ohdarlingbabe

Pictures: friends

2012-01-09T02:26:00.004+08:00

1, 2. 20th December 2011: Cuscaden (plus takeaway 4 Fingers and Best Fries Forever) with Alex

3, 4. 21st December 2011: Orchard Road and the likes with Estee;

5, 6. and Gloria Jeans and Japanese restaurant at Plaza Singapura, and SWITCH @ Timbre with her and Christy

7, 8. 22nd December 2011: Attempted Christmas shopping with Leon at Orchard

9. 23rd December 2011: what I wore to the first Leadership project group meeting at the school library

10. 24th December 2011: and to City Harvest Church, invitation from Alex to watch a Christmas skit, with her, Jonathan (Liu) and Yu Quan

11. My room's Christmas tree, which I'm never going to dismantle

12. 25th December 2011: (Merry Christmas!) what I wore to Miss Yeo's church with Wei Chong and Shaun, to Grand Hyatt with Shaun to watch Wei Chong carol, to Far East Plaza to have Pontian/meesua/durian pancake with Shaun, to 4 Fingers and play card games at Cineleisure basement;

13, 14. and to Jon's place with Alex and her talented cousin for a feast, music and two half-shows

15, 16, 17. 29th December 2011: 4 Fingers and Clarke Quay Thai hotpot-barbecue with Leon and Kenneth

18, 19, 20. 30th December 2011: Botanic Gardens and Little India with the ex-cos

21, 22, 23, 24: 31st December 2011 into 1st January 2012: Bar Bar Black Sheep and outside-Zouk loitering with Hannah

25, 26: Yesterday, 8th January 2012: Walk to Bras Basah/Bugis from Dhoby Ghaut, Popular and Cat Socrates with Leon, Raindrops Cafe with Hannah

Emotions for Alex, our outing and every single one before that in the new year post, which is undergoing some serious procrastination and intensity so overwhelming, it's difficult. I feel like I must do this, for her post of me is crazy, crazy generous of what I believe I am, but also because I want to. I can't believe I found her amongst the many "hi's-"bye"s in the world and though words can't do much justice to how sublime our friendship is, I need to try to give it an attempted some.

Also Leon and I are hanging out in such a strange frequency- seemingly everyday- and somehow I feel enough for my social circle.

As long as I have music

2012-01-04T23:23:00.004+08:00

Tonight was dinner and a long digressing conversation with Wei Chong and Miss Yeo at a foodcourt made quaint by enriching talk. There, she told me something that- not to be dramatic- changes a whole series of what I thought made my life the way it was.

I'd always felt guilty heaving in all the good and bad that came with being a higher authority in such a great group at a young age, like it should have been another's deserving plate to hold. All along I'd been giving myself little pats on the back, taking negativity and letdowns in my singing into stride because I believed since day one: I was never outstanding before, my voice was always drowned by stronger, better, and if Mr Toh had not mistaken me for some girl who was unfortunate enough to have a forgettable, similar face like mine, I wouldn't have had all these amazing experiences in my life which I hold so dearly to my heart. Thought, in secondary two: that was the best bout of luck throughout my eighteen years, and how is it possible that Mr Toh, so wise and intuitive, allowed this mistake to churn and grow for the next three years.

But now exposed to the fact that it was not true, that I was as unlucky as I am now, I've never felt more... humbled. Knowing that I was chosen amongst music from a sharp ear, with no regards to my lack of confidence then, I'm comforted for that led to me respecting and recognizing the singer he saw me as from the start, over time.

[emphasis] I think I'm blessed.

As you can tell, I'm very disorganized this new year.

2012-01-03T07:15:00.015+08:00

Sometimes I hate the end of an old year and the start of a new year because it always feels extremely obligatory to say something about it. A post is in queue but it's so fucking long and tedious and close to heart and messy and incomplete and totally for my own satisfactory purposes. I will have it out one day.

Things I have to do lately:

maybe I should bold those which are throbbing

1) ~~BRIDGE article~~
2) ~~post on outings (so many at the end of 2011)~~
3) post on Christmas party because it deserves one on its own
4) ~~Radio assignment three, at least the idea of it~~
5) attempt Super Sad True Love Story again and finish it
6) buy more books
7) update my planner religiously
8) ~~glaze on a mask~~
9) sleep before four at least
10) Multi-media animation
11) ~~scan polaroids of Christmas party~~
12) ~~borrow Leadership movie from school library (what is it again?)~~
13) ~~watch the movie~~
13) ~~Leadership essay~~
14) ~~Sub-editing assignment two~~
15) ~~Multicam demo proposal (almost ok)~~
16) ~~watch Joy Luck Club~~
17) ~~do CCC reflection~~
and the list goes on.

Things I have been doing lately:
1) procrastinating

THIS YEAR I MUST BE JUST SUBLIME.

Une Gourmandise

2011-12-30T04:47:00.006+08:00

I'd just finished The Gourmet- yesterday afternoon while on the bus to meet Leon. This is the kind of book that replaces the way you see things (not only food as the title may suggest, but all walks of life) with surrogates, and says so frequently the things we all think about, hide within in shame or not, or brush aside with little to no care, in concise, ornate language. This is my kind of book, one which uses the words everyone understands only just a wee, but pulls in attention in a dreary, intriguing addiction.

On the first page already lies one of my favourite quotes: the ecstasy of unbridled power, when one need no longer struggle but merely enjoy the spoils of battle, and savour without cease the headiness that comes from inspiring fear, something that speaks of my before-unspeakable joy of rise in council, choir, wherever. The line then led me to more that chronicles my journal in stimulating silhouettes I could not.

In the degree of seven-half/eight out of ten, The Gourmet is my book.

If I could I would save a space in my bag for the nestling of the novella forever, so whenever the time comes for me to explain a certain complex ideology that goes on in the back of my sense, instead of erring around words that I don't like e.g.: "er", I can flip through the book with habit and land on the highlighted paragraph which contains my meaning. I would like that very much but 1) not everything of my thoughts is articulated in there, and 2) I should make way for others of a nine to ten degree calibre to encompass both my mind and heaviness of sack.

I have The Elegance of the Hedgehog in my Book Depository basket.

