Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Bye bye hols.
I have been slacking my bum off for these two months. Academically, that is. OH DEAR. But its not like its unexpected anyway, so I am actually not bothered with it at all. To those who heard me complaining about my total lack of productivity, that’s because you started grousing in the first place, you poor stressed up things! I was only joining in the fun, after all, sorrow is easiest borne when shared, and its always good to blame other people and institutions once in a while. Curse NKF for sapping up my intellectual energies so completely that I didn’t even have the strength to do my lear essay! Damn MOH and mozzies for their worrisome dengue that took my mind off my zhuan ti zhuo ye!
Doesn’t make sense I know, but I guess that’s just how some people’s minds work. According to my cousin who picks up calls at NEA, some anti-dengue fanatics called to complain about water collecting at the barbecue pit in east coast. Since it was late and the officers had already gone home, my cousin suggested getting people down to clear it the next day. 3 hours later, the guy called again, asking why the people haven’t yet come. My problem isn’t about his over-the-top caution; it’s occasionally an admirable trait. Rather, my problem is about his skewed way of thinking. If you can wait for government officers for 3 hours, you can clear the water at the barbecue pit yourself in less than one eighth the time. Or if you are lazy, you can leave it to the forces of nature – evaporation. What’s the point of wasting time and human resources (not to forget the few cents for the call) to do something so meagre and simplistic? I can accept any point of view, optimistic, pessimistic, hedonistic, egoistic, voyeuristic (!!), whatever you can think of, as long as you give me a valid reason for whatever sort of personality pervasion you think you might have. I might not agree with you, but at least I would respect you as a person who makes connections across his synapses once in a while.
Of course, the person might just have been all too willing to spend his time waiting for proof of the gahmen’s inefficiency in this matter. He might just have been preparing a earful for the officers and then taking the chance to flaunt wide knowledge of all matters ranging from the gold tap bloodsuckers to a dissertation on the real value of peanuts. (it was 600 000 the last time I heard). Following that, he would then embark on a evaluation of his financial, social, and emotional states, all of whose inadequacies would come from one supreme source he believes exerts total control on his life. Encouraged by the officers’ silence, he spews more and more, until finally he loses control and lets out the magic words; ‘--- Sucks!’ This episode concludes with the lucky guy getting free food and lodging for as long as he can’t keep his trap shut.
Okay, enough of trying to get myself incriminated. I seem to like going against what I preach. *ahem* This has been quite a fruitful holiday in all ways but academic.
What I have been do-ING over the holidays.
Huang cheng!
Dao du ke –STONING
Work up to first proposal – BlOOD SUCKING
FDLM production – SIDE SPLITTING
Budget day- LIKE LIGHTNING
Drama camp – ZI HAI-ING
Lights lesson – EN-LIGHT-ening (hahaha)
Dance! One word. PONNING. xP
Outings!
Harry potter - DISAPPOINTING
Perhaps love – TWO SHOWS HAPPENING (:
Pride and prejudice- SLEEP INDUCING
Narnia – EVANGELIFYING
Chrismas dinner- INTOXICATING (literally!)
Stay over- STUFFING
K box with huang cheng – DEAFENING. (in some cases.)
Daoju chalet – not yet. But I predict. NIAOING.
Kbox with hc clique – PENDING.(you lousy pple!)
I can’t remember the rest. Oh well. That should teach me not to blog so little.
Doesn’t make sense I know, but I guess that’s just how some people’s minds work. According to my cousin who picks up calls at NEA, some anti-dengue fanatics called to complain about water collecting at the barbecue pit in east coast. Since it was late and the officers had already gone home, my cousin suggested getting people down to clear it the next day. 3 hours later, the guy called again, asking why the people haven’t yet come. My problem isn’t about his over-the-top caution; it’s occasionally an admirable trait. Rather, my problem is about his skewed way of thinking. If you can wait for government officers for 3 hours, you can clear the water at the barbecue pit yourself in less than one eighth the time. Or if you are lazy, you can leave it to the forces of nature – evaporation. What’s the point of wasting time and human resources (not to forget the few cents for the call) to do something so meagre and simplistic? I can accept any point of view, optimistic, pessimistic, hedonistic, egoistic, voyeuristic (!!), whatever you can think of, as long as you give me a valid reason for whatever sort of personality pervasion you think you might have. I might not agree with you, but at least I would respect you as a person who makes connections across his synapses once in a while.
Of course, the person might just have been all too willing to spend his time waiting for proof of the gahmen’s inefficiency in this matter. He might just have been preparing a earful for the officers and then taking the chance to flaunt wide knowledge of all matters ranging from the gold tap bloodsuckers to a dissertation on the real value of peanuts. (it was 600 000 the last time I heard). Following that, he would then embark on a evaluation of his financial, social, and emotional states, all of whose inadequacies would come from one supreme source he believes exerts total control on his life. Encouraged by the officers’ silence, he spews more and more, until finally he loses control and lets out the magic words; ‘--- Sucks!’ This episode concludes with the lucky guy getting free food and lodging for as long as he can’t keep his trap shut.
Okay, enough of trying to get myself incriminated. I seem to like going against what I preach. *ahem* This has been quite a fruitful holiday in all ways but academic.
What I have been do-ING over the holidays.
Huang cheng!
Dao du ke –STONING
Work up to first proposal – BlOOD SUCKING
FDLM production – SIDE SPLITTING
Budget day- LIKE LIGHTNING
Drama camp – ZI HAI-ING
Lights lesson – EN-LIGHT-ening (hahaha)
Dance! One word. PONNING. xP
Outings!
Harry potter - DISAPPOINTING
Perhaps love – TWO SHOWS HAPPENING (:
Pride and prejudice- SLEEP INDUCING
Narnia – EVANGELIFYING
Chrismas dinner- INTOXICATING (literally!)
Stay over- STUFFING
K box with huang cheng – DEAFENING. (in some cases.)
Daoju chalet – not yet. But I predict. NIAOING.
Kbox with hc clique – PENDING.(you lousy pple!)
I can’t remember the rest. Oh well. That should teach me not to blog so little.
Friday, December 09, 2005
I wonder how I can lapse into this state of total immobility for so long and yet not feel compelled to do anything about it. I know I have many things to do, many appointments to make, many people to reconnect with. Yet all of these draw a blank as soon as free time comes in. All my energies are channeled into idle waiting. Sitting in front of my lap top, staring blankly as people come and go on msn, saying the occasional polite hi and lapsing into the usual enthused teasing that is so much a part of me my subconscious mind takes over. I try to smile as hahas and smileys fill the screen, hating myself more and more with each enter key. ‘Hi hello how are you.’ ‘yep, bye, see you later’ There is no joy in this. You have not come.
What am I waiting for? A beep or flash from a battered phone? Your msn nick to flash on a screen plastered with old fingerprints? No hint of glamour, no champagne and stars, no blue moon over glimmering waters on a starry night – just me waiting. And you.
Is there anything more pathetic than this?
sigh sigh sigh sigh sigh sigh sigh.
maybe if i keep doing this i'll feel a little happier,
and forget how childish i have become.
there's always another day.
with or without you.
with or without me.
What am I waiting for? A beep or flash from a battered phone? Your msn nick to flash on a screen plastered with old fingerprints? No hint of glamour, no champagne and stars, no blue moon over glimmering waters on a starry night – just me waiting. And you.
Is there anything more pathetic than this?
sigh sigh sigh sigh sigh sigh sigh.
maybe if i keep doing this i'll feel a little happier,
and forget how childish i have become.
there's always another day.
with or without you.
with or without me.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Mardi Gras
I stumbled upon you –
Feathered, fleeced, fluffed like fashion’s
Coronation of follies, Checklisted
As our eyes, purposed to
Peel the smooth layered exterior
Of that costume subterfuge.
Music chorused. Feathers and arms perfunctorily
Linked themselves, a temporary cell
Incongruous in its gaiety, at once twin and anti-thesis
To life’s dank and dark gallows.
Perhaps, beneath those smiling eyes
There would be- teary sheen of a mother’s hopes;
Closed lip – lash of a father’s wrath,
Dark brow – furrows of a sisterly love,
And stubborn nose – vengeful kisses of a lover’s tantrums.
Perhaps, underneath all that, there would be
you?
Feathered, fleeced, fluffed like fashion’s
Coronation of follies, Checklisted
As our eyes, purposed to
Peel the smooth layered exterior
Of that costume subterfuge.
Music chorused. Feathers and arms perfunctorily
Linked themselves, a temporary cell
Incongruous in its gaiety, at once twin and anti-thesis
To life’s dank and dark gallows.
Perhaps, beneath those smiling eyes
There would be- teary sheen of a mother’s hopes;
Closed lip – lash of a father’s wrath,
Dark brow – furrows of a sisterly love,
And stubborn nose – vengeful kisses of a lover’s tantrums.
Perhaps, underneath all that, there would be
you?
Saturday, November 19, 2005
Advance Goodbye
It's as if I don't deserve it.
Well, maybe I don't after all.
Happiness grows and sprouts wings.
The sky's all yours - you are free to go anytime.
当一阵风吹来，吹散了当年的回忆，我会学会知足。
Well, maybe I don't after all.
Happiness grows and sprouts wings.
The sky's all yours - you are free to go anytime.
当一阵风吹来，吹散了当年的回忆，我会学会知足。
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Blogging therapy
Dearest blog,
Go and die.
I would like to strangle your flimsy little neck, twist it from its root and dump it into a bottle of vinegar for future reference.
You have made me into the cynic that I am today. Whinny-ninnies who turn up their noses at all signs of weakness and dependence. The worst kind of hypocrite there is. And it’s all your fault. You, you, you.
(this is not turning out as well as expected)
I am aghast at how much I have trusted you, all the times I have published my soul, put my emotional universe into your hands, all this, all of the most personal, tainted nuances of my mind, all this at the risk of getting my eardrums shattered by ghoulish laughter.
You’ve played with me. Admit it. Or I will stuff admission into your mouth.
I abhor your delusion. I hate your truths. Give me a rose tinted world if you want, I am all game. But for goodness sake, don’t rip it into pieces just before the moment of revelation. They don’t kill their warriors before Ragnarok, the world doesn’t, shouldn’t work that way. Give me hell, rather than a frayed heaven – for you to shred before my very eyes.
I don’t care I don’t care I don’t care. I don’t care if I sound unsound right now. A silent world has no frequencies to penetrate this vacuum of self pity.
Now wasn’t that just brilliant! I love this shadow play of words. Flitting images that disappear as soon as they take on some sort of tangibility. Now you see it, now you don’t. How nice it would be to catch the whole world in a butterfly net, put it in a pretty little glass bottle, and take it out for admiration any time you wish. What an impressive display it would be, to have the world in your very own glass bottle. How your friends will gape at your power, how they will die to be in your place. I wonder if the world needs breathing holes?
But wait, that wasn’t my point. You have put me at the edge of a cliff and I don’t like it. No, I don’t like it at all. The wind is blowing from behind, strongly, like an angry force. I don’t like getting pushed around, especially when I am standing at the edge of a cliff, with a sheer drop of history right before me. History should be behind, not right in front. Falling into history is dangerous, and there’s no fence. Stop it, stop pushing me. I am going to fall.
Why can’t I accept candy bars from strangers anymore? Heck, why can’t I accept candy bars from you without first looking at the expiry date on the wrapper? When is OUR expiry date?
I detest it when you put words into my mouth. The night, the atmosphere, everything is so right it’s wrong. I can’t help but let imagination run its marathon towards the finish line. Yes, we have reached the finish line, the crowds are cheering and clapping, the trophy’s in our hands. Now what?
Don’t stare. I am immune now. And don’t give me that look. I have seen it many times. I see it every time you make me dance and sing to your command like some puppet in a third rate theatre. Go away go away. Leave me to make your mistakes. You can have your way with me when it’s all over.
Why is it so difficult to accept acceptance? I am ludicrous. This whole thing is ludicrous. Is it my turn to laugh? Cue me.
The whole problem stems from the fact that there are choices. Eradicate choice and there would be no second guessing. No heaven or hell. Without OTHER, ALL would be truth. It’s like 1984, without knowledge of freedom, freedom would cease to exist.
Where would you and I be then? What would you choose without choice?
I am sorry. Its such a clear yes that I begin to suspect if it’s a no. But it’s alright, I have my nos now. Thanks for being there for me to insult and mutilate. This whole thing has been an education. Moderation is definitely overrated. Extremities bring out the best of hate and love. Yep, that is all. I don’t hate you, really. I just love you too much to tell you so.
Bye.
Apologetically,
Jiching.
Go and die.
I would like to strangle your flimsy little neck, twist it from its root and dump it into a bottle of vinegar for future reference.
You have made me into the cynic that I am today. Whinny-ninnies who turn up their noses at all signs of weakness and dependence. The worst kind of hypocrite there is. And it’s all your fault. You, you, you.
(this is not turning out as well as expected)
I am aghast at how much I have trusted you, all the times I have published my soul, put my emotional universe into your hands, all this, all of the most personal, tainted nuances of my mind, all this at the risk of getting my eardrums shattered by ghoulish laughter.
You’ve played with me. Admit it. Or I will stuff admission into your mouth.
I abhor your delusion. I hate your truths. Give me a rose tinted world if you want, I am all game. But for goodness sake, don’t rip it into pieces just before the moment of revelation. They don’t kill their warriors before Ragnarok, the world doesn’t, shouldn’t work that way. Give me hell, rather than a frayed heaven – for you to shred before my very eyes.
I don’t care I don’t care I don’t care. I don’t care if I sound unsound right now. A silent world has no frequencies to penetrate this vacuum of self pity.
