As Michelle was complaining about needing a niche yesterday i didn't realise how i'd already rather thought through this issue somehow before and instead i was concentrating on what rhymed with niche. quiche, wish, fish.

but it came back to me, but first things first, the choir concert. i think i will continue this tomorrow have a run to sleep for.

Warning: Spoiler and eulogic praise again. Do not read if you hate hype.

Dogville dies in dramatic denouement. Gosh I love this film. I had to break it up in parts but it was heart-rending at time, and "fuck you" and cathartically satisfying at others, though morally it leads to a dead-end. It's really great cause it's so original, which many films try to be but by some stroke of luck this pulls it off because it isn't original for the sake of being original. like ermm, yes... stylistically it varies but it has this sense of tradition and gravitas and it has the dramatic elements of a good old fashioned story, which is what most likable things are about. characters and story. can't wait for the rest von Trier's so-called "american trilogy"

the slide show at the end is genius too imho.

Dogville part 2

where the little wispy dandelion seeds drift upon the stage on the 4th of July.

and the love scene between Ben and Grace occurs.

"The beautiful fugitive's name was Grace."

"Tom really was enchanted by this beautiful, mysterious creature."

"I think Miss Laura is something like what Ovid would call a Maenad."

I find Dogville lovely. It isn't minimalist crap. Well it's an interesting play and a nice original idea. The acting was solid, the narrator infused the film with a healthy sense of authority. May sound stupid putting a play on film but how many people can watch a play? 2-300? Movies give you thousands.

It's clever and not doesn't go out of its way to be deliberately obscurantist cum controversial (think IRREVERSIBLE). Will wait for Kill Bill 2 now.

had dinner with ms drama incarnate and my ct tutor.

ms drama incarnate did show off her complete repertoire, up right to punctuating conversation with loud bouts of laughter, drawing the attention from neigbouring tables. having established her credentials and the fact that she was not butch, did much to assuage me. she should go into theatre, though that's a sore point with her, so i guess its economics and gasp she may even be my senior.

and of course, friendly bio tutor ms wong makes a perfect foil to her cause she's sort of the more reserved, but she too is more than capable of manipulating things behind the scenes. what was notable was that i sold my dinner to someone else because i didn't feel like eating it when it arrived, which meant i couldn't replenish nutrients lost on gym.

really, days are just so much different from nights.

I think what was whispered at the end of lost in translation was something like this

"just remember to tell the truth, okay", "okay."

at least that was the audible part, you can infer what was inaudible before, probably something like "you can write about this, or tell your children about it or whatever."


okay i heard "tell the truth" on the dvd, maybe even "just remember" is variable.

Pange lingua gloriosi
Corporis mysterium,
Sanguinisque pretiosi,
Quem in mundi pretium
Fructus ventris generosi,
Rex effudit gentium.

Nobis datus, nobis natus
Ex intacta Virgine
Et in mundo conversatus,
Sparso verbi semine,
Sui moras incolatus
Miro clausit ordine.

In supremae nocte cenae
Recum bens cum fratribus,
Observata lege plene
Cibis in legalibus,
Cibum turbae duodenae
Se dat suis manibus

Verbum caro, panem verum
Verbo carnem efficit:
Fitque sanguis Christi merum,
Et si sensus deficit,
Ad firmandum cor sincerum
Sola fides sufficit.

Tantum ergo Sacramentum
Veneremur cernui:
Et antiquum documentum
Novo cedat ritui:
Praestet fides supplementum
Sensuum defectui.

Genitori, Genitoque
Laus et iubilatio,
Salus, honor, virtus quoque
Sit et benedictio:
Procedenti ab utroque
Compar sit laudatio.

Amen.