Doris

2011-12-25T01:18:00.002+08:00

I find that I don't narrate about my mom that much on here, yet that's only because I don't have to. With her, I have no pent up emotions she is oblivious towards. My mom is my bestest friend, the greatest woman, something I have come to realize thinking about the times I am frustrated, bitchy, angry, then guilty. She was always there for all the major and minor affairs of my life, and I know she will continue to be for a really long time. She is the reason why I'm the way I am and I can't talk about it enough- how much I love, love, love her.

Maybe I will continue talking about her another day but for now I shall keep the fondest memories on the tip of my sanity.

You look different.

2011-12-16T05:22:00.003+08:00

sauve, mature, old;
you.

I see those gates after,
so mellow, so kind,
and I think, how nice would it
be, to look
into them and say; then
we'd... oh we'd.

How can we like so many of the same things and be so different.

What happened?

2011-12-15T08:30:00.004+08:00

4C annual class chalet did, last Friday. I feel like 'annual' is not the right word to use for an event that has happened for only two, three years but I think each year as it comes, this gathering of sorts will be obligatory. What am I saying; it already is.

I don't want to lie about how it was a ball of fun because it was not. I like my classmates of before but to be honest, we never really had this platform of similar topics for communication. What else can I use but the vocabulary 'obligatory'? Our conversations are so, though I shouldn't really call them as said because conversations are long, immaculate strings of voices that tangle up with each other- the kinds I can have with so few, so few.

So almost everyone I was genuinely interacting with got delirious (and that's what, 5 people?). In a lazy order I shall say:

Joycelyn, my dear girl who I'd not seen in ages, fought with Wei Chong in series;
Dao Wen pissed me off by repeatedly branding me with the "slut" name under a stupor;
Zai Yong was Zai Yong, I adore the guy with all his good heart;
Wei Jin was an incredibly agitated, hilarious tipsy bottle;
Isaac rashed-up with vodka or whatever mix he was offered;
Ridzuan and I still remember our little friendship greeting;
we cooped ourselves in the nearest room and jammed with Isaac's guitar, Joycelyn, Wei Chong sometimes, and I, 'cause we do that;
hugs were exchanged every hour;
I rushed to go home early in the morning, half to complete my article, half to be unfit for social interaction (Tao Lin, 2011, "ufsi") amidst forlornness.

I miss Dunman, but as a whole, as a vibrating body of past sounds, characters, adventures, and not like this- when some changed, some stayed, leaving the essence foreign for a wearied soul. It's so profoundly dreary.

Have been pretty unmoved to write as of late. Here, have some pictures [arrow pointing downwards]

1) Their reenactment of the Chasing Pavements MV
2) While they were squabbling/exercising/doing ridiculous stunts
3) The result of my why-does-this-feel-so-forced

4) Leon and I went for Putien after our cross-cultural communication paper on Tuesday
5, 6) We took a liking to Tampines Mall Christmas display
7, 8) Healthy blended-in fruits yoghurt after Simei Daiso. I bought Wei Chong's, Kenneth's, Sheri's, Shaun's and Joanne's Christmas gifts, and I refuse to acknowledge Leon's nose
9, 10) Before: Sunflower for my mom's birthday, wine for my dad at random (told him it was for Christmas though)

11) What I wore yesterday to collect contact lenses at Ngee Ann Polytechnic and walk around Orchard Road, aimlessly, hopefully with a model air, with Leon. They are a fourteen-buck nude romper and a lace throw-over from my mom. I bought Kamini's Christmas gift and my array of pearl, faux-diamond, gold ear-studs at H&M. The night ended at 23:30, thereabout, with a rushed cup Genmaicha green tea

I like my new workspace.

2011-12-13T04:12:00.003+08:00

The screen that divides light
from dim, the dim that sees
the light- before.
I am lost in the light not
light enough, the dim not
nearly as dark.

With you, without you, it's a
melting pot of due.

*

Anyway, happy 50th birthday mummy.

Fuck this

2011-12-07T02:03:00.011+08:00

Things to do, too many in fact that I feel almost like the person I was- busy yet fulfilled. I like this fuss, but I wish I can get down to what constitutes it swifter, slighter, and be gone with defenses.

I can't write now. There's nothing I can say. Nothing but mistakes will be mistakes.

1. My current wander: a food novella that looks more mere than it reads
2. Supper while staying over at Joanne's

3. A Marks and Spencers Christmas hamper from our new neighbours, David and Theodora, a young (and very extravagant I presume, from the manner they are renovating their house) couple
4. I am very disappointed in you, all of you

5. On Sunday when I was left alone in room 646 from morning to night;
6. then I had a magazine, mini chocolate cake, earl grey with one white, and flu from the night before

7. Same Sunday: two beef stews at Jacob's Cafe, lychee martini and cosmopolitan at Vau with Leon and stolen acapella music
8. The extended part of my room, where I can't wait to get my staying brothers out.

When I post like that you know I have nary I can articulate now. I don't know what to think anymore.

From Changi Village Hotel I write:

2011-12-02T00:29:00.000+08:00

So far I've lived myself a
reposed dame- shrouded within
aromatic reductions,
yet hindered by erudite
obligation.

To be as the light falls and
few piles blocked behind a wall,
he touches with ken: makes skin
thrill of peer amity, then
begins the feel of ren-

rendezvous.

The little things

2011-11-24T22:52:00.002+08:00

When he called me down from the room and (barely) singing (but screaming) for the weekly raw salmon, I knew. There are so many things that will remind me of my dad; "will" because he is upstairs, tucked under a worn-out sprawl beside my mom, snoring- which reassures me and no more.

The salmon is not a treat, though I almost labelled it as just. A 'treat' is: entertainment, food, drink, etc., given by way of compliment or as an expression of friendly regard, but my dad layers the fresh slices in a spiral on an irrelevant stainless steel whenever, grim daughter or light, with a saucer of soy sauce and ginger thinly-sliced the way he needs it be. I've always hated fish, though salmon is the one I can stand the most, so I eat it piece by piece with so much obligation and a few bits of liking; yet its mushy coldness is the warmest supper to slide down, as every bite I take I think of my dad religiously heading to the supermarket where he reckons sells the freshest seafood (i.e. Sheng Siong). I think of him smirking to himself when he finds the most immaculate marbling of a fillet, he holds it firmly/gently in his chapped hands, he pays out of his hard-earned money which could easily be spent elsewhere, he performs his chef-work for no one but himself to see in a quiet corner of the kitchen, and when he sits beside me in the brightly lit dining room that is rarely ever used, watching me as I pick one by one up with glee.