Now wasn’t that just brilliant! I love this shadow play of words. Flitting images that disappear as soon as they take on some sort of tangibility. Now you see it, now you don’t. How nice it would be to catch the whole world in a butterfly net, put it in a pretty little glass bottle, and take it out for admiration any time you wish. What an impressive display it would be, to have the world in your very own glass bottle. How your friends will gape at your power, how they will die to be in your place. I wonder if the world needs breathing holes?
But wait, that wasn’t my point. You have put me at the edge of a cliff and I don’t like it. No, I don’t like it at all. The wind is blowing from behind, strongly, like an angry force. I don’t like getting pushed around, especially when I am standing at the edge of a cliff, with a sheer drop of history right before me. History should be behind, not right in front. Falling into history is dangerous, and there’s no fence. Stop it, stop pushing me. I am going to fall.
Why can’t I accept candy bars from strangers anymore? Heck, why can’t I accept candy bars from you without first looking at the expiry date on the wrapper? When is OUR expiry date?
I detest it when you put words into my mouth. The night, the atmosphere, everything is so right it’s wrong. I can’t help but let imagination run its marathon towards the finish line. Yes, we have reached the finish line, the crowds are cheering and clapping, the trophy’s in our hands. Now what?
Don’t stare. I am immune now. And don’t give me that look. I have seen it many times. I see it every time you make me dance and sing to your command like some puppet in a third rate theatre. Go away go away. Leave me to make your mistakes. You can have your way with me when it’s all over.
Why is it so difficult to accept acceptance? I am ludicrous. This whole thing is ludicrous. Is it my turn to laugh? Cue me.
The whole problem stems from the fact that there are choices. Eradicate choice and there would be no second guessing. No heaven or hell. Without OTHER, ALL would be truth. It’s like 1984, without knowledge of freedom, freedom would cease to exist.
Where would you and I be then? What would you choose without choice?
I am sorry. Its such a clear yes that I begin to suspect if it’s a no. But it’s alright, I have my nos now. Thanks for being there for me to insult and mutilate. This whole thing has been an education. Moderation is definitely overrated. Extremities bring out the best of hate and love. Yep, that is all. I don’t hate you, really. I just love you too much to tell you so.
Bye.
Apologetically,
Jiching.
Friday, November 11, 2005
this is not a noose.
stage anarchy. NEVER.
i refuse to succumb to such weakness.
too vulgar too coarse too inclined to infirmity.
victims are only victims by choice.
your steps are quicksand, history to be quarantined.
remind me when i forget.
i refuse to succumb to such weakness.
too vulgar too coarse too inclined to infirmity.
victims are only victims by choice.
your steps are quicksand, history to be quarantined.
remind me when i forget.
Sunday, November 06, 2005
bored, the sequel.
Another survey ripped off from ame. (just to prove the extent of my depravation.)
1. Name someone with the same birthday as you. Some lucky kid.
2.Where was your first kiss? On the mouth. (kidding!!)
3.Have you ever seriously vandalized someone else's property? No, unless getting into my dad’s way when he’s pruning himself in the mirror counts. (vandalism of reflection?)
4.Have you ever hit someone of the opposite sex? Only out of necessity of course.
5.Have you ever sung in front of a large number of people? *As part of our glorious land, sharing her spreading fame….*
6.What's the first thing you notice about the preferred sex? PREFERRED sex?!! ER eyes. Cos it includes both sexes. I believe in equality.
7.What really turns you on? Electricity.
8.What do you order at Starbucks? Coffee.
9.What is your biggest mistake? Not knowing mine.
10.Have you ever hurt yourself on purpose? Gym motto: ‘Pain is temporary, pride is forever.’
11.Say something totally random about yourself. I prefer white mice to black.
12. Has anyone ever said you looked like a celebrity? You insult me.
13.Do you still watch kiddie movies or tv shows? WHAT DO YOU MEAN, KIDDIE!!!!!??
14.Did you have braces? No. I support myself very well thank you.
15.Are you comfortable with your height? When I am around ame, yes definitely.
16.What is the sweetest thing someone of the opposite sex has done for you? Hah! As if I am gonna tell you! Be original… kid!
17.When do you know it's love? When your world goes Picasso.
18.Do you speak any other languages? Chinese, marginally.
19.Have you ever been to a tanning salon? Ugly tanlines explain all.
20.What magazines do you read? The economist! (cover page)
21.Have you ever been rushed by an ambulance into the emergency room? Yep. Knocked my head into the metal clothes dryer. Not one of my most glorious moments I admit.
22.Do you actually read these when other people fill them out? Of course. Fodder for niaoing.
1. Name someone with the same birthday as you. Some lucky kid.
2.Where was your first kiss? On the mouth. (kidding!!)
3.Have you ever seriously vandalized someone else's property? No, unless getting into my dad’s way when he’s pruning himself in the mirror counts. (vandalism of reflection?)
4.Have you ever hit someone of the opposite sex? Only out of necessity of course.
5.Have you ever sung in front of a large number of people? *As part of our glorious land, sharing her spreading fame….*
6.What's the first thing you notice about the preferred sex? PREFERRED sex?!! ER eyes. Cos it includes both sexes. I believe in equality.
7.What really turns you on? Electricity.
8.What do you order at Starbucks? Coffee.
9.What is your biggest mistake? Not knowing mine.
10.Have you ever hurt yourself on purpose? Gym motto: ‘Pain is temporary, pride is forever.’
11.Say something totally random about yourself. I prefer white mice to black.
12. Has anyone ever said you looked like a celebrity? You insult me.
13.Do you still watch kiddie movies or tv shows? WHAT DO YOU MEAN, KIDDIE!!!!!??
14.Did you have braces? No. I support myself very well thank you.
15.Are you comfortable with your height? When I am around ame, yes definitely.
16.What is the sweetest thing someone of the opposite sex has done for you? Hah! As if I am gonna tell you! Be original… kid!
17.When do you know it's love? When your world goes Picasso.
18.Do you speak any other languages? Chinese, marginally.
19.Have you ever been to a tanning salon? Ugly tanlines explain all.
20.What magazines do you read? The economist! (cover page)
21.Have you ever been rushed by an ambulance into the emergency room? Yep. Knocked my head into the metal clothes dryer. Not one of my most glorious moments I admit.
22.Do you actually read these when other people fill them out? Of course. Fodder for niaoing.
bored.
Surveys are for deprived people who have nothing to do with their lives. They are also done for the purposes of revenge. Nothing less than pure vindictiveness and egotism spurns people to do surveys. In order to live up to all that, here's one. (ps: some numbers are skipped. but ah well, don't take math, so cannot count.)
1. whose picture is it that you keep on your wallet? Aragorn!
2. what time do you go to bed? no bed. Sleep on mattress.
3. what was the last thing you did before filling this survey? gave ame a crushing setdown for her unsatisfactory answers in this survey.
4. who's the one you always meet the most? willingly: clique
Unwillingly: my insufferable brother.
5. who's the person you're gonna call if you need help? the psychiatrist
6. what's on your mind right now? (:
8.with whom do you wanna be to have fun? ’long lost’ rj friends. *raise eyebrows* CLIQUE OUTING?!!!
9. what movie do u wanna watch now? harry potter and the goblet of fire.
Narnia.
10. when was the last time you went out? yesterday.
11. what do you hate the most for now? the lassitude of time.
12. when was the first time you slept alone? when my mom tired of me.
13. what do you wanna do for now? outlive answer 11.
14. what do you do everyday besides eat and sleep? pause for breaths.
15. fave pet? shadowfax.
17. colors that make you happy? Colours I see when I am. We see only what we want to see.
19. what was the last thing you bought for your room? dust and cockroaches.
21. do you cook? instant noodles, mash potatoes, egg, burnt rice.
22. miss someone? inevitably.
23. plan to buy something? we live in a mercenary world.
24. are you satisfied with your life now? How could I not? But it will get better. (:
25.do you like seafood? See? Food! *grin* Yes.
26. breakfast or dinner? don’t eat breakfast. Binge on dinner.
27. what do you usually eat for breakfast? don’t eat breakfast!!!
28. did you eat breakfast today? (#$#*&$^#&$
29. do you recycle? when I feel an inexplicable pity for mother earth.
30. do you have a laptop? yeah. Its on my table though.
31. what's your favorite fast food? subway, mos. Used to be macs, but pheywa scared me.
32. cats or dogs? dogs. Cats yawn too much.
33. salty or sweet? sour.
34. city or country? when you live in Singapore, its no difference. City – Singapore, Country - Singapore
35. what's your favorite kind of jeans? those that fit.
36. Is kissing normal for your age? How would I know? I am far too young.
37. are you athletic? that was a thing of the past.
38. do you swear? WTH! Of course not!
39. would you ditch your friends for a date? no. I’ll bring them along. xP
42. ever had a crush on a teacher? textbooks and romance just don't seem to go together.
43. coke or pepsi? and the point of this question is….?
44. sugar or spice? all things nice.
45. can you use chopsticks? can't you see! I am yellow!
46. do you like to read for pleasure? No of course not. I read to decipher the meaning of life.
47. do you care about getting good grades? at the point of revelation- and then I forget all about it.
48. have you ever fallen asleep in class? Zzzzzzz
49. get a job or ask your parents for money? both. Double source of income.
50. is your dad strict? hardly.
51. do your parents give you enough privacy? so much so that I invade theirs.
52. do your parents trust you? mostly.
53. would you trade places (in life) with your best friends..? *thinks of my best friends* NO! NEVER!
54. does your best friend get on your nerves? ame does. Linette doesn’t. xP (revenge!!!)
55. do you make friends quickly? nope. Generally reserved.
56. do you get jealous of your friends? at the start of every month when they get their pocket money.
57. do you tell your mom everything? well, yeah.
58. what do you & your parents fight about the most? who’s turn it is to psycho my brother.
1. whose picture is it that you keep on your wallet? Aragorn!
2. what time do you go to bed? no bed. Sleep on mattress.
3. what was the last thing you did before filling this survey? gave ame a crushing setdown for her unsatisfactory answers in this survey.
4. who's the one you always meet the most? willingly: clique
Unwillingly: my insufferable brother.
5. who's the person you're gonna call if you need help? the psychiatrist
6. what's on your mind right now? (:
8.with whom do you wanna be to have fun? ’long lost’ rj friends. *raise eyebrows* CLIQUE OUTING?!!!
9. what movie do u wanna watch now? harry potter and the goblet of fire.
Narnia.
10. when was the last time you went out? yesterday.
11. what do you hate the most for now? the lassitude of time.
12. when was the first time you slept alone? when my mom tired of me.
13. what do you wanna do for now? outlive answer 11.
14. what do you do everyday besides eat and sleep? pause for breaths.
15. fave pet? shadowfax.
17. colors that make you happy? Colours I see when I am. We see only what we want to see.
19. what was the last thing you bought for your room? dust and cockroaches.
21. do you cook? instant noodles, mash potatoes, egg, burnt rice.
22. miss someone? inevitably.
23. plan to buy something? we live in a mercenary world.
24. are you satisfied with your life now? How could I not? But it will get better. (:
25.do you like seafood? See? Food! *grin* Yes.
26. breakfast or dinner? don’t eat breakfast. Binge on dinner.
27. what do you usually eat for breakfast? don’t eat breakfast!!!
28. did you eat breakfast today? (#$#*&$^#&$
29. do you recycle? when I feel an inexplicable pity for mother earth.
30. do you have a laptop? yeah. Its on my table though.
31. what's your favorite fast food? subway, mos. Used to be macs, but pheywa scared me.
32. cats or dogs? dogs. Cats yawn too much.
33. salty or sweet? sour.
34. city or country? when you live in Singapore, its no difference. City – Singapore, Country - Singapore
35. what's your favorite kind of jeans? those that fit.
36. Is kissing normal for your age? How would I know? I am far too young.
37. are you athletic? that was a thing of the past.
38. do you swear? WTH! Of course not!
39. would you ditch your friends for a date? no. I’ll bring them along. xP
42. ever had a crush on a teacher? textbooks and romance just don't seem to go together.
43. coke or pepsi? and the point of this question is….?
44. sugar or spice? all things nice.
45. can you use chopsticks? can't you see! I am yellow!
46. do you like to read for pleasure? No of course not. I read to decipher the meaning of life.
47. do you care about getting good grades? at the point of revelation- and then I forget all about it.
48. have you ever fallen asleep in class? Zzzzzzz
49. get a job or ask your parents for money? both. Double source of income.
50. is your dad strict? hardly.
51. do your parents give you enough privacy? so much so that I invade theirs.
52. do your parents trust you? mostly.
53. would you trade places (in life) with your best friends..? *thinks of my best friends* NO! NEVER!
54. does your best friend get on your nerves? ame does. Linette doesn’t. xP (revenge!!!)
55. do you make friends quickly? nope. Generally reserved.
56. do you get jealous of your friends? at the start of every month when they get their pocket money.
57. do you tell your mom everything? well, yeah.
58. what do you & your parents fight about the most? who’s turn it is to psycho my brother.
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
旅途
‘我将眼泪流成天山上面的湖
让你疲倦时能够扎营停驻
羌笛声胡旋舞为你笑为你哭
爱上你的全部放弃我的全部
爱上了你之后我开始领悟
陪你走了一段最唯美的国度
爱上了你之后我从来不哭
谁是谁的幸福
我从来不在乎
谁是谁的旅途
我只要你记住' -梁静如，丝路
I hear the leaves rustling
Like endless sighs that reverberate
Round and round- the congregation of the night.
The trees, with bowed heads they luxuriate
Yesterdays that scream, fall like pellets they fall
Chasing injury.
One volley, two, Again, the sighs.
Repetition, always repetition.
Ripping through my war torn hair
Frame and framed, inner and outer
Flout flouter, incision incising
Winds it way, wends its path
Through no man’s land
Down down to oblivion.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Waiting.
