COS

someone finally convinced me that horizontal striped polo is good. but this one is more structural/architectural than the rest. their stuff simply stands up very well. it looks totally blah on the rack but clothes are meant to be worn.

anyway... provided a good pick up line, first time i've been approached by a guy who wanted to know what was in my bag. but he's a central st martin's fashion graduate so it turns out there was a reason for his interest. i was more interested in who the parent company was so i could buy their stock. well, it's basically h&m. it'll be out of europe soon enough. was skeptical, store is pretty monochrome, full of minimalist coffee table books. i would describe it as fashion architecture.

stuff is from COS (collection of style).

http://www.cosstores.com/

mocks tomorrow.

but i love london, i love spring, love black cab drivers and their mental optimization capabilities.
it smells of possibility. i am made for changes in environment, and i've always loved having my own pad. it feels like home, the way i've laid it all out.

and it felt exactly like that the first day i came to london. an empty room, but my room, my space. from here i branch out. full of possibility. no commitments, just possibility ahead. people come and go from my rooms, but the owner will always remain=)

Mrs. Landers was a health nut! She cooked food in a wok!
Mr. Harris was her boyfriend and he had a great big Cock-
a-doodle-doodle! The rooster just won't quit!
And I don't want my breakfast, because it tastes like Shih T-
zus make good house pets! They're cuddly and sweet!
Monkeys aren't good to have 'cause they like to beat their Meet-
ing in the office, or meeting in the hall!
The boss, he wants to see you so you can suck his Balz-
ac was a writer! He lived with Allen Funt!
Mrs. Roberts didn't like him, but that's 'cause she's a Cont-
aminated water can really make you sick!
Your bladder gets infected and blood comes out your Dict-
ate what I'm saying, 'cause it will bring you luck
And if you all don't like it, I don't give a flying fuck!

one person managed to instill the fear of god in me before. i was about 17 or 18, and he had been incessantly needling away on various issues in a rather didactic/moralistic way. one thing he said hit home. he made me so scared that i was taking all my friends for granted. i remember i picked up the phone and called people and told them that i didn't want to take them for granted, which was a surprising admission of vulnerability and guilt, i guess.

feel like that on a night like this. but reconnection is harder, i guess. i don't know how much emotional nudity people can take nowadays.

went back to little india (again) today to have banana leaf apollo fish head curry, which was a childhood institution. they used to cart the dishes around and you could pick them, but nowadays it's a far less exotic way of ordering off menu. but the banana leaf is still there, the ladled vegetables, the poppadoms.

i ended up exploring the rather noisy area with jx, makes a good break from town. along upper dickson road there's a little world i didn't know existed. it looks pretty familar from my trips to backpacker districts around the world, but yeah, found it pretty strange to have one right at home. popped into a bar (prince of wales), had a drink, and as usual the people at the bar stools were all guys. had some crappy pale ale, the guy next to us left his job at a startup [www.oodle.com] he's 31 but looks 21, major in computer science from stanford university, left his job to go travelling a while. seriously, my life would be so much better if i had a pussy. there's just so much lonely sausage around. seriously... no girls at the bar save the waitresses, who're all right but all too professional. there's that movie the rose, the one with bette midler. girls are waitresses at the banquet of life. we do that to find love. oh i love to be in love, don't you love to be in love? but on the flip side there's a lot of thai massage there too.

another nice place i was at recently was at the little sliver of beach at sembawang park, from where you can see wendy's place at permas jaya. what i thought were oil palm plantations turn out to be golf courses. i wish they would just build bridges everywhere along the straits of johor, i mean, there are rivers wider than that. save people passport time and having to swim over. and then i can visit those seafood kiosks with gaudy lights more often. still, too many mosquitoes, prevents me from settling in to what might have been if malaysia was all ours and there weren't all these artifical borders. on the right you can see the shipbuilding activity going on at sembawang wharves.

need to travel again. one of the few benefits of singlehood. i'm not going to sell you the "oh suddenly singlehood is the greatest thing for me", although i've been re-evaluating that position. but no, i was happy on balance. i'm built for that kind of rubbish. but since i'm single and full of misery, it's only right that i leave my little calling card of misery in as many places in the world as possible. and the bloody exams are what make me have to make do with these little pleasures in such a small place as this.

