I just watched mystic river... surprisingly good, and deals with a lot of themes for a show with a relatively simply premise.
Also talked to parents about surprisingly liberal stuff. Which only makes you wonder why they always had to uphold conservatism. I guess its all about roles.

Its also pretty scary how much I have to say that I don't. There are so many people around me who'd listen to me, but as I have probably said so many times before I always do censor myself (but isn't that stating the obvious who doesn't) but I just feel that above all else, what would be nice would be someone who listens, listens, listens, but that's impossible because people have to talk. and it's different from interior monologue because you only have yourself to bore. so in that sense i know it probably is impossible for there to be someone you can share everything with because even if that person existed i still probably wouldn't say anything.

after new year i guess has been a season to follow resolutions. i've done quite well recently, although its not exactly in the way i intended. for example, 'listen to people's well meaning advice' became something quite else because i didn't really be specific. i listened to what people were trying to tell me maybe one, two years ago. haha. and i forget little things from time to time.

i've always believed stories made you a better person. it's never really black and white, but in a story, you see a character you particularly like, and wanna be like em.

i was asked who's my most artistic friend and i guess it's chan lek. even though he's the most scientific guy. hehe. but he can see through it.

Wanting to be listened. Like James Joyce, who has so much to say, and i'm nsure never did quite finish saying it all even though he penned his thoughts as they are(did he really?). He was trying to tell a story.

I remember a lot of shit, like events, places things, and i'm a hoarder. I keep books, photos and stuff. I remember presenting stuff for gp. virgil, dido and aeneas, about how i only know the rough idea because ultimately i don't have an interest in greek literature. its probably just enough to know who they were. i'm sure professors of literature will have gleaned some special insight though.

like ulysses, the joycean variety. you could probably do without half the book. a lot of the sentences have no direct bearing on the plot. it's impossible obscure, i could never understand it without a guide. be honest. joyce is not one of the 10 greatest men in the world. not even in literature's top 10, because he never really inspires people in the way some other writers can reach out to a mass audience.

maybe it's the little things you learn about him and his books. hardly my favourite author, (in fact probably what woolf said about him is right. juvenile prattle.) but he thinks about pretty interesting stuff. in dubliners, the priest dropping his chalice.
in portrait of a young man, his fears of catholicism and eternal damnation, and interestingly, through it all, his vocabulary restrained. the story of creation retold in the first page.

ulysses, then, which would be shameless showboating. but there's still a nice story. and work done, to figure out which chapter is which, the parallels, the small things, the humour. being given a footjob by a cripple. and orgasm in the end with another man, but loving the same one.

it's really about love. about the day he met nora probably, or the day that he got his first handjob on his date or something.
all captured. all the effort, probably, the only way a neurotic guy could thank his wife because he was poor too.

and joses, liking finnegan's wake, which is even worse cause you have to read it aloud so i never read it. and a circular story. compelling. "riverrun from eve and Adam, from swerve of shore to bend of bay." he was an influence on a lot of writers today, i thinking up dream, half-nonsensical stuff.

it's an interesting footnote. just for interest. in the end life goes on.

"The story being told today, is of General Patton's IIIrd army breaking through the line to rescue the 101st Airborne Division."

"No member of the 101st has ever agreed that their division needed rescuing."

Watching band of brothers is incredibly moving, which shows how emotion really pummels rational thought into oblivion. damn i feel so inspired to fight a war or liberation.

world war ii has probably taught us a lot. for one thing there hasn't been a major european war, and even all the wars fought after that somehow seem always morally ambiguous. reading about churchill, patton, montgomery and rommel gives you some sense of an idea of what heroism is, something which would now be called macho showboating. you see, the wars fought are not less heroic (people still die, no matter how sophisticated your weaponry is) but the same forceful characters aren't there.

war is senseless. perhaps if the world were run by women there wouldn't be war. everyone would live happily.

but i don't know. i've never been part of a major action. people are like lemmings. in a time like 1914 everyone would be dying to volunteer and go and die on the somme or passchendaele. it is the virtue of their time.

and now we have our virtues and our weapons still. the world is probably more liberal now, knowing war is a senseless waste of lives. rephrase developed. the iraq war was wrong for so many reasons. there was never going to be a sense of moral catharsis from emerging the victors, the sort that would inspire a true war effort.

anyway, the film reminds me of digging foxholes and the rain in brunei. and that things are always so fondly remembered in retrospect so one must wonder if its worth it. totally felt like shit. but i can smile at it now.

what my friend says is quite true.
chinese songs are mostly sad songs.
now playing: an jing- zhou jie lun

"why do some people want to fill the world with silly love songs
well what's wrong with that." mr mccartney.

i wonder what people do when they sleep with each other.