Waiting is neither a relaxing or passive affair, in fact, it is far from it. A multitude of scenarios pop into your head, your mind is bombarded by 'what-ifs' and 'what-nots' and all your attention is trained on that single ideal, that single situation in which all your waiting comes to an end. Meanwhile, the fear of its continuity gnaws at you relentlessly, eroding away the boundaries of logic and reason and delving into the chaos that is the emotional universe. The floodgates opened, you lapse into waves of hysteria urged on by boredom's winds. They break near shore, eventually smoothing into a gentle lapping at earth's ankles, a sign of subservience to the stony silence that constitutes this useless but draining activity.
I am going mad waiting, as you can see.
I am going mad waiting, as you can see.
Sunday, October 09, 2005
I not stupid.
Singapore lies on a verge of a revolution. Recent �stirrings� that shake the very pillars of society have been felt, tremors mostly experienced by the here-to-fore obscure �blogging community of Singapore.�
What with all the recent laws and regulation that narrow the stage for these enthusiastic performers, henceforth all �stirrings� must be confined to one�s own personal space, however dismally boring that might be.
Since when has the blood of Singaporeans �stirred� so readily anyway? We see the youths of China parading in the streets with placards and stout hearts, and with deafening cries shout down the hypocrisies of the Japanese. We see them, marveling at their passion, and energy, and then reach for the remote.
One must realise that the social fabric of Singapore is vastly different from that of the 1960s, we are no longer the mishmash of immigrants living in deplorable conditions, with many mouths to feed and no money to feed them. Nor are we led by fervent trade unions that convince us that the only way to a better standard of living is by bashing the mar-tha (police) next door. Neither are we frogs in wells, restrained within the walls of our illiteracy, sunken in our own pool of naivet�.
Today�s Singapore is a maturing population increasingly able to think for themselves. The famous Maria Hertogh riots would never have occurred in today�s context, not because people are any less susceptible to sympathy, but because they know the social and economical cost of such an undertaking. Such is the consequence that accompanies an increasingly capitalistic view of life, where everything is seen in terms of dollars and sense (cents). The worship of the dollar supersedes all potentially rousing ideological beliefs.
That is perhaps the greater challenge of the government, which is not in the extermination of any �political miscreants� but instead to rekindle the interest in the fulfilling of human needs, the pedestal on which the entire human politics is built on. Why clamp down on a few deviants and in so doing risk a politically apathetic community? Indeed, why bother?
From the article on the woman who reported the racist bloggers, we read that the racist entry on Koh�s blog had spurned many replies from the online community. Being loathe to join in the �hatred�, she instead did what other �childish� people didn�t do. She reported the blog to the police.
Well-intentioned though she might be, I cast doubts on the �hatred� described by her. True enough, there might be a few equally inflammatory replies to Koh�s comments that would only cause emotions to spiral beyond control. However, based on my own personal knowledge of the blogging community, I have observed that there are always mediating voices amidst the exchange of hostilities. Usually, these voices make up the majority, not minority, and it is only the few who succumb to extreme emotions who fuel the �hatred� further.
What we are looking at is the self-regulating mechanism that is Singapore society. These are the educated, responsible voices whose thoughts and actions extend beyond their own causes. They have a clear knowledge of the implications of extremist views within the social framework, and do their best to display a moderating influence on such emotional fluctuations. Their existence is a gauge of a nation�s maturity and social solidarity. It is through the growth of the number of such mediating voices, not draconian laws, that a society can truly progress socially.
Instead of �stirring the different communities� as was mentioned in the article, these voices would unite them in a common cause, which is the recognition that Singapore NEEDS racial harmony. Now isn�t that the purpose of racial harmony day and secondary school social studies? It is imperative, therefore that we understand that true harmony does not reside in the veneer of lawful politeness between races; it dwells in the deep-rooted beliefs of the people, the kind of conviction that would spurn one to speak out against any challenge of that faith.
I concede that the majority of Singaporeans have not yet reached that level of acceptance. Any show of harmony is perhaps more due to the indoctrinated tolerance of racial diversity rather than true appreciation of cultural differences. Singaporeans know that harmony is important and take care not to overstep its border, but that�s rather because we know that any transgression would encroach on the comfort of our self-serving little worlds. Our motives are selfish, and though they keep us within the law, they cannot allow for the enjoyment of any extra benefits outside it, such as a potentially enriching relationship with a person of another race. Only when racial diversity has become a NECESSARY state can racial harmony day truly be celebrated, not held as a habitual deference to higher orders.
Is legislation the answer then? I think not. This is another case in which society must be given the free rein. One cannot reach heaven without an education in hell. Likewise, freedom is nothing without the struggle. To truly mature and gain intellectual freedom, Singapore society must be trusted to stand (and fall) on her own two feet. The government would do well to trust in the intelligent voice of the people.
What with all the recent laws and regulation that narrow the stage for these enthusiastic performers, henceforth all �stirrings� must be confined to one�s own personal space, however dismally boring that might be.
Since when has the blood of Singaporeans �stirred� so readily anyway? We see the youths of China parading in the streets with placards and stout hearts, and with deafening cries shout down the hypocrisies of the Japanese. We see them, marveling at their passion, and energy, and then reach for the remote.
One must realise that the social fabric of Singapore is vastly different from that of the 1960s, we are no longer the mishmash of immigrants living in deplorable conditions, with many mouths to feed and no money to feed them. Nor are we led by fervent trade unions that convince us that the only way to a better standard of living is by bashing the mar-tha (police) next door. Neither are we frogs in wells, restrained within the walls of our illiteracy, sunken in our own pool of naivet�.
Today�s Singapore is a maturing population increasingly able to think for themselves. The famous Maria Hertogh riots would never have occurred in today�s context, not because people are any less susceptible to sympathy, but because they know the social and economical cost of such an undertaking. Such is the consequence that accompanies an increasingly capitalistic view of life, where everything is seen in terms of dollars and sense (cents). The worship of the dollar supersedes all potentially rousing ideological beliefs.
That is perhaps the greater challenge of the government, which is not in the extermination of any �political miscreants� but instead to rekindle the interest in the fulfilling of human needs, the pedestal on which the entire human politics is built on. Why clamp down on a few deviants and in so doing risk a politically apathetic community? Indeed, why bother?
From the article on the woman who reported the racist bloggers, we read that the racist entry on Koh�s blog had spurned many replies from the online community. Being loathe to join in the �hatred�, she instead did what other �childish� people didn�t do. She reported the blog to the police.
Well-intentioned though she might be, I cast doubts on the �hatred� described by her. True enough, there might be a few equally inflammatory replies to Koh�s comments that would only cause emotions to spiral beyond control. However, based on my own personal knowledge of the blogging community, I have observed that there are always mediating voices amidst the exchange of hostilities. Usually, these voices make up the majority, not minority, and it is only the few who succumb to extreme emotions who fuel the �hatred� further.
What we are looking at is the self-regulating mechanism that is Singapore society. These are the educated, responsible voices whose thoughts and actions extend beyond their own causes. They have a clear knowledge of the implications of extremist views within the social framework, and do their best to display a moderating influence on such emotional fluctuations. Their existence is a gauge of a nation�s maturity and social solidarity. It is through the growth of the number of such mediating voices, not draconian laws, that a society can truly progress socially.
Instead of �stirring the different communities� as was mentioned in the article, these voices would unite them in a common cause, which is the recognition that Singapore NEEDS racial harmony. Now isn�t that the purpose of racial harmony day and secondary school social studies? It is imperative, therefore that we understand that true harmony does not reside in the veneer of lawful politeness between races; it dwells in the deep-rooted beliefs of the people, the kind of conviction that would spurn one to speak out against any challenge of that faith.
I concede that the majority of Singaporeans have not yet reached that level of acceptance. Any show of harmony is perhaps more due to the indoctrinated tolerance of racial diversity rather than true appreciation of cultural differences. Singaporeans know that harmony is important and take care not to overstep its border, but that�s rather because we know that any transgression would encroach on the comfort of our self-serving little worlds. Our motives are selfish, and though they keep us within the law, they cannot allow for the enjoyment of any extra benefits outside it, such as a potentially enriching relationship with a person of another race. Only when racial diversity has become a NECESSARY state can racial harmony day truly be celebrated, not held as a habitual deference to higher orders.
Is legislation the answer then? I think not. This is another case in which society must be given the free rein. One cannot reach heaven without an education in hell. Likewise, freedom is nothing without the struggle. To truly mature and gain intellectual freedom, Singapore society must be trusted to stand (and fall) on her own two feet. The government would do well to trust in the intelligent voice of the people.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
7 things.
Thanks ah zhixuan! Don't need to vex myself over how to redeem this ailing blog anymore! Heh. But the previous entry was deliberately misleading, so nobody's supposed to understand it. Including me! haha (I should meet that decorum, whoever he/she is. That fella knows me better than I do myself. Or so he/she claims. Must be my soulmate! *jumps around in glee* DAH. Mugging is screwing up my wits. ) Anyway, *clears throat* don’t pray pray hor! My England very powderful one. So don't you dare think I can't write intelligible stuff! I CAN I CAN!
my split personality says: this entry gets on my nerves. i think it excessively vain! stop falling into the pit of extreme bimbosity and inaneness! and quit those asterisks, they are positively satanic. Ho! patience, patience i need.
Seven things you plan to do before you die:
1. restore the colour of the old rg pinafore! (save juniors from the indignity of purple – gay!)
2. teach ang English (I rather die! But oh well, that will be doing everyone a favour.)
3. see my brother get married to *ahem* (see! Don't say I never support you!)
4. love cheese
5. stop being called a kantang. (I'm in lep dammit! Wo ai zhong guo! Wo ai mao zhu xi!) (i dig hitler)
6. make a clause in my will to disinherit all those who do not cry at my passing (salinity will make a bare grave)
7. do I have to say it? Oh fine. *flips wrist* LOVE. Silly love.
Seven things I could do:
1. i could stop being so misanthropic
2. i could stop hating khaki shorts (be considerate. bukit timah floods.)
3. i could save the world
4. i could quit being such an annoying prig
5. i could cease this self indulgence
6. i could love Monday morning assemblies
7. i could. So? (oh go away.)
Seven celebrity crushes:
1. JJ
2. Viggo Mortensen (no real love for cleanliness, i see)
3. THAT hareton!
4. qi ye
5. any cute guy
6. any cute guy
7. any cute guy
8. anyone of twz's capability
Seven often-repeated words:
1. wth
2. ass
3. shut up (about time.)
4. go and die
5. qu si (I have an obsession with death!)
6. damn lame
7. shucks
Seven physical traits I look for in the opposite sex:
1. Bills/credit cards sticking out of pocket (ripe for thievery)
2. eyes (REAL ones. Not cheaty slits of a thing! xP)
3. the right number of fingers (that's ten btw)
4 the right number of toes (not as impt as the fingers)
5. limbs that support his weight
6. neck that supports his head (assuming he has one)
7. nothing incriminating - nothing that that smells of gay.
Seven tags go to:
1. my mom
2. my dad
3. my brother
4. my goldfish 1
5. my goldfish 2
6. anyone who loves me (...)
7. anyone who hates me (!!! - you encourage spam.)
oh yeah, btw, good luck for promos, you need it.
wth. shut up la.
my split personality says: this entry gets on my nerves. i think it excessively vain! stop falling into the pit of extreme bimbosity and inaneness! and quit those asterisks, they are positively satanic. Ho! patience, patience i need.
Seven things you plan to do before you die:
1. restore the colour of the old rg pinafore! (save juniors from the indignity of purple – gay!)
2. teach ang English (I rather die! But oh well, that will be doing everyone a favour.)
3. see my brother get married to *ahem* (see! Don't say I never support you!)
4. love cheese
5. stop being called a kantang. (I'm in lep dammit! Wo ai zhong guo! Wo ai mao zhu xi!) (i dig hitler)
6. make a clause in my will to disinherit all those who do not cry at my passing (salinity will make a bare grave)
7. do I have to say it? Oh fine. *flips wrist* LOVE. Silly love.
Seven things I could do:
1. i could stop being so misanthropic
2. i could stop hating khaki shorts (be considerate. bukit timah floods.)
3. i could save the world
4. i could quit being such an annoying prig
5. i could cease this self indulgence
6. i could love Monday morning assemblies
7. i could. So? (oh go away.)
Seven celebrity crushes:
1. JJ
2. Viggo Mortensen (no real love for cleanliness, i see)
3. THAT hareton!
4. qi ye
5. any cute guy
6. any cute guy
7. any cute guy
8. anyone of twz's capability
Seven often-repeated words:
1. wth
2. ass
3. shut up (about time.)
4. go and die
5. qu si (I have an obsession with death!)
6. damn lame
7. shucks
Seven physical traits I look for in the opposite sex:
1. Bills/credit cards sticking out of pocket (ripe for thievery)
2. eyes (REAL ones. Not cheaty slits of a thing! xP)
3. the right number of fingers (that's ten btw)
4 the right number of toes (not as impt as the fingers)
5. limbs that support his weight
6. neck that supports his head (assuming he has one)
7. nothing incriminating - nothing that that smells of gay.
Seven tags go to:
1. my mom
2. my dad
3. my brother
4. my goldfish 1
5. my goldfish 2
6. anyone who loves me (...)
7. anyone who hates me (!!! - you encourage spam.)
oh yeah, btw, good luck for promos, you need it.
wth. shut up la.
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Lyra
hush, darling.
let silence speak its many tongues
to bridle our love.
who has staged our play?
to cavort your affectations
and spurn my reluctant device.
yonder on the dais,
lyrical Orpheus who in hasty passion
saw Eurydice last, until Death's
conflagration burnt follies
in Hades' heaven.