post tenebras lux

book of job 2001, einar hakonarson

yuna - dan sebenarnya

i've figured out i'm compatible with no one but folk singers. this is soooooo much my sound. i find one good album every year.

oh bulan
jangan layan diriku lagi
pabila, air mata membasahi pipi
dan lagu-lagu di radio seolah-olah memerli aku
pabila, kau bersama yg lain

adakah perasaaan benci ini sebenarnya cinta
yang masih bersemadi untukmu
dan sebenarya ku mengharapkan
di sebalik senyuman mu itu
kau juga merindui aku

ku enggan, berpura pura ku bahagia
ku enggan, melihat kau bersama si dia
oh ku akui cemburu
telah menular dalam diri
pabila, kau bersama yang lain

adakah perasaaan benci ini sebenarnya cinta
yang masih bersemadi untukmu
dan sebenarya ku mengharapkan
di sebalik senyuman mu itu
kau juga merindui aku

pabila kau merenung matanya
ku rebah, jatuh ke bumi
di saat kau benar-benar mahu pergi
seperti ku bernafas dalam air

adakah perasaaan benci ini sebenarnya cinta
yang masih bersemadi untukmu
dan sebenarya ku mengharapkan
di sebalik senyuman mu itu kau juga merindui aku
oh–

Aku manusia lemah
Selalu terjatuh
Berbeda aku darimu
Kau berdiri teguh.

Aku serba tiada
Aku kekurangan
Dan bila kau tiba
Aku hilang dari kewujudan.

Sempurnanya sifatmu
Tulusnya hatimu
Jujurnya niatmu
Tingginya kesabaranmu.

Lepaskanlah diriku
Kerna aku tak mampu
Menanggung sebuah cinta sempurna
Darimu… darimu.

Bukan aku tak pernah
Mengerti dirimu
Ku sanjung setiap kata cinta
Kau berikan aku.

Hilangkan rasa itu
Akhirkan semua
Dan bila kau sedar
Aku hilang dari kewujudan.

Sempurnanya sifatmu
Tulusnya hatimu
Jujurnya niatmu
Tingginya kesabaranmu.

Lepaskanlah diriku
Kerna aku tak mampu
Menanggung sebuah cinta sempurna
Darimu… darimu.

never eat what you kill - wholesome family entertainment

had some great pictures of the catch today, but my phone is not co-operating. headed to bottle tree village today which is in an obscure corner of sembawang park.

http://www.bottletree.com.sg/

anyway, instead of spending time with econometrics i spent the entire afternoon prawning. it's pretty zen. you stick the line in and you observe the float. don't observe also can. you wait for stuff to bite, when you think there's enough movement on the float you pull. quite simple right. it's the ultimate thing you do when you feel like you have too much time in your life. it makes time pass quickly. helped that there was a conducive sweet spot where stuff kept biting. catching stuff is thrilling.

haven't been so cruel in a while. last time i killed something i ate was in army where i twisted the pigeon's head and roasted it afterwards. these are just prawns, bottom feeders. when they come out you grab them by the back. the problem is they jerk quite a lot. you would too right if you were stuck on a hook? some are jerkier than others. if you caught a huge one you have to be wary of the pincers by pinning them down. and there were some huge ones. must show photo. then you have to extract the hook from the prawn head while it foams and jerks. there was also a mini lobster. then you throw the stuff in the net. the human instinct is to be afraid of sudden movements, but they really cannot hurt you.

so catch was quite good, very productive. when ready to bbq, take prawns out (they're still alive). it seems they sense their impending doom or something because they're usually more violent. again, grab by the back, but this time you have to apply force more evenly to stretch it out because the prawn's natural instinct is to curl. then you skewer it from the bottom while alive. ok it's partly paralyzed now. then you dump it on the grill and watch it struggle. trust me, i don't enjoy this part. this is when i realize i'm not a sadist. it actually remains alive for pretty long. the ones with the larger claws attempt to grab their way out of existence. anyway, they their shells soon turn orange and then that's it. serve.

