so update this place. SO MUCH BACKLOG!

Bite marks

2009-04-28T19:04:00.003+08:00

Bitten by a small shark. It left a painful mark. :(

Company Calls Epilogue

2009-04-28T14:25:00.000+08:00

Synapse to synapse; the possibility's thin. I'm dressed up for free drinks
and family greetings on your wedding date. The figures in plastic on your
wedding cake that I took were so real. And I kept a distance:
the complications cloud the postcards and blips through fiber optics,
as the girls with the pigtails were running from little boys wearing bowties
their parents bought: I'll catch you this time!

Crashing through the parlor doors, what was your first reaction?
Screaming, drunk, disorderly: I'll tell you mine. You were the one
but I can't spit it out when the date's been set. The white routine
to be ingested inaccurately.

Synapse to synapse: the sneaky kids had attached beer cans to the
bumper so they could drive up and down the main drag. People would turn
to see who's making the racket. It's not the first time.
When they lay down the fish will swim upstream and I'll contest but they
won't listen when the casualty rate's near 100%, and there isn't a
pension for second best or for hardly moving...

nightingales melt in summer

2009-04-23T11:31:00.001+08:00

On the News tonight: Singapore recorded its strongest-ever winds of 83 km/h last night. I think it was just Sun Wukong on his speeding cloud.

It's been too warm to do anything recently. Too warm, too warm. My brain wanders and never goes in the direction of my notes in front of me. I so need to study, but I just can't. The heat oppresses like any authoritarian Lee, and there's nothing the opposition can do about it but be quietly quashed by this tropical heatwave. Now you know LKY was right, in a way; warm temperatures make you dumb and lazy.

Do your best, boy, you know you need it.

the brilliant green is brilliant.

in warmth, in wind, in ochre of the wilderness sky

2009-04-22T23:55:00.000+08:00

A freak wind blew through tonight, howling like the ghost of a gale. Trees bent like fern fronds, and plastic bags and styrofoam shards swirled in invisible funnels on the street below. The clothes rack in the balcony fell over and my windows slammed shut like eyes afraid to see. Lights came on all over the blocks opposite, bewildered faces appearing behind panes and watching for the sound they could not see, but for the whipping of branches and the cold fingers against their skin. Primal fear must be in their hearts.

A sepia image. Village mothers chasing their dusty children indoors, boarding doors and bolting shutters. "Demons are coming," and men with shovels and hoes brace against the encroaching forest of things they cannot see, but things they can feel through gritted teeth and in the depths of their animal souls. Spirits and demons.

A demon wind blew through tonight, and the sky churned red with clouds of brimstone.

I guess we will always fear that which we do not understand, and that which we cannot control.

simple things.

2009-04-21T23:48:00.000+08:00

You're something else, you are. And I would love to love you.

different names for the same thing

2009-04-19T00:16:00.001+08:00

Alone on a train aimless in wonder.
An outdated map crumbled in my pocket.
But I didn't care where I was going,
Cos they're all different names for the same place.

The coast disappeared when the sea drowned the sun.
I've no words to share it with anyone.
The boundaries of language I quietly cursed,
And all the different names for the same thing.

There are different names for the same thing.

And 8, and 9, and 10.

2009-03-22T19:39:00.003+08:00

A pink and purple pen.

When I think of you, I think about your smile, your eyes, your lips; the sound of your laughter, the sound of your voice, the funny little noises that you make. I think about how it feels to hold you, to put my arm around your waist, to hug you, to hug you tighter, to feel like lifting you up and carrying you about; to hold your hand, and such simple things; to touch your skin, and keep you warm – even though you’re the one who radiates heat. I think about your scent, and how you always manage to smell nice. I think about Penhaligon's, and a mental list of all the things you've ever said you like or dislike. The way your face crinkles when you smell something bad. The mental snapshot of your face lit by the cinema half-light after I first kissed you, the way you looked so young, so innocent…so vulnerable (and how I wondered what you were thinking). I think about the way your persona changes when you turn on your intellect, the assumption of easy seriousness and strength, the depth of knowledge that tells in your eyes, and how it sometimes seems you want to hide this facet of yourself. I think about the way you always punch me or kick me, and wonder why you like abusing me so much.

I think about how you make me feel. I think about how I don’t think I’ve felt the same way about you as I’ve felt about another girl, and how I don’t know how to describe it. I think about how I sometimes feel out of my depth when I’m with you, and I don’t know if it’s a good thing or bad. I think about how I get so easily distracted when I’m doing my work and your messages come in. How I have to push you out of my mind sometimes just to be able focus on something else. How I feel like I don’t want to lose you, but yet not even have you in the first place.

I think about what our circle of friends would think, and how the group dynamics might change, or not.

I think about how you're probably thinking about many of the same things.

I think about the (not many) things we have in common.

I think about all the different maybes we might become, by next year.

I think about you, and the difference between love and infatuation.

I think about how I feel so jaded of relationships, and whether this has changed.

I think about the perils of over-thinking, and reading too much into it all.

I think about taking pictures of you, and how it actually sounds quite perverted to say that I’m
thinking about it.

I think about how you might feel about me.

And how the list could go on, but for self-censorship.

rainbows in the sunset

2009-03-22T12:54:00.004+08:00

recipe

2009-03-15T18:21:00.000+08:00

cook psychedelic
hippotamuses with
ajinomoto.

haikus can be so meaningless sometimes.

et toi.

2009-03-05T01:25:00.000+08:00

Watched slumdog today, again. Hearing the score a second time, I don't really understand how it could have won anything at all, except perhaps for unsocialized, cloistered US bookizen critics who have (probably) never heard or seen anything from outside the continent, and hence think mediocre indian-glish fusion-music is set to revolutionize the industry standard. Bah. Watch some Bollywood, SAG.

I will remember today for soft lips, and the whisper of soft breath.

As the Weatherlight falls into forest

2009-02-27T02:54:00.001+08:00

Watched slumdog with sh. She wore a blouse and a skirt, things I hardly see her in around school. Should I take this as something more? I wonder really… what does she see of this? A date? A friendly movie? Perhaps a bit of both. I hope she doesn't think I’m leading her. After the movie we both went our separate ways, her to home and me elsewhere, with a pang of guilt, asking her out to a movie, and only a movie. Nothing more and nothing less, though for a moment it might have felt like it could have gone a lot more, somewhere. I knew, at least, not to court social mishap by extending our little meeting further. I run back to school to find that perfect sunset spot.

It took two hours (or less? I dunno, it felt like a long time) of climbing up and down stairs, sweaty shirted exploration of deserted stairwells, locked access hatches, closed doors all bolted chained. Then the sighting of yet another possible peak in the distance, yet another possible rendezvous with another rooftop.. arts to engin, and in between. I think I climbed every climbable place. But in the end I found something worth it.

Along the CDTL, a forlorn staircase stands off to the side as if abandoned by its parent, water-stained and muddied, 12 flights of leaf-strewn steps – what’s another set of stair after so many already. I climb it but discover there’s a barrier of daunting wall at the top… someone left a chair at the bottom of the wall: it must have been climbed before then.

I scale it, and go up. I look out, look down over the roof of the central library. Almost magical, to glance over the six-storey drop and yet there I was some minutes ago, on the ground now so far away. The dipping sun glares from behind a cloud, though I’m already quite high up now. A fireman’s ladder sits against another wall.

I go up again. I come out higher, on another roof. Another fireman’s ladder.

I go up again.

Suddenly the boundaries disappear, the walls fall away and the landscape yawns expectantly as if chiding ‘What took you so long?’ An expanse of sky and land and sea stretches out ahead and around, opens up before me like a panorama of sunset and Singapore. A bird’s eye view of here to the limits of sight, cloudless intersperse of air, no more obstructions of concrete and cement.

It takes the breath away, it does. Just… me, in the atmosphere, almost. As I stand on that little piece of roof, on the very pinnacle of that building, I realize I hadn’t found a spot of sunset. I’d found a circle of serenity, my own fairy ring of peace. A spiritual place. Up this high, you don’t see people, or troubles, or commitments, or facades, or any of the myriad other things of tired life. There’s just the air surrounding, and clouds above; the land rolls out below like an orange-painted canvas, surreal as a cubist’s dream. You feel detachment; you fall into ethereal thrall. The mind looks inwards as if an immense God holds you in his gaze.

The red sun peeps like a playful child over the horizon.

There and then, I felt at peace, more than I’d felt in a long long time. My feet anchored to the floor, but the mind afloat on a string. The senses calm, and I felt… small, and insignificant, but perhaps therein was the message; I am a mote among millions, and the world is big. This respite of scale, of knowing your place in the world, of the careless belittling of the self... made all the more amazing by the fact that it hides right in the middle of mundaneity. In the middle of NUS, for crying out loud. I took my time in reflection and in solitude, and of wind against my face.

The sun goes down, and throws its last rays across the higher heavens as the crawling dark creeps up behind me. I go down soon after.

A herald, in glass.

2009-02-25T23:45:00.001+08:00

Two movies in a row is omg so tiring pls, plus the cinema was at that funny temperature where its cold enough to feel the the chill but not cold enough to wear a jacket... bargh. Valkyrie was cool, for once a suspenseful, exciting movie where Tom Cruise doesn’t defy metaphysics, reality, bullets or all three combined. He even dies at the end. Cool. My dad said Benjamin button was really good, and I take his word for it, though… after a while it gets a bit boring. You know where he’s headed ultimately, but you just wonder in what form he’ll have his death. Curious indeed.

And your hands are so small. I wonder if you come with a label that says ‘Fragile’, instructions to handle with care.

In this moment, I am fearful. Porcelain falls into shards.

2009-02-23T16:21:00.002+08:00

an afternoon rain
is the colour of sunlight,
bright as your laughter.

Marching

2009-02-06T00:29:00.004+08:00

I think I'm just too fickle for my own good. Make up your mind, brother!

Valentine's Day always leads to rash decisions, so don't.

Class with jaime. Lunch with soks, dinner with natalie, saw sarah at the bus terminal. lunch tmrw with xh. I bought curry buns today, and made a cup of coffee at home.

But I'm actually much happier now than at almost any time I've been in the past few years. More confident, more animated. More free from boundaries. More alive from the chase. I want things to stay/change, but decisions are always hard to make when marching.

Trip to sungei buloh on saturday! C'est interessant!

one of those facebook things that people are doing now

2009-02-06T00:17:00.000+08:00

Rules : Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you. :)

Tagged by: Michelle Teo, and Trixie Tang, who likes food, and pandas, and to whom i will give a packet of hello panda just to see her reaction.

1. I love coffee and gummies. Coffee makes my world go round! Gummies just give me cavities, so there's a bit of a love-hate thing going on there.

2. I keep fish. A corner of my balcony is filled with fishtanks haha! Some of my fish are like 'only for expert care' in taxonomy guides, but I'm pretty 'beginner care' only so there seems to be some discrepancy somewhere. I also have a tortoise that eats beans and craps everywhere in the balcony.

3. I love sashimi! Eh.. the karma works out somehow. Anyway i already expect i'll be reborn as a cockroach.

4. CATS! not the musical i mean, which i've never watched, but i love big fluffy real cats! I'd keep them but i'm afraid they'll escape thru the windows from my 3rd floor place and die. And they'll eat my fish.

5. I'm actually pretty clueless most of the time! Sometimes i walk into the LT without knowing what the class is, and I still need to look at the signs to get around arts fac. so sometimes people think i'm dao when i walk past them in the corridors or in the deck...but i'm actually just kinda lost.

6. Conversations: Its not because i don't have anything intelligent to say, but because I like to listen to what other people are saying.

7. When I was young: I once dived off a table, hit the wall and got sent to the hospital for a broken arm. I once also spun around until i got so dizzy I hit my face onto the same table and got sent to the hospital for split gums. Another time, I did a backflip off a lorry and got sent to the hospital for stitches on my head. But they were all different hospitals, so it was pretty cool.

8. I want to join another sport, and gain weight, but neither seems to be happening:(

9. I've failed every math test except at my PSLEs and 'O' Levels, tho I got F9 for AO Math at my 'A's. I do know how to count though. Toes are very useful.

10. I'm easily amused! If i ever laugh at you, please don't take it badly! It's just that i'm super amused by the random things people say or do, and it keeps me happy in a generally depressing world. :D

11. I love my friends alot! After my relative hermitage of some time ago, I'm trying to rediscover all my old friends. One of the things I sincerely regret was leaving them of out my life during those years, and relying on the arbitrary significance of a 'significant' other. Yeah, I'm doing time for it now, but i've learnt a valuable lesson:)

12. <-- Twelve is blank because of quantum.

13. Green stuff is cool. Like recycling, trees, and my room wall cos i painted it green.

14. SHOPPING. When i'm bored i go shopping, even if its by myself, and look at clothes and accessories and random stuff like gachapon egg-capsule thingies. My mum scolds me for having more clothes than my sister.

15. I feel that its perfectly fine for a guy to have alot of clothes. And like shopping. And sometimes gush about hot guys.