"and making love was just for fun"

conjures up a certain image, although i don't exactly know what it is. just proves we're already full of ideas of how the world should work.

i'm so scared of making other people unhappy... like every little thing i do can disturb the universe.

i suppose that's why fame is good. when you've got it you sort of eliminate the need to prove yourself to everyone. you could rest on your laurels if you wanted to. just that you wouldn't be the 'it' girl for so long. like scarlett johansson.

wish for a good week ahead. whee.

official opening is over, now its back to normal work and branch chalet. wind down, and then prepare for ndp and the setting up of the new hr centre.

insipid night, mentally tired after a week that really went by pretty fast and just catching my breath now. i think i need to sleep more or i'll turn into andy lau in infernal affairs 3.

and don't you dare disturb me i haven't had my ideals destroyed for quite a long time. i'm at the apogee of hope and at anytime now i'm due.

i guess i'm pretty immature after all. haha. there is hope yet.

The Magic Show

"Ladies and gentlemen," the magician announced
"I'm going to cut this lady in two."
"Whatever shall I do, shall I do,"
choked the damsel in words she could hardly pronounce

He then proceeded to saw her in half
as the teeth of the blade were slicing her calf
she magically stood up from inside the box
without breaking a single one of the locks

The audience was stunned to a silent pause
followed by some rapturous applause
"Thank you my dear monsieurs and mesdames
next i'll be in a box over the River Thames."

now tell me will we die in vain
like blue eyed boy mr kurt cobain.
slowly we gather, pained by love
as mother mary cries above.

and this is a hymn from church


this is my blood
poured out for you
bringing forgiveness
making you free
take it and drink it
and when you do
do it in love for me

this is my body
broken out for you
bringing you wholeness
making you free
take it and drink it
and when you do
do it in love for me

back to my father soon i shall go
do not forget me, then you will see
o am still with you and you will know
you're very close to me

filled with my spirit,
how you will frow
you are my branches, i am the tree
if you are faithful, others will know
you are alive in me

love one another, i have loved you
and i have shown you how to be free
serve one another and when you do
do it in love for me.

montague, capulet,
pound each other over a silly sobriquet
so it was pity then that you both had to die
and leave behind the feathers
with which you used to fly.

to jump through the sky and soar through the air
only to realise that you weren't there
burrowed a thousand feet underground
still your pretty face was nowhere to be found
sailed a million miles westward
yet your voice was still unheard
i've searched all the places you could've been
choosing still to keep yourself unseen

until i stopped and stayed to breathe a while
and i saw you standing there with a smile

i'm trying to drown it all with humour

"I do not think that they will sing to me"

But we sang to them! It feels good to empty your lungs of air from time to time.

Anyhow, it is night now.

The luminous clock face of Nanyang Primary School reads 2 am. It is related to its cousin at NYGH.

The architecture tries to retain some of the flavour of the old school. Not enough though, considering the old one was decrepit, squalid, with mildew on the walls and ghosts of old girls comitting suicide because of lost loves.

It also had a green railing around and a multi-purpose basketball court thingie which was used mainly by the girls to play volleyball and basketball. And the area around my school was filled with hordes and hordes of girls such that in my search for quietness sometimes i would drop one stop early and walk in via king's road.

there used to be an a & w too, and a haagen dazs. it was a good slice of suburbia.

it still is. just that now its mostly cars dropping kids off in school. and maybe i just wake up too early and come home too late.

late late into the night.

st valentine's head was served on a plate to the roman emperor.

al capone's gang was also responsible for the st valentine's day massacre.

paper windmills spinning 3 by 3. menage a trois.

and the mermaids whistle through the night. they will not sing to you, but lest they do, do not turn your head.

or you will fall asleep, like you have wanted to.,

hush hush darling. the street lights will be on till next morning.

they effuse a warm glow 'etherizing' the streets, saying ' while i am turned on, nobody will be raped here, for i am the guardian of this street.'

but beware the subdued savagery of nocturnal nature. steer clear of reservoir parks and construction sites, the mothers say.

hmmm mm mmm, and we could be like this forever.

I am sitting in a jazz bar opposite Rockefeller square, watching the snow fall down. It is Christmas, and the people are skating. I've never felt lonelier, but i've never felt so warm. Perhaps its the effusive glow of the christmas lighting, the lovers skating on ice, and the cacophony of street noises which adjourn to the background.

I've never been to Rockefeller square=p

Taking the MRT back from work, seeing people flash by, hurrying back from YJC, the elderly female warrant who probably has no one to eat with again. The busker at the station, guitar in hand, harmonica on mouth. The byzantine complex of Causeway Point, with its labyrinths of staircases and the queue behind the ATM machine.

Asleep on the bus.

Alight. Girl runs towards lover, shaping for a hug, guy stands there bewildered. He extends a hand, and what was supposed to be a hug transforms to a pair of hands clasped in the safe, warm glow of love. I need the toilet badly.