then you take it out and peel it. somehow although it's orange you swear some of them might be secretly alive. moral, leave the killing and dirty work to others. never eat what you kill. as with pigeon, prawn, it all seems to much hard work for a little bit of meat. enough with the squeamishness already. eat. enjoy.

gamechanging

once in a while these days i chance upon a game-changing revelation, something that changes the entire mood and the tenor of the day.

today what lifted everything came a as a bolt from the blue. i think it's just incomparably sweet to pick someone out, talk to them, realize you enjoy being around them so much you hang around, and you hang around because you want that extra moment, you're wracked by anxiety and the tension of whether or not they'd want to hang around too. the vulnerability is not fun, but it's incomparable sweetness from someone looking in from the outside, imagining, looking in. at the creation of romance. there has been net creation of happiness in the world. this is why i enjoy listening to stories of how people met. i hate it once they've got together, they become boring. unless they've been together forever, then they earn my grudging respect=p.

there is some sort of a communism to love, because i've felt that before. (but in our monogamy, we are unabashed capitalists. property rights damnit.) i still feel it now, the flutters, but perhaps my flutters are more those of a junkie. when i do feel jealousy, it's of a couple formed, corralling all that laughter for themselves, and i feel i'm feeding off scraps. or perhaps, fat, comfortable and complacent, like i once was. and afraid of meeting them at the weirdest places in town. but love is there to be shared.

so i don't know, i just thought how that might happen to me instead in the future, and it was strangely uplifting. alright, back to the amazing statistical properties of life.

the good thing about having a sister that does english lit (and with not altogether dissimilar tastes) is that my house is well stocked with books. going back to look at our collection (which i've missed all my time in london) was like rediscovering something. so many of my old books now are literally turning yellow.

as you might tell nowadays i divide my day into thirds. when i'm fresh i study. when i get emotional i read. when i'm sick of that i hit town.

one day i will be a mel brooks kind of person, or cartman instead of kyle. but, i like arthur miller. conservative, american dream sort. the synopsis says this is about a man and his guilt, ostensibly autobiographical, the usual miller-monroe fighting stuff. he's talking to the dead which is why he talks so much, the dead can't really reply properly, and about how he decides that it's fine to move on and shack with holga, his latest love

-----------------
after the fall, act II

mag: remember how used talk to me till I fell asleep?

quen: mag, i've sat beside you in darkened rooms for days and weeks at a time, and my office looking high and low for me -

mag: no you lost patience with me.

quen, after a slight pause: that's right, yes

mag: so you lied right?

quen: yes i lied, every day. we are all separate people. i tried not to be, but finally one is - a separate person. i have to survive too honey.

mag: but if you loved me?

quen: but how would you know mag? do you know any more who i am? aside from my name? i'm all the evil in the world aren't i? all the betrayal, broken hopes, the murderous revenge? [then suicide monologue by mag]

mag: quen, what's lazarus?

quen: jesus raised him from the dead. in the bible. go to sleep now.

mag: wha's 'at suppose to prove?

quen: the power of faith

mag: what about those who have no faith?

quen: they only have the will

mag: but how do you get the will?

quen: you have faith
--------
mag: but jesus must have loved her

quen: who?

mag: lazarus?

quen: that's right, yes! he ... loved her enough to raise her from the dead. but he's god, see... and god's power is love without limit. but when a man dares reach for that... he is only reaching for the power. whoever goes to save another person with the lie of limitless love throws a shadow on the face of god. and god is what happened, god is what is; and whoever stands between another person and her truth is not a lover, he is... [he breaks off lost, peering, and turns back to maggie for his clue] [through a sudden burst of tears]
we... used one another.

mag: not me, not me!

quen: yes, you. and i. "to live" we cried, and "now" we cried. and loved each other's innocence, as though to love enough what was not there would cover up what was. but there is an angel, and night and day he brings back to us exactly what we want to lose. so you must love him because he keeps truth in the world. you eat those pills to blind yourself, but if only you could say , "i have been cruel", this frightening room would open. if you could only say , "i have been kicked around, but i have just been as inexcusably vicious to others, called my husband idiot in public, i have been utterly selfish despite my generosity, i have been hurt by a long line of men but i have cooperated with my persecutors..."

mag: son of a bitch!

quen: "and i am full of hatred; i, mag, sweet lover of all life - i hate the world!"

