Notably, I have recently lapsed from putting up rambly posts that are both, something and nothing. Which got me wondering -- is it because *cue: collective speech bubble rising above all JC students* being in jc is so wholly draining, and that I am so absorbed in it, that I have not noticed anything else outside of our small, but insanely numerous school-related trifles?

Also, I think I'm a) getting too serious, and b) take myself too seriously.

Which in itself is quite ironic because I have recently found myself telling people to stop over-intellectualizing certain issues because it's so unneccesary etc. etc.

Right, I'm going to shut up my Pensive Voice now!

Today, I consumed a humongous amount of food. Oh oh remember when I used to compulsively make lists!

What I Ate Today
i. For lunch, at an Indonesian buffet
- Gado-gado: A not-so-vegetable based salad (haha!) of fried tempeh pieces [compressed and fermented soya beans], chunks of ketupat [tightly compressed rice - a rice cake, if you will], sauted cabbage things drenched in rich peanust-coconut gravy!

- 9 large and wonderfully fresh prawns. (Dhaniah! Where were you!)

- Greasy, but zomg: oxtail soup. I suppose some would find it a tad too salty for their palates, but I thought they balanced the blend of spice and mutton incredibly well

- Some noodle and soup thing; see description of soup above. Different soup, prawn stock this time, I think, but just as good.

- Rendang! This being almost always the highlight for me at any foodie session at any Malay family (or in usual cases, far-off distant relatives to whose events we are still invited to). For the uninitiated, this is chunks of beef that have been marinated, then simmered in a large pot of thick, calorie-ridden gravy of coconut and spices. It's really rich and because of the massive amount of time spent stewing over the stove, the meat is so tender it easily parts along the grain into individual STRIPS.

The buffet didn't do it so great though, but good enough for me to have several chunks.

- Tea

ii. at The Coffee Club with Charmaine and Ching Hong (alliteration!)

- A handful of Chachos nacho chips with cheese dip

- A tiny bag of Jelly Tots; I like the purple ones best! Is it strange that I've tasted so many things blackcurrant-flavoured, but not the actual currants itself?

iii. At Cedele/Ya Kun Kaya with Matthew

- Two thick heavy bagels dipped into his spinach chicken soup, which was better than anticipated but was too lazy to buy my own. Cedele has a great way of making dodgy sounding soups taste great! Carrot-coriander soup, for example! Love, love, love. But for the love of all baked goods and wholesome soups, I'd NEVER try the pea soup that they had today. EW!

But then arh, Cedele also cheated my feelings today! Said bagels were stated on the laminated labels to be cranberry bagels, hence, the reason why I bought them -- but they turned out to be plain! Wah lau! So it was like eating a whole loaf of white bread that was compressed into donut shapes.

Somehow, I always turn to Singlish when it comes for whinging petty grievances.

Mel: Which Cedele are you working at?

- a cup of teh susu/milky tea


So all I'm thinking is, how in the world am I going to run my NAPFA 2.4km run tomorrow at my goal of under 15:00min! Poop. What bad timing, I feel like a bloated whale.

In retrospect, I suppose I didn't eat that much - but ALL THOSE CALORIES FROM THE BUFFET. *dies*

Ho hum, pig's bum! I have yet to complete my lit essay that was due Wednesday, nor have I sufficiently prepped for tomorrow's informal debate on globalization. I think it's kinda strange that I have very little interest in the two topics of said due work: globalization and existentialistic musings. Not that I don't think them very important, but my brain seems to dismiss said issues after giving them a 5 second cursory glance.

Why, in the name of all things literary, do writers feel the need to expound, extensively, on the various perspectives of existence? Granted, maybe it might be just my ignorance making itself heard but HULLO, a lot of it sounds like a load of indulgent bovine scatology to me. Brilliant man summed it up in a few syllables: "Cogito ergo sum; I think, therefore I am." No need to write, or make us write lengthy essays about it! Why do you torture me so, essay awaiting to be written and it's 2:18AM!

Recently, I've been pre-occupied with trying to determine in concrete terms how I sound like when I speak*. Various friends would know this, seeing that I've been prodding them for answers at a perhaps, vaguely annoying frequency. Started thinking about it again when Matthew got annoyed by a Caucasian man sitting at the next table who was talking with a really strong accent. Which of course, is really hilarious I thought because you know, Matthew is half-white, (okay granted, pink when he's sunburnt or laughing), and has a not-very-local accent too.

And he's spent all his life, localized in Singapore. Not that he's ugh, one of those obnoxious expat kids that hang around Wheelock's Burger King - but okay la, he is a good specimen of cultural assimilation - YAY YOU! I suppose I will never understand this peeve of his though, as much as he won't understand why I really, and sincerely, wanted a rock from Africa/Cambodia when he went there.

A rock, you say rather incredulously.

Indeed!