Thomas Aquinas

a meditation

"Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world."

to be awoken at such an hour, sometimes i feel is a tremendous blessing. just when life starts to sink into tepid routine, and sleep is the easier way out, an insomniac, respecting no clock whatsoever, comes a calling.

and you listen and you weep. sometimes you feel so woefully inadequate. sometimes you feel maybe this is your calling, that if you were just to do one thing in your life it would be this.

searching over shared regrets, you find yours. and for someone who knows me, i am a person who very much has regret in my vocabulary. many people live life without regrets, but that's just a fantastically absurd play on the meaning of the word regret. failure is regret, no matter how much you've learnt from it, or tried to make up for it. "you know there's no success like failure, well then, failure's no success at all".

and for someone who knows me, they also know why i am writing like this. it is hard to believe two people can feel the same, because it is so difficult to find someone so compatible with you. but if we are but experiences aggregated make man, then i guess experiences, emotions can easily transcend corporeal barriers and that is the spirit. "walking around in someone elses skin". that is the language we understand.

you have gone through so much, and i respect you for the profound bravery with which you face things. you indulge me with so many truths, "quid est veritas?" , that in your grief you probably illumine others. i am being elegiac, and as you ask of yourself "have i gone through much. have i lost an arm, a leg?" you have. i can say that i know what you feel. even a baby knows sadness, having gone through nothing particularly much at all. and there are specific instances where i have felt what you have felt, and so i try to empathise.

we are less than perfect. maybe we have established that long ago but we emphasize it again. you envy me because i have not burned my bridges, made enemies or anything, and you have. but i call to mind the penitential rite, where we ask mary to forgive us, "for what we have done, and what we have failed to do. and i ask blessed mary ever virgin, all the angels and saints, and you brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God". and you begin to realise the extent of our failings, that we need so many people to pray for us. unbelievers all, looking for a home.

i have failed many and i am sorry. if i could think of one reason why i am so ineffective it is because sometimes i worry too much with guilt. less nowadays but you have just reminded me.

and i have suffered too. in this way. watching, commiserating. i hurt myself when i misread the careless actions of others. in this consolation i dwell. knowing i could die because i understand a little. hoping to change little by little so that some day i can bring up a good daughter, or son, or something. I know I am shifting already, but there is still plenty of growing to do.

when you asked me to pray for you i was aware of how little i have actually prayed for myself. i have never been religious, but as i understand where personal limits stop, and institutions start, i do begin to accept why for one we have to have common terms of reference and a coming together.

it is inadequate. we share in our yearning. i hope for the best for you, and it's not going to be a fairy tale, but the best of your life lies ahead, and i thank you for being there. i hope you never read this, because it is better that you know what you do know, the simple things, and though hopefully there will be fewer nights like this, we know life will always throw us lemons.

i have some words for myself but i don't remember them. and it was thus that i wished to end this night.

goodnight and tomorrow.

3.20

Why the hell did you sail away
to leave poor Dido on her pyre?
What temptations have overcome you
I'll never trust you again, you bloody liar.

And so it went that hatred bred
festered, cocooned, metamorphosized, hatched
turned into a raging monarch butterfly
flew half the world to find its home
and died.

you laid your roots down again
in some english speaking country
confusing taxonomists using the old
dichotomous keys, trying to classify you
by your roots, the only ones you had
were highlighted so your hair would look better
producing a daughter somewhere
on a scale of 1 to 10
an 8 or qualitatively,
which is simply being inaccurate quantitatively
residing somewhere between average and beautiful.

you'd never tell given how happy you were
concealing some urban sadness
save a bit more and we could consider
to upgrade to suburban madness

meantime back to your daughter
who had a businessman father
which meant she read more books than some girls her age
otherwise she was perfectly normal

dreaming of pixies and faeries and wands
opulent dances, rollicking balls
never really smiled much though
to the drooping mirror she looked sad

even through the windows of the taxi
the eyeballs of her primary school teacher
oh! how they misunderstood
your thinking look which curled into a frown

interspersed by deep throaty laughter and flashes of embarassed genius.
doola la doola ley. rim drim do dam dey.

If there's tragedy once, then there's tragedy twice
presaging death in clairvoyant eyes.
first i'm getting older too,
and secondly, so are you.

only your hubris redeems you,
that your cry could mean a million things
more formula, mashed prunes or a change of diapers
mathematical formulas, mashed hearts and a change of friends.