I could be lonely forever. And i say that in the same tone I would say 'I could have died in your arms'.

It's not the best possible world though, so ad majorem dei gloriam. for the greater glory of god. the jesuit motto.

to be erotic, not neurotic.

I am reminded once more of your existence!

It is a joyous thing, remembering. That's why we're supposed to cry each time we break bread but there isn't much time to forget because we do it every week. I consecrate this day to your memory. 12th February. The Return to the Blog, inspired by its accidental discovery by Rumin.

As the disquieting muses sound, let us pause for a moment to reflect on discovery.

The authoritative poem to read is probably Nicolas Hasluk's 'Islands', because its from Calling of the Kindred Section D. But there's so much hype and stories. Newton discovered gravity because an apple fell on him. Some chinese concubine discovered silk like that 2000 years earlier, maybe because little miss muffet was eating her curds and whey when a silkworm appeared.

how did you discover masturbation? was it joyous?

discovery is a happy thing, until you disembark and kill all the Red Indians. then it just becomes messy.

'how was work today' its very amazing how often this phrase is used. my dad just used it today. i would use it if I was a parent. It is an innocuous way to start conversation without embarassing yourself. I'm actually quite embarassed though because I talk to myself on my blogs. You can then choose to reply and talk excitedly about it if it was a good day (good day), or say 'okay' if it's a bad day. occasionally you can grouch about your boss and stress but you're usually too tired on such occasions.

i'm not trashing such conversations. i think that it's important for people to communicate although it sounds forced at first. lets not deny there's a generation gap but usually lousy conversations give rise to decent ones if you keep at it. its better than not trying.

anyway. office life is pretty fun. especially when your branch is bored and jokes around. and i'm quite happy i won so much money today through astute bets and the fact that i can automatically translate stuff into chinese in a split second, and in some cases think in chinese first when a word is more appropriate. i think reading all the 'wen yan wen' is doing me good, and unlike chinese lessons, people actually speak chinese here. and they have thesauruses so they have pretty good english vocab.

how long will it be again? you can see why i'd make a bad boyfriend=p i'm having an affair with the office stationery and the memo pad. maybe i should start scribing it here.

the fact that teenage angst exists is probably symptomatic of the fact that something IS wrong with society. I personally think that Singapore is sort of shielded from the full extent of this malaise because it is rather a sort of a social democracy without welfare benefits. yet we may be moving inexorably into some morass. i don't know.
you're in europe so you probably have a first hand account of how life is like there. i love europe. i admire how they could have beat the guts out of each other and within a short span of 50 years put aside all animosity, have a common currency, allow free movement within the EU and simultaneously swing social democrat.
but my friend who study there are extremely disillusioned by it. porn and red light districts abound. that's not such a bad thing, but nobody over here watches european porn cause its full of bestiality and insane hardcore S&M a la de Sade. thank god for japan. those are the extremem manifestations for the sexual liberation that has swept western civilisation and is going to sweep us. i doubt singapore will ever swing to such an extreme( it's not in our blood).
sexual liberation was a good thing. it liberated the individual, who wis now free to choose whom they loved, threw off the last chains of serfdom, allowed family planning and gave a chance to 17 year old girls who could have had their life screwed over. with liberation came choice. choice bewildered people and therefore there had to exist a system of information which could help people out. this tied in with the nascent mass media, the worship of the Beatles, Brigitte Bardot and a new liberalism which allowed us to be a more tolerant humanity, especially towards homosexuals.
this glorification of the cult of the body also generates what i feel is the real angst among teenagers today. not existential angst but the angst of growing old. that they have to do something important, have some meaning in life when life isn't supposed to have some intrinsic meaning. at least not one subscribed to you. meaning isn't something a lot of people can readily find there when they look, unless you have strong faith, love or moral principles and when they look and when i find nothing there, i'm scared out of my wits. because "THERE'S NOTHING WORSE THAN LEADING AN ORDINARY LIFE." - American Beauty. You'd better fuck before 35 or you have to use Viagra. and the only life worth living is a young one. nowadays we have movies of ugly ducklings turning into swans e.g. never been kissed. but a lot of people who think they're fat or ugly are so scared of being condemned to a life of solitary masturbation, that having experienced the pleasure emanating from their Krause's corpuscles, they would need that next level of physical intimacy, the warm glow of love. that's why clarence wants to be a plastic surgeon, because he wants to make people happy.
and when they do fall in love, it sometimes falls short and they refuse to call it love.
this isn't meant to be an optimistic opinion of the world today. fear has replaced hope and not even Islam will triumph against the combined might of Chinese and Western secularism. and because we'll never rid ourself of our fear of dying or even aging the need to gratify ourselves as quickly as possible will remain.
but at least we're tortured animals. we have the ability to say hmm this is not right and change it. but inevitably with this tension, knowing that things are not right, leads to depression but as long as its not despair. it's fine.