For the prawns, sometimes he snatches the curvy bit from my fingers and deshells it for me, while others we sit by each other again, this time/s peeling for ourselves and then commenting on the freshness of the meat together with the eyeing envy of my mom. She is also pleased, because although she tells me unpleasant affairs of her husband as does he, she thinks, how nice is it to have a daughter who is equally close to both her parents, a daughter who can call herself a daddy's girl and a mummy's girl, without more of the other.

Crabs have the same route but only this, he pries them open with strength, experience, and hard objects no matter when and piles enough of the goodness on a platter before laying it before me. Again my mom sees it all the time and exclaims, you spoil her!, but she chuckles heartily because she knows it isn't true, and my dad giggles in a cheeky, goofy expression to agree. After everything I feel like a princess but like my parents, I don't feel spoiled. It is a long, deep complex I don't see to explain now.

Then there are the things you can't consume, the everlasting things that will always be there, or will be around the corner somewhere to catch you by your tail. Once I was sitting in the dining room as usual, my back facing my dad watching fuzzy channels in the living room, laughing and crying through Sex and the City, when it drifted over. That familiar smell I've constantly hated throughout my life- the smell of my dad's opened bottle of medicated oil. It reminds me of the many times it stung my eyes when I forgot of the little left on my fingers after I picked the flat bottle up to pass to my mom/dad, yet now along with that it will also remind me of my dad.

I think the one series of memories I like most about him is the days I sit right beside him in the car, playing the genres both of us so adore. I was playing Valerie by Amy Winehouse in the car when he suddenly said, this is a great song, and I knew from that day on that this was another memory to keep. My dad is not pretentious, he never tries to be and no one will ever say he is upon knowing him, but he does love jazz, blues and soul just like I do. It must sound incredibly cliche but I've literally grown up listening to the music my parents carelessly echoed throughout every house we've ever been in. While my mom raised me up with Teresa Teng and plenty other famous female oldies like Woman in Love, my dad always used the excuse of testing the stereo system in the living room to blast Linda Ronstadt, The Eagles, Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis, and Japanese guitar instrumentals. I loved and love them. Whenever I hear such tunes I feel safe enough to fall into a deep trance, like it is enveloped with his warm disposition.

One of the nights last week my mom was boasting of the many writings and artworks I gave to her as usual in loud shamelessness, and for once my dad spoke up. In hokkien he rebutted, I have one too!, and he rushed to the study room where I was at to rummage through his drawers, which I was sitting just right beside, for the one recent birthday card he so remember keeping.

He must have went a couple of rounds through all three because when I came back from cooking my usual supper noodles he was still flipping stuff around. His initial smile had diminished as my mom stood by him, harshly jeering him on his conquest, and repeatedly insisting that he had thrown it away. She had a box she could shove right into his face. I knew he was embarrassed. Finally he relented and trudged heavily upstairs; instead of anything else I felt guilt. After seeking with fail, my dad still found something he wanted to give me (Thai money). Unlike him, I didn't give him nearly as enough to remember me by- no drawings, no notes, no whatever.

This year we did nothing for his birthday. I'm talking about the man who is ever so proud of me, of the one card I gave him years ago, which he so fondly kept amongst important rest, in the topmost drawer of the series- the most sacred one. I can never shake remorse off.

(10000 words)

2011-11-24T11:00:00.004+08:00

1. Dinner at Valerie's with Christy

2. Dinner at Simei Men Men Don Don with Hannah

(also the days I realised what an asshole you are, in ascending order)

3. Planner and to-dos

4. Another day in school: Leon pretending to be a singer in an actual recording studio

Yesterday night with Joanne,

5. Cheddar cheese chips with water for supposed assignments-rushing;

6. then we gave up. Jo took out this dainty little tin box to check on her coins

7, 8, 9, 10. How I am like recently (10 credited to Alex. Thank you for such a lovely shot).

I refuse to believe that brown is my unlucky colour.

2011-11-17T19:01:00.002+08:00

I think I like strangers too easily, like a silly dame to a blank sire, splashing him with colours she liked and not with grey, only two,

three,

four times more.

Besides confirmation of (strong) heterosexuality, what other kind of good can come out of this.

*read.

the space between

2011-11-13T20:04:00.003+08:00

From Elena Georgiou:

stuck in an unnamed place
half way between love and in love,
you call me late at night and ask
if i'm sleeping. i tell you, i'm writing.
you ask about what? love, i say.

when i write about us, i stop myself
from saying we make love or we have sex.
i search for a euphemism that won't bind me,
won't define us. i arrive at the phrase
move together. and only now, in writing
this poem, do i see how fitting it is.

the way we moved together vertically
is what made me want to move with you
horizontally. music joined us,
but even in the joining, i didn't know
how to behave, how much or how little
to say, how to choose to be me.

an old friend told me if i feel
smaller than myself with a lover
this is the wrong lover for me.

yes, i make myself smaller; i shrink
my politics, my conversation. i shrink
in mind, but i grow in body.

and don't think i don't know
when the movements are fluid
we look for ways to draw each other
nearer, name each other soulmates.

i have been a two-time witness
to how easily the soul-thread can be
cut, leaving the so-called soulmate
dangling in an empty world of one.

the same old friend comes back
to say a lover should love
in me what i love in myself.

trouble is, we don't know what we love
in each other. we exchange tapes of songs
to hint at the possibility of a feeling,
admitting nothing, partially exposed
in lyrics so, if pushed, we can deny
we meant the words that way.

we skirt around edges hoping
the space between will stop closeness
because close is where we are
fighting ourselves not to be.

i preach distance to you. i inflict it
on myself. i invent barriers like age-gaps
and bad-timing. but only now, in writing
this poem, do i learn how the word
distance can magnetize lovers.

you obey my demands. you don't
call. we don't speak, but you find
a strand of my hair in your freezer
and i still write with the taste of
you in my mouth.