At first, it was just a funny idea but if you think about it right, it does make sense. Why should a rock be a stupid/silly/ridiculous souvenier? And I'm not making a logical justification for the sake of it here, but really! A rock, would quite literally have been a PIECE OF AFRICA. Is that not cool, or what? Sure, a made-in-Africa trinket would be a piece of Africa as well, but in my head, it just doesn't seem as authentic. It's a piece of tourism. But a rock, and a random one from the streets at that! That's real, it goes beyond the commerce, beyond society - it's GEOLOGICAL. Like, it's always been there, nobody made it, it's a part of that gigantic continent AND IT'S SITTING ON MY DESK.

And the fact that a rock that probably looks like ordinary junk, sitting on my crappy laminated plywood has actually travelled thousands of kilometers from where human life sprung, is pretty mind-blowing.

Please agree with me, because he doesn't BUT I KNOW I'M RIGHT SO WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M JUST BEING SILLY.

Good night all!





*Because once more, I am pensive over the fact that I don't sound malay at all, or so they say. Even Dhaniah, Hazri and Ili sound more malay than me!

If I don't sound malay, don't speak malay, don't hang around with many malay people outside my family, am not immersed in the traditional or urban malay mainstream culture, then HULLO the only malay thing about me is my skin colour.

Which is a pretty superficial reason to call myself a malay, I think. But then again, I suppose race as a concept in itself, is pretty superficial.

OH OH I LOVE YOU ALL!

I was actually meaning to keep this birthday rather low-key, and was not even intending to have the tiringly obligatory (and sometimes, trite) 18th Birthday post -- but you know, I have been having an awesome past few days so yeah, you guys really do deserve me saying that I appreciate it, and love you, individually and collectively, very very much.

*beams* The slushy tub of ice-cream with lit candles almost sinking into the depths of creamy Burnt Caramel is simply classic.

Right, this is the cue for me to hum a cheesy and chirpy showtune about close friendships that never, ever end! Eighteen's looking good.






#ADDITIONAL NOTE:
zomguh GENNIE are boys in canada really like this? (click this, quickly people!) http://scottage-cheese.livejournal.com/

Um, supreme hawtness. Also! Hazri, Jenn and other camwhore-philiacs, mark it! Brilliant photography, and somehow, all his friends would fit in an Abercrombie ad.

Now THAT'S successful eugenics.

#EDIT

Apprehensive!





I had a good day.

Apprehensive!

Cassia* blooms on the sidewalk

I lift my head, and look for
A falling foot;

My own strike the ground,
Grinding the ochre petals

Deeper into the concrete;
Delicate tissues and its crisp collapse! --

Putrid bruises will grow
Where my sole has rested;

But the expanse of wallpapered ground,
Of crushed blossoms too tense,

Stretches ahead and behind,
I am putrified.

I lift my head, and look for
The falling foot.




*Cassias are the trees that line the sidewalks of my housing estate, just so you know.
................................................................................


Right, that's the first thing I've seriously written in a long time since what, last September. Comments please - how is it, do you like it, or more importantly, do you get it? Because if you don't, then I'll quickly file it into the Bad, Embarrassing and Juvenile Poetry folder that if you must know, is quite bloated.

I think the problem is that I take myself too seriously.

Also a note to self: Must take care against reading too much Plath - her poetry fills my head with too weird imagery and discordent rhythms that leave me very unsettled.

Talking with Anisha and Zara today, and quite suddenly in the meanderings of the conversation, I realized that I really am quite angry, or frustrated, with rich people!

To be more specific, rich people who are hogging scholarships for the prestige.

Now I do realize that typing this on my three-month old laptop, this rant might stain a little of hypocrisy since I am no street urchin so to speak, but hear me out nonetheless. The thing is, and I am saying this out with no real figures but a good and strong general hunch of things, is that a lot of people out there who are getting the overseas scholarships are quite well off. A good portion of them I think, could have their daddy pay for their 4 years abroad without much financial burden. In other words, they don't quite need the scholarship, which might lead us to the conclusion that they do so for the Prestige.

Not exactly a revolutionary realization, I know. In Singapore after all, we do a lot for prestige. But I'm not quite sure you understand yet why I am so pissed.

What this means, is that the scholarship goes to a remarkably bright person who has had expensive tuition/enrichment classes for the whole of his life to go to a prestigious overseas universities that his parents could have paid for anyway. This then means, that out there, are a group of people who academically not as brilliant, but honestly REALLY cannot afford overseas education because the money has gone to someone who could and would have gone anyway sans scholarship!

Has it not occured to the scholarship giving organizations that the reason perhaps why there is an increasing rate of people breaking their bonds is because they are giving it to people who a) are rich enough to afford breaking their bond without being declared bankrupt for the say, 70 years of their entire life and, b) that therefore, hey, maybe they don't really NEED the scholarship after all?

I am not saying that the rich clever people do not deserve the scholarship because granted (haha!), they are academically brilliant, and I hope that you are not inferring from the direction this entry is going that I would like our education system to celebrate mediocrity, because I'm not.