16. I also do not have legions of female fans who scream my name with a squeal at the end, and who want to take pictures with me everywhere they see me. They only appear when i close my eyes.

17. I like peace and quiet, especially at the beach. Unfortunately, the view keeps getting obscured by Bangla workers walking past hand-in-hand. Its so irritating to have a sentosa hiatus interrupted by foreign workers walking around everywhere. Plus the hand-holding thing is so freaky!

18. I think I'm quite full of nonsense.

19. LOVE DANCE. Hip-hop and modern, and lockin and poppin. But i don't do any anymore, because i think life is taking me in new directions. Also because i can't reach my toes anymore.

20. Pigeons are funny creatures. When another pigeon lands next to other pigeons on a ledge, they'll shuffle around in their little pigeon step until they're equidistant from each other. Its also very funny when they shit on people's cars. I like animals la haha, too bad i don't have animal planet or national geographic on tv.

21. French is a beautiful language and i'm learning it now!

22. My life is full of contradictions! Like, I'm always looking for new stuff to eat, but i'm also totally contented eating the same stuff everyday. And i'm easily bored by alot things, but i feel reassured by the boring constancy of things. And i like to meet new people but i don't really like talking to people i don't know very well. Uh.

23. I would never have written this if i did not also read the weird/funny/strange things about people beforehand! It was pretty fun to read!

24. There's a lion dance going on in the void deck of the next block, and the chiangchiangchianging is sync-ing with red hot chili pepper's "by the way" on itunes...... its a divine sign that i should close the windows.

25. i try to do things differently, or at least I'd like to think so. because it'd be no fun otherwise! very soon i will change the world too.

haha just kidding, i'm not obama.
THE END.

huh!?

2009-02-01T16:38:00.003+08:00

I'm kinda confused right now, and I feel pretty entitled to it. While I saw it coming and was generally approving of the match, what i didn't expect was the when and in what manner. It was pleasant to know the two of you fit like peas in a pod, and i was glad that he liked you so much to get together that soon... but. Wasn't something missing? ie, telling me about it? You could tell me 'oh, cos I wasn't sure mah...' and you'd expect me to believe you...you, Miss Self-Confident, I-Always-Know-Whats-Happening, and who once chided me for not being able to see things (eg your affection?) that are right in front of me? I feel somewhat betrayed in the manner of events...

But then again. It was an open relationship, and while I could have, I shouldn't expect too much especially in retrospect. I do feel like I disappointed you, in what I could not give you. I do feel I led you on for a bit too long, in my own semi-reciprocity. But now, I just wish you happiness, peace and contentment, and that he treasures you for all the specialness that you are. I can say I loved you in my own way... but only he could give you that full-blown romantic love, that spiritual comfort, that musical passion..

And though things might never go back to the way they were between us before our episode, I wish that we remain friends.

days of days over you

2008-12-20T01:38:00.003+08:00

So soon, and its tomorrow again.

I couldn't sleep last night, and the images of days past returned to haunt me; recurring nightmares of regret and anger, bile and melancholy, til i had to sit up in bed, get up and do something else to wash off the sins of yesterdays. What does it take to reclaim the lost years of my life from these memories? These lost years laid waste to by my error of judgment... and, most of all, the cholera of your petty ignorance. The thing I hate most in life, but yet come in droves - stupid people. Yet in my blindness I was another stupid person. Deep down inside, I hate myself sometimes. Resentment has a funny way of gurgling to the top when you least expect it...

So soon, and its time to sleep, so that tomorrow will come faster.

I guess I won't be going for ultimate tomorrow morning after all. Sorry josh!

And, I'm grateful for the friends I have, the people I love, and what my parents have given me. That's really all we have to get through this life, and I'm grateful for what I've been given.

dream on days over you

in december

2008-12-16T03:16:00.003+08:00

wow i actually ran today.

its been such a long time since i really used this pair of old legs. tired feet and cold air, the burn of lungs and legs, the sound of breath and gravel. i remember what it was like to love this feeling.

we're getting old, aren't we.

a memory of:
a quiet september morning, reaching the bus stop with no one there. the sluggish push of my own slowing motion; the heat of sunshine; the shiver of a leaf and i'm motionless under tree-shade. breezeless, everything stands in tableau, the trees still as if expectant, the air like glass around me. feeling like if i move, i might just fall through this world. noiseless and still, soundless and waiting: nothing moving but coiled like a spring.

dreaming in the slight shimmer of haze.
the weight of God's gaze in the dusted light.

moments where realness dissipates into syrup, and the world feels like a spiritual place.

Carrots

2008-11-01T23:17:00.004+08:00

doin much better, feeling much healthier.

i think life is looking up:)

8DAYS in an interview with Andrea Fonseka and Tay Ping Hui, on diamonds and relationships:
"Ping Hui, would you take jewellery back from an ex?
Andrea: (mock whispers) Depends on how much he bought it for.
Ping Hui: If the break-up is amicable, I'll ask her to keep it. If she's a bitch who treated me like shit, then I'll take it back.
What will you do with it?
Andrea: Give it to the next one, and pretend nothing happened. (laughs)
Ping Hui: No, I'll put it on eBay."

I just find it really amusing:p
I'd probably just wear them myself lolS!

but first I'd have to take them back from the bitch. :|

walk in the ballpark

2008-09-15T00:37:00.001+08:00

Sunday night.

No mood to type anything meaningful. And feeling so tired. It was super nice meeting liz and howard and the rest of the peeps today. Joseph Gerri Amelia Kenny yingxian + liz howard, and we played captain’s ball and Frisbee till the day wound down and darkened into drizzly evening.. we dint win anything but man it was fun, especially Frisbee. We lost our first two captain’s ball matches, then played Frisbee in the considerable time between our second and final match in the league..

inspired by our Frisbee tactics (or antics!) we won our final match 8-0!

HAHAHA the irony!

the mechanics of Rita Repulsar

2008-08-02T16:54:00.002+08:00

if you wanna make a dance performance-worthy FAST, you have to scold people...its like one of those unspoken laws of the universe, where the degree of excellence is directly proportional to the crass meanness of the choreographer. No offence, but some serious dole-out of mean bitchitude should have happened two weeks ago, whether or not those on the receiving end choose to stay or leave.

Becuase to put it simply, you only have to scold the good ones once for them to self-motivate and improve - its those who fail to improve time and again who get scolded twice or more, and if they leave then all the better for the dance.

Cruel, but i'm getting sick of watching the dance wallow in its shittiness, two days away from our Oweek showcase.

On a brighter note, I'm so happy to be single again!

les enfants terribles

2008-07-05T19:20:00.003+08:00

Terrible.
It makes me lie awake at night, paused halfway through the message. How do I continue, and how do I end? Could I even press the "Send"?
Its tearing me apart, and I cant take it anymore...

Tears for us forgotten

2008-07-02T23:50:00.001+08:00

What is going on.
What is going on.
What is going on.
I needed you, but you weren't there -
when that little reassurance was all I needed.
I no longer know what I mean to you, and you no longer fill that space within me like you used to.
Sometimes... it feels like you're not there at all, but an emptiness of frustration and unanswered questions.

Emptiness that pulls like a vacuum on the heartstrings.
Half full is exactly half empty.

like..duh (but grayscaled, and magnified)

2008-06-30T23:21:00.001+08:00

for all the shades of gray in my life, i have to go and add more to it.. oh just tip the cauldron of wrought emotional iron into my brain.

like you said, your life can only have black and white..but mine is full of the things in between. Conflict? Complement? But with my overactive mind's eye I need to imagine things before they can happen..imagine all the yes nos and maybes so that I feel secure in my insecurities..think about all the possibles and perhapses between black and white.

When you said what you said, it was something unexpected, but something I expected.. an ocean of gray for me, and the black-and-white for you..

While my anchor of reality drifts a month away, out of sight, out of touch..
My heart is battered in the surf, and covered in the waves. I hurt but no one will see it.

sous les cieux sans nuages

2008-06-05T02:54:00.003+08:00

Happy.

Its been such a long time as usual..whenever does blogging actually take the place of real life? I'd rather spend the ten minutes typing doing something else..but when you're bored and there's nothing let to entertain you, sometimes reflection on your life is a good thing.

A mirror to the soul.
I take it that Im not feeling up to beat as usual..otherwise i wouldnt be posting anything..this blog is like my sink of depressivity.. the times i need to empty my mind and rant. sous les cieux sans nuages - under cloudless skies.

oweek filming is finally done, but part of me feels like it should have gone on longer..so many more angles to see things, so many ideas to put through, intensify the plot, develop the characters, elements of humours, delirious outtakes..i like the people..i like filming..i like making things..and it feels good to be doing something constructive.
and the gravity of attraction.. temptation looks you in the eye, and you're bound to say aye?

gf come back soon please, i need to renew my infatuation with you..

now bash is lost. i am lost. i cannot cope with just myself giving direction, because i've already lost direction..the club that fueled my passion in sem 1 has already withered into my personal prison..the things that the club could have achieved! I tremble in the thought of what a cohesive committee with initiative and drive could have done..

but faith is blind sometimes. faith that people could put aside their personal ambitions, their private selfishness, their unrevealed idiocy..what of this club is left but the name? call it the non-committee, perhaps.. the non-existent MC. Derisive. Spit.

I thought we did this a long time ago?
and the fat guy still dared to want to shake my hand and say "yes, but this time is the real one"
so i've been lied to for the past two months?
"but we still dont talk to each other!"
So?
"but its for the MC!"
I dont care.
and i remember the moist-sticky feeling from your palm, cos you were sweating..
For the record. what has the MC been but a convenient power-hold for you. and its now in shambles, and you dare to say its for the MC, as if you ever took the time to build it up, hold it together, or try to mend the rifts that have now spread beyond repair. just cos i shook your hand doesnt mean i will ever accept having a bastard like you as a friend.

everytime i step into the clubroom is a reminder of what this MC could have done, how this MC could have been better, what this MC could have been..but i forget, as always. People will be people. Selfish, arrogant, foolish.

But maybe when my disappointment runs deeps, my expectations are too high..

but today feels ok. Mailrun will look good, im sure of it..i did the covers and backpage, and the bash design..proud of myself and my getting-better editing

i still find it hard to find oneself..everyday i still look for the me i feel i've lost..the part that slips away (or awake?) when i dream, the part that fades as pass day-old into the morning..maybe i chase shadows, but I know, i just know..everyday i lose a bit more of myself, as i gain a bit more of my otherness..

the reason i hate blogging is because i always lose track of what i want to say next.

On clarity and infatuations

2008-01-19T03:04:00.000+08:00

And well, even as we create new things to obsess about, we mustn’t forget the important things in life. What this time is given to us for, what the club is meant to be. Sometimes when i lose myself in work i forget the greater things at stake, the grades that are the goal of my study in the university, the girl that i’ve pledged my heart to (and hers to mine?). Sometimes its easy to lose yourself when the urgency throws loops around you like a winding lifeline, saving you from drowning in the insanity of overworking, but suffocating the greater life that exist around yourself.

Writing class, at least, brings me closer to a greater realization of myself. The origins of meaning seem so inherent in all things, but purging the assumptions of convention broadens the horizons of the mind. Meaning changes and dwells, morphs and thrives through the times.

Within, throughout, without and encompassing.

My designs aren’t great but they’re getting better. Sometimes you need to spark that lightbulb above your head, and inspiration flows like water from behind a gate. But whether the room behind that gate is a one-man cell or a reservoir...

The beat of two legs

Measure out rhythms of breaths

A ride through the night

Dry run was good, hg should be proud.

Which reminds me, so many things to be done by tomorrow.

Often, when close to a deadline, I feel anxious. Yet, often, close to a deadline, my heart grows cold and my sense turns numb. Opacity of the glass on the moral compass. To do or not to do is like, whatever.

She was cute, but didn’t seem terribly smart.

Someone said cloverfield sucks big time.

Motive and thesis. Some people say, yet it isn’t the way you think it is. Tiffany...she draws me to her with the gravity of intellect, makes me wonder if i could entice her and draw her in, make her over and change her. Her intellect draws me in with the florid twisting joy of a challenged mind. If only she dresses better and not be such a nerd. Clothing identities, hello?!

But what am i talking about. This testosterone infatuation!

So many things to do and so little time. (Time for me to get moving then.) Then things will begin to look like the beginning of an end, rather than the distant start line of a marathon. I’m an ant at a crossroads, tyre-width dash by dash to safety. Stop and i’ll never get across, stop and i’ll be tread marked, just keep going and maybe i’ll get there soon enough.

tripping

2008-01-05T03:27:00.000+08:00

A new year should begin with new resolutions.

My girlfriend asked if i had any wishes on my birthday and i said no, i had none. Maybe i had some, secretly deep down inside, i couldn’t say. If we wish for something, we still have to work towards it in order to make it happen. It’s not as if wishes will come true through the act of wishing.

Maybe it gives you that 1%, then the rest of the 99% you have to work for it.