And I still write with a taste of you in my mouth.

2011-11-12T01:22:00.001+08:00

I am not a writer.

Like life's surrealism splashed with hues:

2011-11-09T03:23:00.002+08:00

Happiness and then not so

2011-11-08T01:36:00.025+08:00

Saturday: Kamini, Kenneth, Leon and I headed to Brewerkz this time round. I (much more than) adore nights like these, nights where talking comes so naturally and secrets spill with no care. Sure we judge, but we love all the same.

I remember swinging the door and stepping out to Leon leaning against the wall opposite. While walking along the corridor of the "alley" Kenneth previously said the toilets would be at, I exclaimed, do you know I nearly sprained my ankle?! I used the squat cubicle and when I was done I missed a step. I ended up sitting there rotating and chanting "oh please, not today", to which the friend nodded too fervently and chuckled too loudly. Me too, me too!, he near-shouted.

Then we stopped in subconscious unison in front of a mirror, the curvy, circular kind held up against the part where two adjacent walls meet, and took reflective photographs with my phone shamelessly. After the passing of a couple people and two dark photographs, he stood there still ruffling through the surface of his waxed hair. This is such a great night- I heard him emphasize on the "great" and for some reason it warmed me- totally makes up for all the shit school is. It came in a murmur like his words always do, but slightly less audible, almost like he never meant to express the thought in fear of sounding too corny. Also Leon isn't usually that brazen in regards to public displays of narcissism with so little a number around, so he must be intoxicated just about right then. The beauty of beer is such: it heightens one's emotions in a degree enough for honest conversation, and I like it so much.

When we were seated the topic of you came up of course. Kamini said, I didn't like you very much when you were with him, to which Kenneth added, yeah, you always seemed kinda "off". Yet I replied, but I just liked him so so much, and I was adamant that somewhere somehow, you did too.

Then yesterday, you hurt me more than I thought you were capable of. You said you were sorry, but how many times are you going to say that in the course of me knowing you? I told you, you don't know about me do you, hoping, hoping that for once after so many years that you will get it, get that I love you and I want you well but you could only litter many on me and then apologize in your many charming ways, believing that those would rub what you said off my heart yet another time. Not this time; I won't let myself.

I tried again to get through to you, telling you, I wasn't sad about the break-up but I'm sad now. How dare you reply to me like it was no matter, as if I was overreacting. But you know me don't you? and you apologized again- for what?

All these years I've been subconsciously morphing myself into someone from you. You have affected me in ways beyond words can define. But if you ever know, oh if you ever, for a second, cared about this omnipresent soul here! what else can I hear from your sincerity other than the sickening word which overtime, was ripped off of its value? I'm so tired. I don't know you. I don't feel like I ever did. How can I when you are everchanging? I don't know your favourite food, nor your favourite song, yet I tell people stories about you- lovely ones- and like me, they fall in love with you, the person I saw you as. But now of all I'm only certain that you can't be around negativity, and that every single fucking time you're hurt, I'm hurt too, because you are, and because you make me, like I'm your second choice, a girlfriend on demand you can never get rid of just in case you get too lonely. And I know that no matter how much I try, you'll always gravitate me back to you with just one fucking word.

I love you, Dex. But I just don't like you anymore.

The ball will always be in your court. Why can't you just go if you want to.

2011-11-06T02:43:00.010+08:00

This kind of happiness is why I want to be nice.

Highlight of my day you ask?

2011-11-02T21:45:00.007+08:00

I've reached an uninteresting point of my life where I sit in the bus and look forward to reaching home, because then I can lay in bed to daydream about a (super minuscule and ridiculous) crush.

I'm typing this whilst seated in 518, next to a working lady whose face I dare not look at.

[also] the dude made me fall in love with things which were always under-appreciated; and forget from time to time. I'd like to keep it that way by living with this sole memory that is near perfect. It fills me up with fuss just thinking about it.

Everything with Fries

2011-11-01T02:26:00.003+08:00

Alex had salmon in a cup, salt and vinegar fries, and a Nutella milkshake. I had a cheeseburger, garlic and herbs fries, and two Erdingers. We had a three-hour-plus long heart-to-heart talk with friendly waitresses and club music around. Also she gave me an eco-friendly book and set of pens.

Best friends

2011-10-29T01:30:00.003+08:00

Wei Chong and Shaun just left after twelve hours together. We met for KFC lunch, watched One Day, ate Toastbox and Frolick for dinner, and jammed at the playground near my place before being forced indoors (to my brother's room) by heaving rain. I had so much fun I'd initially wished to boast of through images, but I realised that they are the kind of friends whose presence need no pictures to be acknowledged or remembered. The day settled itself right into the corner of my heart's very own memorabilia box without much persuasion by my mind. One day we would meet up again and talk about the berserks of just now- all the jokes teased, all the music exchanged, and all the secrets shared- with such intricate enthusiasm like it was not forgotten, not for a moment, and we would proceed to create more mirthful memories like this. I look forward to the very cycle of that.

But we have a video with valid and invalid inside-jokes from one plus in the morning:

I stopped because I got frustrated with Shaun's reluctance. Wei Chong walked home barefooted later to make pancakes and he texted me to tell me that they were awesome.

Well, this.

2011-10-28T03:11:00.006+08:00

to eat whenever felt, to sleep like the careless wind.
to speak with a whole heart, to sing perfect tunes.
to read swiftly with little to no qualms, to write grace, truth and I.
to meet intrigue, to be around only right souls.
to forgive myself of the inevitable and others of many.
to miss genuinely, to love so mellowly.

to have enough.
to be enough.

I turned eighteen on the 14th of October. The numerals themselves, 1 and 8, make it nonthreatening whilst placed side-by-side, almost like the age isn't what it is, but when spelled out it feels real. I'm eighteen. I drink beer more dauntlessly now and I like it that way because the drink is genuinely my favourite along with plain water. Besides cafes and their teas (not so much coffee in fact), true books and true love, bars and their beers also bring me back to who I want to be, and I'm glad I no longer have to do so so discreetly anymore.