What I think I'm saying is that the people who have been born financially advantaged, should maybe give some thought to those who aren't. Give them, or perhaps, what I'm trying to avoid saying is that, give me a chance okay because my parents can't afford to send me overseas and I wish people who don't need scholarships will stop hogging them. Ironically laughable how I'm preaching against selfishness when part of my motivation stems from the thought of self.

It was odd how suddenly this afternoon the whitewash of clouds descended down, smothering us in thick humidity and it was as if the clouds had swallowed all the air, almost.

Does anyone else think that the DNA-double-helix inspired bridge that will be constructed across the Singapore River looks more like a rope barricading the island's citizens from god knows what? Then again, we can't tell which side of the zoo cage we are on and I suppose anything is a psychiatrist's ink splot to be interpreted by the individual. Art does not mirror life, it mirrors the spectator; how very true, my dear Mr. Wilde.

I don't have much to say today, and am only stubbornly typing because I am sick of essays including the document that is waiting for me in the other window. I am quite tired of school in that I am tired of the work - I am bored. So much so that I am even looking forward to tomorrow's P.E physical conditioning session because my brain, being inactive then, will not be bored. On a side note, am getting marginally better at softball in that more often than not, I can catch it. Batting however, is another issue entirely although I am glad to say that it is an issue that I share with most of the class.

Strange thing is, I do have many things to say to certain people, except that I haven't seen said people in quite a while or even if I have, or will, somehow I never do end up talking about it so it's all swirling in my mind and sometimes on bus rides home, I have entire conversations with said people by myself. It is at once, a most gratifying and unsatisfying exercise.

I just found ants inside my empty packet of Snek Perisa Udang (read: terribly tasty and nutritionless prawn flavoured flour sticks). I think they'll die of MSG poisoning.

Has anyone ever considered that maybe a contributing reason why Islam is recently prone to being the baseground for shooting off wayward terrorists is that because our religion doesn't have a concrete, physical, human representative of the religion?

Right, I was flipping through some library books the other day when I came across a few things Aldous Huxley had to say about religion. Paraphrasing this almost verbatim here: Huxley sees the Christian doctrine of the Trinity from a naturalistic perspective. That the -

"God the Father represents the forces of nonhuman nature,
God the Holy Ghost symbolizes the ideals towards which human beings at their best are striving, and
God the Son personifies human nature as it actually exists – bridging the gulf between the other two by channeling natural forces into the pursuit of ideals."

Now in a sense, all religions we can safely generalize, embody the first two values. But Islam, apart from the vague effigy of the Prophet, lacks the human bridge needed to really connect the abstract concepts of religion and faith to the common man. Other people have huge statues of Jesus, Buddha and innumerable Hindu deities, and as some ignorant people would think, what do we have - a cube?

When you pray, let me ask, at the back of your mind, do you envision the physical representation of your own god? Sort of, right - hard not to when the visual image of the hanging body of Christ or the serenity of the Buddha has been emblazoned into your mind. Visual images are very underrated things, and are more influential in our psyche than people think. Transcending words, symbolism is the very core of our primal human selves. But when I pray, well, I honestly can't think of anything. Vaguely, I envision goodwill, but how in the world - it's just so vague!

Without that physical link that humans evidently need, I think it is easier for us to have difficulty in anchoring down the abstract concepts and sometimes, I think the wayward ones find their physical bridge so to speak, from charismatic but twisted extremist leaders. Simply because the leaders provide the certainty and answers that we all have difficulty in determining by ourselves.

So maybe that's why we have bomb-strapped people running around exploding themselves in the name of God - because the picture of God in their head has been completely warped.

So walking to the bus stop on the way to school this morning, I came across a truck unloading its cargo at our friendly neighbourhood NTUC. The bright and cheery logo painted on the side of the truck proclaimed itself to be an emmisary from Lucky Chicken.

"Well, that's very cute," I thought, before noticing that the uncles were unloading boxes and boxes of chicken breasts that were - I kid you not - glistening in their shrink-wrap packaging under the orange soda street lamps. All I can think of is: "The poor chickens - they think they're lucky. But they are so not."

In fact, a lucky chicken I would think, would be the free-ranging kind, away from the coops and geez, the person who named the firm must have some very odd sense of humour. I would like to meet him. Nevertheless, free-ranging chickens! They have wild chickens in the residential barracks/cottages of Seletar Air Base, and saw them flying around the last time I visited my ex-neighbour. Yes, chickens do fly! They fly for about a 100 m or so, 5m of the ground before landing in somebody else's backyard to poke around the compost heap that..may have remains of yesterday's poultry-based dinner.

O what a twisted world we live in!

But it makes me giggle.

Right, if you are wondering why I am in such an odd mood, it is possible that it is because a) I'm having my Common Tests and am quite certain that They will finally know that I have only be surviving through a series of flukes and then they will realize that I am not clever after all and then the world will end, and b) I got my Malay AO results today, and it is the epitome of mediocrity so am mildly disappointed and mildly apprehensive about telling the parents.