Are these your fingers that tickle my spine?
Because a two year old knows no strangers?
Only your mother knows
knows that tickling strangers is wrong.

Do your fingers roam as you lie supine?
Do you, age 20, try to get to know strangers?
Only this time your mother knows
knows avoiding strangers is wrong.

"Unwept, unfriended, without marriage song, I am led forth in my sorrow on this journey that can be delayed no more.
No longer hapless one, may I behold your day-star's sacred eye, but for my fate no tear is shed, no friend makes moan."

You dream of pictures I can only see, orate in tongues I can only understand, and I may never know more than that.

You have been cursed by Hecate
To see happiness and feel only envy
To look at love and feel only lust
And to do the minimum only when you must.
To smirk at other's goodwill
To laugh when they are ill.
To calculate and tabulate
loans at exorbitant interest rates
your idea of getting high
is sucking all your debtors dry

And the only way to lift the curse
is to try to put all others first
even if in the end that means
having only one pair of jeans.

To paraphrase Henry Kissinger very inaccurately, why eat oysters when you have power?

There's just this certain sense of adrenaline at rushing about from place to place, skipping meals and drinking a lot of coffee. Sitting at tables negotiating and sitting down thinking of designs. I like publishing so maybe I will do it in the future (future future).
I miss being on helicopters and wearing chemical suits and digging trenches but I guess a little bit of the old buzz is back, and it's just a different sort, dealing with people, briefing them and even doing someone else's grunt work. I used to hate management because I thought it was all about power and calculations and how many people you can retrench. But its also about coaching and teaching although there's far less room for error than in school but i'm very impressed by the thought that if you died the next day you would have imparted enough knowledge for people to function w/o you, i.e. you should never be indispensible. I would never study management or politics because I've always felt its something that can only be gained by experience and intuition but that doesn't mean i don't have a healthy respect for it.


We're always given this impression that the real world is unfair and all but somehow I do feel that the people who work hard generally do get rewarded. Okay, to rephrase I guess it is a prerequisite to work hard in order to be special and looking at these people who run start-ups they're not the yuppie hippies i thought they were but they do put in a lot of effort into what they do. must learn.

Listening to the Beatles, I'm reminded of Hok Him, my lovely bunkmate during ST2 who loved drums and the future of Hongkong=p.
I'll never forget Kaoshiung to Taipei=p


Cry baby cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better
so cry baby cry cry

The king of Marigold was in the kitchen
Cooking breakfast for the queen
The queen was in the parlour
Playing piano for the children of the king

Cry baby cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better
So cry baby cry

The king was in the garden
Picking flowers for a friend who came to play
The queen was in the playroom
Painting pictures for the childrens holiday

Cry baby cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better
So cry baby cry

The duchess of Kircaldy always smiling
And arriving late for tea
The duke was having problems
With a message at the local bird and bee

Cry baby cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better
So cry baby cry

At twelve o'clock a meeting round the table
For a seance in the dark
With voices out of nowhere
Put on specially by the children for a lark

Cry baby cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better
So cry baby cry cry cry cry baby
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better
Cry baby cry

Cry cry cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better
So cry baby cry

He was Cinderella. Through the prosaic banality of daily chores, he found a relief from the exile imposed by boredom. As he posted the letters, his mind would dive through the slots into the dark interior of the ubiquitous white boxes, finding themselves magically transported on the next working day to destinations he could only dream about, par avion.
As he topped up each bus card, each green lighting signalling a succesful transaction was a miracle of a myriad of electromagnetic '1's and '0's, yes and nos, love mes and love-me-nots. The pork told of its arduous journey across oceans, and the eggs the more modest stories of daily lorry rides, and tales of desperation, falling on deaf ears, at the oppression occuring every day at the concentration camps run by Seng Choon. The laundry told of the rough-and-tumble of life and the stories of rags-to-riches. The room was vacuumed with totalitarian efficiency as each square inch of carpet was gone over, and over again, overlapping to make sure there were no survivors left. But inevitably, the diaspora would never be eradicated, and the winds of migration would always ensure an interminable problem. The floor was mopped and as each cement patch stained darker and darker, the area under his dominion faded and faded, and the forces of malcontent and cleanliness slowly encroached, until at last he had only one leg to stand on. His work gave him his identity, as Marx said it would.