But then if you have to work for it anyway? And when you wish, you know that some things are obtainable and some things are not, so you end up wishing for things that are possible to obtain because you know that other things will just remain wishes? So people will end up wishing for practical things that they have to work for to obtain, nothing is really free in this world, so why do we bother wishing. If you know what you want, just work for it instead of wishing.

But maybe it’s the extra 1% that gets you started.

Maybe i should have some wishes.

Gets me thinking about memories. Back in the Malaysia home I’m thinking about my stash of memories. I wonder if I’ll be able to go back and pull out those folders of RFNA in black and grey. My stash of memories. My disappointments and my hopes, and memories of things past and things gone. The hours and minutes of our lives, writ in black and grey. Some things you write down, and they’re never forgotten, living somewhere in a pile of unread script.

Leads me to think of my father. Have i lost him? Remembering the way i shouted at him once, six hours of travelling just to earn a fucking 6 dollars an hour. Maybe that pushed him to buy this jurong house. Maybe. I wish i treated him better. When was the l time i saw him? The tired look on his face. The longing for warmth maybe. My father, lost out of touch with even his own children. i love him, but in a way that i don’t know how to approach. I wonder how he is now, living back in the Malaysia house. Is he lonely? Is he angry? Is he sad? But to keep him company ..

Perhaps there are some things you can never change. My mother may hate him, but how can i? As a son, i am torn between parents. But i think i know how my father feels. The look in his eyes when he comes to visit, his family, his house in Singapore, yet he has the eyes of a man in the house of a stranger. How i wish one day he would stay here, stay under this roof, less complaints, no quarrels. My parents.

Some things you can never change. The days and hours of our lives, and most of all the family you can never replace, no matter what wrongs they do you, no matter what happens. I need to go back to Malaysia soon, to fulfil my duties, to be the son that my father wants to see.

Perhaps growing older has made me reflect, a new year with no resolutions, but that things go on smoothly, and that i will work to make things happen. Perhaps that’s my wish and resolution. I get caught up in work, oh how much work i have waiting i can’t believe.. But i find, i cannot forget my family, and my memories are left in a different land.

Memories are as good as how you keep them. Parents are as good as the children see them.

Disappointments. Im feeling pensive, and the wave of memory washes over me like old suds. Where are my roots.

blackwaters

2007-06-14T09:00:00.000+08:00

Last night i killed my fishes.

I think they got poisoned when i turned on the filter which i took out of the water for a few days. The beneficial bacteria must have died and decomposed..so when the filter came back on it spewed out toxic waste. Either that or the tap water had too much chlorine. I filled up more than half the tank with water straight from the tap.

Little corpses tumbling in the current. They looked like so many little plastic replicas. I scooped them out with a plastic spoon and flushed them away.

I'm carrying the deaths of 9 fish on my shoulders. Guilt is a heavy burden to bear.

degrees of despair

2006-02-23T10:09:00.001+08:00

Today I felt better. Then I felt worse.

Like nothing changed – because nothing did – thought I felt happier going to work today. A bit.

Why is my life like this. Why do I have to live like this, living in the bus and in the train, on the road and on the move, always walking, always waiting for the next ride.

Being poor now makes it all worse. Suddenly I don’t know what I’m giving to, if just to let myself suffer for someone else while they spend on themselves. Why cant I just be selfish and let my life be a bit more comfortable.

But of course, at the end of the day I know deep down inside that there are people I want to love and protect, despite myself.

I'm just feeling a little depressed now.

"Take Care of Yourself"

2006-02-22T22:54:00.001+08:00

Sadness?
Empty.

I feel like I’m missing something.

What have I lost?
Freedom?
Faith?

Bound to the chains of my life, and I feel hopeless.

a back-dated title

2006-02-09T11:12:00.001+08:00

Recently I bought this pair of sandals for a loved one, which I must say, has to be the most expensive gift I have EVER bought anyone. But it did feel quite worth the sacrifice on my part - though the sight of seeing more than a tenth of last month’s salary changing hands was quite numbing. Anyhow the designs on it were really pretty and would have liked to have worn it much myself, but its ladies’.

Recently a lot of little sacrifices that I’ve been making seem rather worth the price.

Recently I went on this course that simply took the life out of me. It was the most tiring series of class discussions I have EVER been through. Tiring is not the word. Tedious. That’s it. It is so tedious that mind-draining yesterday night after dinner, thinking ok I’ll take a nap and in half an hour’s time I’ll drag myself to the gym, I changed into my shorts and fell asleep on the bed half-naked. That was at 7.30pm.

Then I woke up feeling very cold, so I put on my shirt, realized someone had msged me, read the msg, closed the msg screen and saw that it was 1.25am in the morning. I thought to myself, ohmigod I was supposed to go to the gym, as groaned in despair (really), rolling backwards onto the bed spreadeagled. That was the last thought I had before I fell asleep again. Luckily I was setting my phone alarm during dinner or I don’t think I would have woken up to continue getting tortured today.

It was very strange, that brief period of wakefulness. Everything was very clear in my head and vision was very sharp unlike the sleepy-groggy kind of vision that you have when you wake up in the mornings. The sky was dark outside but looked only a bit darker than at 7.30pm. It must have been, like, 20 seconds of consciousness, and once I lay back in bed everything disappeared.

The course is so tedious because we are learning this process called Problem-Based Learning. I don’t particularly see anything useful, or new, about it, because it just seems to me: 1) a complication of normal mental problem-solving since you have to write everything down, 2) we spend more effort thinking of things to write down than we do on the actual solution, 3) we already know the final solution when we read the passage, and 4) the most probable reason why we’re learning this f***ing hell of a problematic approach is so that we can find a freakin cure for it and save future logistics officers from having to suffer like we’re suffering now.

I mandate using the quick, painless and surefire method called Shoot the Arrow. First you find someone who you think knows the answer. Then you arrow him to do the job. If he’s the right guy and he knows the solution, it’s a five-second answer. If he really doesn’t know, and neither do you, well… arrow someone else.

Tomorrow is a full day of Problem-Based Learning, 8 til 6.

Recently I went out on a very enjoyable outing with audrey, who has an endless supply of stories and knowledge and wit, and if not for her I don’t think any conversation would have existed. Oh, we went out on a Saturday. It was a day after two days of heavy Problem-Based Learning.

I cant remember the context but
Quote Audrey

‘Back in my day there was only one position! Married or Not Married!
Nowadays dunno what doggy la, dunno what this and that la…’

And I notice that guys always turn to check her out but I don’t know if she notices that.

Apparently her gay friend whom I met said he was picking vibes from me. That is seriously disturbing.

Recently I also met brandon at 40 sar when I went there for a stock-taking exercise. It was very funny. Suddenly he gets this officer looking over his shoulder for God knows what, in the cookhouse. But it was just me la.

I’m sleepy.
Problem Based Learning

09 Feb 2006

bone ache for my sake

2006-01-22T00:07:00.000+08:00

Man.. i'm getting old..

recently i dint feel like going clubbing. that has got to be a sign of advanced age.

Just now I ate two of those red eggs ppl give out at chinese weddings or their newborn’s one-month-hood.. my fingers are mostly red now and I don’t know why but I cant wash the red dye off. What kind of colouring do this ppl use! Cant the receivers of these eggs just eat them in peace without having to walk ard with red fingers.. some of the dye spilt out of the first egg when I cracked it and now my table looks like someone died on it.

On Friday I went to east coast for a 6 k run and by the end of the fifth kilometre I felt like I was going to die. That’s another sign of ageing. Also, I feel tired most of the time I’m not in my lying in my bunk looking at the ceiling.
I like prata too! Which, I realised with a tightening in the chest, causes me to visit coffee shops quite often. And when i order my teh tarik and read the Straits Times while waiting for the prata to arrive, I cant help but feel im getting into the swing of aged things just a lil too early.

My brother just got this part-job at an east coast restaurant which is like 3 hours away from home and I think quite far from inova jc where he’s at now.. in fact its freakin far from home and how he’s gonna handle we’re just gonna have to wait and see. Twice a week on Thursday and Saturday night for five hours I think that’s what my mum said. Today’s his first day at work. its quite good that he’s looking to supporting himself. My bro’s growing up.

Not feeling very reflective of late.

Sometimes when I take the bus home late at night the scenery goes past and goes past and goes.. signposts and traffic lights and turnings. The coast and trees and shophouses and motorbikes. Dusty sidelanes and roadside ramly burgers. The images go past and I’m not looking anymore but still seeing everything, looking out into space and seeing the flashing continuous everyday. Just light in those mtvs the driver switces off the cabin lights cos he’s on the highway, and the streetlamps flicker past and across my face. At these times my mind empties and my cheeks grow cold in the air-conditioning, and with my head against the backrest the roiling of the engine keeps me from sleep. life goes by outside my window and I’m slumped in my seat, surrounded by the noise of the running bus, and the cold stale air of a lonely ride.

turning moment

2005-12-26T18:49:00.000+08:00

caleb said my blog is dead, which well, kinda is the truth just that i dont wanna admit it..

i'd say its not dead cos i intend to write something in it soon. i always intend to write something in it soon. i just dont really know what i wanna write in it most of the time and anyway 'soon' is subjective so universally speaking my blog is not dead its just resting for a while.

yesterday was xmas day and today is my brother's birthday, but he's having dance camp as he has been for the past nine days and isnt back yet... not much of a celebrating tradition in my family and anyways even if he was back birthdays arent that big a deal here in my home.. neither is xmas. i glad i have someone who can bring me for midnight mass.

there was an occasion i had to think of what date it was yesterday and i had trouble remembering it and theo had to supply the 25th for me.. well.. guess its an army effect. ppl say its like you lose track of time and dont know what day it is. i think its more of a losing track of dates, and the timescale changes. thats planet SAF for you. it feels like...there's today, tomorrow, yesterday, last-week-that-day, go-back-to-camp day, the evergreen bookout day and more. but nobody ever knows what the heck today's date is.

i dint really register it was the 25th but i did know clearly it was xmas day and my second real long wkend in six months. coincidentally ocs time runs ten minutes faster than outside time, which goes to prove that there indeed is a planet saf and every time you pass through the gates into an army camp you are actually, really, passing through a portal into another world. the guards and inspections are just hypocritical bullshit cos they never find anything anyway.

had a wonderful stayover and games at joy's place last night, where faces from fading pictures in my mind revived themselves and splashed new colour and smiles into my mental frame.. its simply so great to see so many friends again. its great to see caleb again, and to hear him, even though joy thinks he talks too much, i feel Ah just cant do without him talking! joshua joy caleb michlee howard liz jonong.. ppl like these carry part of our identity, and form something recognisable. i guess we all bring a part of ourselves into this class circle..form a part of that identity that, like a campfire we can warm our hands around, brings us all back to together and encapsulates us. its hard to dissolve this kind of familiarity and bond, difficult to dispel this gravity that has held us as a class for the past two years, and i hope with all my heart can hold us together in our ageing.

sounds like mimalayas.

whats that word game we were playing?

when was the last time i laughed so freely around ppl.

'love is not who you can see yourself with, but who you cant see yourself without'

theo just msged me 'what are you doing now?' with some minor affectations before that but never mind what im doing now is walking the blog. and thinking of her.

thinking of you.

this city's made us crazy

2005-08-20T23:24:00.000+08:00

and we must get out.

i'm tired and i'm sick and i'm aching and i'm sleep-deprived and i'm enslaved to my own obligation
and i missed yina's flight out and wont be seeing her. for. a. year.

the only consolation today: found two oooh so lovely nice shirts, and my hair decided to behave

other than that its just been so sucky and irritating i wish i dint go out today.
maybe its just my fault for not being understanding, or accommodating enough, or tolerant enough.

i dont like my life

2005-08-17T13:14:00.000+08:00

i dint realize i havent blogged for so long! somehow i've taken time to be measured in weekend blocks, so i think that since its not been THAT many weekends since i last posted an entry it hasnt felt like any significant loss to my blogging history.

then when i come online and go to my blog and read my last entry (like more than a month ago), i also realize i cant think of anything to blog about that isnt so scandalous or private or embarrasing that i wouldnt want anyone to read about and hyperventilate and die. used to have lots of crap to put down so that i wouldnt forget what the crap was on my mind that i didnt want to forget, but now i cant think of the next thing i wanted to say to anyone or whatever things i had to bitch about two days ago that seemed so important then. maybe it just means i'm becoming more mature and less focused on trivial bitchy interpersonal issues. as if.

its funny when meeting up with other guys and we have to make an agreement that in the next half an hour we WILL NOT talk about army stuff. but the saf worm will still manage to escape after a few minutes. indefatigable. no wonder its said the army life is no life at all.

i will never in my life sign on to the army. i would have to be crazy.

right now, i dont like my life. at all.

worse for the wear

2005-08-17T12:54:00.000+08:00

home for today and yesterday and tomorrow

of all things to happen i have to get myself injured and fall sick AT THE SAME TIME during driving... bloody stupid.. strained my back and had a fever, and at 11.30 at night after coming back from the driving circuit i was compelled by my instructors to report to the medical centre.