It was rather entertaining though, having the seniors come back to school today and seeing them all dressed up. I would just like to take this oppurtunity to state down, concretely, some things that I promise – on pain of death – that I will not do:

I will not, after the A Levels, consider it mandatory, or neccesary, or even in good taste, to suddenly take the release from JC as the green light to plant myself in some hairdresser’s chair and impose on my head some odd, trying-to-be-funky-but-failing-miserably haircut and colour. All I want to say is: Why? It looks awful, is quite cheesy and predictable by now, and to me personally, reeks a little of a sad desperation to rebel and be oh I don’t know, wilder than the two years being constrained in a Blu-Tack coloured uniform. I think it’s okay and great to for something new, and most importantly, something that looks good, but it seems that not many people are aware of this.

Fortunately, among the sea of botak-head guys in small baseball caps in jeans/berms/indiscernible bottoms, there was this one whom I would like to applaud for his remarkably sensitive awareness of colour schemes. He had on a striped multi-toned red shirt – which I always found to be a tad overused, but he worked it. And light blue jeans with a buckled belt – a denim wash that I dislike and a style I always thought to be a little to brash, but he worked it. And get this, CREAM loafers.

You don’t get 19 year old guys wearing cream loafers anymore!

And think about it: red, blue and cream – which in my mind, is quite a dodgy colour combination but he got it to work! Enough for me to overlook the fact that his shoes were a tad too pointy and his bag was yellow which absolutely did not go but kindly, I will ignore this since it was slung to the back so all I saw was a brown leather strap, which is okay, yes, what yellow bag? Sartorially impressive.

Oh so many botak-heads today, and I am detachedly amused by the caps that they are all don on their newly-shaven pate. I don’t know why they still wear the caps, its not that I can’t tell they’ve been shorn, and the caps don’t look good and I have as of yet to see a newly-shorn person and end up screaming in fear: “OH MY GOD you are ugly now get away from me!”

In fact, I am more likely to say, “Your hat is too small for your head.”

so, I am Charlie Brown's baseball team.

I say this with no irony at all, unless those in the know would like to point out that it is not baseball m'dear, it is softball. Which, as we all know, is a gigantahumongous misnomer since the ball (and this I say from physical experience) is not soft at all.

In fact, I am so pre-occupied with the contradictary nature of this name so much that it is probably why I cannot play it all. That, after the fact that I was also too pre-occupied with the grossness of feeling the slick-with-sweat cushioning of the catcher's mask against my face, and that it is also too heavy and is slipping of my head and I actually have to hold it up with one hand and WHOA - ball flying into my face!

Just how does one cope!

It is the most cruel game to impose on a person with no sense of hand-eye coordination whatsoever. Somehow, when I stick my gloved hand in the air, waiting for the recently propelled un-softball to fall into said thick gloves, well, it doesn't. It's a mystery that I've been trying hard to figure out. Sometimes, it falls just besides me, before taunting me and making me run by rolling a 100m away or so. To others, I am sure, it appears that I am (moronically) standing still but I am telling you my dear sirs! According to my spacial judgement, it looked like I was standing at the right place and at the right time for it to land into my hand!

Okay, save for the few times I closed my eyes the nanosecond before it is in graspable reach.

Maybe it's because as an art student, I'm used to seeing 3-dimensional stimuli and translating it into 2-D and my brain just cannot understand the thought process required for activities such as softball. I sympathize with my brain. After all, it must be hard trying to process such unfamiliar thought patterns while being overwhelmed by the instinctual thought of: FAST BALL COMING YOUR WAY! PHYSICAL PAIN RESULTING FROM COLLISION IMMINENT - RUN! RUN!

At least I can throw the ball pretty okay, I think.

I am Charlie Brown's baseball team.

But you see, the problem is that the distinguishing line between love and hate is dotted.

That's why I couldn't seriously pick anybody when I mused on the topic of who I'd pick to be with if stuck on a deserted island with a couple of friends today. The first notion of logic that comes to mind is that you'd pick people who you love, or love to be with (which is not quite the same thing), but then you realize that because you love them, you also know their very flaws and at least for me, that really means I know you well enough to hate you.

That's scary, isn't it? It's true as well, that I do feel vestiges of hate for the people I love at times. It's just that I love them a lot more for 99% of the time, and the moments when I get mad, or massively annoyed/pissed/infuriated at them, I have the propensity to hate them because in any situation, I feel more for said persons.

The question I would like to pose, since I can't answer it is: Who would you rather be - the person I love and possibly could hate, or a person I am absolutely indifferent about?

WARNING: MASSIVE FRANZ FERDINAND RAVING.
Turn away if you're sick of this already.


O curse my short term memory!

The FF concert was shit-awesome of course, all worries about lacklustre live-audio flying out of the window since the sound was so clear and tight in tune and pitch that you'd think it was a recording, save for the fact that alex kapranos missed a couple of lyrics which in the grand scale of things, everybody who was there says - WHO CARES.