quen: hate women, hate men, hate all who will not grovel at my feet proclaiming my limitless love for ever and ever! but no pill can make us innocent. throw them into the sea, throw death in the sea and all your innocence. do the hardest thing of all -- see your own hatred and live.

mag: what about your hatred? you know when i wanted to die. when i read what you wrote kiddo. 2 months after we were married kiddo.

quen: let's keep it true -- you told me you tried to die long before you met me

mag: so you're not even there, huh? i didn't even meet you. you coward! what about your hatred! i was married to a king, you son of a bitch! i was looking for a fountain pen to sign some autographs. and there's his desk - [she is speaking toward some invisible source of justice now, telling her injury] -- and there's his empty chair where he sits and thinks how to help people. and there's his handwriting. and there's some words. [she almost literally reads in the air, and with the same original astonishment.] "the only one i will ever love is my daughter. if i could only find an honourable way to die." [now she turns to him] when you gonna face that judgey? remember how i fell down, fainted? on the new rug? that's what killed me judgey? right? and you were ashamed of me. don't lie now! you're still playing god! that's what killed me quen!

quen: [in quiet tension against his own self-condemnation]: we'd had our first party in our own house. some important people, network heads, directors -- all right. i wasn't... ashamed. but ... afraid. i wasn't sure if any of them... had had you

mag: [astounded] but i didn't know any of those!

quen [not looking at her] i swear to you, i did get to where i couldn't imagine what i'd ever been ashamed of. but it was too late. i had written that, and i was like all of the others who'd betrayed you, and i could never be trusted again.

mag [with a mixture of accusation and lament for a lost life, weeping] why did you write that?

quen: because when the guests had gone, and you suddenly turned on me, cold, remote, it was the first time i saw your eyes that way -- betrayed, screaming that i'd made you feel you didn't exist

mag: don't mix me up with louise!

quen: that's just it. that i could have brought two women so different to the same accusation -- it closed a circle for me. and i wanted to face the worst thing i could imagine -- that i could not love. and i wrote it down, like a letter from hell. that's rock bottom, what more do you want? mag, we were both born of many errors; a human being has to forgive himself! neither of us is innocent, what more do you want?

mag: love me, and do what i tell you. and stop arguing [he moves in anguish up and down beside the bed]. and take down the sand dune, it's not too expensive. i want to hear the ocean when we make love in here, but we never hear the ocean.

quen: we're nearly broke, mag, that dune keeps the roof from blowing off.

mag: so you buy a new roof. i'm cold, lie on me.

quen: i can't do that again, not when you're like this

mag: just till i sleep!

quen - an outcry : mag! it's a mockery. leave me something.

mag: just out of humanness! i'm cold!

quen: it isn't my love you want anymore. it's my destruction. i want those pills. i don't want to fight you maggie, now put them in my hand. drop them you bitch! you won't kill me! you won't kill me! you won't kill me!

======
reintroducing holga: holga is a ww2 survivor, a courier for the plot to assassinate hitler. she survived while all the officers died. she's also quen's latest flame.

[holga appears on the highest level]

holga: but no one is innocent they did not kill!
quen: but love, is love enough? what love, what wave of pity will ever reach this knowledge? - i know how to kill? i know -- she was doomed in any case, but will that cure? or is it possible [he turns towards the tower, moves toward it as toward a terrible god] -- that this is not bizarre... to anyone? and i am not alone, and no man lives who would not rather be the sole survivor of this place than all its finest victims! what is the cure? who can be innocent again on this mountain of skulls? i tell you what i know! my brothers died here --- but my brothers built this place; our hearts have cut these stones! and what's the cure? no, not love; i loved them all, all! and gave them willing to failure and to death that i might live, as they gave me and gave each other, with a word, a look, a trick, a truth, a lie -- and all in love!

holga: hello!

quen: but what will defend her? [he cries up to holga] that woman hopes!