but its a nice break tho.. even if i have to leave e other two guys in my crew to do a three man servicing for the next few days.

staying at home isnt that exciting... i'd rather be outfield or in camp doing servicing.. even though its torturous at times and exhausting all the time, it comes to a point where you cannot help but feel a sense of duty and responsibility towards your crew, knowing that once you're not there they're gonna have to take up your job as well as their own... guilt.

a scarlet picture

2005-07-24T12:02:00.000+08:00

this morning i watched the sky brighten as morning overtook clementi...how many more mornings will i catch in armour? how many nights will i stay up outside? sleep seems second place now... but what can you do when you want to commit to opposites...both i wouldnt want to lose.

last night crowding at essential brews reminded me that i was never a group person.. and still am not.. cant stand the squeezed, cramped noise, having to shout so that the other person can hear you, feeling so out of sorts...all the conversation cliques forming all about and not really interested in joining any..

so phua and i left for starbucks, back into some comfortable human space. and as luck would have it, the entire sofa was OURS! Mwahaha. so much better than the eenymeeny cushions and low tables at essential brews. it pays to have initiative, i say. hahaha.
and we talked about stuff.... so glad to be able to sit down together and chat about anything... been a long time.

leaving essential brews xiangwei jumped out at us from behind a pillar. and went 'Hwwar!!!' i swear my heart skipped and my life shortened by a 10 years. i want to hit him with a pot.

i think when real friendships form there's something tangible-invisible that you can count on going back to whenever you meet up again... its like turning off the road when you say bye and picking up the trail from where you left off again when you say hi... met so many old friends (old? is half a year ago old? hmm..) and nothing changes. all the familiar flavoured warmth and casualness. micht joshy omalley shah sumei aloy...
gotta arrange a time to meet up with ppl before they fade out of focus. dint see yapx or audrey, which was a bit of a disappointment..

went out with theo afterwards for a bit...
sigh. she paints my sky with sunshine.

why do you hurt when you're happy?

first you will turn into an evil robot

2005-07-06T21:08:00.000+08:00

hmm i like that.
back from brunei!! woohoo!!

quite happy to be back, savouring the flight from there to home, the familiar SIA uniforms, singapore air, singapore grass, singapore trees.

home isnt that great, but once you've been away, you know you have to come back.

went for the tankee test today. out of 51 we were 22.. now just waiting for the results tmrw... see who makes the final 12.

MEMEME!!
*sticks hand in air*
i want be
a tankee

was just thinking of msging yingshi and josh and on my way home today, but my phone went dead at juussstt the right time that i was faced with another couple hours out of the house, and i couldnt even msg the ppl i wanted to talk to most... several thoughts went through my mind, like

if i buy the new burgers at bk will they let me use their power socket?

should i call from a payphone?

could i lock myself in a public toilet and use the sockets in there?

of course being logical and reasonable, i knew there were no sockets in bk. but the other two options were really options. reallyreally. i even had the fluddy sony ericsson charger in my bag to charge my phone. just dint do it. aiyah.

can you imagine, i had no network coverage in brunei!? some 'inactive sim' pasted itself across my screen and thats it...voila no pay-as-you-roam. singtel i am disappointed. gonna go comprain this wkend.
10 days had to live off other ppl, sigh. thank goodness for friends.

then there was this person, 93360648, who msged me. i presumed he (or she?) knew me well enough to call me 'bro', so i dint ask who it was, and we kept msging each other for quite some time. we even agreed to meet some time we're free for pool.

i still havent figured out who this person is leh. hmm.
but interesting to find out who it is though. maybe i'll keep msging til we do meet for pool then it'll be like, 'SURPRISE!' haha so cool.

hungry.....

oh brunei shopping is terrible.. everything there is so commercial, so blank boring normal fashion...gosh we were given one and half hours in a shopping centre, and bleagh i could've frosted over with boredom. towards the end i escaped out into the surrounding suburbs and took a walk among the mama shops, even though we were warned to stay only within the shopping centre...so there was a bbiiiiittt of redemption la, even thought the manymany neighbourhood electronic stores and mama shops dint really sell anything different.

but. i feel i had a good time in slowjog, despite it all.

God bless.

2005-06-26T14:29:00.001+08:00

Your Deadly Sins

Wrath: 80%

Envy: 60%

Greed: 60%

Gluttony: 40%

Lust: 40%

Pride: 40%

Sloth: 40%

Chance You'll Go to Hell: 51%

You will die, but first you will turn into an evil robot.

How Sinful Are You?

2005-06-26T14:29:00.000+08:00

Part Passionate Kisser

For you, kissing is about all about following your urges
If someone's hot, you'll go in for the kiss - end of story
You can keep any relationship hot with your steamy kisses
A total spark plug - your kisses are bound to get you in trouble

Part Expert Kisser

You're a kissing pro, but it's all about quality and not quantity
You've perfected your kissing technique and can knock anyone's socks off
And you're adaptable, giving each partner what they crave
When it comes down to it, your kisses are truly unforgettable

What Kind of Kisser Are You?

haha. funny.

black cat superstition

2005-06-25T12:12:00.000+08:00

happy

yesterday whiling time away trying to look decent and unchildish sitting alone in the airport i had some deep thoughts that i cant for the world remember now..

thats the problem with thoughts

once you forget, you might as well never have had the memory in the first place. thats good or bad? probably both. depends on what you want to forget (or is it whether you want to forget?)

the little conundrums of daily life.

looking for a piece of paper to write spiralling thoughts down, but just too troublesome to walk around. anyway people kept looking at me for some reason, like i'm weird or something.. which made me feel super self-conscious, and a bit weird too. so just sat down outside row 17 and asked the universe what it ws trying to do.

and the answer is... 41

what!! the ultimate answer to the universe, to life, to death and to everything, is...

'41' !?!?

ah but Hitchhiker's Guide says.. you have to find the ultimate question in order to understand the ultimate answer to everything.

but i guess there just isnt any meaning to the universe, except where you choose to find it. anything, any single event can have one answer, two meanings, a thousand branches and a million divergings... but what matters is which path you choose to scramble down on that makes your life worth living. what your own beliefs tell you is true is all that makes the difference, because its your own life, and its your own choice, and what you choose to accept as truth turns into the guiding principle of your own life.

choice is an illusion? choice is rationality in a nutshell. yes to this cos its good, no to this other cos its.. not so good. people just think there is no choice because they cant accept the not so good options.

see.. people are just inherently..

stupid. fickle.

i dont understand people and their black cat superstitions sometimes.

long island daggers

2005-06-23T20:16:00.000+08:00

oh did i say i got posted to armour? well yups did get posted there, but now hafta go for socjot slowjog (slowsqueezeyourballsjog) in brunei..
just thankful its not the initial 3 weeks we were briefed upon.. only 10 days *heaves a breath* or i'd die
best pt
best soc
best mindless waste of freakin time

24k down
mambo over
suffering from too much alcohol
not a hangover, just dizzytired.
barely slept a couple hours the past two days, plus 24k thru tues nite and mambo thru wed, i feel like falling over. if there were feathers spread out at my feet like a cushion of swans i'd close my eyes and collapse sighing into the downwards towards your concrete, leaving this world behind and filling the comfort of black lidded sleep. but i cant, cos now i need to go out and make my stoopid specs, tmrw hafta wake up freakin early to go for kitbag inspection. i feel like falling over.

i think yesterday was the drunkest i'd ever got.. if that amounted to being drunk. just couldnt walk so very straight or focus on any one thought for more than about 2.483 seconds before it recycled into a swimming vision of a big drain in front of me that im just about to walk into if i dont wake up and steer away as i wander zigzagging from zouk down to chinablack looking for melfin the fairy. im going crazy now.

tomorrow my kitten's returning from viet. i think she'd love some flowers. i think i'd love her back, just in one piece, safe and smiling her sweet smile.
Amen

gulfs of torn sky

2005-06-23T19:21:00.000+08:00

and today coming home was thinking..

1. every moment i spend out is a moment less i spend at home

2. which makes it less and less worth the while of going home with every minute more i delay, because i'll spend more effort travelling than is worth the rest at home

3. there will come a point where it just becomes technically not viable to go home

4. should i go home?

5. oh yah, i need fresh clothes.

since when did i become so mercenary? shit i hate myself.

yellow brains in the washing machine

2005-06-23T16:11:00.000+08:00

was reading a book in the library

it was called '30000 mornings'
find it and you'll understand what i'm trying to get at.

why do men have so much testosterone. cant we think of sex less? desire less? lust less? all these sins and indecencies that arise from faithlessness and torrid loss of control. men are disgusting. always looking to hug kiss touch sniff grope squeeze caress looking for the next fix next roll in the shack. disgustingly amorous creatures.

i could go on about stupid disgusting males being male, but i there's this dumb irony of me writing it. i just wanna point out an obvious fact that everyone knows already, so that people can confirm it and nod in agreement 'yesyes, oh what a good point' and everyone will think i am a sensitive, thoughtful and wholly unfilthy brudder.

gah.

turning into some self-hate already.

ahhhhhhhh not enough sleep.

and....

2005-06-18T12:36:00.000+08:00

posted to armour!!!

for goodness sake, yes! it is for goodness' sake. my goodness that is.

and so... postings for sierra wing are out, amidst disappointments and myriad elations, many other emotions are half-masked and wrapped up. some wanted to go signals and went to infantry, others wanted to go to infantry and went to combat e... hiaz life was never fair to begin with, my little children, and we'll all have to grow up with that. i'm lucky i got to my vocation of choice, but in the end, what does it matter? we feel blindly for passage to a better corp, a more pleasant existence in another company, battalion, etc, but we hardly ever knew shit about what we were throwing our choices into in the first place.

so i say now... wherever we is going, we is not knowing what we're going into anyway. so all's equal. life is not fair, but at least it gives us our chances. i guess we can excel wherever we go, as long as there's effort put in, not like my chao geng buddy who appeals for air force, says he wants to go for armour, gives substandard work in infantry and reports sick for crap half the time. i cant stand it. why people like that are allowed to still stay in ocs (of all places OFFICER school)is just a mystery. but then again, life is not fair.

harharhar/. i bitch.

and ahead... 3 weeks in brunei ohmigosh. just thinking about it and my heart aches. sigh its going to be a difficult 3 weeks. gonna miss my kitten so much >_<

and i must thank the Lord for everything he's given me, everything he's helped me through, all the strength he's provided, all the grace he's shone upon me to help me get up again... for my family whom i love, my friends whom i treasure... and my kitten i adore..

God bless.

:D

hello

2005-06-18T11:24:00.000+08:00

a long drought

i realize i cant type properly anymore cos i've been away from the computer for too long. basically civilisation. cookhouse food just tastes so cookhousey after eating it for four weeks.

anyway am finally back!!! in so many ways..

finally got my passport done so i can GO HOOMMMEE. for like the first time in four weeks. ok la actually already got home yesterday but nvm lets just ignore that.

ohmigods today ate my mum's fried rice... after so long, its like a taste of heaven. and just coming home and being able to say hi to mum, dad, sis, bro... even if bro still hasnt repaired my cd player and stuck my lovelybabyblue bag full of badge pins, and my sis is glued to her laptop doing her thesis, and dad isnt home yet well, mum is always free so i talk to her.

and its good to be back.

yes it is.

WaRgH. feeling so awfully sleepy tired crumbly now but i just dont feel like sleeping.. aiya shall go to sleep soon otherwise i cant go out later.

there's so much to complain bout army but nothing comes out of it eventually so i dont really see the point.. army is like a self-contained, self-sufficient world of its own. i'm getting lazy to type so maybe tonight i'll continue la. if i get home. gah.

tired of wings

2005-04-10T15:53:00.000+08:00

cant believe i have to do homework for army. of all things..we have to do elearning on the safti intranet and memorize military law facts and section movement drills. and learn the specifications of the various weapons. bloody stupid. and i havent finished going thru all the packages so i think im screwded.

anw... everyday is like a new challenge.

ArGh. cant stop talking about ns!! its consuming my whole life! this is verrryy bad. nowadays the only thing i have for conversation is army. again, bloody stupid.

haiz.. my only motivation nowadays seems to be her. sometimes i think im just making things complicated for myself. eofinveofnbeanefivmasm. aiyah my mind is in a mess right now. i shall stop thinking.

...............
............
............
.............

being duty sergeant on the weekend is just the worst imaginable responsibility that can be put on ya.

oh no i just forgot to do something very important
argh
now i hafta wait til next week. :(

some days i just wish i wasnt in ocs
sigh

no time!!