But cool the flames!
and watch the dust settle, slowly,
into our breaths, the ebbing heat
washing us, into the faded frippery
of an old artist's canvas.
blind the eyes that whisper
nothings, say nothing, naught
but thunder raucous laughter into
ears that knew.
eschew the senses
we have taken leave of, and cry
softly, the mise en scene
of babe and cradle,
innocent joy.
Not till deux ex machinas
Coos smilets from tears
and our story quavers its swan song
on life’s quixotic theatre.
when the time comes,
Give me my bouquet
and I will skirt the encore.
let silence speak its many tongues
to bridle our love.
who has staged our play?
to cavort your affectations
and spurn my reluctant device.
yonder on the dais,
lyrical Orpheus who in hasty passion
saw Eurydice last, until Death's
conflagration burnt follies
in Hades' heaven.
But cool the flames!
and watch the dust settle, slowly,
into our breaths, the ebbing heat
washing us, into the faded frippery
of an old artist's canvas.
blind the eyes that whisper
nothings, say nothing, naught
but thunder raucous laughter into
ears that knew.
eschew the senses
we have taken leave of, and cry
softly, the mise en scene
of babe and cradle,
innocent joy.
Not till deux ex machinas
Coos smilets from tears
and our story quavers its swan song
on life’s quixotic theatre.
when the time comes,
Give me my bouquet
and I will skirt the encore.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Hiatus No. 2
Its been a long long time since i last blogged. Being online somehow lost its appeal. And I haven't been writing either. Its not because life has been uneventful, no, TOO eventful perhaps, but somehow, I don't feel like worrying people with angsty condemnations or puzzling them with random strings of unconsolidated gibberish anymore. Thanks for everything, really. I enjoyed it while it lasted, all those undeserved compliments and understated criticisms. HEH. It was kinda fun, narcissistic you would say, hitting on the 'publish' button and watching those comments stream in. (Alright, i am EXAGGERATING. My comments don't 'stream', they drip. Pathetic eh? haha. ) But really, I have got a life to lead, and I think its time I remove myself from the virtual to concentrate on the real. Blogging is TIRING. Sharing your life with other people is TIRING. Trying to make your hum-drum life interesting for other people's amusement is SOUL SAPPING. But don't get me wrong! I am not giving up writing! This is just a way to divest myself of blame! I am still determined to live my life in words, but in my own time.
PS: Well, i did get lep back, but sadly, it didn't put me into hysterics. So that means no inspiration which means no self-righteous, nauseating, deliberately-befuddling, desultory, condescending, infantile, sleep-inducing, pretentious, fatalistic, plagiarising, defamatory and subversive blog entries. Thank your stars. (:
PS: Well, i did get lep back, but sadly, it didn't put me into hysterics. So that means no inspiration which means no self-righteous, nauseating, deliberately-befuddling, desultory, condescending, infantile, sleep-inducing, pretentious, fatalistic, plagiarising, defamatory and subversive blog entries. Thank your stars. (:
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
See? I blogged!
"I am come, from fire and water."
Gandalf's words ring true. Blocks was an edifying experience. Never have I been blessed with so many reminders of the queenly beauty of mother nature; the silkened night sky's quiet comfort after hours of unnatural brain activity, and the warmth of another, drawn across expanses, by the subdued murmurings of dust and gloom.
Well well well, maybe its due to overemployment that is leading to a diseconomy of scale in the linguistic department, but I am at a loss of words for what to say. Have pity on one just delivered from death! My mind will probably take a week to resurrect itself, which means homework will have to wait.
Blocks thought me all about being a happy medium. Burge's declaration that he would give us the median score of the group on the occasion that we didn't feel like doing our GP paper was the examinal equivalent of communism. But being strong advocates of democracy and MERITocracy, all of us forsook the chance to share weal and woe, and instead, opted for egotisical hedonism. Admirable spirit though it is, it also means that i would have to bear the full liability of a bad GP mark. DARN.
Ah. Can anyone tell that i am blogging for the sake of blogging? Happiness breeds langour, so yes, i will be back when i am crying my eyes out in hysterics, or when i get lep back.
Gandalf's words ring true. Blocks was an edifying experience. Never have I been blessed with so many reminders of the queenly beauty of mother nature; the silkened night sky's quiet comfort after hours of unnatural brain activity, and the warmth of another, drawn across expanses, by the subdued murmurings of dust and gloom.
Well well well, maybe its due to overemployment that is leading to a diseconomy of scale in the linguistic department, but I am at a loss of words for what to say. Have pity on one just delivered from death! My mind will probably take a week to resurrect itself, which means homework will have to wait.
Blocks thought me all about being a happy medium. Burge's declaration that he would give us the median score of the group on the occasion that we didn't feel like doing our GP paper was the examinal equivalent of communism. But being strong advocates of democracy and MERITocracy, all of us forsook the chance to share weal and woe, and instead, opted for egotisical hedonism. Admirable spirit though it is, it also means that i would have to bear the full liability of a bad GP mark. DARN.
Ah. Can anyone tell that i am blogging for the sake of blogging? Happiness breeds langour, so yes, i will be back when i am crying my eyes out in hysterics, or when i get lep back.
Sunday, June 26, 2005
Back-up! haha
Considering the vast amount of work i haven't done. I thought this would be in order.
Ji Ching's Will.
1. All my material posessions, except those of an academic nature, will go to my mom, who will complain that I always give her extra work to do.
2. My textbooks, notes, mindmaps, undone tys will go to my brother, may you have better luck with them than I did.
3. My blog will go to ame, on the condition that she doesn't change the font colour to pink and scatter cutesy objects all over the place.
4. My undone blake essay will go to 'one sick kid' (aka gery), whose wonderful talents will make sure Perry remembers me in a favourable light.
5. The scholarship money, of which I have yet to receive, will go to the great hwa chong institution, who hopefully will give me a posthumous plaque complimenting me on my magnanimity, seeing that I think of them even while dying by their hand.
In the case that I do survive, all of the above is rendered void except number four. (: *hides from gery*
Ji Ching's Will.
1. All my material posessions, except those of an academic nature, will go to my mom, who will complain that I always give her extra work to do.
2. My textbooks, notes, mindmaps, undone tys will go to my brother, may you have better luck with them than I did.
3. My blog will go to ame, on the condition that she doesn't change the font colour to pink and scatter cutesy objects all over the place.
4. My undone blake essay will go to 'one sick kid' (aka gery), whose wonderful talents will make sure Perry remembers me in a favourable light.
5. The scholarship money, of which I have yet to receive, will go to the great hwa chong institution, who hopefully will give me a posthumous plaque complimenting me on my magnanimity, seeing that I think of them even while dying by their hand.
In the case that I do survive, all of the above is rendered void except number four. (: *hides from gery*
Saturday, June 25, 2005
The circle's payback
I have been through a rough patch lately, and I can’t say I am totally grateful for it, but at least it helped me realize what is dearest to me, and what, when everything else is stripped of its rosy tint and superficial ethereality, really remains.
Too busy chasing after inconstancies and abstract ideals; I have neglected the one thing that had sustained me all this while, something that I have been trying stubbornly to shut it out from my world. Friends come and go. Some walk alongside you for a little while before embarking on a different path, some stick around a little longer, taking the same turns, making the same imprints, but eventually, some other part of life will beckon, and paths will be diverged.
So it is that friends are not constants, and they should not be taken for granted to be so. Life becomes much easier really, when you see the people around you as temporary faces, faces with potential to change your life, support you when you fall, share laughter and tears with you, and leave their own distinct set of imprints on memory’s lane. Thank them, gently, for the times they made life wonderful and move on. Life should not be a desperate clinging on to things that no longer are, but an enjoyment of things that at this point, at this very moment, gives tangible joy.
Yet there is one constancy – family.
Family is the one thing I don’t have to worry about losing. There’s no such thing as drifting apart, or losing contact, or even having to find words to fill the silences that would be awkward in friendship. Somehow, I know I would always be able to pick up where I left off; somehow, I know you guys will always be there, eager to hear me tell the same stories over and over and over again.
No matter how I have turned my back against you.
Thank you dad, for the countless times you had to turn down the volume during ‘Superstar’, I know television is your only form of entertainment in the evening, and I am sorry you had to sacrifice a bit of that for your audio-sensitive daughter. Thanks also, for choosing to ignore my snide remarks throughout this whole troublesome period, and I am really grateful to you for being understanding enough to not start an argument about my less-than-polite attitude. I will remember to greet you next time when you come home I promise! You don’t have to tap on my shoulder, and say ‘Ei, I am home’ anymore. Thank you also, for the long discussions over the latest news and events, though we might not agree all the time, but at least you respect me enough to value my opinions, and I really appreciate that. (It would help my GP loads too!) And really, I do notice when you take the effort to be extra nice and funny, just that my stubborn pride would not permit anything beyond the usual ‘lame.’ I am sorry for being such a wet blanket and all, though right now I still can’t figure how you can run from Bishan to Woodlands and still complain about a short walk from our house to junction 8! But besides that little glitch, you are cool, really. I will always remember the time you tried to do a handstand on the mattress, ok, so you didn’t really go beyond 90degrees, but hey, it’s a good try for someone who already hit 50. In fact, I can’t think of anybody else’s dad who would dare attempt this age-defying feat!
And mom, I know I have been a really good example of ‘that troublesome adolescent period’ all mothers have nightmares about. Its not that I don’t treat you like a friend anymore, it’s just that there are times when I don’t really feel like talking about it. I am sorry about the times I hurt you by brushing you aside when you showed concern, and honestly, your concern did make a very big difference, just that I was wont to show it, being a prisoner of my own world. Thank you for the ready way you took me back into your embrace despite everything. I know how I had scoffed when you kissed my forehead and called me your girl, and the times I had looked daggers at you when you ventured into the touchy topic of ‘mugging’. I was behaving like a totally deranged idiot I know, whose only seeming purpose in life was to devour the next set of notes, the next textbook. Thank you for the quiet pride you had in me, undeserved though it may be, and the way you justified my behaviour to others by calmly saying ‘girl is studying’. It gave my life purpose, and carried me through many late nights, when the music from your favourite Korean show soothed many bouts of panic and insecurities. Thank you for being always ready to reward me with good food and putting up with my curt ‘anything’ when asked to state what I wanted to eat, and the devastation that is the dining table after an entire day of mugging. Many times I have raised eyebrows at your ‘childish’ attempts to cheer me up, and I know now that it was I who was being immature, and that my cynicism was a mere cover-up, a farce I think you saw through.
And Gui Feng you nosey parker, (I refuse to call you Jeff Denver!), irregardless of how I have been complaining about you to practically everybody since you were born, and how in many irritated moments, fervently wished for an older brother instead of a grinning, pesky little (or not so little) twerp like you, hell, you have been a total angel these few days. (mark the irony!) Thanks for the incessant stream of ‘zeh, you want to drink ice milo?’ at half an hour intervals, the ‘zeh, you want to drink mushroom soup?’ at two hour intervals and the ‘zeh, look! Spider on the wall!’ at four hour intervals. I am really glad that you (in your more sensible moments) and I can still talk about a lot of stuff, and you might not believe this, but you have grown up, and I do value your advice. (Now, don’t start getting big-headed or I will clobber you!) I am sorry for the times I have ousted you from your room because I needed to study in a nice and neat environment (which leaves my room out of the equation), and I will make up for it by helping you tune your guitar and not letting Dad know what you have been up to. (Don’t worry, he reads slowly, so by the time he gets this far, you would have already closed the window.)
I have forgotten how many times you made me laugh with your insanity, your john Denver ‘imitations’, your shameless exhibitionism, your smart aleck explanations (NO, water does not travel up a plant because the water ‘pull each other’, its called transpiration pull.), and basically by just being who you are. How many times have the tears I tried to choke back turn into laughter just by your utterance of a single word. Don’t ever change, (don’t grow taller!), you are just fine the way you are, though I will die before I tell that to your face.
Phew. It feels good letting all that out.
But really, I don’t know why I took so long to appreciate all that! To think that it took so much mugging and inner turmoil to get this simple fact into my head is really quite insulting to my intelligence. But to heck with intelligence, I have been too clever for my own good. The mind is a nuisance sometimes.
Thank you for letting me feel that I don’t have to be strong for anybody, and that it is, somehow, possible to turn back time, and go back to being that little girl I was always afraid to be.
I have come home, from the precipice.
Too busy chasing after inconstancies and abstract ideals; I have neglected the one thing that had sustained me all this while, something that I have been trying stubbornly to shut it out from my world. Friends come and go. Some walk alongside you for a little while before embarking on a different path, some stick around a little longer, taking the same turns, making the same imprints, but eventually, some other part of life will beckon, and paths will be diverged.
So it is that friends are not constants, and they should not be taken for granted to be so. Life becomes much easier really, when you see the people around you as temporary faces, faces with potential to change your life, support you when you fall, share laughter and tears with you, and leave their own distinct set of imprints on memory’s lane. Thank them, gently, for the times they made life wonderful and move on. Life should not be a desperate clinging on to things that no longer are, but an enjoyment of things that at this point, at this very moment, gives tangible joy.
Yet there is one constancy – family.
Family is the one thing I don’t have to worry about losing. There’s no such thing as drifting apart, or losing contact, or even having to find words to fill the silences that would be awkward in friendship. Somehow, I know I would always be able to pick up where I left off; somehow, I know you guys will always be there, eager to hear me tell the same stories over and over and over again.
No matter how I have turned my back against you.