When he was done, the television would usually transport him to a new world, a world of reality. A world where love existed, where sons took revenge for their fathers, and elections were won and lost by a matter of votes. A world his masters inhabited,a world where the waltzess was waiting at the ball, a world where hands were smooth and silky and pumpkins could be turned into a Porsche 911, because pumpkins earned money and money bought Porches.

In his microcosmic view of the world, all these concepts were hardly comprehensible. Of infinity and light-years and Sputniks
he didn't know, nor did he care. In his veil of ignorance and apathy, Orion was a hunter who wore a belt. He had 7 sisters whom their dad had christened Pleaides who chose to dwell, close to each other, and amuse each other with their effeminate charms in the corner of the celestial hemisphere. His arrow pointed North to guide the Bedouins, and towards the twin peaks of Cassiopeia, which was later appropriated as a good sobriquet for a PDA. Even the twins of Gemini ignored him, terrified because Orion wanted to play Red Indian and they weren't ready to be cowboys, because guns weren't invented yet. So Orion stood proudly erect in the center of the cosmos, yet even the glory was not to be his. Sirius was smarter and brighter, and if you looked closely you would see 2 big shining eyes, the symbol of the intellect that was ruling the universe of the night. Canopus and Archenar equally defiant in their red fury, strode to his South, with the result that Orion although in the center, seemed to be caught withing a circle playing monkey, with everyone's blaming gaze on him.

I've always wondered how columnists do their job. To be fair, their job at the newspaper does entail more than just writing that column every week but even so it sounds like a pretty good job. It's like being a soccer player for someone who likes writing instead of soccer. There's a big match every Sunday or so and then the rest of the week is just training.

But from a bewildering number of issues to consider, it is difficult sometimes to choose what vegetable to put between the bun and the beef patty. It's usually lettuce, but generally if you've ever ordered a sandwich from Subway you would put everything down (except the pickles please), which would mean olives, green and red capsicum, lettuce, cucumber, zucchini and tomato.

Father's birthday again today, and we celebrated it in the low-key way he likes. I'm glad I managed to write something for him that I thought was fitting for someone my age and I hope it will be a good year for him, and I guess I was wrong about him needing work cause he seems to be occupying himself just fine.

Have to start preparing for NDP publications(again, more publications). I was just looking at the manifesto by the 'Remaking Singapore' committee and it really seems encouraging. Things are changing, as evidenced by the many changes in education, and there is a good deal of bureaucracy in the public sector, but at least they've shed the inertia. A lot of discussions do occur in the background(and usually the grounds for people's pessimism is that this force of change isn't accurately reflected in the media, due to the closed nature of many of policy debates), but if one is to follow policy closely there is much to hope for. The changes are probably not nearly deep-seated enough, esp with 2nd lang teaching methods and cultivating of creativity and not forcing kids to go for things they don't understand or like. Yet still although we're not achieving change by hanging out in the cafes of NUS with Camus or Sartre in our hands(although the culture of SMU next to the heart of the city would deserve notice) or smoking pot on the Padang demanding that we recall our navy ship from the Gulf, we are doing it the way we know how, leave it to the government. A bit more civil activism could help but otherwise we'll do along fine thank you. You see, people would like less government but that sounds like the Republican agenda. Cut taxes, return your money to you, BIG government bad, run deficits, give you debt which isn't so bad because it's just a number, but its going to come back to haunt them eventually. I don't see how cutting taxes increases the incentive to work, though I do admit it's good for investment. It's absurd though to see budget cuts for good programs for the poor (Cause Big government bad and poor people should get off their asses to work) and then authorise emergency spending to fund a war in Iraq. I do realise that its important for the world's sole superpower to flex its muscles from time to time to show its willing to act on its ideals but one must question the method of achieving regime change in Iraq. (Ground war? Come on.) Kosovo was a cleaner solution although bombings still do kill people, but there isn't that stigma of being an occupying power. It's pretty anachronistic to go after Iraq after all the changes in the global security situation.