[she stands unperturbed, resolute, aware of his pain and her own.]

or is that exactly why she hopes -- because she knows? what burning cities taught her and the death of love taught me: that we are very dangerous! and that's why i wake each morning like a boy -- even now, even now! i swear to you, i could love the world again! is the knowing all? to know, and even happily, that we meet unblessed; not in some garden of wax fruit and painted trees, that lie of Eden, but after, after the Fall, after many, many deaths. Is the knowing all? And the wish to kill is never killed, but with some gift of courage one may look into its face when it appears, and with a stroke of love -- as to an idiot in the house -- forgive it; again and again ... forever?

no it's not certainty, i don't feel that. but it does seem feasible... not to be afraid. perhaps it's all one has. i'll tell her that... yes she will, she'll know what i mean.

[he turns upstage. he hesitates; all his people face him. he walks toward louise, pausing, but she turns her face away. he goes on and pauses behind mother, who stands in uncomprehending sorrow; he gestures as though he touched her, and she looks up at him and dares a smile, and he smiles back. he pauses at his dejected father and dan, and with a slight gesture magically makes them stand. felice is about to raise her hand in blessing -- he shakes her hand, aborting her enslavement. he passes mickey and lour and turns back to maggie, she rises from the floor, webbed in with her demons, trying to awake. and with his life following him he climbs towards holga, who raises her arm as though seeing him, and with great love... ]

holga: hello!

quen: hello.

-------

so it turns out that even holga is a very thinly veiled reference to inge morath. oh and another person he left behind. so fascinating.

http://www.vanityfair.com/fame/features/2007/09/miller200709?printable=true&currentPage=all

while i'm still high, should share a joke (or was it a true story) sunny once shared with me when i was in london, i've modified it a little: basically they did this survey among taiwanese, hk and singaporean girls

你喜欢好男人还是坏男人？
台湾妹：好男人
香港妹：坏男人
新加坡妹：我能不能两个都要？？
--------------

haha just kidding. when i was down, someone once told me a story about deng xiaoping. persistence you know? people were harder then. to be put into jail, go on these long forced marches. for him, in particular, he was content to bide his time until mao passed on.

that aside. the old relationship is water under the bridge. but i've been thinking (more appropriately) about the future. i've seen enough dysfunctional families to know at some level that 1. relationships tend to get worse as the rule rather than the exception and 2. it's important to choose the right person (duh). the happy families i've seen, to be honest, are not perfect unions. but they seem to display an ability to learn or give/take along the way. i've seen families that work where there is a coupling of very different people, or very different emotional/intellectual level. i'm not sure that's what i'm looking for. but i'm not sure if it's possible for two people who are alike in too many ways to be in a happy union. why do you even want a happy family anyway? why do you even want love? except that it felt good once and just every single thing you have read/watched on tv since you were young has glorified it as the ultimate virtue (or at least the one that appeals the most to you). and as i said, blazing fireball kebab theory. don't know why that's so important to me.

the notion that one cannot engineer these things is some sort of loss of control. but like many things in life, luck and effort. i don't even look for perfection, but i'm picky enough to fear i won't find the right one. rationally i get more good days out of romantic relationships than bad days. rationally every one i've had so far has failed. what do i believe? but by it's very nature you have to keep failing till you settle down no? and all those things we see, we only observe the final data point. so unique. so interesting. i need to get better at writing again.

i cannot for the life of me figure out whether i talk more than i listen. i should do a survey and see what different friend's perceptions are.

confessions of an introvert

i know, people have me pegged. there are times where i wake up in the morning and think, "must i? must i really put myself out there in front of people's faces?", these days especially more than ever, i appreciate that it might be more important than ever to do that. and people everywhere must be amazed that introverts even exist. i mean, it's positively easy to be fun-loving and to be nice and open to people... why make it out to be such a chore?

i don't know, yes i am introverted. what does that mean? it means that i am shy, i guess, sometimes around people i've never met much. it means that i am afraid to transgress their boundaries, perhaps afraid what they might find taboo and what they might find not. lots of afraid, fear, i guess. of their sensibilities. perhaps a need to protect them.

am i? i'm pretty opinionated actually. when someone gives it to me about religion i'm not afraid to give back. i know religion, i claim, i've been there. i burn with intensity, i know it when i stay up to write, and it frustrates me sometimes that people don't see it. but perhaps that is the secret, the secret is in putting in out there. but you see this is my medium. perhaps i've neglected this a little bit, but can't you see?