2005-04-05T19:23:00.000+08:00

cheh! and i thought i had no time to type..

now supposed to be having Happy Hour in the officer cadets' mess with the entire wing.. haha yup guess where i am?! :P awrite..

short term worry is that Happy Hour doesnt end and morph into Unhappy Hour later.. we're all worried that later the instructors might spring a fieldpack inspection and 5k casualty evacuation as what the senior cadets said happened to them during their time.. haha scary. hoping hoping

anws here at safti its like a million times difference from bmt.. bmt is cheesy scout camp compared to here.. i still remember the first impression getting here.. that everyone marches in step with armswings like clockwork.

ok and then on the day we come in we get an orientation run around the whole bloody facility and our platoon instructor knocks us down diamond pushups.

oh shit have to run

ok see ya soon haha !

tactical

2005-04-05T19:09:00.000+08:00

OCS is an irritating place.

really

i wish i was in rouge.

with you

unlikely things

2005-03-18T23:44:00.000+08:00

Quarreled with my mum.

What do you do when things get out of control man?

What do you say when things get out of control? How do you keep the anger from boiling up your blood and tearing off your head, and your words from leaping and snarling into a red mist of frustration?

I haven't found a way out yet man. Maybe there is this secret door that I have to build a key for before I can find my pastel blue pastures... but I haven't found the door nor got what it takes to make the key yet. All I want now... is some peace and quiet, somewhere with no one to ask me questions, tell me what my priorities are, give me a low down on how must change, throw me the reasons why I must do more more more. All I want is some peace now, somewhere that stops these tears from running to my eyes even as I write, that clears the fog and dust from my mind. Just that private little hill with a small tree and clean grass... and maybe that someone who’s been through all this the same as I have, to share that natural emotional sympathy as we’ll have, and to love the silence more than any warm words of soft embraces.

No words man, no quarrels or fighting or shouting. Just let me be, and give me no words but the language of faith and understanding, and I will love you all the more.

the last days of a recruit

2005-03-11T09:52:00.000+08:00

Excerpt

060305
1430hrs
Going back to school and meeting up with all my old friends and jie meis again I realise just how much I miss them. All the memories of fun and laughter with all the different people flood back, and now I feel I just have to catch up with so many people and find out how they're doing.

yingshi jolyn audrey enlin sarah

POP soon!! The anticipation is almost overwhelming... previously POP was just an event on the other side of the hill, out of sight and out of mind, but now graduation day is cresting the top of that hill it casts a greater shadow over the poor recruits struggling upwards towards it. The climb seems to just get more and more unbearable.

haiz at this point i simply miss all my darlings so much...

also hope i get posted to officer school... but hey, doesn’t most of us?!

when 24 click starts (in a few hrs!!) its going to be a dozen hours of mind-numbing walking... so I’d better write now. i guess thats how army works... to bring soldiers to a respectable fitness level some other area must compensate... a seesaw of body and mind.

070305
0900hrs
the pride in foxtrot/falcon simply grows... consider: on regular route marches charlie takes 48 mins to finish 4k. bravo takes 45. we take 40. under maggotmaster 2L bhanu we take abt 37 to 38 mins... its lightspeed compared to the pace we had to endure with charlie conducting last night. caleb said 'this 24k ah doesnt test how well we can march, it tests how well we can endure boredom...' teng kok was regretting he didnt bring his book along so at least he'd have something to read while marching, i mean, strolling.

still, despite the snail's pace 24k is still two dozen thighchafing nutbanging footdragging clicks. everyone is tired and fall in this morning brought a legion of bowlegs and limps. which is just freakin amusing... abrasions and blisters are the standard conversation, but everyone just puts on their saf shoes, pulls up their saf socks and soldiers on, still keeping in step and singing army songs. but we never expected to see the other 24K companies waddling around in slippers for breakfast while we marched to cookhouse for breakfast. they really looked pathetic! i mean, come on, sure its 24k but a company of att B excused RMJ excused footgear just looks disgustingly wussy. we snigger as hawk charlie bravo pass by...

thank goodness i didn’t get any blisters or abrasion, so maybe that explains some of my cheer and lightheartedness today. it feels like the morning after a good day of track training, the sense of having accomplished something fruitful... a nice aching afterglow i guess. pleasant :)

080305
1030hrs
the anticipation grows of course, but the troopers die a quiet death in their bunks. a melancholy just permeates the heart and mind, and drains the excitement and interest from activity and washes the day gray. could it be because of POP in a few hours time? of course it could... so tired of the straight lines and the endless roads, we wait to graduate in a few hours. for what? to return to a same old civilian life, and to wait again. POP is but our stepping stone to the next era in our armyhood. there is no end in sight.

I cant wait to be a private and earn 16 dollars more.

let it be

2005-03-05T14:00:00.000+08:00

she is just about everything i seek in a girl...

i never thought we could be so similar in so many ways...

never thought i'd meet someone so different, mature, elegant, beautiful, everything...

i really, really like her.
and to tell her would be to kill us both.

tragedy.

why now, why now.

the trench-digger's duty

2005-03-04T01:33:00.000+08:00

eat my dirt!

out early on shellscrape leave mwahaha!!! got half day leave cos i managed to dig company best shellscrape.. yeah happyhappyhappy!! sometimes army's perks really perk u up, like this one. yups even white horse H company doesnt get to book out at 8pm hahaha :P learning lesson -- just dig it baby.

aiyez but am also happy and sad... got all the small perks but the big fish like platoon best dont bite my hook... but nvm at least i know the guy who got it really deserves it, so all the best jason! hope you win company best as well so F platoon 1 will more or less have gotten all the possible awards harharhar..

am happy.

tmrw going out. yeah
results day tmrw too. im scared but not that scared. pseudoscared. haiz its not as if worrying can change any of the results so why bother to worry.

Scripture gives us
'God grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change, the courage to change the things i can, and the wisdom to know the difference'
from Proverbs i cant remember where... yups so just relax and pray for God's strength in case u get bad results. but not for God to make sure u get good rsults, because He can only give us strength to study and pull through the exams, but how we do just depends on our own effort.

anyhow hope we all do wellllll..

God bless.

trigger happy slinger

2005-02-21T01:43:00.000+08:00

OOOOoosh

M16 on auto is like an electric current down your body and lightning in your hands.

fired 600+ rounds on BAC course doing enemy duty

high point of my field camp haha. yesh they were just blanks but still... i'd do field camp all over again just to go on auto... its like a drug. once you're off it and back to semi again there's just no kick sia.

ratatatatatatata

and it would be a ballad

2005-02-13T14:02:00.000+08:00

Wah I feel so tired not enough sleep for three days. Today booking in and tomorrow going for field camp. It feels like byebye world and adios civilisation for the next seven days. I don’t wanna spend valentines’ with the mosquitoes and centipedes and snakes. Whaaaaaat... army is such a chore. *pouts*

Um what is going on now. All this relationship stuff is coming up again and giving me a headache. sigh... the heart is throwing tangles like fine spun cloth. Going into ns I resolved not to start anything, and get to uni before considering anything serious, but what am I to do when the girl that shows up in your arms is just so wonderful... I am afraid of doing the wrong thing now. Or is it doing the right thing at the wrong time. Argh I don’t know if I can handle anything more than friendship right now. Just not ready for the self-confirmation of a leap to a ‘yes I want her’... Then again I could just be delusional and dreaming up overtures in place of friendship... I hope I’m still reading people right after the stupefaction of army.

Haiz. Having to hold back flirting just feels like cramming part of personality into a pringles tin. But at this point in time, unsureties and all, not restraining myself would be like making promises with the intention of breaking them. For goodness sake the next four weeks I’ll only be out two weekends before passing-out parade... what right does one have to subject a girl to that amount of tentativeness!

Still, that I ask her out is probably signal enough to myself that my feelings run deeper than what I care to admit to myself... so much for self-control, boy.

Haiz the heart throws tangles like a fast bowler on double quicktime. Old emotions that she trawls to the surface... just chose the wrong time to reveal themselves. Why now why now.

Sunday morning, rain is falling
Steal some covers, share some skin
Clouds are shrouding us in moments unforgettable
You twist to fit the mold that I am in

But things just get so crazy living life gets hard to do
And I would gladly hit the road, get up and go if I knew
That someday it would lead me back to you
That someday it would lead me back to you

That maybe you’re all I need
In darkness she is all I seek
Come and rest your bones with me
Driving slow on Sunday mornings
And I never want to leave

out and about

2005-01-22T11:51:00.000+08:00

Army

Not bad

Confinement for two weeks

Makes u realize what you hold closest to you. And yet somehow when all my friends are missing their families and homes I’m thinking of how I can go for the next party once I book out. Disconcerting. Melf sez I should stop telling myself I don’t miss my family, but I cant differentiate whether this is a case of mentality… or simply of not giving a damn. Either way… I feel troubled, and being at home now its costing me a certain distancing from my family. Con. Fused.

On my way back to home part of me was wishing I didn’t have to come back, but could just stay in camp. Family shmamily. Maybe I’m just deliberately alienating myself from those around me so I wont have to miss them, and feel the aches and pains of being away from comfortable conventions. Whatwhatwhatwhat poodle. I think something is screwed up with my emotional being. I think I am becoming more and more screwed up.

Army seems to be cultivating this aggression. Call it willpower or rebelliousness or both. Or testosteronal ego, the kind that tailgates you down the CTE and picks a fight along clarke quay. It’s a curse, a curse! At mambo I almost reached breaking point (the point at which I break someone’s nose, in this case justin’s) when he, for his own amusement or whatever, nearly yanked off my cap and glasses when I was dancing. I guess the inner angel managed to lasso the inner demon with his halo in time and whisper ‘Turn the tribal drumbeat down a bit please…’ and convert the breaking point into merely a shoving point, such that no one got hurt. Except justin’s cap which I threw on the dance floor and I suspect got mamboed a bit. Only a bit.

The masculinity army develops works like this: my buddy came in reserved and small, with proper english; now he bangs the table during conversations and swears. ‘Wah lau eh! *bangs table* Hahaha what the eff man!’
I guess we all get influenced and hand over a portion of civilisation like tributes to appease our 2nd lefs and platoon sergeant gods. We gladly exchange gentleness and thoughtfulness for a chance to fit into Sibeh-Macho University. The other SMU.

Disillusionment
The saf is supposed to be organized, but its not. Neither is it efficient. Or intelligent. I have no idea how to bring across what it is… just that it is none of these qualities. What a waste of time. I find the best way to deal with it is not to think about it at all and just blank out.

‘Knock it down 40!’
*blanks out and knocks down 40*

‘Dari kanan cepat jalan!’
*blanks out and marches*

‘You effing lunchboxes, charlie brown la!’
*blanks out and psychic censor kicks in*

just do it baby.

the brain kinda auto-restarts when the next string of commands roll off.

Sigh
The last thing I want now is to get tangled up in affairs of the heart.
Avoid!
Don’t book coffee dates!
Don’t drop little hints!
Don’t dance with people!
Don’t call to ask how they are!
I might as well bury myself in a hole and die.
Sigh.

22nd jan 2005 1150am

i who say you are dreams am a dream myself

2005-01-05T13:45:00.000+08:00

Current-borne, wave-flung, tugged hugely by the whole might of ocean, the jellyfish drifts in the tidal abyss. The light shines through it, the dark enters it. Borne, flung, tugged from anywhere to anywhere, for in the deep sea there is no compass but nearer and farther, higher and lower, the jellyfish hangs and sways; pulses move slight and quick within it, as the vast diurnal pulses beat in the moondriven sea. Hanging, swaying, pulsing, the most vulnerable and insubstantial creature, it has for its defense the violence and power of the whole ocean, to which it has entrusted its being, its going, its will.

But here rise the stubborn continents. The shelves of gravel and the cliffs of rock break from the water baldly into air, that dry, terrible outerspace of radiance and instability, where there is no support for life. And now, now the currents mislead and the waves betray, breaking their endless circle, to leap up in loud foam against rock and air, breaking...

What will the creature made all of seadrift do, on the dry sand of daylight; what will the mind do, each morning, waking?

wuh

2005-01-03T02:21:00.000+08:00

Happy new year!
Happy birthday!

Lets shave lyrical. Waxing will probably be painful.
*buzz*
*buzz*
*buzzz*
electric shaver.

Stubble-free skin!

A drop of purple into a circle of blue will be the falling of the sky into an ocean of glass.
The sky slides into the ocean on an upturned china plate.
White and blue. White and blue. Dragons and lotuses swirl into the sea on a porcelain mystery.
Where lies land’s end?
An alabaster divinity turns its cheek, the creak of bleached bones.
Beached on a distant shore, distanced timelike from now to there; the gods do not share their immortality.
Timelike. Now to there crosses the same sky, but we grow old.
Who remembers anyway?

to look at people in light

2004-12-31T17:34:00.000+08:00

Yesterday was an amazing day… cant even remember how long I slept, just that I woke up this morning. Wow. I think I fell asleep at eleven or twelve in the afternoon, squirmed into awareness a few times and finally got up this morning at 830. A day vanishes, and suddenly im standing on the tail of 2005.

Anyway mambo was quite fun, but joshy was right it was SUPER crowded, goodness the queue was until the end of the street so I went to the front and started chatting to this guy with his ns buddies and he let me cut mwahaha… then realized one of them was my acsi track senior tada!! He couldn’t recognize me. And if not for his name I wouldn’t have recognized him either. Haha. Amusing.