Thank you dad, for the countless times you had to turn down the volume during ‘Superstar’, I know television is your only form of entertainment in the evening, and I am sorry you had to sacrifice a bit of that for your audio-sensitive daughter. Thanks also, for choosing to ignore my snide remarks throughout this whole troublesome period, and I am really grateful to you for being understanding enough to not start an argument about my less-than-polite attitude. I will remember to greet you next time when you come home I promise! You don’t have to tap on my shoulder, and say ‘Ei, I am home’ anymore. Thank you also, for the long discussions over the latest news and events, though we might not agree all the time, but at least you respect me enough to value my opinions, and I really appreciate that. (It would help my GP loads too!) And really, I do notice when you take the effort to be extra nice and funny, just that my stubborn pride would not permit anything beyond the usual ‘lame.’ I am sorry for being such a wet blanket and all, though right now I still can’t figure how you can run from Bishan to Woodlands and still complain about a short walk from our house to junction 8! But besides that little glitch, you are cool, really. I will always remember the time you tried to do a handstand on the mattress, ok, so you didn’t really go beyond 90degrees, but hey, it’s a good try for someone who already hit 50. In fact, I can’t think of anybody else’s dad who would dare attempt this age-defying feat!
And mom, I know I have been a really good example of ‘that troublesome adolescent period’ all mothers have nightmares about. Its not that I don’t treat you like a friend anymore, it’s just that there are times when I don’t really feel like talking about it. I am sorry about the times I hurt you by brushing you aside when you showed concern, and honestly, your concern did make a very big difference, just that I was wont to show it, being a prisoner of my own world. Thank you for the ready way you took me back into your embrace despite everything. I know how I had scoffed when you kissed my forehead and called me your girl, and the times I had looked daggers at you when you ventured into the touchy topic of ‘mugging’. I was behaving like a totally deranged idiot I know, whose only seeming purpose in life was to devour the next set of notes, the next textbook. Thank you for the quiet pride you had in me, undeserved though it may be, and the way you justified my behaviour to others by calmly saying ‘girl is studying’. It gave my life purpose, and carried me through many late nights, when the music from your favourite Korean show soothed many bouts of panic and insecurities. Thank you for being always ready to reward me with good food and putting up with my curt ‘anything’ when asked to state what I wanted to eat, and the devastation that is the dining table after an entire day of mugging. Many times I have raised eyebrows at your ‘childish’ attempts to cheer me up, and I know now that it was I who was being immature, and that my cynicism was a mere cover-up, a farce I think you saw through.
And Gui Feng you nosey parker, (I refuse to call you Jeff Denver!), irregardless of how I have been complaining about you to practically everybody since you were born, and how in many irritated moments, fervently wished for an older brother instead of a grinning, pesky little (or not so little) twerp like you, hell, you have been a total angel these few days. (mark the irony!) Thanks for the incessant stream of ‘zeh, you want to drink ice milo?’ at half an hour intervals, the ‘zeh, you want to drink mushroom soup?’ at two hour intervals and the ‘zeh, look! Spider on the wall!’ at four hour intervals. I am really glad that you (in your more sensible moments) and I can still talk about a lot of stuff, and you might not believe this, but you have grown up, and I do value your advice. (Now, don’t start getting big-headed or I will clobber you!) I am sorry for the times I have ousted you from your room because I needed to study in a nice and neat environment (which leaves my room out of the equation), and I will make up for it by helping you tune your guitar and not letting Dad know what you have been up to. (Don’t worry, he reads slowly, so by the time he gets this far, you would have already closed the window.)
I have forgotten how many times you made me laugh with your insanity, your john Denver ‘imitations’, your shameless exhibitionism, your smart aleck explanations (NO, water does not travel up a plant because the water ‘pull each other’, its called transpiration pull.), and basically by just being who you are. How many times have the tears I tried to choke back turn into laughter just by your utterance of a single word. Don’t ever change, (don’t grow taller!), you are just fine the way you are, though I will die before I tell that to your face.
Phew. It feels good letting all that out.
But really, I don’t know why I took so long to appreciate all that! To think that it took so much mugging and inner turmoil to get this simple fact into my head is really quite insulting to my intelligence. But to heck with intelligence, I have been too clever for my own good. The mind is a nuisance sometimes.
Thank you for letting me feel that I don’t have to be strong for anybody, and that it is, somehow, possible to turn back time, and go back to being that little girl I was always afraid to be.
I have come home, from the precipice.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Msn convos
equipment is important.
be sure to load up
with colons and brackets
(for the containment of)
Overflowing emoti(C)ons
Blossoming
Into the corn-fed constancy
Of fingers on keys
almost-imperceptible
butterfly taps
on newly shuttered windows.
-------------------------------------
Not really what i intended. But well, mugging saps inspiration and any residual brain matter is rendered dysfunctional at 2am in the morning.
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Saturday, June 18, 2005
A brief interlude
What is left really, after you plow through stacks and stacks of flawless logic, substantiated povs, and bombastical pseudo-realities?
A certain distaste for sunrise, and a waxing delight in moonshine.
----------------------
If life is but a dream, someone quick, wake me up!
I am getting seriously sick of mugging. Or at least the feeling of trying to mug. I mean, the feeling a of a guilty conscience breathing down your neck at every turn totally, (if i may use the epithetical expression of teenage angst) SUCKS. Now my daily schedule simply reads, 'wakeup, mug, go online, sleep', out of which only going online is a utility maximising affair. (Yes, econs! A good example of how mugging has assimilated itself into my life.) But even then, lots of precious time is wasted by me stoning in front of the screen before realising that my computer, who, posessed of gentle constitution, is waiting patiently for my password, the key to opening the gates of paradise. And after that, everything is just one big farce. I just sit around, pretending I am making the best use of my leisure time, typing the occasional hahas that make everything sound (quoting aaron) 'nice and amiable'. Indeed, this self delusion continues until one by one, people leave, and I am left with the quietness of an utopia I try so hard to resurrect. This superficiality is slowly getting to me as I get more adept with 'msn lingo', when my hands think faster than my mind, and wham! before I know it, a smiley is produced, a mocking monstroity of a cheeriness I didn't feel. Ah well, I feel like a druggie! I break out into cold sweat if I don't go online, and its not like haven't tried, but all cold turkey attempts have proved futile so far. So there's nothing stopping me from sinking deeper into the quicksand of superficiality. And all this while I am advocating being one's true self!
this calls to mind an old sec 2 poem. (I have been flipping through old writing and feeling kind of sad about the loss of what perhaps one would call "a childishly optimistic view of the world", which is why i wrote revisitng innocence in the first place, but yes, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible to go back. Not that maturity is bad, in blake's terms its just a contrary state, yet one can't help but feel nostalgic about those days when life was so easily embraced and celebrated.) As part of some e-learning project we were all supposed to write poems and post it up on the net. This one I wrote is from the point of view of a sleeping pill, who advises its sleep-deprived master not to look too deeply into things, sounds like a sanctioning of superficiality, but no, not really.
Sleeping PIll
You think too much, my lord, my lord
What everything might seem to be
'Behind the stars there poetry lives
beneath a smile a motive grim.'
My Lord, you go to such extremes!
Trust only but what eyes can see
A better place the world would be
Our life runs deep in mediocrity.
'Trust only but what eyes can see/A better place the world would be.' That's only if what you see is what really is.... oh well. endearing naivete. But well, what can truly withstand the ravages of time? I am tempted to say hope, but that sounds like an answer intended to illict 'oohs and aahs' from a less discerning audience. I shall not attempt to play sage and pass judgement on things and concepts beyond my comprehension. 'Trust only but what eyes can see.... '
i guess it's back to me and my notes.
A certain distaste for sunrise, and a waxing delight in moonshine.
----------------------
If life is but a dream, someone quick, wake me up!
I am getting seriously sick of mugging. Or at least the feeling of trying to mug. I mean, the feeling a of a guilty conscience breathing down your neck at every turn totally, (if i may use the epithetical expression of teenage angst) SUCKS. Now my daily schedule simply reads, 'wakeup, mug, go online, sleep', out of which only going online is a utility maximising affair. (Yes, econs! A good example of how mugging has assimilated itself into my life.) But even then, lots of precious time is wasted by me stoning in front of the screen before realising that my computer, who, posessed of gentle constitution, is waiting patiently for my password, the key to opening the gates of paradise. And after that, everything is just one big farce. I just sit around, pretending I am making the best use of my leisure time, typing the occasional hahas that make everything sound (quoting aaron) 'nice and amiable'. Indeed, this self delusion continues until one by one, people leave, and I am left with the quietness of an utopia I try so hard to resurrect. This superficiality is slowly getting to me as I get more adept with 'msn lingo', when my hands think faster than my mind, and wham! before I know it, a smiley is produced, a mocking monstroity of a cheeriness I didn't feel. Ah well, I feel like a druggie! I break out into cold sweat if I don't go online, and its not like haven't tried, but all cold turkey attempts have proved futile so far. So there's nothing stopping me from sinking deeper into the quicksand of superficiality. And all this while I am advocating being one's true self!
this calls to mind an old sec 2 poem. (I have been flipping through old writing and feeling kind of sad about the loss of what perhaps one would call "a childishly optimistic view of the world", which is why i wrote revisitng innocence in the first place, but yes, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible to go back. Not that maturity is bad, in blake's terms its just a contrary state, yet one can't help but feel nostalgic about those days when life was so easily embraced and celebrated.) As part of some e-learning project we were all supposed to write poems and post it up on the net. This one I wrote is from the point of view of a sleeping pill, who advises its sleep-deprived master not to look too deeply into things, sounds like a sanctioning of superficiality, but no, not really.
Sleeping PIll
You think too much, my lord, my lord
What everything might seem to be
'Behind the stars there poetry lives
beneath a smile a motive grim.'
My Lord, you go to such extremes!
Trust only but what eyes can see
A better place the world would be
Our life runs deep in mediocrity.
'Trust only but what eyes can see/A better place the world would be.' That's only if what you see is what really is.... oh well. endearing naivete. But well, what can truly withstand the ravages of time? I am tempted to say hope, but that sounds like an answer intended to illict 'oohs and aahs' from a less discerning audience. I shall not attempt to play sage and pass judgement on things and concepts beyond my comprehension. 'Trust only but what eyes can see.... '
i guess it's back to me and my notes.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Revisiting innocence.
‘Maybe somewhere along life's journey
Everything would fade, and we would part ways
Yet we live in the now
not in tomorrow,
And childish affections serve well in memory.’
.................................................. -Me, 14
I wish I could go back to the time when
Imagination could take flight from
careless words, tossed
...........................into the wind
And tears,
coalesce like morning's dew,
effortlessly,
from the deep wells of
a soul-protecting
Chrysalis.
When the world was not a perilous
Shadow-play of
............black, white and grey,
but a starburst of colour,
.....Made simple
by the warmth of
.............your hand in mine.
Then, the mingling of breaths was good
enough reason for laughter,
and the stagnation of seasons
Mere extensions,
of frolics
under a sky too high
.............................to fall.
...I remember,
The log where we balanced
Adolescence, the first
tentative stirrings of wind
and leaves.
...................My haiku,
of roots like dragon claws,
which in its tenderness,
always remembered to leave us
...........................unscathed
.........leaving me to ponder,
what childish optimism
brought me to embrace all that wonder,
and somehow, knowing its transience,
still manage to
.......................let go?
Everything would fade, and we would part ways
Yet we live in the now
not in tomorrow,
And childish affections serve well in memory.’
.................................................. -Me, 14
I wish I could go back to the time when
Imagination could take flight from
careless words, tossed
...........................into the wind
And tears,
coalesce like morning's dew,
effortlessly,
from the deep wells of
a soul-protecting
Chrysalis.
When the world was not a perilous
Shadow-play of
............black, white and grey,
but a starburst of colour,
.....Made simple
by the warmth of
.............your hand in mine.
Then, the mingling of breaths was good
enough reason for laughter,
and the stagnation of seasons
Mere extensions,
of frolics
under a sky too high
.............................to fall.
...I remember,
The log where we balanced
Adolescence, the first
tentative stirrings of wind
and leaves.
...................My haiku,
of roots like dragon claws,
which in its tenderness,
always remembered to leave us
...........................unscathed
.........leaving me to ponder,
what childish optimism
brought me to embrace all that wonder,
and somehow, knowing its transience,
still manage to
.......................let go?
don't read anything into this
(take it that it's for your entertainment, and my " "--->any english word that is along the lines of "fa xie" )
It's almost funny how things can go hideously wrong. Right now, my life must be testing heaven tectonics with all the divine beings (angels/deities/air/whatever you believe) rolling on the floor laughing at me. *looks up* Tell me, am I entitled to free entry after this? *dodges wings* THANKS!
But before I start mimicking foolish Icarus and his holy ascend (and descend – proof of global warming in Grecian times!), I should ask myself why the ‘heaven’ should I care? Life should have told me by now that human power is really nothing but the ability to eat, sleep, breathe, and ensure the continuation of species, a function that is under threat even now, what with all the unhealthy exposure to (men) radiation and (women) education.
URGH. What the heaven am I saying?
I hate my current writing style, it does nothing but lapse into sarcasm from time to time. Where is the writer's sensitivity and attunement to the finely woven threads of existence? Where is the ability to FEEL? I FEEL NOTHING BUT CONTEMPT, fellow masqueraders!
Dear heaven, where is my humanity?
Maybe I should lay off blogging for a while; I end up saying nothing I want to say.
I need to believe again.
It's almost funny how things can go hideously wrong. Right now, my life must be testing heaven tectonics with all the divine beings (angels/deities/air/whatever you believe) rolling on the floor laughing at me. *looks up* Tell me, am I entitled to free entry after this? *dodges wings* THANKS!
But before I start mimicking foolish Icarus and his holy ascend (and descend – proof of global warming in Grecian times!), I should ask myself why the ‘heaven’ should I care? Life should have told me by now that human power is really nothing but the ability to eat, sleep, breathe, and ensure the continuation of species, a function that is under threat even now, what with all the unhealthy exposure to (men) radiation and (women) education.
URGH. What the heaven am I saying?