yes, i freak a bit when you put me in a bunch of people and they're not my clique. i don't have the ability to make the lights shine a little bit brighter in the room. for all intents, people have me pegged right. i am an introvert, sometimes i feel necessarily so because otherwise i will go on and on and on.... over time i have tried to push out a bit whenever the circle has drawn too far in. in hwa chong. from the ashes of an old breakup i've taken good advice: "it is the time you have wasted on your rose that makes it so valuable". i've learnt the importance of little trinkets and the gifts, and constant reaffirmation. i learnt to preserve less time for myself. now i know there's so much more to do, in terms of outward expression. yes, i got the name wrong from time to time. yes, many other mistakes.

but it's no point thinking of the person you are. you're you, with all your warts and imperfections. who do you want to be? a lot of people but right now, you want to be madonna, a shelter from the storm. you have a certain calm and strength to share, and you don't know when it will next be needed. i am bloody picky. and at this point, i must emphasize that yes i've also learnt not to fall in love with the concept of love. i know when i love somebody i mean it, because i'm bloody picky, so if michelle can take any heart is that she should know she was special. sometimes you wonder if the type of girl you like will ever be right for you. but at least you know what you want. you wonder if you have to bend yourself in some direction, so you can get what you want. when you've been looked over for someone else, you always wonder, do i have to be like them? what can i learn from them? you realize part of the futility, you can be closer to them, but never them. but just because you're an introvert doesn't mean you're some furniture, wallpaper. inside you burns an intensity which keeps you up at night. you reach out to people you have a connection to. i can only hope the people i have made the connection with don't resent me. you are chatty, you've had enough multi-hour conversations to last a lifetime, and you can only hope that these conversations mean as much to them as they meant to you. your friends are scattered all over the world, but you know over the past few weeks you had enough of them such that you always had someone to connect with. connecting has always been the easy part for you. of course, the sudden loss of an idealized future, and the fact that not all of your friends are free/ there to physically connect or provide you with the intimacy that you need. it is because you have tasted it, so you know what you lack.

perhaps it's not just fear too... it's the temptation to think that you've seen past everyone, that there isn't anything interesting in the people you're not interested in. again, your intensity, don't just write people off. they can surprise you sometimes.

----------------
what have i lost, really? well, if i'm on my plane to london, and the pilot says, good morning everyone, unfortunately we've lost power in all of our engines and we're going to be kebabs in a giant fireball in 30 minutes, then yes, i wouldn't have that selfish last phone call. to know that you are the world to someone or that someone is the world to you. no of course, in 30 minutes, you'd have so many phone calls. but you know, the one you had to make? it would have been a great life, but it wouldn't be ideal. and ideal is what i am looking for. besides, you rolled down the hill on sapa and you had none of this shit, and all you could think about was what you should do to survive (cup hands on ears, oh shit how did this happen, pool). no flashing before your eyes stuff.

but to impose/will this on someone? nah. there was this psychological study wasn't it. that people were conditioned to think that what was rare was valuable, by virtue of it's rarity. it's because you have to go out there and win it, look for it, that's what has always appealed to you.

you've improved a little from your secondary school days. you've learnt to work more, to put aside distractions to get what you want. you're not always successful because you procrastinate and let slip of your standards sometimes. but the past 3 years have been pretty decent. now the trick is to solve the diseconomy of effort, by focusing more on what you want, and not to do things you don't want to do. experiment, by all means, but don't continue if you don't like the results. and it's not always about effort, or your own effort. people can help you.

and to write... look at your blog. there are times it has become distinctly less interesting, it always covers the same old ground. it doesn't matter. what i'm really proud of is keeping it going for so long. if it makes connections, good, if it doesn't, it gives me plenty of inner strength. i've drawn so much strength from well-written blogs, heck, well-written anything, in general.

yay. ok, let's hope flu goes away soon.

hmm i feel the onset of flu. hmmmmmm.

Spent some time reading shin's blog, this was showcased yesterday in the little feature on death run by ST on Saturday. There are times I don't know what blogging is for. There are also times where I run out of things to say. So many things have been said anyway. I've also carefully run through my cachet of memories. so i'll clear the stage for others until experiences give me back my old level of creativity.

everytime i read something and i feel what someone else has felt, i feel that little bit less lonely. if i do feel bad anyway, it's only because i think i had something good that was taken away, but i had no right to it to begin with. so, this is just something i connected with, this sensation of peace and floating higher than people. it's strange, i know, but other people have felt it too! and she quoted woody allen too: "the heart is a resilient little muscle."