Then mambo itself… haha I couldn’t stop myself from laughing when I first went in cos of all the crazy ppl doing stupid hand actions altogether and looking absolutely retarded… but later on the dance floor with malley and nicole and aimee it was really fun!! Those retarded hand actions are deceptively fun, especially when with friends. But we dint know most of the movements so we pretended to be real pro and do some stupid hand waving and tacky actions of our own. Cos we pro what. Veeerry amusing.

Anyways on the way to newton with lionel and zhaf and evan after everything zhaf took us to this roti john and prata shop nearby which served really delicious food. Next time at zouk, must bring ppl to go eat there with me. But when eating was so tired after having only slept a bit the night before that I felt like I would fall into my roti john. There were so many ppl there it took like ten minutes just for the drinks to arrived… drinks! Simple haundred plus and lime juice and ice lemon tea! Testament to the good food haha. Or maybe just the proximity to zouk with all its early morning party people.

Made sixty bucks! From selling some of my cards! But I think now there’s only like 20 bucks of that left haha. Sorting and selling cards is like so tiring you wont believe it until you try it.

And you know what? It sucks when ppl cancel on you, especially if u’re prepared to feed them dinner made with your own two hands. Brandon was supposed to cook spaghetti for a couple of friends and family, but the friends decided they dint want to come anymore while we were shopping for ingredients so had to call the whole thing off. I wasn’t the one holding the dinner or doing the cooking, but still, it felt like shit to have ppl decide to cancel AND not tell you until you take the courtesy to call them yourself. What does that tell about a person? Chihuahua poodly irritating. Lesson: make up your bloody mind.

And melf thanks so much so much so much!!!!! THANK YOU!! For your hospitality warmth graciousness 2am supper good hostmanship etc etc. Yup. If I stay over again I will be doing the blanjahing. Or you could come stay over at my place and be bored out of your underwear.

And brandon thanks so much for letting me wear your shirt and using your hair stuff and cleanser and moisturizer without which I would have felt exceedingly ugly and never have gone zouk… and using your house… and being a cool business partner haha!!

And I’d like to thank my producer and manager and all the lighting crew and costume designers without which none of this could have happened. Thank you all so much and I hope we’ll be making more fabulous moments in the future. Cheers.

and the air is a weight on your shoulders

2004-12-25T22:12:00.000+08:00

orchard road a matchstick box, and we the matchstick people.

jostling in the crowd.
‘wahlau who pushed me’ --
--‘bitch!’ --
‘make way and move leh’ --
-- ‘oi! **** lah’
a treetrunk couple lodged in the middle of a human stream

strange how ugly faces swim to the surface in this xmas sea.

xmas eve party was a bit disappointing… quite empty, even phuture had space enough to move around quite freely.

seemin challenged me to get a girl and her number.

somehow… clubbing is more exciting by yourself, but more enjoyable when with friends. When dancing without ppl u know around it feels more liberating, like there’s no one you know and judges you and remembers if you try to chat someone up or dance with someone… more unrestricted somehow. I guess that’s what peer pressure feels like, to accomplish conformist and conventional non-feats, and do utterly important, normal things. And the thing is, we all bend so efficiently and stupidly to societal pressure, so arent we all oxymorons…

I haven't found a way out.
I guess we all need at least some element of conformity to survive.

by the time we left at five I passed her test four times and gotten one number. But looking back I just feel ashamed. That all I had in mind at that time, at most of that entire four-hour-spanning-moment which I felt encompassed the challenge, was to ‘get a girl’. It was fun, yes, quite enjoyable from a normal perspective to dance with someone, but what feels disgusting now is the fact that I felt so impelled to obey, to gain approval, to pass her ‘test’ and not lose face in front of sees and waiyin…

no artificial ingredients or sugar. comes with all-natural fibres. 100 % peer pressure juice.

I wont have it again.

life lesions

2004-12-23T00:56:00.000+08:00

Faced with a blank page the utter absolution of emptiness and numbing black of a mind drawn wiped with a window shutter and pulled across the blinds of the day. Clean like the bowels of a blue sky.

Quote of the day: ‘Nothing succeeds like success.’ – Alexandre Dumas

I’ve never known a more thought-inspiring quote.
Reading it, my mind was flooded with thoughts, like:
a) ‘what?’
b) ‘huh?’
c) ‘this guy is a moron’
d) ‘does that mean nothing exceeds like excess?’ and
e) ‘how many seeds can a seedsucker suck if a seedsucker can suck seeds?’

bought this lil box of quotable quote cards which is very nice. after fruitlessly searching with wai for more gifts under a super-tight budget. So this quote was one of the more ‘inspirational’ ones I guess...

anyway one of the nicer ones is this:
‘It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best at the end knows the triumph of achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.’
-- Theodore Roosevelt

and reading it I felt like, yeah that’s so true, and everything I’d ever tried doing or accomplished came back to me in bits and pieces… ‘uh-oh self-evaluation time’ said this lil voice in my head…
but anyway was just thinking that person needs to know what its like at the bottom, to be able to comprehend fully what it means to be like at the top, that without knowing defeat the privilege of victory really becomes a superficial experience. Losing once breaks your heart. Losing a few times gives you determination. Losing so many times is like a cleansing; it reminds you of who you are and your place in the world, all delusions of your self-importance or ability is stripped clear, and a kind of resilience settles in to keep you competing. But above all, losing teaches you that wining is really just the icing. I guess the quote just reminded me that I owe a lot of who I’ve become to track and my coaches and training buddies.

There really is nothing that one cannot do, as long as one wants to try, and not give up.

fingers with liqour finishes

2004-12-20T15:37:00.000+08:00

Today I saw a guy with painted nails at the counter at giant. Eeeew so gross! But he was holding a conversation with the cashier at the next counter and he sounded guy enough. So he should be straight right? But why would a guy paint his nails (dark blue they were), its not as if he’s still 16 and experimenting! Mebbe he just likes dark blue nails. Or he thinks painted nails are very pretty. Or he is extremely extremely comfortable with his sexuality. Still….. it is super freaky. Eeeek.

Slept early last night. Felt so tired after the day before. Wah the bhangra was great and met chester (for a little while. he seemed very frightened of talking to me haha). Jasbir was great too. But the place was so boring! My gosh there was zero atmosphere! Which prob explains why there were so few ppl. Or mebbe the other way around hmmm. So was kinda wondering all the time why anyone would even choose to perform there. Bleargh.

Too tired to go out now. Running out of monies anyway.

Oh chihuahuas haven't bought all my prezzies yet. Argh.

lets try this one more time

2004-12-19T22:04:00.000+08:00

-Exercise one

Picture a pattern of trees, stark and black against an ashen sky. Their branches are etched sharp against the drab neutrality. Their pattern is fixed and will not change. The gray has no quality, not even the vibrancy of sight behind closed eyes. More than winter, this is certainty; the image found in the eyes of a dead man. Now ask: do you want peace and quiet?

-Exercise two

There is a field of grain, each stalk perfect, which is a field of men. There is that which is perfect in all men, common to all, and to find that thing and touch it is to transform all men. Now ask: is perfection certainty, and are we only perfect when we are dead?

-Exercise three

A plain of sand, and our footprints trail behind us, like the intertwining paths of serpents– the stories of our lives. Faces of those forgotten and buried in the sand share space with those closest to us; the serpents raise their heads around our feet, and bite our heels. The greatest taint of all is the taint left by history on your own soul. Now ask; how can you love, if you see with scarred eyes?

No pain, no gain. World’s a rough. We torment each other. Like acid in a tight metal groove; we etch. Hope?

a mouthful of gum

2004-12-17T23:55:00.000+08:00

‘if he was sitting here, I really dunno what to say to him,’ she said. ‘if we go out with many ppl, then ok la at least still can talk with other ppl, but if only with him then I will really dunno what to say…’ She laughs.

And she was right.

I hate it when feelings get so complicated it becomes hard to interact. Its terrible. Like a glass wall. Sigh. Sometimes we can care too much for someone else, such that words stop short. Sounds absurd. But I think that’s wholly possible. Then what do we do then? I dunno. Quite frustrating, but then feelings can function both ways right? Where feelings are formative on one hand, they can be entirely self-destructive too… hmmm. Friendship is just so much easier to maintain, without losing any closeness or happiness. Or sleep. Still… its normal to long for something more than friendship, isn't it? Especially if you do care that much for someone? I mean, there’s got to be a basis for things getting to be this way….

Sometimes its just so depressing to think about these things.

Haiz. So many things weighing heavily on my mind. I think I also will really dunno what to say tmrw.

17th dec 2004 1153

pulling strings

2004-12-13T23:01:00.000+08:00

These roads are haunted still –
Footfalls of ghosts fill
a shifting quietness
that ungone paths echo,
hallowed by former lives.

Curled arm and finger around stone;
the white death of old bones
these specters amidst night
leave unstirred, and weep mists
through streets where eyes past sight

watch life – drawn and never
erased, heat traced within
the depths of hearted space –
cold ghosts of breath linger;
flesh forgotten embrace.

On empty roads asleep.

bookish

2004-12-11T21:54:00.000+08:00

“Dear lady, I’ll happily accept your rules.”

“But you don’t seem to want any rules!”

“True. But I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I will tolerate them. If I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”

“You would not abide by a law that the majority felt was necessary?”

“Tell me what law, dear lady, and I will tell you whether I will obey it.”

-- Robert A Heinlein ‘The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress’

And that Heinlein writes good sf is UnDeNiaBle…. Grab this book if u can because it is good…

no go

2004-12-11T15:30:00.000+08:00

The Incredibles is so cute!!

To have watched it only at this time probably puts me in ‘Deprived’ status. Or ‘Tragic’. Oh chihuahuas what does it matter.

Anyway I’m running out of money. Just got a 70 buck phone bill for oct and nov ughugharghpffffft. This is too much. Too much! I’m spending too much! Get a job! 28 days more!

On Channel Newsasia now

George Harrison’s guitar for half a million
Keith Richard’s guitar for 400k
And Britney spears’ high school book report with her teacher’s remark ‘Proof read – messy’

On auction at Christy’s. What. Why ppl do dumb things is probably cos we have an inbuilt faculty for irrationality. Hence the basic econs assumption that man is rational is, like, totally stupid.

Dear Lord please take care of joshy he is sick with fever, bless him and keep him safe and let him get well soon.

over before the night has begun

2004-12-08T23:55:00.000+08:00

And now that the prom is long past it is easier to look back. Now that certain feelings have dampened it feels easier to reason and look ahead…like so many opportunities gone by they never come back but lie like broken branches, or empty trousers of possibles and maybes. I guess that will just have to be that, all I have fret about is my ageless stupidity and naivete… quoth Albert Einstein ‘There are two things which are infinite – the universe, and human stupidity… and we’re not very sure about the universe.’

Well. Prom itself wasn’t so bad. Thank you dear counsellors Jasmine Ian Hui Brian Malley for the seat and the privileged table haha :D

The food… had some jellyfish (my fav!) from the first course and some of joshua’s dessert which was the last course heh.
The dance… strangely unsatisfaying, probably from having to watch someone else in the spotlight. I have a fat egopoligothingo
Haha even danced with khamil during caleb’s song item… so funny, we arranged it earlier during rhrsl that khamil & I and joshy & wayne would go up during the song and make a fool of ourselves. Which I think worked perfectly and got lots of amusement from the ppl and the vip table haha :D
Took lots of pics too! But on other ppl’s cameras ah!! Not having a camera at such events is like not wearing underwear… you just feel awkward the whole night and walk around looking just distracted. Anw gotta find some way to find ppl and get them to send their pics to me heh.

And after all that… went to zouk for my virgin clubbing experience. And it was ok… so-so… got bored after about an hour cos there really are only so many different ways these flesh chassis can move. Argh. Later hearing dawn and eulyn comment it was quite good wasn’t it I went hmmm ok I’d better revise my thinking. Haha but it was fun being with friends. And meeting ppls again. And being able to let loose with ppl who are equally liberal. Yum. Compared to club dancing choreoed dance is just pure stuffy.

Then again… actually not… choreo has its subtleties and highs and troughs every move for every bitty beat. Like a rollercoaster where you know when to scream for the dive and whoop at the loops and chill along the smooth bends… but always on a track, always on constancy set out like the guide rail. Club dance is like riding a fast bike and you choose when to go slow and when to go fast and to take the highway or the street, and then find a girl to ride with and match her pace. Felt something like that. Virgin experience. Yup.

And I don’t intend to stop at once.

And later had supper and howard was drunk and hilarious to watch him. And xw got lost and threw tied into knots. Gosh just panic and cold fear at four am wishing he was safe and sound… thank God he was…

Went out for a late night/early morning walk with my darlings michy and dawn… just being relaxed and open, the way that few other ppl can understand. Sometimes I think ppl are so syndromically uptight they can never understand harmless affection, or take forms of it as overtures or horizontal desires. Dumb. What would I do without the darlings in my life who make it all worthwhile…

And… was that you crying? Was that you drunk? In trouble? I don’t know and I don’t know how to find out or from whom or even if I’m entitled to feel concerned… I don’t even know if I should be so bothered, not any more.