The past year as a delinquent on edge- and I say that because of those mentioned above and a nonexistent school life- had been...unsatisfying. I'd like to say that it had ups-and-downs like a normal person would but to me that only applies if the 'up's and the 'down's outweigh each other on a silly invisible situation beam. I know I say this all the time but I really did spend most of my seventeenth dwelling over something that was long overdue. My relationship with Kelvin was great at first like every other but over time my inability to forget and his to make me just took over. We are people of different everything and about two weeks after my birthday now, we've finally decided to do what's best for us both. It was a good run, but inside, not even deep, I knew that it wasn't right and it was only a matter of time before we separated. It happened yesterday afternoon.

So I (almost) start this "legal" age with one less worry, one less person to disappoint. School has also begun and I feel like this is the semester for me. I don't like most modules we have to take but a new start is like laying your hands on an immaculate fresh novel- the edges are neat and unfolded amongst other tattered ones, and one possesses another chance to make sure this book stays as rejuvenated as when first mounted- and I have always liked the feeling of new thick volumes clenched between the muscles of my palm.

Also I'm ohdarlingbabe again. When I shifted over to ofweariness for a period of time Kenneth noticed and twitter-messaged almost immediately. I told him of the situation and why I had to do what I did to continue writing; he understood, but he also said aww... kind of makes me sad that you're no longer ohdarlingbabe, and I realized that this name, no matter how juvenile-sounding has morphed me and even close friends treat it as part of the person I am- like the two moles on my left arm, or the eagle's hook on my nose- so I'm glad to be back.

This birthday I thought I would talk about my brothers, for my love for them is often unstated by my poor spoken English to people around. One of the reasons why K and I didn't work out is because I felt like he never really understood how much I love them irregardless of their insanity. I love them with no and many principles, irrationally and obsessively. Surely my significant other must respect that?

I've thought about it. Perhaps I pity myself on too many occasions, of the dysfunctional family I so often claim to have. Yet I realise that I am not grateful, for it is clearly too minor a noun, but completely and utterly blessed: to have two elder brothers who are chokingly loving at most and human at best; and parents who are perfect role models in their own ways, and the greatest teachers I'll ever have.

Ivan and Victor, 21 and 19 respectively, if one thinks about it, form quite a quaint pair. Individually they give off separate but equally non-hypocritical comments about everything and anything at all. Ivan rather enjoy spitting on me with words of distaste for my pretentious idealism, while I tell him even more usually that he is difficult as can be. It's not making you seem any cooler you know, listening to only jazz and all that, he'd say, and I'd reply, at least I'm a sensible you can never be, though we know it's not true- he must have set the example of sensibility amongst us siblings and so, he also forcefully understands my able stand for the lifestyle I lead. Victor knocks on my room door every night without fail, only to put on my palms a miracle bottle of Hazeline Snow and cotton buds while he settles uninvitingly on the edge of my bed. Sometimes I'm weary from the activities before, like the day till night I spent with Joanne by the quay, drinking, drinking, drinking, and back home I didn't feel to get up. When he arrives most punctually, I tell him I'm tired in irritation but he persists; I shout and we both declare how selfish each other are, who is even more so, and then after a while we retreat back to our own corners.

Despite their male closeness which I so envy, they have their own fights too. These are loud, offensive and at times violent, yet like the above two scenarios, they end shortly after with a hug, a kiss or an affectionate telling to the other, I love you. Unlike other siblings I know, they most certainly do not air dirty linen on public platforms no matter how bad of a fight we'd just been in. We are not siblings who claim to be close friends for we exchange gifts of seldom and we very rarely, are amiable in the presence of the other's pals just because we don't see to be so. When people ask me who my best friend is, I say almost immediately, Leon is, Wei Chong is, and I don't hesitate to do so even when the curiosity is one of Ivan or Victor. But I love my brothers in a way that is both obligatory and willing. I need to love them because they are tied with blood to my soul, but I want to and love them because they are each, interesting and amazing in their own right.

I'm 18 now and I recognize that they are insane, but I love them more than anything and anyone in the world.

*

Today I met a guy who sings the best.

I spent days around my birthday like this:

2011-10-26T23:59:00.005+08:00

Red Tomato with Leon, Wei Chong and Shaun for a failed birthday surprise (for the first) and Rochor Beancurd along Short Street? after. I forgot some of what we did or said but,

Saizeriya with Estee, Debbie, Joycelyn; Leon left in fear of overwhelming female company. I forgot some of what we did or said but,

Birthday celebration with Isaac, Leon, Joycelyn and Debbie at Lenas- the pasta was slippery-goodness and I learnt that red wine is a far-cry from beer. I forgot some of what we did or said but,

Cuscaden with Estee, who liked the dinginess of the place. I forgot some of what we did or said but,

Deepavali tradition at Kamini's with Nisya, Debbie, Wei Chong, Leon and Kenneth. I forgot some of what we did or said but,

Nothing beats the comfort of old friends.

Everything is about you.

2011-10-15T15:57:00.001+08:00

I know it's quite unfitting of me to start my first official day as an eighteen-year-old with such a sad song but I saw this on Kaykay's blog and:

I still remember the look on your face
Lit through the darkness at 1:58
The words that you whispered
For just us to know
Told me you loved me
So why did you go away?

I love how you walk with your hands in your pockets
How you kissed me when I was in the middle of saying something
There's not a day when I don't miss those rude interruptions

So I'll watch you live in pictures like I used to watch you sleep
And I feel you forget me like I used to feel you breathe
And I keep up with our old friends just to ask them how you are
Hope it's nice where you are

And I hope the sun shines
And it's a beautiful day
And something reminds you
You wish you had stayed
You can plan for a change in weather and town
But I never planned on you changing your mind

All that I know is that
I don't know how to be something you miss
Never thought we'd have a last kiss
Never imagined we'd end like this
Your name, forever the name on my lips
Just like our last kiss
Forever the name on my lips

It hurts that the one person you see is the one person who forgot. I'll be back for a proper one xo

Gravity

2011-10-09T03:37:00.012+08:00

Joanne and I were at our usual steamboat place with laid-out plates of carbohydrates, their extras, and our hearts- mine a bit more intensified with the profuse drinking from the start. I've thought about that moment countless of times and I should have also mentioned it casually to passing people who were interested in my tragic little prolonged hurt. Oh, it wasn't much, he just said he was over it and I told him so too, was what I must have narrated to them. As compared to today those times were nothing. I was fine even though I was not but at least I had strength enough.