I hate my current writing style, it does nothing but lapse into sarcasm from time to time. Where is the writer's sensitivity and attunement to the finely woven threads of existence? Where is the ability to FEEL? I FEEL NOTHING BUT CONTEMPT, fellow masqueraders!
Dear heaven, where is my humanity?
Maybe I should lay off blogging for a while; I end up saying nothing I want to say.
I need to believe again.
Monday, June 13, 2005
Seclusion might not be such a bad idea after all. I am desperately in need of time to mug, and think –I have a hell lot to think about. I have put myself on a hiatus since January, and now all the layers are starting to crumble. Urgh. Think of all the cleaning up I have got to do after that. But anyway, I guess its time to take a step back and observe the fray from a different point of view,(since I can’t even get my own right in the first place) and figure out my own place from there? It’s difficult to chart a course through unmapped terrain, but OH WELL, I need to stop feeling that I am pushing another person off the boat just as I attempt to save the one in the water. Yes, and really, the whole point of putting this up is because I want to apologize for things I don't know whether I have done (in my more complacent moments I suspect I have), but it's still my fault nonetheless. The reason why I haven’t gone up to you and said sorry is not because of lack of courage, but because I don't know whether you are even hurt. (Okay, so that means I am too cowardly to ask if you are.) But anyway, you MUST know that it was all un-intentioned, and I don't want you to feel that I have been capitalizing on you or anything, and that this whole situation is all because I am teeter tottering on a border that doesn't even provide stable footholds. But then again, the whole chunk is based on a lot of assumptions, so tell me if I go off track, or let me embarrass myself further, whatever it is. Urgh. This whole thing feels like a feeble excuse to explain myself, if only I can get myself clear enough to explain! But yes, for better or worse, I need to get myself figured out first. I don't know HOW, but at least I am going to try. Where is the deux ex machinas when you need one? I can't script my own life properly, not when i am compelled to yell "exeunt!" at audiences half the time.
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
The poetry of love
If only love was like poetry,
though words fail me sometimes,
they fail not this relentless waiting
a meiosis, for dawn to dusk.
If only love was like poetry,
Though my thoughts may run
On- at least there's eternity in paper,
Not your momentous haiku-ed love.
If only love was like poetry,
though cacophony and dissonance reign,
they spare the euphemism of your-words-
and-mind, an oxymoron.
If only love was like poetry,
Though mayhap the persona eludes me,
At least it hides in places I can find-
Damn your soliloquy.
If only love was like poetry,
Though pathos swarm the woebegone,
Truer than your epigrams,
Cajolery, your epithet.
If only love was like poetry,
Though there be chaotic vers libre,
Odes and sonnets harmonise,
And euphony is the lovers' song.
If only love was like poetry,
Though hushed maybe, unspoken words,
Drown the onomatopoeia of your lies,
And truths- Bombast! Absurd!
And yet our love is poetry,
In nights when burlesques cloak my mind,
And hyperbole star-moonshine
Chant your litotes, mock benign-
.....................Of a not-very-love love.
(have been indulging in this kind of crappy word games lately, mugging must be screwing up the wiring in my brain. haha. And my portfolio is still thread-bare.)
though words fail me sometimes,
they fail not this relentless waiting
a meiosis, for dawn to dusk.
If only love was like poetry,
Though my thoughts may run
On- at least there's eternity in paper,
Not your momentous haiku-ed love.
If only love was like poetry,
though cacophony and dissonance reign,
they spare the euphemism of your-words-
and-mind, an oxymoron.
If only love was like poetry,
Though mayhap the persona eludes me,
At least it hides in places I can find-
Damn your soliloquy.
If only love was like poetry,
Though pathos swarm the woebegone,
Truer than your epigrams,
Cajolery, your epithet.
If only love was like poetry,
Though there be chaotic vers libre,
Odes and sonnets harmonise,
And euphony is the lovers' song.
If only love was like poetry,
Though hushed maybe, unspoken words,
Drown the onomatopoeia of your lies,
And truths- Bombast! Absurd!
And yet our love is poetry,
In nights when burlesques cloak my mind,
And hyperbole star-moonshine
Chant your litotes, mock benign-
.....................Of a not-very-love love.
(have been indulging in this kind of crappy word games lately, mugging must be screwing up the wiring in my brain. haha. And my portfolio is still thread-bare.)
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
The Centre's lament
'And though it in the centre sit
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.'
-John Donne. ' A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning.'
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.'
-John Donne. ' A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning.'
Funny how-
I am the one you fall back on when your world goes awry,
and you rely on me, and my devices,
to regain Perfection,
the wonderment of an existence without rough edges,
Shaven clean of all nicks and notches,
that mar your countenance-
You orbit around me,
As I dole you
The confidence to set foot again,
from beginning to end,
filling out and blossoming
until your life is complete.
and how, despite all that
I was never really a part of you
only there in crisis- and
hastily erased,
when you find your circumference.
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Childhood games
I still have your autograph, hidden beneath the peels
Of memory too dusty to see, smell
touch. The childish scrawl that writ on
old basketball courts, toddler numerals
nursed in square cradles we struggled
to jump out of. A wallet, stone, or beanbag
chronicling our paths, where we had been and
Who. Sometimes overstepping the mark, others
Losing balance and treading, into
each other’s personal space,
the security of having two feet on the ground.
Till the end, when rules forbid
us to look back, granting only the occasional
Brush, the disconsolation of material on skin,
Cursory smiles overarched into a frown.
we rummage for future’s promise.
A grid of memories, peppered by time.
................Your house.
....and Mine..............adjoining
................But never
................called
................upon.
Of memory too dusty to see, smell
touch. The childish scrawl that writ on
old basketball courts, toddler numerals
nursed in square cradles we struggled
to jump out of. A wallet, stone, or beanbag
chronicling our paths, where we had been and
Who. Sometimes overstepping the mark, others
Losing balance and treading, into
each other’s personal space,
the security of having two feet on the ground.
Till the end, when rules forbid
us to look back, granting only the occasional
Brush, the disconsolation of material on skin,
Cursory smiles overarched into a frown.
we rummage for future’s promise.
A grid of memories, peppered by time.
................Your house.
....and Mine..............adjoining
................But never
................called
................upon.
Saturday, June 04, 2005
cap scribblings.
Words strung together voluntarily and involuntarily.
Beside Eusoff hall
Do we need to speak?
The wind whispers my poetry-
Sighs your boughs echoed.
Dance journal 1.1
And then they were quiet –
Silence swathing
Arms. Legs. Shoulders
Muffling, the clacking of joints
Long caged under skin.
The tick tock of clockwork
Transcribed, (by hand)
Into a mere cock of the head.
Seeping like mercury
Turning bone into fluid.
hush-
See the void turn molten silver.
Hush!
Listen to the silence,
As shapes become music.
Dance journal 1.2
(Of dance conventions)
A sudden rap on the door
Ruptures oblivion’s bubble
We stand, trembling like flies
Caught in time’s web, ensnared
In a standstill. Right over
Left. Our patchwork eyes
Watching, as horizons
Unfurl like delicate thread
Extending in a criss-cross, criss-cross
Criss-Cross. Infinity tangles-
Barring the spider that would not come.
Question
How deep do the roots go?
You ask me
The equatorial wind whispers
My answer, into your ear-
Beneath populated skies
And Under
......The...... fragmented ......shadows
...Of a canopy
...........................we cannot Name.
{ekphrasis} Three Women Washing
based on a painting entitled ‘Three women washing’ by Yong Mun Seng
you double your steps
as the familiar dampness
wends between your toes.
The gurgle of river-water
Laps at your ears. You
Slip into your favourite spot
Downstream-
Between two women
From the next village
Whose babble runs
In tandem to river-song.
Rattan basket river-washed.
The current kisses your feet.
Singing its pleasure.
(Your husband will be expecting the same later)
Dip in, dip out-
You watch as the clothes shed
Diamond tears.
Day after day, one after
Another. Only
To be soothed by the sun.
Dusk falls on waters
Washed blue, by the colours
In your eyes.
Far off.
The cackling of geese calls home.
Beside Eusoff hall
Do we need to speak?
The wind whispers my poetry-
Sighs your boughs echoed.
Dance journal 1.1
And then they were quiet –
Silence swathing
Arms. Legs. Shoulders
Muffling, the clacking of joints
Long caged under skin.
The tick tock of clockwork
Transcribed, (by hand)
Into a mere cock of the head.
Seeping like mercury
Turning bone into fluid.
hush-
See the void turn molten silver.
Hush!
Listen to the silence,
As shapes become music.
Dance journal 1.2
(Of dance conventions)
A sudden rap on the door
Ruptures oblivion’s bubble
We stand, trembling like flies
Caught in time’s web, ensnared
In a standstill. Right over
Left. Our patchwork eyes
Watching, as horizons
Unfurl like delicate thread
Extending in a criss-cross, criss-cross
Criss-Cross. Infinity tangles-
Barring the spider that would not come.
Question
How deep do the roots go?
You ask me
The equatorial wind whispers
My answer, into your ear-
Beneath populated skies
And Under
......The...... fragmented ......shadows
...Of a canopy
...........................we cannot Name.
{ekphrasis} Three Women Washing
based on a painting entitled ‘Three women washing’ by Yong Mun Seng
you double your steps
as the familiar dampness
wends between your toes.
The gurgle of river-water
Laps at your ears. You
Slip into your favourite spot
Downstream-
Between two women
From the next village
Whose babble runs
In tandem to river-song.
Rattan basket river-washed.
The current kisses your feet.
Singing its pleasure.
(Your husband will be expecting the same later)
Dip in, dip out-
You watch as the clothes shed
Diamond tears.
Day after day, one after
Another. Only
To be soothed by the sun.
Dusk falls on waters
Washed blue, by the colours
In your eyes.
Far off.
The cackling of geese calls home.
Monday, May 30, 2005
Yep, my last parting shot before i go to nus to get seriously demoralised. Hopefully i will be able to get the lang and structure up to std when i come back. (ugh, the writing itself already had me coughing out blood) Too mentally drained to do any revisions now. Oh yeah, and happy 'holidays', if you actually believe in that.
This island. (to be revised)
‘Singapura, oh Singapura,
Sunny Island set in the sea.
Singapura, oh Singapura,
Pretty flowers, bloom for you and me.’
1.
I was washed up to golden land
On the waves of pauperism,
Backed by dank wind five-millennia strong
Back to the old deity in the old well
(Ling had better not forget the incense)
Whose ambrosia had gone moldy in the aftertaste.
Not like here, where the waters flow,
Like new born amniotic fluid, into the veins of
Newly wetted rivers, pumping life-blood
Into the montage of colours –
The gold tooth (and all his possessions)
Peeking out from opium-tainted teeth,
Courting the routine splashes of Dhoby men who bleach
Clothes, and skin into a fashionable white.
Women trot by, livelihoods on their heads,
In the colour of clandestine vows and brotherhood
Hundreds of francs away.
There is the letter writer.
‘Dear ling, I will be going home as soon as the ship fare is paid for.
Wait for me – and don’t forget the incense.’
2.
My dad told me a love story about my great grandfather
and his beloved. I watched as a tear (salty as
seawater), trickled down rills in his cheek,
weathered by age and the fingernails
of the Japanese man down the road.
I have seen many happy endings –
Men trooping off to a place so fine they loathed to return,
Deserting younger kin, who mourn
their absence with gomendasai and sumimasen.
Basking their frolics in syonan-to, a light so bright
Their faces never did turn from the ground.
But the older generation, they were veterans
Putting to shame apprentices, as shadows once more
Contorted with the fluidity of one long versed in the craft–
A simple adjustment from white to khaki.
We are the salt of the earth,
and to the earth we return-
Like what mother said to the bayonet.
Too bad the cherry-blossoms couldn’t survive the heat.
‘Tell me father, in your story,
Did the lovers’ ashes meet in the south china sea?’
3.
Singapore changed hands amidst my infant shrieks
Elicited by the doctor’s sharp smack on-
Bottom, raised high. ‘Ready, get set, go!’
We spurted forth, chubby legs a whirl. Me
And the nation, whose skeptic eye skewered
The promises of ‘greater heights’
In all but silhouette.
Both bibbed, marked with food and number.
Mouths open in a whine (gurgling milky froth)
A piteous purr for one’s own immobility
In this rojak of sand and sea.
It takes getting used to – like durian,
And its billion dollar image – how we always wean
Too soon; from cradle to cradle forgetting,
The Rock-a-bye fall. I think of –
Freddy the frog (green as the king of fruits )
With an overactive thyroid gland. Metamorphosis
Splatters the uniform of the SIA girl, smiling for
Countries so much a part of us.
Dad never did have a penchant for change.
“Oh no. not the same old story again.
I reckon he never did love her enough to go back.”
----
And the sun told the flower,
‘Stop stalking me, for I will burn your petals-
And you will be left bare.’
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Of softball's defeat
Whats with hci and sporting defeats? The team acts as if they have done the school a great wrong. Oh come on, i thought sports was all about passion and surpassing oneself? You haven't let us down, heck, people probably don't even care if you keep your championship title anot, as long as you stay in the competition long enough for lessons to be cancelled so we can go to your finals.
Suffering from LDMI. Law of diminishing marginal inspiration. So forgive the bad writing. (and right at the time when i need a second portfolio! great.)
______________
Suffering from LDMI. Law of diminishing marginal inspiration. So forgive the bad writing. (and right at the time when i need a second portfolio! great.)
______________
You stand, elevated, miles lower than everyone else
On a second rostrum, the silver of the trophy
Glinting like the sword. This is the warrior's mark
When you blow the dust off the steel and Eye,
lacklustre.