Right, back to the short term memory point. Too quickly too quickly the experience is fading for my memory like the bruises on my knee and hips. All I have in my head are quick flashes of bright lights, alex being a complete and lovable slut *FANGIRL*, nick and his guitar with the broken string swinging about, and for one of the songs zomg they had three people on the drums, and the quiet bassist who tash and i tried to wave to just to I don't know, so he'd be more cheerier somehow, so before all of this fades from my old brain:

PLEASE PEOPLE WHO ARE MY FRIENDS AND TOOK PHOTOS THEN, SEND THEM TO ME! SOON!
This means dhaniah/shila, jenn and your friend yvette (ask her to add me on msn, yes?), jaaanice and pam goh, although i suppose she doesn't even read this blog.

At one point, alex was standing on the drums and I thought woah, is he going to jump off then he uh, kind of nimbly hopped off and i was like, eh?

But the white light that made them look like angels and then turning blood red when they played This Fire, the way they sauntered out knowing, like tash said, that they didn't need a opening act or even massive dramatic shindig to work the crowd. When they played the first few bars of crowd-pleaser songs (which is almost everthing, basically) and the crowd just surges and the atmosphere was just there and zomg, alex really knew how to work the crowd with his sneaky, flirty furtive looks and uh, tight pants. or when the atmosphere is just SO up there and nick just kills you with the slick guitar and he plays with this pale and feverish gleam, or paul i think is standing hitting the bass drums pounding out a steady beat for us to cheer the band back out from their short breather and breaking out into Your Diary.

(paragraph break!)

how alex spoke with a funny elvis-accent, which is supremely odd for a scottish man and by general consensus, nobody understood but it was funny and they were having fun so again, nobpdy cares. oh oh and when they did those guitar jumps, or when people were jumping in the mosh pit and you jump along and it's like you're being carried by a giant organism IT IS SO WEIRD. oh oh and they played all the songs I wanted to hear by the first half and could die happy already because you could tell they were all really into it, and not just playing for a bunch of fans from a tiny speck of an island. hand punching and pointing in unision, screaming the words to the songs but you can't hear yourself anyway and then falling into captive silence when the song falls into a slow and soft catch and you can just see everybody watching the single notes and syllables flowing from the band like spheres of sound. Oh the bridge for Walk Away and That Was Easy were like that.

(oh come on, I must remember more than this!)

Hm, at some point in between songs, alex mentioned something about 'stirrings in his nether-regions'. I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine that, really! And for the love of everything in a flowery shirt and striped pants, I can't remember what led him to say that, or what he said afterwards.

I love that they made theatrical stage bows that were dignified in their own way, and did not smash one guitar at all throughout the whole thing because I honestly don't understand how musicians can bear to do that. Even though this entire entry quite shows that I have massive leanings towards Alex Kapranos fangirlhood, you know, we really were all there for the music.

Which was brilliant, and I don't think anything in 2006 can top that sweaty and cramped hour and half being hardly a meter away from FF although I would very much like to beg the Powers That Be to try, because man! If the peak of this year is in February, what does that say about the next 10 months?

So many times, I just wanted to close my eyes and enjoy the music the way I do with my earphones plugged into my ears in a closed and empty room but could only bear to close my eyes for 3 seconds each time because the nanasecond-thought of missing anything would immediately send my eyelids flying up.

Oh and when alex stand-curls around the mike stand and his light blue eyes glint under the spotlights singing slowly:
"You can feel my lips undress your eyes
Undress your eyes, undress your eyes
Words of love, words so leisured
Words are poisoned darts of pleasure"

Things that you can only see from a live performance, things that made the $90 so very very worth it. Somehow, I must convince you readers that I am not that massive a rabid fangirl, and even though I have vestiges of that, it's not the main point of this entry or why it was so brilliant.

It was the performance in itself, and these musicians with such a fresh sound, with an audience, a convention of like-minded souls you know? I suppose you have to admit that it is a form of idol worship although that makes me think of *shudder* Taiwanese boybands because for a long while, you've only known the band and their music and brilliance through indirect contact like cds and what, blog posts on their official site. and suddenly, their RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU. Slight underexaggeration to say that things like that don't happen all the time and yes, again I suppose you could blame the celebrity culture that we have right now. But above all, it's just you want to know and meet the people that you think are incredibly talented because gosh, I'm sure they're pretty interesting people aren't they?

AND EVERYBODY WHO GOT TO
A) SHAKE HANDS
B) GET AN AUTOGRAPH
C) MANAGED TO PROCURE SUBSTANTIAL PIECE OF STAGE DEBRIS LIKE DRUMSTICKS AND GUITAR PICKS
D)STALKED THEM BACK TO THE HOTEL AND HAD MAD WILD ORGIES INVOLVING SINGAPOREAN FOOD

DON'T TELL ME OKAY. I WILL KILL YOU WITH MY UH, SMELLY CLOTHES THAT ARE STILL WAITING IN THE LAUNDRY BASKET. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.


My phone is so battered from the mosh pit it wants to cry.
Oh oh I don't want to forget so soon - come back neurones, come back!