One of my earliest memories is when I was growing up in Korea. I must have been about seven years old. There was a clearing in the woods across from our house and in that clearing was a stone bench. I remember lying on that stone bench one hot day, my cheek against the cool stone. The sky was blocked by the tree branches above me, but some of the sun rays managed to peek through between the leaves.

For some reason, I have a very clear memory of that scene and of what I was thinking. I was thinking that I knew what life was all about. I felt I understood more than other people and I knew that this was happiness and calm and that this was very important. I felt very peaceful. Now, I wonder what that little kid could possibly have understood about life and happiness, and what could have brought such existential tranquility to such a young child.

For my page in my high school yearbook, I used a cartoon of a penguin who turns on the T.V. and hears nothing but bad news about crime and disasters, then walks outside to sit in the grass among the dandelions. I don't know what I could have found to be so heart-crushing at the age of seventeen to think I needed a break from life, but apparently, I felt overwhelmed by the negative noise around me.

When I was a senior in college, twenty-one years old, I wanted to drop out two weeks before graduation. I felt no connection with any of my classmates who were excited about graduation, planning parties and chattering on about their photos for the official college yearbook. They seemed so silly to me. I felt like I had spent so much time growing up and learning, and that I was finally going to graduate from university and go out into the world. Only there was nothing for me to go to. I had a job lined up as a teacher, but I didn't think of that as a meaningful endeavor, just something I had to do because I was supposed to go out and get a job.

I saw my classmates going on to business school, law school, Wall Street, and it all seemed so meaningless to me. This is what we worked so hard for? This was IT?! I wanted to drop out of school and out of life. If I ever came close to ending my life, it was this moment. Luckily, I happened to walk by a travel agency and saw a poster of an empty beach -- white sand, clear blue water, bright blue sky, and a solitary palm tree. I walked in, bought a ticket, and went off to Caracas for a week. That did the trick and when I returned to school, I got back on the treadmill and did what I was supposed to do without kicking up a fuss about the meaning of life.

I think it's time for another Dandelion Break. Tomorrow, I'm going to a little island off the coast of Thailand to be by myself. I hope to spend the week looking out at the ocean and sky, writing letters, not speaking a word, having no contact with people.

I'm not going to find God, the meaning of life, or even to "find myself". Besides, if I've been looking for God, the meaning of life, or myself all along and haven't found them by now, I think it's a clear sign that either I've already found them or that I don't, in fact, need to find them.

I think we could all use a Dandelion Break once in a while.

proper downpour.

on fb... all my friends having spring breaks. wtf man. stuck in this shithole.

when i become a dictator, i will do as many have done. i will round up all the intellectuals, and put them to work stacking books of poetry neatly in piles of 100. they will then lie upon the mattresses of their work, before i get my soldiers to light them a pyre to remember them by. the world shall not have seen the likes of such a bonfire.

upon their ashes then the wind will blow. the world will be temporarily bereft of poetry except of what is left in that hazy dust, and then life can go on.

i read 14 may 2006 and i wonder whether i will ever get back on that plane. my mind was breathing some rarefied shit that day. but the key point is that the lines in the side are slowly removing themselves, and i'm turning into a circle again. a perfect circle.

st life ran a little thing about death today, there's a little thing in there which struck a chord:

"josie has told me she's afraid she'll forget me some day - forget what i looked like, forget to think about me, and some day, stop loving me. i have the same response for you that I had for her: you may forget me some day. that's just a normal brain function. but you should never feel bad about it, because as long as you remember the things that were important to me, you won't ever really forget me."

this is from somebody's list of things

5. I'm deathly afraid of death. I test myself sometimes by thinking about no heaven nor hell, but the idea of a never-ending nothingness after. Never being to think or feel forever. 90% of the time it brings me to tears.