Credible opposition in Singapore? Probably has to position itself to the right of the PAP in economic issues and to the left in national security. But it's simplistic to say left/right. On the one hand we have a lot of state conglomerates on the other hand there's an absence of strong unions. We have enforced savings but no unemployment net. Generally speaking its because we don't have a problem with unemployment yet, and the government may well shift to the left on this matter. It seems though they're doing a good job of accepting accepted wisdoms instead of positioning themselves on certain broad policies which would happen if the elections here was more tightly contested.

So I must start thinking about what to write.

Sometimes I go through the day looking at all sorts of interesting things and wanting to note them down, and usually they're there when i'm waiting, watching ( for let's be honest, its rare to move at quick speeds and really observe things, that's why driving's a bitch!=p).

1. People do silly things when they're bored.
e.g. me, cutting out shapes of fish with a decorative scissors. Work can be surprisingly like school when you're bored. It's just that you don't really stare at the clock.

but more importantly, was the counter girl at BBDC ( I show a marked bias towards observing girls over guys, because I am attracted to them.) She was liquid papering patterns on her very own packet of JusTea. I thought it was really stupid to do it when you're about to drink it and throw it away but then she promptly stowed it away under her counter. So maybe she's marking it so someone wouldn't steal it? But more likely, when in doubt, refer to 1.

2. People do silly things when they're in love.

Need I say more? If I do, I'll gather more evidence in support of point 2 but I have to think a bit.

3. People do silly things when they're stressed.

It starts with small gestures which are cute at first, the pen twirling, the name calling, as well as looking visibly stressed so people will offer to help and you can promptly shout at them for offering it. If it's bad enough you cry and start throwing things around and if it's really bad, you sit down and work by rule, and often needing people to prompt you on every next step. I haven't had anyone slit themselves yet by any means and I hope no one does.

4. People are silly.

Mr Eugenides has a style of description quite unlike any other writer today and I thought Middlesex was slightly better than the critics made it out to be. It doesn't have the same sense of emotional resonance as the Virgin Suicides but lets be clear that probably teenage crushes and impaling yourself on the fence does engage the reader more than a 4 generation epic. But Middlesex is honesty of a different sort, a nice sort of historical imagination and curiosity that we all have about our great-grandmothers, grandmothers and papas etc and the descriptions ooooh.

I want to take note of all these interesting things, maybe make some serious comment about something which I did rationalise and think about earlier in the afternoon that I felt made a lot of sense but when I come back and listen to music and read it all melts away and perhaps its better that way that whatever I came to a conclusion too was internalised and there's not really much need to talk about it and I can just dwell with a reasonable amount of self-assurance and go to sleep tonight.

I got into LSE today, which is more than i can ask for. Now I have to figure out how to settle all the paperwork.

"The truth is that you're a quiet, sensitive type but, if I'm prepared to take a chance, I might just get to know the inner you: witty, adventurous, passionate, loyal... a little bit crazy, a little bit bad. But hey, don't us girls just love that."
-Diane, Trainspotting

Wow, sounds encouraging, now I need to go acquire an inner me. Excuse me while I go hide in the corner=p.

Songs

'Friday night running, to Sunday on my knees' - U2

This sentence applies more literally to me perhaps than in the song=p. Running on Friday night, and kneeling on the church pews on Sunday.

It's an exceptionally slow Sunday which is how Sundays should be, and for so long I haven't had the pleasure of really waking up late and wandering through Sunday with nothing really compelling to do.

The choir surprised us today with beautiful rendition of Pan De Vida, in Spanish of course, porque dios es amor! And, because it was the reading of the prodigal son, there was also Amazing Grace which is many people's nicest non-Christmas hymn.

And because Sunday is family day, and Mom was away in Indonesia for class reunion, dad lapsed into bard mode.