Today I teared while telling about you, in front of a friend; and that must mean something for I don't do that. Today it felt more like, I looked into his eyes and I could see it, the hurt left over from the love he had for the girl, the kind he never had for me. I see his lips pull apart and his wet vision blink away in the slowest motion as he said them, "I've been thinking about it these past few days and I realised," booming yet quiet,

"I don't love you anymore."

Unlike him, I choked on the words as I retold it to Joanne.

I drank and drank and I laughed and I talked. I came home and got reminded of the time we sat on the abandoned sofa right outside your house. We were only a few months in but I knew you were the one. Cuddled up next to you, I felt safer and more mellow than I've ever been in any place or situation. We didn't even kiss then; we were not hungry nor were we lustful. We just loved each other so much.

Then I realised it was just me now and I cried all over again.

When you say,

2011-10-02T23:59:00.002+08:00

I forget the exact surroundings but I know there was a crowd in blur, hazy stripes. I was looking around, as were you; then suddenly, Iris! you called, a part of you nuzzled between the uncertainty. I see you but am dazed by you, by your voice, by it thwarting into letters that form my name. They say, the sweetest sound of all, is your own name spoken by the only boy you care about, and it's true, so true that I stayed stagnant yet rushed. Stagnant because my body recognised the missing and was bewildered into stillness, and rushed because it felt like so: like someone released a bag of radiance into the vessels of my heart, willing it to heat and flush. But my pride wouldn't allow such blatant display of weakness, and I grinned a grin so wide and familiar (to you) that you grin right back subconsciously and beckon me over.

I shuffled through the stripes as easily as I remember and finally I seemed to have glided to an inch or ten away from your eyes. You reached over and with a hint of habitualness, hesitantly placed your right palm on my lower back and gently guided me against the nudging. I could feel it, the dithering of your fingers as you realised immediately after making contact that the mere action was not okay for people like us. It was right, comfortable, tingling at most, but it was also very much misplaced. A few moments later the background cross-faded into solitary- we were alone and you were obligated to disconnect from me physically. As the touch left I could feel an almost chilly air take its place, though less welcomed, and I twitched, but it was hardly noticeable to the awkward air that strung along with the forbidden caress.

You looked at me and I looked at you that very instant. Our bridged sight spoke without our mouths, but we knew and we smiled.

Changes make good

2011-10-02T23:55:00.004+08:00

October's proving to be great.

Leon and I are starting work at UE Square tomorrow morning. The day begins at an early five when we would begrudgingly compel our bodies out from under the quilts, and rush to prepare ourselves breakfast/lunch and physically. The mental preparation shouldn't come until much later in the train when we would be roused right out of a trance by sticky commuters.

Training was just last Friday with a fairly indescribable time. It is so not because it was wow beyond the ability of my own words but uneventful and nearly as un-noteworthy as many other of my days I don't talk/write about. Moments/things/people that deserve praise are: the early us for the first training, Delifrance breakfast treat from Leon, the arrival of a rather good-looking (but) ah-beng guy to add on to the brutal silence already present in the room, spending under four for lunch after giving up on two food places, the on-time us for the second, when Jyothi stopped me from answering questions regarding the placement of work-spaces because that happens to be the thing I have an eye for, and wanton noodles and unwinding chat with Leon at the end. My dad drove by to pick me up after and I fell asleep whilst talking to him.

My brothers are both overseas, the elder in Shanghai with his girlfriend and the second in Vietnam for an exchange programme. My room is undergoing renovation from tomorrow morning to perhaps a week later and I couldn't be more pleased that I won't have to be around to have the disquiet seep through into Ivan's room where I'm currently residing in.

I like it very much here. In my parents' room I felt afraid and cautious all the time. Also I like to be able to read in bed with actual lights on till weary hits me, usually quite abruptly. Tonight it's Love Is On The Air by Jane Moore and so far I'm Camomile.

Age

2011-09-28T21:22:00.001+08:00

Things get to me too easily nowadays. Today it's a bunch of juvenile girls and another bunch of even more juvenile people.

1) smoking at 14 does not make you look like a majestic cowboy so keep a lid on your fucking arrogant face before I flick you off with not enough care and,
2) if someone's done nothing of an evil status to you, you possess no bloody hall pass to demean her like that.

Sometimes I daydream about standing up in front of a child at mind and reprimanding 'it' until 'its' legs turn all jellied. 'It', just because.

Dauntless entrance with a red face

2011-09-27T23:18:00.015+08:00

Leon and I were tourists to Armenian Church this evening. We were on an unsure path to the bus stop which bus would take us to the city when Leon pointed it out: an immaculate white architecture surrounded with low fencing and an inviting gate; and he said, do you think we can just go in like that? Yes I guess so, I replied, and we tread our way in on a trail of uneven ashen stones towards the humble chapel within. Beside the walk on the grassy others were statues of upright, falling and fallen crosses with a man crushed underneath each. I thought they were terrible but Leon told me they were how it was.

We had been to a similar place together once with the choir- a larger chapel in the campus of St. Anthony Canossian (SAC) Secondary School- for an exchange with Mr Toh's choral groups cum preview performance of our international competition pieces. Entering the one by Hill's Street, memories of old swept through me like they had been hiding in such nostalgic akin chambers, waiting almost impatiently to show their weight to the once bearer. I turned to Leon and exclaimed, doesn't this remind you of the time we went to SAC? Gosh! those times..., and he agreed most fervently. He was thinking the same thing.