Well I know that this particular meme is now more common than I first thought it was. I first brought it up at a young age, and as a result i guess people always associate me with this when i catch up. what a thing to be remembered for. but it's always nice to be remembered. i guess it's true that you remember what's important to a person more than the details of a person himself. even faces fade, if only for sanity's sake.

it's nice to know that someone shares my little guilt of forgetting. it happens as i live life, but there's part of me that's perpetually afraid these things will die, even all these mundane things i'm obsessed with attempting to recreate... it's like i've gotten over no 5. but it's been replaced by an obsession that if i don't remember these things they will die. perhaps the advice is right, the next step is photography. after the exams.

new quiz making its round on facebook... which elite school are you from... again, hanging around a fairly limited cultural milieu one you occasionally remember those moments where you've correctly predicted where someone is from based on school stereotypes. well get this bitches, you'll never guess where i'm supposed to come from. i'm an rgs girl at heart.

You are smart and motivated. In fact, you've been motivated since you were in nursery school. Sometimes, you wish you can unleash your inner being (either the rebellious ah lian or the slutty-party animal). You tend to giggle a little too much. You want to do everything because you feel that you are expected to do everything. In your quiet moments, you think "How did I become so lucky"?

i guess it's a fair reflection of what i am now (or was a month and a half ago, i've slid down the pole a little), i probably would have different answers when i was actually in sec school. but, i mean, wtf right... this thing doesn't even account for gender.

aaah, personality tests... the thrills of seeing what everyone else's type really is, as if we didn't know enough about them already. but you can tell from my pickup in facebook usage that something inside me has changed, if only just a little.

there's something about my shaggy dog eyes that makes people think i'm good.

spent today lunching above my usual socioeconomic status. lunched @ pete's place at the grand hyatt, which does buffet italian lunches for $35/pax (but it was a treat and there was 50% discount!). very nice. i can see the potential in trenchant materialism, for those of us currently lost and buffeted by the winds of change. if i do get converted, i'll buy a camera and start camwhoring about food. unfortunately, all armed with my $100 GST credit (please remember to collect or donate to charity), the afternoon spent browsing atas shops was interesting but somewhat unfruitful. but at least, i avoid the memories from going to the same old places (that said i was just at purvis street/bras basah/raffles hotel the other day, eating hock lam beef kway teow), which i guess is the good part of stepping out of your cultural milieu. i suppose the other thing you could do is to chill about all of it or just fucking leave the country.

while waiting around at club monaco i flipped through a steve mcqueen photobook. the guy literally drove his girlfriends to therapy/insanity but every single comment was about how hot and sexy he was (oh but he is) (with typical freudian thinking they attributed his callousness to his abandonment by mom). but my favourite quote: "there's something about my shaggy dog eyes that makes people think i'm good."

on a related theme, i now have a standing 100 USD bet with michelle goh which i have to hand over the moment i cradle my firstborn. yes, apparently it's written on my face that i am fated to have kids now regardless of my tremendous skepticism for it now.

and this happens to me all the time... everytime i go out, meet someone for the first time, i have "guai" written on my face (although i suspect it's body language). i've never figured out whether it was a help or a hindrance. that, and looking moody. also discovered that listening to sad chinese songs when down is not such an uncommon experience.

i just bought a collection of kurt vonnegut short stories so i might turn into more of a bastard inside. let's see if it rubs off.

april fools mofos

i've been offered a chance to avoid my work for a while and attempt a column about my current experiences. with that, (and the money) of course, means no more lazy writing but something which synthesizes my thoughts post-relationship and the central questions i've been interested in integrating for a while:

this gives me an opportunity to complete my research on spirituality and why it always seems to rush in to fill the void when love goes away... will get a chance to express my moral skepticism regarding organized religion, and perhaps exercise some of the doubts. so i can finally get down to some of these meditations by trappist monks, and some of the work by kierkegaard which i very much admire.

i'm pretty amazed how quickly all of this has fallen into place. after a night out of town on monday, i met april again yesterday @ loof. just shared with her some of my writing and due to ST's insatiable appetite for the views of young, overeducated people, turns out i get a chance to write something and if it ain't too outlandish it gets published. one small step to columndom!

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hear me, hear me. i bet with you that conficker worm thing on cnn is their april fool's job. here it from me before they tell you. so many clues