About how the prodigal son moved him to Christianity above Buddhism. I guess this philosophy is rather unique, one which removes notions of justice, and righteousness, and more to love and mercy. a devolvement of power from the government to the province of the heart.

it doesn't make sense. how can i do something wrong and expect to be forgiven, with no bad consequences? what's to stop me from sinning again. well, many times, i don't. but in that way it does move the motivation to the individual. not to sin for the sake of not sinning.

i don't really like the word sin because it implies something so cast in stone and so wrong, when most of the time we're moving in shadow. the church can be rather rigid at times. dad told me of aunt who got pregnant before marriage and had a child out of wedlock, and when she wanted to have a catholic marriage with that guy, the church didn't allow it, and she decided that the church was bullshit. It very well could be, and in Europe, only half of them go to church so maybe it's all boiling down to the individual now.

No shame about it but less choirs, no more majestic cathedrals and holding hands during our Father. That is probably what Church is good for, this sense of home. But it is very difficult for people who do not belong. Although catholicism has moderated much in the past decades and is generally very genial and accepting.

It's the songs of the Beat era which hold so much appeal. I think poetry is very much dying now because of the advent of popular lyricised songs on record, and there isn't need for much sentimentalism. Okay I still see a poetry column in FT but even then it's a 1950's one. The BBC poets, Auden, MacNiece, Hughes gave way to a new generation in the West, maybe inspired by Kerouac more in lifestyle than in style.

And the next generation, Dylan, Lennon/McCartney, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Simon and Garfunkel, Cohen all can be considered poets in their own right, and perhaps that wave has already passed so we have to turn to them for music of a certain sort.

Both Sides, Now
Rows and floes of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons ev�rywhere
I�ve looked at clouds that way

But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on ev�ryone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way
I�ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It�s cloud illusions I recall
I really don�t know clouds at all

Moons and junes and ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way you feel
As ev�ry fairy tale comes real
I�ve looked at love that way

But now it�s just another show
You leave �em laughing when you go
And if you care, don�t let them know
Don�t give yourself away

I�ve looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It�s love�s illusions I recall
I really don�t know love at all

Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say I love you right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I�ve looked at life that way

But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I�ve changed
Well something�s lost, but something�s gained
In living ev�ry day

I�ve looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It�s life�s illusions I recall
I really don�t know life at all
I�ve looked at life from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It�s life�s illusions I recall
I really don�t know life at all

J. Mitchell


P.S Was she the girl who sang the Blues in "American Pie'?

The went-by week

Week-went-by with the discovery of a few slices of heaven, and if it keeps up this good form we'll find enough of it to make a heaven cake that should be ready by the end of Lent.

I'm a city person. I like having something to do, having crowds of people to feel lost in, the tremulous murmurs of an urban heartbeat. and when it's all gone, to see 'the aged and empty streets too dead for dreaming' (i should have quoted from sound of silence but mr tambourine man is good enough.)

In the city, to see the cleaners and the river flowing placidly, and still the river runs. Where its quiet at night but everywhere people are still working in the UOB Building and partying at Centro. And damn if I had a car. I would go to Changi more, where the food is great, there are pieces of wig from the scalps of transsexuals, and a bit of the activity of recruits booking out, and Channel News Asia covering the Tekong incident. The haunted colonial era buildings and the Changi Sailing Club at night. Where, walking down the boardwalks to the fish traps and the few people fishing, and the stairs leading straight down to the water where the first steps are covered in barnacles and green moss and the accumulated toll of the waves, although lapping gently then, could have been fiercer in times of storm and thunder, have resulted in little chips. A lagoon, which although probably piss or shit or ship waste infected, in better times, a place for kids to swim while their parents indulged in rather more bourgeoise pleasures. Trip over lines and sinkers, and set up the rod, and just sit there, an excuse to talk. Even a small mobile water slide and diving platform. And a line of floating buoys demarcating the lagoon from the world unknown and dangerous to small kids.