One of the nice things about having an mp3 player and receiving too many songs to keep track is that sometimes, you are suddenly pleasantly surprised when you find an awesome song in your player that you didn't know even was in there. Today, that song is:

Kite
I hid myself from failure and fear
O my dear you're a threat to the bad in us all
They tell themselves that each word from your lips
Or the grace in your eyes overcomes any fall

Over the twilight you're listening for me
Darling, go to sleep
Cradled by moonlight, I'm dreaming we'll be
Loved so deep

Floating and fighting, like a kite on a string
Till you cut through my tether and changed everything
From the sky you looked small, but I loved you the same
So I darted back quickly to spell out your name
And when they say that I'm just a terrible kite
You'll tell them you're proud of my marvelous flight

Don't hide yourself inside till I'm old
O my dear you're a threat to the bad we all see
I'm beside myself for the touch of your lips
Or the grace of your eyes that can see good in me

Over the twilight you're listening for me
Darling, go to sleep
Cradled by moonlight, I'm dreaming we'll be
Loved so deep

Floating and fighting, like a kite on a string
Till you cut through my tether and changed everything
From the sky you looked small, but I loved you the same
So I darted back quickly to spell out your name
And when they say that I'm just a terrible kite
You'll tell them you're proud of my marvelous flight

- Copeland.

It sounds like a beautiful and sad lullaby, and lovely lyrics.

Thanks (insert name here) for sending it to me!

i have a sudden craving for blueberry waffles. and not the fancy-schmancy gelare kind mind you, i miss the good old heartland bakery kind so it is with much sadness and longing that i announce that the Nagoya Bakery at Teck Whye Lane has closed down.

i suppose it means nothing to you, but oh that was a place for cheap birthday cakes that always looked better than they tasted as i would find out every time when i was able to convince my parents to buy me a small mini-cake slice, the kind that has a tasteless wafer biscuit shaped as a disturbingly distorted dwarf. i won't be able to trace my name (the narcissism! the narcissism!) anymore in the condensation of the chiller while waiting for my waffles, or choose candles that eventually end up dusty at the bottom of the kitchen drawer.

NO MORE WAFFLES FOR BREAKFAST.

who says Singapore beaches are ugly?



so while the majority of the singaporean population triapsed around the island trading (at times) mouldy citrus fruits and collectively bemoaning the torturous activity that is visiting relatives you hardly know AND don't quite wish to know, I spent the monday "camping" at east coast.

I've said this to people many times, but only because it's true: on holidays where malays are generally excluded (i.e. christmas and CNY), the beach becomes this happy refugee camp! half the malay population comes to congregate along the shoreline with their respective families and if people say that the kampong days are gone - well, they're mistaken. all that's missing is a couple of running chickens and the fact that instead of attap houses, you have nylon tents that sprout suddenly like garish mushrooms. it's our malay blood answering the call of our orang laut roots!

anyhow, it was quite nice i suppose despite having to constantly worry about rain since the sky was dangerously grey and dim. food was good - think i undercooked prawns though, had a stomachache the next morning.

but yes, back to beach scenery!



what might the retreating wave reveal?



a washed-up cottony bra, of course!



or a rubber sandal.

but seriously though, as gross as the bra is, the beach does have some merits depending what kind of perspective you decide to take. sure, it's not brilliantly pretty, but what it lacks in sparkling marine wildlife, it makes up for..interesting litter. i say this with no sarcasm.


a massive entanglement of junk.
from the perspective of an art student, it's brilliant texture - wish i had got a sharper shot, but was pre-occupied with not getting camera wet, so!






I get annoyed by people sometimes who say with vehemence that Singapore is ugly. evidently, i disagree - there's a lot of beauty around here, you just need to be more open to the other definitions that it can take. not everything has to be sprawling pastoral lands or neo-classical architecture (hah i don't even know what neo-classical means!); our old and slightly mouldy hdb estates are beautiful in their own dank way, just like how the vines growing over construction boardings are beautiful as well.

like how there are actually TREES (ok, saplings) growing in the underground drains of matthew's hdb estate and that they peep through the metal gratings, or that the dandelions and small weeds growing by janice's estate cheer me up a lot more than the trimmed lawns of her neighbours. today while waiting for her, i was plucking the dandelions to uh, blow when i noticed a yellow stain on my fingers. turned out to be (i think) aphids! so queer - but they were brilliantly yellow with black spots.

there is beauty.

because we're camwhores.


really funny sticker. see this is what good street art/vandalism should be about!


It seemed that today was destined to be Hazri's Funny Face Day!









Guest starring our favourite kiwi(half)import - matthew crawshaw!



who can be perfectly normal, i swear.







quite an suggestive picture, if not for the camera in his hands. (darn!)

and because i really am quite inept when placed in front of the camera - when lacking in subtlety, blind them with dramatics!




would have gone all the way to the top if i knew i was already half way up - another time then!


not that you didn't know already, but just in case you need reminding...


it was quite funny, how skate-punk-mat went up to slightly gawky/geeky tourist and started an earnest conversation. hullo mat-skater who finally managed an ollie that night!

contrary to popular belief, our primary intention was not to camwhore (gasp!), but to see my cousin Dhaniah's band, My Writes, open for Mocca's gig at the Arts House.