What constitutes this… this… fixation anyway? Sigh. Its easy to be a fool.

But its hard to see when one actually is.

8th dec 2004 2355

decadence suidecide

2004-12-06T21:34:00.000+08:00

the last day of practice today
wah i feel so tired cos i slept too late last night >_<

Weeeeelllll…..

Should I turn up for prom?

As it is I can either hide in our room or go shopping til someone calls me for the dance. Which is so pathetic. Or go down and be severely self-conscious while pretending a butt-ugly extension of the chair. If I even get a chair. Haiz see how la.

Sigh and then it’d be another social exercise. And chihuahuas I’d be so underdressed while everyone will be in their crisp cut jackets and expensive shirts here I am writing in my diary not knowing wat to wear.

Gonna have to dig around in my wardrobe later… and call some ppl to borrow stuff hahaha.

But haha so excited about tmrw’s dance… just hope all goes well and I remember my steps… and hafta lug the stupid scooter all the way to the ritz bleargh. Oh no I’m becoming so selfish… ok I hope EVERYONE remembers their steps, and please not get injured and the person riding my scooter not fall off. Hehehe cos the steering handle is kinda not functioning. Hehehe. But yeah we’re gonna be the biggest thing tmrw nite. Awrite. Awrite. Pink I’m gonna be in pink weeee!! Even have pink laces mwahahaha!! Yea and bought new earrings today so happy!

Its getting late.

Wayne and khamil looked dead tired today… hope they sleep early today and get better for tmrw.

Rummage for clothes
Pack
Sleep

6th dec 2004 2134

oooh yeah shoppadelic

2004-12-06T01:12:00.000+08:00

today went shopping with joshy for his prom stuff…

his dad tells him ‘just don’t spend too much, not more than a thousand’

if my cheeks could stretch my jaw would have hit the floor.

Chihuahuas!!

But oh oh OHmigosh… haven't been out shopping for sososoLONG!!!!! I miss the smell of aircon corridors and fresh beautiful clothes and shoes and pretty ppl on the streets so much… I feel like I just came out of prison. Come to think of it I cant even remember the last time I’ve been to town, so obsessed with notes and studying and dance and track one after another after the next. Must’ve been months goodness….

Anyway yeah baby I’m back!

I feel like myself again. Yea.
Haven't spent so much time out in a long time… and hey today was a great day of sushi (yum!) with great friends (yumyum!!) joshy melf pat nagesh… I feel so blessed I have ppl to be about with and laugh with and be stupid with and we understand each other’s idiosyncrasies and everything… Dear Lord thank you for giving me this life, and for giving me these people Lord, and please bless them and keep them safe. Your grace is sufficient for us Lord, for in You we, who are weak, are made strong, and I thank You for everything and everyday Lord.

Amen.

vehicle exhaust

2004-12-03T22:52:00.000+08:00

Gosh

Nearly dint want to wake up and go for practice today.

Three days of 11 to 6 already.

I am tired.

But its always like this isn't it? Eugene u is one lazy ass. Lazy ass!! Study also don’t want to study. Dance also, go halfway then lazy already. Lazy ass!

Haiz.

At least... today wasn’t a waste

I know my choreo well enough;

Lawrence ang wont give me my national colours cert;

And what you wanted wasn’t what I thought it was, was it?
To think I thought we could have had something to pursue... well... I think I got things the right way around now.

Argh. I hate being so stupid. 

dancedancerevisited

2004-12-01T23:27:00.000+08:00

Oh gosh it feels good to be back on the dance floor!!

Last night looking through my old msgs I saw wayne’s invite to join the prom dance thing so I asked him if I could still… and yes I could yes I could. At first was kinda worried cos I’m not exactly on talking terms with most of the dance com… but it was alright in the end, thank goodness it was really an OGL only thing, other than me… none of the other dance ppl besides wayne and joshy otherwise I’d just have walked out of there… and wen yee who was also supposed to be in but is presently poodle knows where… anyway so happy! Dancing! Learnt two sets of choreo today ohmigosh after about halfway through the day everything gets fuzzy and all the different bits of choreo got jumbled up and confused confused. Haha spent most of today in confusion… but it’ll get better I hope… tmrw is a new day. :p

Happy.

Anw it seems there’s always this tension between me and wayne, some conflicting egos and friction that has been around for as long as we got into dance together, but that we’d gloss over under the pretext of ‘professionalism’ and having to be in the same choreos togather and supporting each other. But yeah, coming back, being around him again… its still there like gauze… we dint talk much today other than some perfunctory stuff. Mebbe its me. Mebbe its him. Mebbe both of us. Things are on glass it seems, even if either of us don’t admit it openly.

So many new ppl to get to know! Yes happy.

Haha as it turns out his choreo is just neat copying of live performances. And I thought he’d actually do his own choreo for a change… heh. Artistic plagiarism… just that no one notices. Hmmmph and to think he builds his reputation on other ppl’s moves. Photocopy!

Okay…
bitching hours are officially over. Come again tmrw.

I just realized today is december.

Happy December everyone! :) Xmas is coming soon :)
1st dec 2004 23.27

and we breathe

2004-11-30T22:20:00.000+08:00

Finally.

This is the hour of lead
After great pain, a formal feeling comes
The nerves sit ceremonious, like tombs
As freezing persons recollect the snow
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go

After all this it comes down to nothing. There is no meaning, and there is no answer, but there is just… nothing. I am numb today. I feel nothing. File out of the room and there is just a stillness like the death of a child, a frozen weight on your feet that slips you when you walk, and you know nothing counted for anything, and you ask yourself so how now and the usual comforting voice in your head answers in emptiness I Do Not Know.

I came home alone today as usual. The class went out for dinner but I just couldn’t. I came home and took a bath and played some d2 and had my usual coffee. This sane regularity is enough for now. I need to simmer in self-pity for a while.

soon.....

2004-11-28T20:49:00.000+08:00

The S is near.

Yes that’s a pun hahahahahaha.

Its so amusing when ppl laugh at their own jokes.

After laying off studying for s papers for so long I think I’m really really unprepared for tmrw. It feels like its gonna be a jump into a pool without ur swimming trunks on cos u don’t know how u’re gonna get out safely later on… so much expectations so many eyes watching, asking how’d u do, was it difficult? I have no idea. Atmo better come out tmrw for a full question, then at least I’ll have something to bank on.

Sigh. In some ways I’m more afraid of whats coming after these two papers, after I get past these final two days of bleak drunken endurance… I’m afraid, yes I am… guys are entitled to their share of trepidation too. So many things I’d said I’d do. We’ll see how I guess… its always been we’ll see how and another day and another day perhaps. I’m just hoping...

Keep ur head on babe its ur last paper tmrw. Good luck….

28th nov 2004 20.49

phys

2004-11-23T22:48:00.000+08:00

dear friends.
all the best for tmrw.
good luck yap xiong hui melf joshy michy teo naga gabriel josephine jo nair ian shah sumei and everyone else whose name i cant remember now...

good luck and God bless

looking at friday

2004-11-20T22:19:00.000+08:00

tiredness…

I get the urge to be angsty again, so pathetic. About the exams and studying and everything… then again I guess everyone’s going thru it the same as me… so what do I have to complain about. Really don’t feel like studying anymore, just wanna go hole up in a library and read books, even international finance textx which surprisingly are quite interesting… so much of which the dumb school notes fail to represent, reducing all the complexities of the Marshall-Lerner Condition to a couple of nondescript lines on a page for example. Reading up on international finance while studying at the library in the early weeks b4 papers started… MLC is like a topic all in itself… cornrows of derivative equations and factors, page after page of interlinking intricacy… and that’s only one segment in the one component of econs. Gosh, its like school dumbs down everything and feeds it to us hoping we’ll believe it to be the entirety… which ashamedly we do, taking everything so face-value… how sad.

Hopefully geog continues as well as I thought it did. Human was quite good. Haha that’s an understatement it felt like the best human paper I’d ever written for a long long time. Had a strange feel to the day that day, this cloudless quiet elation during and after geog like an unction on a private pain. It felt so… strange… unnatural even, as if I’d had some clear purpose and direction, the way someone might carry on with complete and utter legitimacy of course but not knowing what course it is. Now thinking about it the cliché is ‘a great weight was lifted off his shoulders’. But it wasn’t totally like that, it just felt more like a lucidity, not a relief… so hard to describe.

And then the floundering in e8 for the first time in my life. Comparison was fine, then the prose yawned like the vacuum of deep space, but I had to go and ignore the sign ‘Unexplored Space’. I should have turned back and aced the poetry. Creffield’s private warning ringing in my ears… ‘don’t do stupid things like try questions because you think it’d be fun!’ But regrets are misplaced now certainly… what does it matter… what does it matter…

Today I just feel tired and old. No motivation to do anything that bears a resemblance to work. Read feet of clay by terry pratchett tho. Everytime ed brings home a book I’ll pick it up so I think it must be the fifth or six pratchett book I’ve read in the past two weeks… sigh. sigh! sigh!! Angst is so painful. Maybe after As I’ll fall into depression and climb to the top of some solitary mountain and meditate. Sigh As is simply screwing up my life, most days I wake up and have no idea what I’m supposed to do, no anticipation of new things to try today, new experiences. Enslaved to exams. All my plans dissected like frogs, spread out and pencilled on sheets, preserved but withered, dried out. How many illusions will dissipate after As?

Which reminds me: “A joke is like a frog. You can dissect it to see how it works, but it tends to die in the process.” Indeed. Again, the genius of Pratchett.

Iamb – stress unstress
Trochee – unstress stress
Spondee – stress stress
Pyrrhic – unstress unstress
Dactyl – stress unstress unstress
Amphybrach – unstress stress unstress
Anapaest – unstress unstress stress
Proceleusmatic – unstress unstress unstress unstress
Dispondee – stress stress stress stress

I cant get over the dispondee, its just too punny to be true.
Must remember to get the peotry notes back from yina

Dear Lord… Please give my friends the strength they need to push through the next two weeks of examinations, give them the fortitude to carry on even as You carry them Lord… and I ask You Lord if I may, bless them and keep them safe… in all things I come to You Lord, and I thank You, amen.

20th nov 2004 2214

i havent finished studying e1

2004-11-15T22:28:00.000+08:00

6 in the evening
eleven more hours before I wake.

a room in darkness is lost.
the icebox rattles its bones
shivers and complains. Cold
toes wrinkle and curl. Old
coffee curdles cobweb foam.
Earphones chatter forgotten
by the table lamp skeleton;

its empty eye socket glares.
My hand frozen in mid-reach
is a tableau in shadow.

I must have gone to sleep.
Eleven more hours before tomorrow.

The monsoon plays clockwork on my roof.

little wretched papers

2004-11-14T23:45:00.000+08:00

what has been going on the past few days? everyone seems so adrift. adrift on their own little rafts in a general atmosphere of... oh i dunno. whatever comforts can support them now at this time.

just feeling a bit of despondency at the whole exam thingummy.

sulynn told me something about Ecclesiastes having a portion about ppl not being able to study too much or something. i forgot what she said the passage was or where it is except that its in Ecclesiastes and Ecclesiastes is bbIgG and i am LLaZzY.

one thing i've known for a long time:

God wont save you if you wont save yourself.

so there you go. save yourselves darling friends.

and then comes the part with 'God bless'.

2004-11-12T20:38:00.000+08:00

“But people are rather stupid and waste their lives. Have you not seen that? Have you not looked down from the horse at a city and thought how much it resembles an ant heap, full of blind creatures who think their mundane little world is real? You see the lighted windows and what you want to think is that there may be many interesting stories behind them, but what you know is that there really are just dull, dull souls, mere consumers of food, who think their instincts are emotions and their tiny lives of more account than a whisper of sand.”

terry pratchett - 'Soul Music'

whatever cref and ganga say about terry pratchett being a load of trashy novels, i think he has some of the best insights into the human condition.

mex it out

2004-11-08T23:37:00.000+08:00

sara on america's top model is really pretty... her hair is GoRgEoUs

tmrw is ao maths. wat if i dont pass? wat if i do? wat if i almost pass and knew that if i'd worked that little much harder i would've?

is it time for reproach? when it comes down to it... i really dont know. sometimes its like a sacrifice, one subject for another, and this philosophy (if it can be called such) carried me through track nats and competitions and terms and prelims. does it still hold now? am i even able to pass if i want to now? today was the first time i touched maths in one million years. there's tmrw, and then six more days to paper two, and i feel... calm, unfettered, unruffled. if i really gave a damn about maths i'd be freaking out right now.

or rather, i'd be freaking out now two weeks ago when i'd scheduled myself to start math revision.

whywhywhy dint i start when i should have? cos i dint freak out? i'm not freaking out now so that must mean something... probably that im a stupid fool for being lazydazyhazy. assonance.

at least. at least... today i managed to start, and its not so hard once the rhythm comes up. as long as i keep to it i think i'll pass maths. i hope. and hopefully this not at the price of my other subjects.

i hope april wins cos she's asian
oh no now they're deciding who to kick out!