A minute or five was taken to twirl around and let every particle of the room's wholesome air hit both of us, then we bent down and wrote two sentences each in an opened, scribbled-in guestbook laying on the short table by the left of the entrance. On it, too, were two containers- one with postcards and a trusting thought that anyone who takes it would donate at least two dollars, and one with candles and pens- and a concealed box for the alms. Accompanying them on the left again were lighted candles and non, placed sporadically on embodied sand.

Leon willed it honestly in his stout, bulbous letters: Never knew such a place existed in Singapore. Will come again soon. while I went for something as honest, but more dear, like a female would: May God bless anyone who comes across this. Hope that all would find their way in life xo, and we stepped out. Leon wandered over to the backyard where tombs stood as I posted (the above) photos to Instagram, and it was not until a few moments later did I realise he was standing in the midst alone, viewing a marvelous grave with silent respect. I joined him in the viewing, and as we discussed and pointed out words with facts, I felt strangely settled. I thought I'd be afraid being amongst such which are advertised and filmed horror but I wasn't. The quotes which described each and every being who had left were in a way, celebrating death with the existence of great life before and there was nothing scary in that beauty.

We left, late for dinner at our respective homes and unable to model down the city streets like envisioned, yet we left not jaded for once, and we knew we would come again, confession or no confession. A peace like that does not need a sin to be revisited, and it is unimaginable how we had loitered outside at the bus stop nonchalantly (and weary of course) on various occasions without spotting it.

I dressed like that today:

an old top I stole from my mom ages ago and bohemian flair pants, which I bought because I saw it online and thought it was a maxi skirt. So comfortable, it's my go-to bottoms from now on.

Also Leon and I both got a job at Space Matrix as temporary surveyors. The sneakiness starts and ends from this coming Monday to the Friday after next- my 18th birthday at long last. After work we are meeting up with friend/s for celebratory drinks at one of the bars in Clarke Quay, at least that's the plan. I'm looking forward to that and more others, and the recovery of my used-to-be-perfect skin. The latter seems bleak but I must have faith. I will!

Such a familiar scenario.

2011-09-26T02:49:00.002+08:00

Two juniors, same ages, same CCAs, in a relationship. How funny that the guy has the same name as you. I see the girl and her downward spiral of heartbreak, for his love for her is going stale and she knows of it. He is busy with a bout of major examinations, and young, too young to know that that is no excuse. Like all guys after a while, he is worn out, and though she is ambivalent, she fears it right on the brim of her qualms. At first she doesn't try to express herself but after realising she must, she does, and she does so in a gradual increasing manner. Yet the guy reciprocates little, if at all, as she pushes on. Sometimes she gives up, then those are the times he decides he's going to be passionate again, almost as though he knows she is weary and he doesn't want her to be, and she picks up her act another time; each time with renewed hope but weaker, weaker...

I read of them, and I discovered that every once in a while, there will be a couple in school who will reflect what we had. Maybe even we, were reflections of what another had before. And it will pain me so much to see a girl so pristine, so lovely taint slowly and similarly with the impeding failure of first love. But their story does not have to end the way ours did. Perhaps he would come around after his papers and treasure her like he promised he would, and she would speak up for once, with thoughts truly whelming her; and they would have the ending I'd hoped for us. Not this messy see-saw of backs and forths we both have a part in playing, but deep everlasting mutual love like planned together.

With all of God's blessings,

This

2011-09-24T01:10:00.005+08:00

If somebody says, "I love you," to me, I feel as though I had a pistol pointed at my head. What can anybody reply under such conditions but that which the pistol-holder requires? "I love you, too."

Oh Kurt Vonnegut, your precision be damned; because I'm scared and I want to leave.

Love Sonnet XVII

2011-09-22T16:07:00.002+08:00

Pablo Neruda said:

I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topaz
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
So I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Chickenpox and the illnesses within

2011-09-22T00:11:00.000+08:00

I tell people the non-fiction snippets of my going to the doctors'. The door of my designated room would shut me in as I know there's no turning back to the lie I'm about to so habitually make. So what's wrong with you today, Iris? he asks as I sit right beside his desk, chary but practiced. I say, oh I have this headache..., and my hand raises to support this bundle of supposed mess that really isn't; sometimes I gesture and squint when I do, other times I don't bother with the details. I think the doctor knows, most of them do, and he asks obligatory questions- answers with deliberate weak pauses- and take my obligated blood pressure. He wraps my- limp- arm and squeezes, then everyone of them says, eyes enlarged and heads nodding, good! like it is not normal to be this healthy.

Yet the week before a blister and two appeared on myself, developing into full-blown chickenpox a few days later. It was the most ill I'd ever felt my entire life, and a bit of a shock really. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't bathe, I couldn't read, I couldn't write (though surprisingly, I could sing whilst lying rigidly in bed)...I also steered clear of mirrors and ripped away my iPhone's reflective screen protector because every time I saw my face, even just a bit, I wanted to cry. But I'm all better now. I'm mainly scabby and I can look into mirrors. Most of the times I feel like I'm actually recovering at an exceptional speed, others I just whine and hope for someone to say something humane for a while.

Home is where I have to be for quite some time, so I seek my entertainment via my laptop, the television, which is utter bullshit, and my guitar. It's a recent discovery really: I sit myself in the centre of my empty room, facing the mural of stuff, and hold a concert for the people in the pictures. The echo is splendid, and sometimes I feel like they know I'm singing to them though they really do not. I've also been trying to write about this illness since the first few days but then I would go about thinking that I'd understate it, again. Sometimes my neurosis bore me.

I've missed nothing too much so far except- Leon's birthday celebrations, plural because we are in different groups of friends together, and time spent with the boyfriend. Pride and Prejudice rarely entice me but I try, I try to look towards its direction, only to have my bookmark almost permanently wedged between the first two pages of chapter two. It has only been around two weeks but I'm rotting, inside and out, and when I think of the gravel pavement lying there waiting for my strutted footsteps, I sigh, get over it, and make mental plans of the next month. It's quite abysmal, as home is where one should feel most mellow but my mind just warps even further here. I would first sit down in Loysel's Toy, The Plain, 40 Hands, ReStore...with a book fresh from the post and jazz. If the cafe lacks it, I'd plug into my own music. Then I would see only friends I adore.