Death before dishonour – how many times
Words and lashings beat that into tender flesh,
Till you perspire, salt seeping into wounds
Like mercury under skin. You exfoliate-
Cursing passion like a prayer. The bushido
Reads: Thou shalt not feel. Unless it be,
For daimyo or emperor.
In which then your passion is absolute.
But you have failed.
We see life on edge.
You grit your teeth. This is shame, beyond words.
Apology a cloke weighing on the jugular,
You gasp! for release and the end to it all.
A quick twist. Blood on your brother's cheek.
You had worked your guts out for this.
Sunday, May 22, 2005
back to square one, kid
I thought I would be miserable over this loss.
But having lost, I realised that I never gained.
making my misery unjustified,
my pain self-inflicted,
my words empty mouthings.
and myself.
a great presumptious fool.
Why don't you laugh?
But having lost, I realised that I never gained.
making my misery unjustified,
my pain self-inflicted,
my words empty mouthings.
and myself.
a great presumptious fool.
Why don't you laugh?
Before we lay down to rest
Dearest Yesterday,
‘Do you not hear me?‘
When the tide brings home foreign rain,
To wash away the stones all worn and plain,
That want of bygone iridescence.
When all those songs of yore we sung,
Linger no more on recalcitrant tongues,
To sooth solitude now forgotten.
When mother earth's familiar sigh,
Falls like whispers on estrangement's nigh
Leaving footsteps on separate earth.
When you and I, and I and you
Look back on shadows that cast us anew
See you not the frou-frou of joy?
So hid behind the tussled mirth
I knew you, as I know this accursed dearth,
Seed of my own nefarious making.
How the sparrow was never blest
To perch upon the mighty eagle's nest
Nor lay its wings on the royal mane.
So I bid you a fond farewell,
Ere memories taint in the pell-mell
Unspoken utterance perpetuates.
‘Oh, we kill each other with sticks
Sharpened at the other end
To thy smiling corpse-‘
This I send.
adieu.
Yours, through eternity and back,
Today.
‘Do you not hear me?‘
When the tide brings home foreign rain,
To wash away the stones all worn and plain,
That want of bygone iridescence.
When all those songs of yore we sung,
Linger no more on recalcitrant tongues,
To sooth solitude now forgotten.
When mother earth's familiar sigh,
Falls like whispers on estrangement's nigh
Leaving footsteps on separate earth.
When you and I, and I and you
Look back on shadows that cast us anew
See you not the frou-frou of joy?
So hid behind the tussled mirth
I knew you, as I know this accursed dearth,
Seed of my own nefarious making.
How the sparrow was never blest
To perch upon the mighty eagle's nest
Nor lay its wings on the royal mane.
So I bid you a fond farewell,
Ere memories taint in the pell-mell
Unspoken utterance perpetuates.
‘Oh, we kill each other with sticks
Sharpened at the other end
To thy smiling corpse-‘
This I send.
adieu.
Yours, through eternity and back,
Today.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
ATTENTION: RG SEC FOURS!
Barnard called us in and told us he didn't want to lose links with RGS just because of throughtrain. Being desperate for rg juniors myself, I have decided to promote the HWA CHONG HUMANITIES PROGRAMME here on my blog. No doubt they will be charmed and persuaded by my stupendous writing, if any of them ever come across this blog, that is.
_______________________
Ten reasons why RGS girls in the Raffles Integrated Programme (R.I.P) should join the HWA CHONG INSTITUTION (College Section) HuMANities Scheme.
1. College uniform - You get to wear your skirt the proper way, with at least four fingers of urm- waterproof/fireproof/camouflaged sack cloth showing above the pleat. Unlike in the other college, where four fingers refer to the length, the way we wear our uniform is definitely what is more befitting of a premier junior college, or college section, for that matter. PS: inconspicuous folks, and therefore less in need of mimicry, are free to reduce the number of fingers from 4 to anything between 0 and negative infinity, on the condition that they either have astounding psychic abilities (to anticipate spot-checks) or they have Perry as CT.
2. Sense of superiority - Derived from having a principal who is, lets say, inspiring and humourous in an unintentional way. Of course, he is hardly the benchmark for the linguistic ability of the institution, so don't be surprised if the rest of the college speaks English to you.
3. An exceedingly good record in PSC/firefly/SAF scholarships with the occasional President's scholar. Barnard claims that we have links to the Oxbridge admissions panel. (RJ has Harvard, but yeah, what’s the ivy league compared to the alma mater of our most venerated MM, pronounced 'hmm' for short.) So yes, there's nothing much stopping you from becoming an overseas scholar except your grades which, to one being labelled as the crème de la crème in the college, is of course, inconsequential. No one expects you to let them down.
4. Teaching styles are different here. Instead of stressing you out with multiple tests and piles upon piles of homework, the tutors adopt a far more subtle but still effective approach to motivate academic activity. A brief tour of the Humanities staffroom will bring you to the notorious whiteboard of fame, on which is inscribed the names of all your seniors and the scholarships and university places offered to them. I suspect the names are deliberately written in non-permanent ink to facilitate substitution with ours next year.
5. Out-of-this-world tutors- Unlike in RJ humanities where the tutors are heads of department of their own subjects, Hwa Chong humans tutors enjoy a highly relaxed (read: decadent) lifestyle behind the closed doors of the Humanities staffroom where they guzzle beer, eat polo mints and poke fun at unsuspecting authority popping by the door.
6. Lessons, or lack thereof – School on average ends at 1:20pm for the humanities student. On those days prior to productions however, school ends at 8:00am, or whatever time you wish to arrive (if you actually bother, that is.) The later part of the day would then be spent pigging out in the canteen or killing each other with one’s own definition of humour at the ‘cosy corner’ – the stretch of balcony outside the classroom which is a regular playhouse for ants, mosquitoes and humans alike.
7. Own LT, own classroom, own staffroom. A college within a college, which makes us HWA CHONG INSTITUTION (college (college section) section). But we are still all one big happy family of course, heck, some of us even go to the extent of attending sports day to maintain that relationship.
8. Enough growling. Take a break from cheering low and loud. Abandon the tongue-twisting compound names such as Hadley-hullet for the more edifying Greek pronunciations. Scoff upon flesh parades (…) and embrace the holiness of khaki shorts and white umbrella skirts.
9. RI guys in RJ
10. TCHS guys. (Save us from them!)
______________________________________________
anyone still interested, come down to hci with a stout heart and/or a carton of tiger juice for a nice chat with barnard regarding your application for direct admission into HCI next year. Or you could sms me first and we could sit down and have a discussion on how to get round Barnard; a long journey, no doubt.
personal plea: pleeeaaase come. i want juniors who can sing 'dedication', not 'hai tian liao kuo...'
_______________________
Ten reasons why RGS girls in the Raffles Integrated Programme (R.I.P) should join the HWA CHONG INSTITUTION (College Section) HuMANities Scheme.
1. College uniform - You get to wear your skirt the proper way, with at least four fingers of urm- waterproof/fireproof/camouflaged sack cloth showing above the pleat. Unlike in the other college, where four fingers refer to the length, the way we wear our uniform is definitely what is more befitting of a premier junior college, or college section, for that matter. PS: inconspicuous folks, and therefore less in need of mimicry, are free to reduce the number of fingers from 4 to anything between 0 and negative infinity, on the condition that they either have astounding psychic abilities (to anticipate spot-checks) or they have Perry as CT.
2. Sense of superiority - Derived from having a principal who is, lets say, inspiring and humourous in an unintentional way. Of course, he is hardly the benchmark for the linguistic ability of the institution, so don't be surprised if the rest of the college speaks English to you.
3. An exceedingly good record in PSC/firefly/SAF scholarships with the occasional President's scholar. Barnard claims that we have links to the Oxbridge admissions panel. (RJ has Harvard, but yeah, what’s the ivy league compared to the alma mater of our most venerated MM, pronounced 'hmm' for short.) So yes, there's nothing much stopping you from becoming an overseas scholar except your grades which, to one being labelled as the crème de la crème in the college, is of course, inconsequential. No one expects you to let them down.
4. Teaching styles are different here. Instead of stressing you out with multiple tests and piles upon piles of homework, the tutors adopt a far more subtle but still effective approach to motivate academic activity. A brief tour of the Humanities staffroom will bring you to the notorious whiteboard of fame, on which is inscribed the names of all your seniors and the scholarships and university places offered to them. I suspect the names are deliberately written in non-permanent ink to facilitate substitution with ours next year.
5. Out-of-this-world tutors- Unlike in RJ humanities where the tutors are heads of department of their own subjects, Hwa Chong humans tutors enjoy a highly relaxed (read: decadent) lifestyle behind the closed doors of the Humanities staffroom where they guzzle beer, eat polo mints and poke fun at unsuspecting authority popping by the door.
6. Lessons, or lack thereof – School on average ends at 1:20pm for the humanities student. On those days prior to productions however, school ends at 8:00am, or whatever time you wish to arrive (if you actually bother, that is.) The later part of the day would then be spent pigging out in the canteen or killing each other with one’s own definition of humour at the ‘cosy corner’ – the stretch of balcony outside the classroom which is a regular playhouse for ants, mosquitoes and humans alike.
7. Own LT, own classroom, own staffroom. A college within a college, which makes us HWA CHONG INSTITUTION (college (college section) section). But we are still all one big happy family of course, heck, some of us even go to the extent of attending sports day to maintain that relationship.
8. Enough growling. Take a break from cheering low and loud. Abandon the tongue-twisting compound names such as Hadley-hullet for the more edifying Greek pronunciations. Scoff upon flesh parades (…) and embrace the holiness of khaki shorts and white umbrella skirts.
9. RI guys in RJ
10. TCHS guys. (Save us from them!)
______________________________________________
anyone still interested, come down to hci with a stout heart and/or a carton of tiger juice for a nice chat with barnard regarding your application for direct admission into HCI next year. Or you could sms me first and we could sit down and have a discussion on how to get round Barnard; a long journey, no doubt.
personal plea: pleeeaaase come. i want juniors who can sing 'dedication', not 'hai tian liao kuo...'
Sunday, May 15, 2005
失约？
basic law of writing lyrics: Tune change, lyrics must change. This version 2. somehow i think its worse than the first one, so its all up to the melody (revised and nicer!) now to make THE difference. I feel useless.
我还在这里
等着你
等着你除去烈风吹醒的回忆
回忆里
的结局
是我们两没道出的言语
我在学珍惜
这孤寂
孤寂中你能否感应我的努力
努力去
去爱你
爱过以后我就
随着足迹
离去
Artistic mutilation! haha. Sorry fengyi. Zu zhang you salvage la.
我还在这里
这里等着你
等着你除去那烈风吹醒的回忆
回忆里
回忆起
忆起了那段未曾付出的勇气
我在学珍惜
珍惜这孤寂
孤寂中你是否感应到我的努力
努力去 去爱你
爱了以后我就 在这角落
等回音
我还在这里
等着你
等着你除去烈风吹醒的回忆
回忆里
的结局
是我们两没道出的言语
我在学珍惜
这孤寂
孤寂中你能否感应我的努力
努力去
去爱你
爱过以后我就
随着足迹
离去
Artistic mutilation! haha. Sorry fengyi. Zu zhang you salvage la.
我还在这里
这里等着你
等着你除去那烈风吹醒的回忆
回忆里
回忆起
忆起了那段未曾付出的勇气
我在学珍惜
珍惜这孤寂
孤寂中你是否感应到我的努力
努力去 去爱你
爱了以后我就 在这角落
等回音
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Yes, so i do sound like a broken record, but this is the last time, i promise!
RJ dance. If only.
Compared to them, we are a bunch of baby turtles floundering in the sand, the condescending glare of the predators reducing us to a mere necessity devoid of soul and purpose. Oh the agony! Of knowing you could have been up there, had not hare-brained impulse and fate consigned you to this lesser existence!
I sound like a child being deprived of candy. I think I am losing my ability to remain impassive. Even towards the most trifling of trifles. Emotion is now anathema to me.
RJ dance. If only.
Compared to them, we are a bunch of baby turtles floundering in the sand, the condescending glare of the predators reducing us to a mere necessity devoid of soul and purpose. Oh the agony! Of knowing you could have been up there, had not hare-brained impulse and fate consigned you to this lesser existence!
I sound like a child being deprived of candy. I think I am losing my ability to remain impassive. Even towards the most trifling of trifles. Emotion is now anathema to me.
Friday, May 13, 2005
Oh my.
so i fooled two panels! Which means that i am confucian but barnardian, cheena but english, traditionalistic but revolutionary, and pro-pap but pro-spore.
What a ghastly irony. This either means that i am a brilliant billinguist or a treacherous two-faced twit.
(eeks. I am a cultural two-timer!)
Or are they synonyms?
Whatever it is, I am rejecting the lep one, since i am more likely to flunk lep promos and thus lose what i have 'worked' so hard to gain. Anyway, its not as if my resume isn't already cheena enough for them to send me packing to china the next-time-we-meet. (purely hypothetical!) Imagine PPE in chinese! 'Marx and Mao' - A brief course on why we SHOULD and WILL share. Now give ME that.
Europe would do fine, thank you.
What a ghastly irony. This either means that i am a brilliant billinguist or a treacherous two-faced twit.
(eeks. I am a cultural two-timer!)
Or are they synonyms?
Whatever it is, I am rejecting the lep one, since i am more likely to flunk lep promos and thus lose what i have 'worked' so hard to gain. Anyway, its not as if my resume isn't already cheena enough for them to send me packing to china the next-time-we-meet. (purely hypothetical!) Imagine PPE in chinese! 'Marx and Mao' - A brief course on why we SHOULD and WILL share. Now give ME that.
Europe would do fine, thank you.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Sails are up!
No more suicidal entries. I am back to my normal asinine self.
Its amazing what lame friends and a pot of tea can do to your mood, remind me to stock up on both.
oh yeah. and someone get mr ang back from vietnam quick. i need to be reimbursed for all the trauma i went through.