*suspense*
...
...
....
...
.....
..
...

frickin.
they kicked out sara!!!
poodles!
chihuahuas!

disbelief
shock

i will go and mope now

2004-11-08T22:49:00.001+08:00

I am a hybrid of:
Uptown Girl
Progressive Girl
Click on the pictures below to read more:
Take the 'What Kind of Girl Are You?' quiz at CookingToHookup.com

cool!! i need lots of upkeep and im classy and im not afraid to try anything. yeah.

black as night

2004-11-07T22:42:00.000+08:00

post colonialism is a bore...

i cant even remember wat my other topic for s lit is so i think i'm dead. i think its... ok i really cant remember, even the books i have dont remind me cos i dint really have a plan when i picked them.

oh no.

catachresis appropriation.

i feel better today.
i also feel fat so that means tmrw i have to stop putting off the inevitable and hit the torture chamber with my big yellow towel and convince myself that pain is temporary but willpower lasts forever. which it doesnt but who's counting anyway, at least i feel reprieved for the moment.

so far there are two things happening:
1) food fest at expo hall 5 which ends TMRW
2) motor show at suntec which ends 21st
hmmm.

i think i am crazy. just know i was laughing at my tortoise cos it ws waling around with a piece of longbean sticking out of its mouth. wellwell. at least life is interesting.

waking up early has seemed to cure my stupid sniffles. past few days i decided to get up at 5 and do some work until i get hit by the midmorning lazy bug, and surprisingly i've hardly been sniffling through the day, which is so typical of weekends. i should do this more often. maybe its the weather the past few days... so much cooler and fresh cos of the rain. i dunno

must cut hair
must go shopping soon
must get earrings for lizzie
must find some nice stuff to munch on
must find out how jie is doing
must remember promise
must tell you i miss you
must remember to go for tuesday maths

night is never as black as morning

God bless

Hello boringness

2004-11-06T23:31:00.000+08:00

A bad feeling. That the As are the end of something. Something like my future.

It feels like failure and impending doom. Has this not happened before to you O weary traveler? When you reach the gate and find that it is closed, that the hinges have rusted and trapped you beyond that portcullis to safety and comfort? I do not like this feeling, yet it inveigles its way into my chest and grips with an asphyxiation. Shouldn’t it then be now time to set off this effete path, to find a way unto an efflorescence instead? Sometimes even I cannot find the answers to mine own heart, and I leave myself out in the cold, out by those selfsame portcullises. And I feel my folly so distinctly myself! Why the brash rashness! Why the sane idiocy, in all deliberateness! Why choose to bury yourself and indulge in the everyday pleasures of sleep and food and sin… why then, why.

I came back to God two weeks ago, after a long exile by sin. I felt the full force of him in my heart, and I cried in my bed as I prayed, lying there, prayed as I poured out my confessions into his enveloping presence, spoke out aloud the words of my prayer and pleaded for his forgiveness, that I may once again return to His flock. The feeling then… the feeling of utter subservience, utter guilt, finally utter joy at His infinite grace and power. Never again will I want to turn from You Lord. Everyday I fight a battle with sin and the evils of my heart, with the faith of my Lord planted firmly in me.

The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want
He makes me lie down in greener pastures

What then do I have of want now? I think it is the desire to excel that pushes me on, and the desire to excel that mires me. I cannot stand to be better, to run in this marathon of competitive grades. It is so different from real sports, so vastly more selfish, poisonous, filtered and reamed in its note and texts and mindless paraphernalia. Competition nonetheless – contrivance nevertheless. The is pain both ways, and in both things, the pain of failure, the heart-rending, wrenching fall of not measuring up, but also, surprisingly so, the pain of glory and success. That being the best is only the veneer over a cesspool of private anguish and suffering and, more often than not, a stinking, rotting interior, derivative of pride and ambition. Now that, is what I cannot bear to stand for.

Ditto for prom.

I conclude on this note: wherefore art thou polity. The individual cannot even get oneself out of the mess it gets oneself in. the sins of one are the sins of many, and doubtless society becomes wrangled up by the cows of the people themselves. Who gets out of this mess better, if any get out at all? Maybe the best-dressed for success will be picked for prom king and queen.

Thusly I am not one of them. I live my own life.

colours

2004-10-23T22:12:00.000+08:00

23rd oct 2004
1130pm

Today was national colours award presentation

I thought it was tmrw.

WhAt

Its just so like me to do some dumb thing like this and forget about the date of some important thing, just like I mix up when Ramadhan begins and what mock test I’m having on what day, or even if there’s a test at all.

Ok so now I wont be getting my cert for national colours. Hooray.

I guess that’s punishment enough yup.

On the other hand I can just dish up some believable excuse and hope that lawrence ang actually took my cert back to school with him so that he can pass it back to me.
bleargh even hafta write a explanaton letter to lawrence ang.

Gah. I gotta stop doing stupid things like this.

study will come

2004-10-23T01:54:00.000+08:00

i hope i can get my study will back.

today i went back to school for the first time since baccalaureate, and went back for a three hour human geog test of all things. it reminded about a couple of things: first, my studies are not in order at all, second, i need to practice my writing more, and third i need to buy new pens cos i gave up on writing my last essay after both stupid pens start to sputter. sputter is the best i can term the way the pens wrote; one moment there's ink, the next it leaves out half of a letter of a quarter of a word. so frustrating. looks like i actually have to spend money and go find some quality pens this time instead of relying on pickmeuppens and lousy office bringhomepens...

so today at least i got some work done and finished 11 lects on urban, which is not bad by my standards. i couldve done more, but... i could say 'nvm it'll get better' here... but the truth is that there's really no time left to mess about. i really hafta go and get things done if i'm even going to pass the bare 2As 2AOs... its scary... cos i know i may not pass... and i may get left at my seat on results day.

which would be the second worst.

the worst would be that i have to go to poly and do my tertiary ed all over again... argh!!

how to pass As

1) study.
2) study. like mad.
3) memorize sloman, a&c, othello, hardtimes, geog text,
4) scrape brains off wall after head explodes
5) produce brandon seah clone and call him eugene
6) coerce creffield clone to call herself eugene
7) train with monks on hill and learn the universal answer ommmmmmmmmm
8) put brains back in head. almost forgot.

yup all set to pass As now

storybook

2004-10-19T20:17:00.000+08:00

dint study AT ALL today. read Shadow Of The Hegemony by orson scott card. it is a truly engaging book.

but i dint study and i dont think mr storybook man is gonna help me pass my exams.

this is not good

kusuOJT

2004-10-17T23:40:00.000+08:00

Today was OJT to kusu

It was kinda boring really.
I felt I dint really fit in first of all.
I know it sounds stupid that I should complain about this, but really, I do feel like I’m not really into the whole scene heart and soul.
I cant bring myself to the kind of fervour over guiding I usually have for stuff that I really enjoy doing.
Mingsheng once said during a workshop that I’m in it ‘more for the scientific part’, which I seem to find more and more aptly descriptive.
Out on the walks I just kinda lose focus and get bored of the leaders talking about some other creature I already know about.
I can feel it in me that I wont be a really good guide in the talking role or seeking role. Gimme the crowd control role then I think that I can handle no problem.
Still, it points towards some general inability of mine to communicate and interact and bond with the layman and public properly, and which I’ve always been aware of.
So I guess something has to be done, that either I change myself and become more chirpy cheery and interactive or else I just slog thru the december walk with a memorized script and get it over with then go incommunicado.
Both ways its pathetic quitely.
Maybe then, I should just learn to open up and not be afraid to talk and initiate conversation.
Then problem solved and I will be happier and people ard me will gain a new friend aka me.
Hahahaha.
Anyways something new seen today.
A DOLPHIN!
It was quite a ways away, maybe 50, 60 metres, but when (the someone) shouted ‘dolphin!’ I turned and saw the beautiful blue-purple back breaking the surface and the dorsal fin cresting out of the water like… like… like something out of imagination tv story etc.
Magical to the point of mundaneity.
Strange but true.
Waiyin would’ve been so excited if she was there.
Yes Singapore waters have dolphins just that its quite rare to see them cos there are so many vessels that most marine mammals are frightened away or, well, mowed over I guess.
I just hope this one returns to the larger sea safely.
A dolphin.
Can u imagine?

certain things

2004-10-17T01:59:00.000+08:00

i think things are getting better. not much that happened the past few days seem very eventful. spent baccalaureate wondering why i subjected myself to extended chapel and waking up at 5am to rush to school to do... what? watch the ppl i dont like singsong on stage. at least the band was good and i enjoyed the hymns yup. consolation.

picture taking afterwards was awful cos i dont have a proper camera and it was so hot and trying to avoid certain people erk. and then i went home early cos i just felt i couldnt take the 'oh look i love the class let me show it by being chirpy and social' thing anymore. yup.

lately i've been drifting from You Lord.
help me come back. today after failing to find a seat at woodlands library i went for a walk at causeway point and bought four little pass it on cards at mount zion. kinda drifted to that shop and felt quite happy and peaceful for once. hearing christian lyrics over the speakers in the shop was definitely therapeutic. i need you in my life.

anyway. somehow yingshi and i are getting closer, and i'm beginning to harbour mixed feelings about her. she says she and kenny are... i'm also not sure. on off on off on off i cant even remember. can only advise. somehow this is the kind of scenario you only see on tv. anyway deep down she is really genuine and kind and warm, perhaps a bit misdirected and liberal in her affections. i'm not sure about anything anymore, so its best i not speculate. let things run their course la anyway i've got As to handle and if she wants to come down and visit me mugging at the library it's always nice yup.

after exams
go for french lessons with audrey
take up tap (finally) with... joshua? haha mebbe just myself
do stuff with... someone

angsty songsty

2004-10-16T10:21:00.000+08:00

to be hurt, to feel lost
to be left out in the dark
to be kicked when you're down
to feel like you're pushed around
to be on the edge of breaking down
and no one's there to save you

no you dont know what its like
welcome to my life

it'd be nice to say 'life sux'
but if you know which side of life to live in usually life is quite ok

life sux
ok maybe just yours

by the way the lyrics suck so there you go wHaT IrOnY

upset

2004-10-15T23:48:00.000+08:00

ok
got cancelled on today
it felt... painful
disappointing
but somehow i kinda expected it
i never had a chance anyway
oh well...
at least my books dont cancel on me

zao school again

2004-10-12T09:55:00.000+08:00

Today I skipped school. I’m at home while all my friends are in school. though it’s the last few days of school and ppl are probably busy snapping photos for keepsake I don’t really mind. Its easy to have memories of ppl but what is the point really if they are just memories? Sentimentalities are bothersome. Its better to make the effort to catch up with ppl now and again rather than just look at old photos and reminisce. Of course it will have to come to some destination in life when catching up is just too difficult cos of lifestyle and marriage whatnot, well in that case what are the chances that we’ll look back on jc anyway? It’d have just become a redundancy in the already manifold experiences of our lives by that time. Still… its nice to remember and get warm fuzzy feeling. Provided there are ppl you’d want to remember that badly. Mish lee said I was sentimental cos I decided to keep the paper napkin from (probably) the last formal class gathering in school we’d have. Actually I kept it cos it had this really pretty floral print, so there.

In a way though it really feels strange to be leaving school, as if leaving a womb and emerging into the real (and unsheltered) world all of a sudden. School now feels like this great big umbrella that shields you from the external, and I think many ppl are going to have a tough time trying to readapt to a lifestyle where not everything is provided for you in one neat, conglomerated package. See in school we can have food friends fun and be teacher-fed notes homework guidelines everything. We become dependent by default. What the poodle is the good of school then? When (if ever) we find a job we’ll have to do things on our own – and gosh I can just imagine some of the class trying to find their way through life. They will get lost lost lost! Then again. They are supposed to FIND their way. Its not as life is laid out like a red carpet ahead of us… and that is the problem with school, because it paves our route through adolescence and education… and that is the real danger. Don’t get caught.

Human mock on Wednesday morning.
Physical mock on Friday morning.
E1 mock is on Monday morning.
Kusu OJT is on Sunday night.
Baccalaureate is on Thursday night.
Stayover on Thursday night.
A levels in four weeks time.
I haven't finished anything.
I need to get tickets for ballet under the stars.
diediedie.

socked

2004-10-10T09:32:00.000+08:00

today I stole a SOCK.

Not even both sides.

Just a sock, and its blue and red with pink trim yeehah. I don’t even know why I did it except perhaps because I could, and I wanted to prove the useless security in jb to, well, the citizens of jb. How lame. And its not even a PRETTY or nearly any GOOD QUALITY sock.

Its just a SOCK in red blue pink.

Gah chihuahua.