Dhaniah and guitarist, uh, sean/shawn?


and the other guitarist, Zul!

#As seen in matthew's lj, but with some fiddling:

"It's a rock."
"I know."


LOVE THIS PHOTO MATTHEW CRAWSHAW. like, best ever, you with shaky hands.


*hugs hazri for taking such a nice photo of me*




What a lovely weekend.

i think i should mention that a few days ago, somebody returned My Lost Library Book.













singaporeans are lovely people!


i think it's odd and even silly of us people to be constantly oscillating from feeling fine, then being hit with an onslaught of loneliness. the crazy thing is that people feel this way, even when they circulate among enough social spheres to make up the solar system. you would think that we would have figured out by now that humans are inevitably quite alone as individuals and be okay with that - but of course the biggest joke in the universe is that we were made social creatures.

on another random note, unconditional love may be the highest form of love simply because it's the most difficult. not to obtain, since that is oddly, relatively quite accessible - but that unconditional love will stand, enduring all the resentment, anger and guilt that now and then surfaces, things that co-exist with love. it is crazy how we associate pain with greatness.

i think we're nuts.

and sometimes, sometimes, i found myself saying this on new year's eve to myself, i just want to be happy. not that i find currently find myself in torrid anguish and DESPAIR (haha, inside joke!), but i would like to be happy, in the simplest way. and maybe, because this would be nice for once, not have to think of other's happiness first. i am quite tired, rather.

i feel awful.

i've been reading this brilliant book called The Buddha-tree by Fumio Niwa and the author's observations and portrayal of human weakness, hypocrisy and religion is so deftly handled and if i do manage to get that lit S paper, this book would definitely be a book i'd critique.

except that i've lost it.

and it's a library book.

IT'S SO HORRID, I WAS (rather) UPSET THE WHOLE DAY. first of all, because it's a library book and it's going to cost so much to pay for it, and i will be paying for it cos i borrowed it on my brother's card. secondly, i haven't finished reading it! now i feel so incomplete and well, dangling. usually i wouldn't be so affected, save for the monetary aspect, but augh i want to know how it ends! the characters are formed so poignantly, i really love the japanese sense of aesthetics where everything is handled in a stoic manner, so quiet and dignified which only makes it more beautiful.

so much heart pain! just thinking about the book being on the dirty bus floor AUGH. i've never felt so heavy-hearted over a lost book before.

i've been lugging it around with me for some time and likewise, this morning on the way to school. on the bus, i fell asleep and suddenly! the uncle sitting beside me is furiously tapping my shoulder because woah i've reached school and all other felloe cjc students were filing out of the bus. very flustered and harried, i sprung up saying thankyouthankyouexcusemeexcuseme and got off the bus.

forgetting that the book was in my lap.

and no, i've already called SMRT - almost immediately - and they said the bus driver didn't find anything, nor had anyone returned it to the interchange counter. this, despite the fact that i had valuable information like knowing that i got off the bus at exactly 07:25. i suppose someone could have found it, the nice uncle maybe, and is on the way to returning it to a library near you? i hope so. do you think? so much heartache.

the worse thing is that the reason why i was so sleepy was because i was watching (finally!) The Talented Mr. Ripley the night before and i suppose this is very overdue but oh my, that movie is brilliant and painful and oh oh. so now, by an unfortunate habit, i'm going to always associate the movie with this loss.

<3-ache!

it's odd how a relatively trivial thing like losing a book can have this much emotional impact. is it trivial though?

you people don't tag anymore.

usually, this would make me quite sad but not this time round - and it's not because i've suddenly gained immense self-confidence and no longer need the assurance that: you like me, you really like me! the truth is simple.

FRANZ FERDINAND, HERE I COME!

also, it has dawned on me that i am quite mad, jumping into doing so many things at the same time when there's only one of me and 24 hours in a day. the problem is of course, i love it! it's crazy and insane but dear god help me, i feel most alive when i'm running around with a packed schedule and buzzing from all that multi-tasking. it's such a thrill, and is quite exciting.

even though in all that buzz, sometimes i feel like dying and i wonder: i am a giant macedamia. A HUGE NUT. and i start thinking like my mom, along the lines of shrill are you crazy?! you're going to burn out and come home exhausted everyday and just completely crash. which is completely true. then sometimes i think the voice in my head that is actually my mother is quite right as well, and i am tempted to take it easy, be like a normal person with some slack CCA and just stroll through school life without jumping at every door that opens and enthusiastically nodding YES I'LL DO IT, even though at the back of my mind, that very voice that is my mother is frantically gesticulating for me to say No.

my mother compares me to small cc engine. to continue that metaphor, she thinks i'm behaving like say, a Benz when i am in fact, a rusty old Toyota Starlet. Which by the way, in the very like event that i will not be able to afford a 1957 Volkswagon Beetle, will be my car of choice. it's a very boxy little car, usually smelly because it's second-hand and completely lacks the glamour that its name suggests. i find this very funny. i will name my car something along the lines of a atypical 1950s starlet as well, like Scarlett Davis.