Pan forward to the kelong and Malaysia's hills in the background. Even in this deathly quiet, the imagined sunrise is too beautiful for words, and it is the imagined dawn that will keep you awake until morning, as we discuss perhaps the best angles to capture the sunrise in the morning. Another boardwalk branches off somewhere and it is known as 'Sunset Walk'. It branches again, one up the hill towards the chalets, a small archaic staircase which would be good for making out if you don't mind mosquitoes, to a group of rocks which would require you to climb over the railings to get to, where you can take nice touristy photos on the rocks, which are linked to the boardwalk by a precariously perched wooden plank. And it leads, fittingly, to the End, a square the size of a room, on stilts above the low tide, where you can have a good view of it all.

'Where are we now?' Yishun, or Sengkang probably on the left, because those lights have to be HDB flats, and I don't recall JB being so built out. And, there is the characteristic red dot on each HDB flat maybe to warn planes, and maybe that's why we're the little red dot. With the rest of mainland Singapore on our left, you can only conclude that North is either Malaysia or Ubin. To the Northeast is Tekong, and a frantic scene of activity. It is a sea that is vaguely familiar, due to previous canoeing trips and our coastal hook exercise. The low tide and the land breeze combine to make patterns on the water. Some parts which are shallower show noticeably more variations in rippling and you can almost imagine a shelf of sand about to stick out of the water.

Then, and only then, you know why heaven is often referred to as a place and not a feeling. (I should write this shit for the STB. Fuck reverse bungee jumping.)

On another note.

'Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup.'

How can endless rain fit into a paper cup? As Adidas says, Impossible is potential, Impossible is temporary, Impossible is Nothing.

Fuck. Just do It. Simple.

Nike has a better slogan. Even f.c.u.k is cool by virtue of its name. Perhaps John Lennon really doesn't mean anything. It is still a compelling image, because it is an oxymoronic one, but it makes sense. You can imagine rain flowing and flowing into a paper cup, just that it won't stay in. The first few do. It is happening even now! The page is a cup, and the words are the rain.

On the other hand, I have had to turn off my phone because someone keeps calling every 5 minutes. Plus the lack of sleep induced by beauty only lad me to a terribly grumpy mood after I gave my all for the driving lesson.

And the 2 hours of sleep in between. It is when you sleep tired, don't even realize you're sleeping, wake up 2 hours later to find everything the same, ( no sun has risen, the air-con is still on, i am still on the bed where i was), and to wake up not feeling tired although the sleep is not enough. Like what Tony Leung must have felt waking up on the psychiatrist's couch.

Compare with long sleep after long tiring day yesterday. Dreams of leaving the contents of my entire room inside my OCS bunk, trying to shift it one by one back into my room, dreaming of losing all my books and stuff(which I eventually will) and having to hire K.C Dat to do the moving. I will have to face up to it soon when I am supervising the office moving.

I've looked at clouds from both sides now (Joni Mitchell)

As someone said, Joni Mitchell was a horse. There was no way she coulda taken that amount of drugs and still do a concert. And it did her in.

And going up the elevator to Cineleisure, this finally played. The Linda Ronstadt version too.

Desperado,
Why don't you come to your senses
You've been out riding fences
For so long now,

Oh you're a hard one
I know that you got your reasons,
These things that are pleasing you
can hurt you somehow

Don't you draw the queen of diamonds boy
She'll beat you if she's able
You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet
And it seems to me some fine things
Have been laid upon your table
But you only one the ones that you can't get

Oh, Desperado
You ain't getting no younger
Your pain and your hunger
Are driving you home

And freedom, O freedom
Well that's just some people talking
Your prison is walking through this world all alone

Don't your feet get cold in the winter time
The sky won't show and the sun won't shine
It's hard to tell the night time from the day
You're losing all your highs and lows
ain't it funny how the feeling goes away.

Desperado,
you've got to come to your senses
come down from your fences
open the gate
It may be raining
But there's a rainbow above you
You better let somebody love you
let somebody love you
Before its too-oooh late.

It's been a gargantuan entry, but I've been doing gargantuan papers so its only appropriate. and this doesn't have any footnotes!