On a more intellectual note, this is what i learnt the past few days moping ard school.
hci is the prime example of a diseconomy of scale. think monday morning assemblies. (khaki shorts!)
peter's principle is true. think of our one big happy Farm-ily. (over my dead birdie)
parkinson's law is also true. think spotchecks and cs.
the humanities motto is not an empty promise. think lessons, or lack thereof.
barnard's tummy rocks. literally. (humour him to see)
Education has never been better.
Its amazing what lame friends and a pot of tea can do to your mood, remind me to stock up on both.
oh yeah. and someone get mr ang back from vietnam quick. i need to be reimbursed for all the trauma i went through.
On a more intellectual note, this is what i learnt the past few days moping ard school.
hci is the prime example of a diseconomy of scale. think monday morning assemblies. (khaki shorts!)
peter's principle is true. think of our one big happy Farm-ily. (over my dead birdie)
parkinson's law is also true. think spotchecks and cs.
the humanities motto is not an empty promise. think lessons, or lack thereof.
barnard's tummy rocks. literally. (humour him to see)
Education has never been better.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
now's the time for you to cringe and walk away.
fate has made reparations. I have decided to concentrate on the finer (happier?) things in life, like cap. yep, so i am harping on past glories, so what? this is my mirror, so if you don't like the sight of your own reflection- step out. it would free up a little bit more space and maybe even delay my asphyxiation.
Never did I expect to be able to tell my own fortune, if this be fortune indeed. My pessimism is turning out to be a crystal ball. Fool of a took! A palantir is for everybody. Despair is sweeter when shared. ah, altruistic me.
cap portfolio (written march 05. relevant may 05)
(the intro)
Diagnosis
N. P. D. / Narcissist Personality Disorder -
‘A pattern of traits and behaviors which signify infatuation and obsession with one's self to the exclusion of all others and the egotistic and ruthless pursuit of one's gratification, dominance and ambition.’
Introspection is the order of the day. Its me me and me! But who would bother, I wonder?
A pity my last name's not Plath. Treatment is de rigueur.
This report tracks my road to recovery.
(medical records. aka the poems)
(the conclusion)
The Final test
I don't look into the mirror anymore,
Neither do I turn when people call my name,
I pray for world peace every hour of the day-
I have bleached all my pictures,
My life is a normal black and white.
I am as sane as you pretend to be.
(last page)
DISCHARGED.
Never did I expect to be able to tell my own fortune, if this be fortune indeed. My pessimism is turning out to be a crystal ball. Fool of a took! A palantir is for everybody. Despair is sweeter when shared. ah, altruistic me.
cap portfolio (written march 05. relevant may 05)
(the intro)
Diagnosis
N. P. D. / Narcissist Personality Disorder -
‘A pattern of traits and behaviors which signify infatuation and obsession with one's self to the exclusion of all others and the egotistic and ruthless pursuit of one's gratification, dominance and ambition.’
Introspection is the order of the day. Its me me and me! But who would bother, I wonder?
A pity my last name's not Plath. Treatment is de rigueur.
This report tracks my road to recovery.
(medical records. aka the poems)
(the conclusion)
The Final test
I don't look into the mirror anymore,
Neither do I turn when people call my name,
I pray for world peace every hour of the day-
I have bleached all my pictures,
My life is a normal black and white.
I am as sane as you pretend to be.
(last page)
DISCHARGED.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
shut up dickens.
CAP!
Dammit dammit dammit.
Why must words betray me now,
when it is to them that this must be accredited to?
My contemptuous mind tells me this is a lie.
That Pinocchio will wake up to tomorrow.
I rather a lie!
Than this blasted expectation, this dratted reputation
To live down.
How they will all be kind,
And slash my throat at nightfall.
Pity is a word for god,
Not this soul-battering intention.
But I have learnt my lesson.
Henceforth,
All pictures I paint shall be inked.
Dammit dammit dammit.
Why must words betray me now,
when it is to them that this must be accredited to?
My contemptuous mind tells me this is a lie.
That Pinocchio will wake up to tomorrow.
I rather a lie!
Than this blasted expectation, this dratted reputation
To live down.
How they will all be kind,
And slash my throat at nightfall.
Pity is a word for god,
Not this soul-battering intention.
But I have learnt my lesson.
Henceforth,
All pictures I paint shall be inked.
Sunday, May 08, 2005
Cows and Curtains
(this is highly desultory. one paragraph has hardly anything to do with the next. just take it that i am copying the style of xiao pin...yeah right. haha. )
VT would be smirking if it were here.
The curtains were ineffectual, too few to shield our ungainly movements from the knowing audience, and too red to sculpt the protective atmosphere exclusive to enveloping black. The familiar "Be careful! Cyclorama coming down!" that would usually send the whole crew into a scurrying act of self-preservation is replaced by a boring 'thud', a small, unobtrusive attestation that someone has been less than careful with the props or whatever part of the anatomy newly humbled from its scuffle with solid brick. Flybars, the undisclosed and unrivaled agents behind miraculously quick scene changes, are substituted with a single projector screen too lonesome and banal to stir the blood of self-proclaimed vt veterans. Walking in front of the 'flood lights' during a performance is no longer up there with gluttony, pride, lust, sloth, envy, wrath and avarice as one of the deadly sins.
The props division is a dismal population of three people, one of which is a renegade marooned from publicity. There is none of the spurts of adrenaline induced by frolics in the dark, nor of the childish fascination with luminescent tape. Here, it is a mere passive waiting, a lassitude that comes from the lack of greater stimulation, (passing the actors' placards and glasses can hardly be constituted as work) and long hours at the computer the night before. The irony is just too interesting to miss, and I marvel at how the amount of work done is directly proportionate to the energy one posesses. The more you scream and run and jump, the more energetic you will feel. The more you mope around like a corpse in search of favourable haunts, the more life (or after-life for that matter) will be sucked out of you. This theory explains my behaviour before and after our performance.
I have never really liked cows, my impression of them being dull, pock-marked despoilers of fields and pastures, tolerated only because of their contributions to humans in terms of providing milk and meat, one of which I am unable to enjoy. Whats more, their tendency to be bull-headed, and their cow-ardy acceptance of their eventual fate most definitely does not endear them to me. However, the recent performance has made me change my mind. I no longer averse to cows, indeed, i would gladly welcome two or three into my abode should they show some talent for dancing the tango, or chairing a profit making company, or governing a country or teaching or simpy mooing in that bimbotic way. (Mind that my tolerance for bimbos is not extended to humans) Mad cows with an artistic flair are also welcome.
But enough of cows, this is after all a story meant for humans, and by gawd, there were many of them! There was a very distinct set of people delineated from the rest by their practice of cow-worship. I know this because they laughed and cheered at every alternate line that spouted from the cows' holy lips, regardless of its comic value. Also, most of them donned black shirts with orange lettering on it. It wasn't clear from where i was standing, but from what i saw, they are from some place called yellow city, which i presume is low in dairy stocks and thus accounts for their enthusiasm in seeing its producers.
(ok, i give up. This persona is driving me mad. Shall stop trying to be funny, though i think you all probably didn't even notice. )
(footnote)--------
Yeah, so xiao ping was great. We won 1st prize and we didn't let huang cheng and its 24 year old legacy down. Huang cheng is like this crystal that increases in bulk over the years. Every year adds a new layer to it that helps it to maintain its shiny sheen, but it also makes it increasingly fragile. Everybody regards it with a sense of awe and fear, awe, for the the numerous times it had dazzled with its irisdescence, fear, fear for its corrosion that is inevitable with time, should new technology not be introduced to rejuvenate it. Everybody knows this. We dare not fiddle with this gem, for fear of it shattering, yet we fight tooth and nail should anyone proclaim it less then perfect. It is a treasure we love but cannot touch. An ivory tower we guard but cannot enter. Or dare not, because one wrong move, one moment of folly, and 24 years of pride could be reduced to broken shards of humiliation in one's hand. Our legacy is both boon and bane, it is 24 years of experience that placed us so high in the hierachy of school productions, but it is also this 24 years that prevents us from going further.
Laurels are only comfortable when you are assured of your place. Xiao pin helped (i hope!). But i think it will still be a long way before we reach the immortal green pastures.
Huang cheng jia you!
VT would be smirking if it were here.
The curtains were ineffectual, too few to shield our ungainly movements from the knowing audience, and too red to sculpt the protective atmosphere exclusive to enveloping black. The familiar "Be careful! Cyclorama coming down!" that would usually send the whole crew into a scurrying act of self-preservation is replaced by a boring 'thud', a small, unobtrusive attestation that someone has been less than careful with the props or whatever part of the anatomy newly humbled from its scuffle with solid brick. Flybars, the undisclosed and unrivaled agents behind miraculously quick scene changes, are substituted with a single projector screen too lonesome and banal to stir the blood of self-proclaimed vt veterans. Walking in front of the 'flood lights' during a performance is no longer up there with gluttony, pride, lust, sloth, envy, wrath and avarice as one of the deadly sins.
The props division is a dismal population of three people, one of which is a renegade marooned from publicity. There is none of the spurts of adrenaline induced by frolics in the dark, nor of the childish fascination with luminescent tape. Here, it is a mere passive waiting, a lassitude that comes from the lack of greater stimulation, (passing the actors' placards and glasses can hardly be constituted as work) and long hours at the computer the night before. The irony is just too interesting to miss, and I marvel at how the amount of work done is directly proportionate to the energy one posesses. The more you scream and run and jump, the more energetic you will feel. The more you mope around like a corpse in search of favourable haunts, the more life (or after-life for that matter) will be sucked out of you. This theory explains my behaviour before and after our performance.
I have never really liked cows, my impression of them being dull, pock-marked despoilers of fields and pastures, tolerated only because of their contributions to humans in terms of providing milk and meat, one of which I am unable to enjoy. Whats more, their tendency to be bull-headed, and their cow-ardy acceptance of their eventual fate most definitely does not endear them to me. However, the recent performance has made me change my mind. I no longer averse to cows, indeed, i would gladly welcome two or three into my abode should they show some talent for dancing the tango, or chairing a profit making company, or governing a country or teaching or simpy mooing in that bimbotic way. (Mind that my tolerance for bimbos is not extended to humans) Mad cows with an artistic flair are also welcome.
But enough of cows, this is after all a story meant for humans, and by gawd, there were many of them! There was a very distinct set of people delineated from the rest by their practice of cow-worship. I know this because they laughed and cheered at every alternate line that spouted from the cows' holy lips, regardless of its comic value. Also, most of them donned black shirts with orange lettering on it. It wasn't clear from where i was standing, but from what i saw, they are from some place called yellow city, which i presume is low in dairy stocks and thus accounts for their enthusiasm in seeing its producers.
(ok, i give up. This persona is driving me mad. Shall stop trying to be funny, though i think you all probably didn't even notice. )
(footnote)--------
Yeah, so xiao ping was great. We won 1st prize and we didn't let huang cheng and its 24 year old legacy down. Huang cheng is like this crystal that increases in bulk over the years. Every year adds a new layer to it that helps it to maintain its shiny sheen, but it also makes it increasingly fragile. Everybody regards it with a sense of awe and fear, awe, for the the numerous times it had dazzled with its irisdescence, fear, fear for its corrosion that is inevitable with time, should new technology not be introduced to rejuvenate it. Everybody knows this. We dare not fiddle with this gem, for fear of it shattering, yet we fight tooth and nail should anyone proclaim it less then perfect. It is a treasure we love but cannot touch. An ivory tower we guard but cannot enter. Or dare not, because one wrong move, one moment of folly, and 24 years of pride could be reduced to broken shards of humiliation in one's hand. Our legacy is both boon and bane, it is 24 years of experience that placed us so high in the hierachy of school productions, but it is also this 24 years that prevents us from going further.
Laurels are only comfortable when you are assured of your place. Xiao pin helped (i hope!). But i think it will still be a long way before we reach the immortal green pastures.
Huang cheng jia you!
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Eulogy
The strains of the song urge us onward,
We stand at physical attention,
Mouthing syllables like in phonetic class,
Majulah is a self-forged manacle-
The cacophony of a nonchalance too painful to bear.
This is my institution. But we are- what? I had forgot.
History is not my forte, nay, that is six feet under,
Where all the sam suis and coolies have gone
And the spit of the merlion washes away.
You want a story?
I give you half a flag pole and one minute of silence.
The flag hangs limp, as if ashamed.
Friday, April 29, 2005
Tell me who i am now.
Advanced Global Personality Test Results
|
personality tests by similarminds.com
Stability results were high which suggests you are very relaxed, calm, secure, and optimistic..
Orderliness results were low which suggests you are overly flexible, improvised, and fun seeking at the expense too often of reliability, work ethic, and long term accomplishment.
Extraversion results were moderately low which suggests you are reclusive, quiet, unassertive, and secretive. trait snapshot:
messy, tough, disorganized, fearless, not rule conscious, likes the unknown, rarely worries, rash, attracted to the counter culture, rarely irritated, positive, resilient, abstract, not a perfectionist, risk taker, strange, weird, self reliant, leisurely, dangerous (!!!) , anti-authority, trusting, optimistic, positive, thrill seeker, likes bizarre things, sarcastic
It would seem that i would spend the rest of my days as a low profile opposition member, impoverished, but happy none-the-less. Whee. *oozing positivity* But wait! There's a logical fallacy here! If i am counter-culture, or so the test says, then I probably wouldn't have jumped on the bandwagon and done this test! And so the test is faulty, or i am a temperamental iconoclast. Ah, well, how bizarre. Pardon my incoherence. This is thrilling, what an adventure! *note the sarcasm*
oh, and i think overly flexible only applies to me in the physical sense. haha.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