A somewhat mandatory post for the new year. I would post pictures, but am too lazy and tired, it is 04:34AM. Do cross your fingers that the late night and lack of sleep will not cause me to trail into a rambling mass of sentimentality though strangely, i feel inclined to rambling today, or tonight, how can it be morning when it's not day? i am quite tired of being forcing myself to be so restrained in what is written here.

strange, that this attempt in achieving some degree of maturity means beginning to ignore or censoring what you really want to do, say or feel. i should have known that's what growing up is all about.

This year, was an emotional buffet.

Terribly brilliant, and brilliantly terrible - what was simply awesome was that it was incredibly intense, and here i am being Ms. Superlative again but maybe that was what the past 365 days were: a superlative year.

I loved it.

The year was great because of the EBS – simply because they were completely non-school related. Originating from CAP05, which was also brilliant in its odd and tedious way with its never-ending plenaries and not-too-great workshops but who cares when out of it, we had pseudo teeniegoth poetry, and actually WON the poetry reading contest with it (which says something about the latter in itself) and then there was the delirious sleepless nights (though Hazri would have to beg to differ on this point, since all he did was sleep) and the Adventures of Super-orgy Man and clover and cranberry <3 and I don’t know, that funny sperm whale that janice draws.

Then there were of course the sleepover/movie marathons – of which I missed half of the last one RAWR. But awesome nevertheless, and yes, life-changing what with brilliant movies watched and equally brilliant (though occasionally comatose) company.

Top 3 movies:
Old Boy
28 Days Later
Requiem For A Dream

Bottom Movies:
Monty Python's Holy Grail
Donnie Darko (admittedly, a cut version that caused it to suck, janice says. We believe her.)

AND ALL THAT CAMWHORING. more, please.

oh there are so many things i want to talk about but it really would be too long to chronicle everything and the only reason why there's a substantial chunk on the EBS is because i jotted it down earlier when i was thinking about making this post, please don't hate me, people i have neglected!

so here's what i'm going to do; a whole list of names, in no particular order, my own People of 2005. I know it's not exactly the Times magazine, or even a trashy but lovable and strangely alluring tabloid but yeah. If you spot your name, well, yay you!:
charmaine matthew gennie nadya hazri vincent janice zara jennifer jeremy steffi tash myPWgroup bern aini cjdebatepeople yasmin theslutposse cjdramapeople dhaniah anisha.

oh boy, that was a briefer list than anticipated.

and yet it doesn't quite do any justice to all the things that are behind those names and why they're there. like for zara, because you're one of my closest friends in cj and i can really talk to you and wouldn't know what to do without you and hey, look! i'm writing what i meant to put it your christmas card that i never got around to making (sorry) but anyhow, it's lovely to have someone to obsess over art materials with (BATTERY-OPERATED ERASER ZOMG) without getting weird stares from other people and telling you about my paranoia and vice-versa and never feeling the fear of being judged as a complete psychopath because i know you understand and thank you for that, you are the nicest person i've ever known and i think you managed to make me nicer, somehow. love you muchly.

and gennie, even though you flew off to canada and have to yourself haagen daz in your school cafetaria while i stare with much melancholy at sad, dismal sugar donuts, i'm glad we're still friends and we've come a long way baby! it's amazing that after all these years, we can still meet up and still make sense in the same wavelenghth.

cjdebatepeople, even though none of you read this, save for the inactive nadya (haha), well, you're in that list because debating was just intense and made me want to die and i spent those dark dark times with you guys, and came out of it still liking all of you despite my nasty habit to lump unpleasant events with the people that came along with it so hurrah! glad that we were sharing the same leaky boat.

charmaine! why wouldn't you be there in that list? in all fully meant cheesiness - best friends forever. even though you never tag. tag! i think that phonecall just about redeemed all the distance and drifting we had this year, thank you.

oh this is horrid i'm falling into that overused pattern of short tributes for almost everybody - i think what we can learn from this is that if i ever win an award, it'll be a long speech i'll be giving and they'll probably take away my newly-loved plastic, gilted statuette and ruin my $15 This Fashion dress by pelting me with assorted fruit. if it helps do stock up on fruits i like: raspberries and cranberries. which brings me to the first person i converted into cranberry<3 - matthew. you wouldn't think i would actually write a whole Chronicles of 2005 without a proper mention of you, did you? So, to the person who still annoys me almost as much as he did when we weren't really friends, but somehow i put up with it (i.e. being so anal, stubborn, sometimes cranky, being perpetually busy) because we are friends now, and great ones at that and this should be a cue for some epic and dramatic soundtrack, because this year was that, wasn't it? It's an odd way to put it and i don't quite mean it in a blase way, but in addition to everything else: it's been nice talking. And i'm not only being nice because i owe you money. Damn.




So here's to 2006!