Kelvin and I went through yet another rough patch, which explains the miss-mentioning of boyfriend-time. Joanne reckons that I should not blog about this yet I must. It is what I do- I write, I write for people who care enough to sympathize and quell on it, but since some are meddlesome, ta-da (and that is meant to sound unenthusiastic). Now whenever I'm on the Internet, I feel like everyone is eyeing me down, waiting by the lines to catch me on another misunderstood letter or quote, and I would not be able to salvage anything for I can't fight against my own words. Trey understands and that comforts me, but Kelvin...I don't know if I should rejoice or weep: he moved past it after a whole day of cold silence, like my typed emotions were nothing. He said, I was overreacting, I'm fine, you deserve to have the right to express yourself, and that scared me, 'cause I don't know, still, if everything is really okay, or just swept under the carpet; the carpet which is already so mountainous from before.

Perhaps from this I need to learn that 1) nothing is really kept a secret, and 2) not everyone is thoughtful and intelligent enough. I went on my various blogs and looked through my archives, amongst I saw this:

Max was “the one.” In my twenty-five years of life, I have never felt so much passion with anyone before. Before Max, there were plenty of boys I liked but there was never someone I just had to get to know, someone I just had to be with; Max was different. The moment I saw him, I just knew that he would be someone important in my life. My feelings for Max were beyond passionate and I will always love him, whether I would like to or not.

But here’s the ugly truth, Max will never feel the same. The passion I feel, the love I have, he will never understand or reciprocate. Because if he did, we’d still be together, but we’re not. Much like Summer (from 500 Days With Summer), Max will find someone who he will just know he is meant to be with, something he was never sure enough with me.

- a quote from datingish.com, which so applies to the reason for my dwell.

On a bright note (oh how I hate using that phrase), five books are on their way from Book Despository to land themselves on my open palms. It was my second time purchasing books online, but the first hardly counts as the novella got is of a mediocre language, and I must say I'm pretty darn verved by the phantasm of a heavy package tossed onto my bed by my mom. Maybe she would tear the bundle apart herself, like she would with my envelopes if she found them leery, gleam in surprise at my rekindled love for novels, and shout at me to collect it from her embrace. I think I'd start with the lightest of all, Love is on the Air, a chick-lit story no less, then go ahead with Norwegian Wood, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Gourmet in that order if I remember it so, and finishing with Super Sad True Love Story to bring me back down to earth.

I also have clothes unpaid for and dates to be scheduled. Only less than ten days to keep it all together before October sets off fuss into my life. But good fuss.

One Day

2011-09-06T08:46:00.002+08:00

I woke up most heedlessly at around eight this morning. I texted Kelvin but he didn't seem to be interested so I laid in bed looking for cafes to go to to read and escape from routine in people/places. Halfway I got distracted by book reviews on books that don't interest me, not even a wee, and I thought, maybe it'd nice to chill at home instead, with Pride and Prejudice and a burger with a generous patty. So that's what I'm doing today, until night when I will head to Titus' to watch a movie as usual with the guys.

My dad complains (though not too directly or firmly, unless the alcohol takes him and he can't help it) almost daily that I'm like a nocturnal animal. My mom on the other hand, laments to random people- friends and strangers alike- that her daughter lives in America though I really do not. I think they get the reference, but it is sticky; I stand there and try to smile for the moment of my flaw/s to pass. Sometimes it doesn't.

So I stayed up from the very beginning of yesterday, as I drifted in and out of sleep the previous night til it was seven at night, and had myself this read:

For the first few hours I sat awkwardly in the molds of the only study chair, white, rigid, lifting my left leg, then my right, then both, with a cup of green tea in front of me as usual, and at times a snack- cocoa crunch, chips- which I rarely touched because I didn't feel for crumbs or dirt in any form caught onto the porousness of pages. Although I was uncomfortable I could not leave; when I started on the novel I knew I had to finish it by both obligation and interest. Then I thought it would be a book I could complete and boast of its greatness and how I would read it repeatedly for months like I would with The Notebook, but I could not. Not because it isn't stirring for it was, so stirring, so incredibly moving that in fact, I wish not to subject my dreary soul to such descriptive, sublime woe, at least not anytime soon again.

I think I have been fooled by the assumption that all books made into films have happy endings. Through reading One Day, I've found out that it's not true and I can't particularly get used to it so suddenly. Maybe after a couple more books of such, though I do dread them so, in a rather thrilling manner.

One-third into the lives of Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew (for a moment there I could not remember their names and it befuddles me why this isn't the first time), I take my emptied cup in my hand and open the door. The third brew of both brands I use always tastes of metal. My mom stands by the staircase post and traces me with her blank stare. You know, I may leave, and I laugh and whine and walk to the kitchen because she says that over years, and it had never once materialized even though I encourage her to. I have tea in a bowl now, as she follows me back and shuts the door behind her. We proceed to have a long emotional teary chat. During I think about how much the downwards spiral of Dexter's twenties reflects what my dad is going through now. And I think, maybe he has a love of his life he has yet to be reunited with. Then I agree with my mom, everyone should separate, and I finally told her of my plan to live alone too, no one to call back on, no one to hear cry or maniac-talk at the end of the day, just me and my own insanity.

I think I write rather like The New York Times, with commas so many and casually I put my Singaporean roots to shame.

I'll be back to finish this review up. Quite promising so far aye.

September and its beginnings:

2011-09-04T07:33:00.007+08:00

I call this year the year of rekindling- me and the novels. Maybe I should only call these two months just that, because I was still floating around, not getting through even one in the first half. Sons and Lovers was just not a very motivating start from a hiatus, but I'm glad I found my way back with The Notebook.

I met up with Alex(andra) that night after our paper; she had pasta at Eighteen Chefs while I degraded the value of my tea by sipping it from a stirrer and flicking the plastic against my clenched teeth. I always order the same elsewhere: green tea, but I don't quite adore the bitterness of it in a cannikin so wee. Usually at home I would use the biggest cup my house holds (which is also the most unapt) and drink the heat all up before the taste switches to an extreme. The second brew would be perfect and I can sip as I read. At Coffee Bean I pretend to look at the list by the cashier even though my mind had been made up years ago. I say Genmaicha Green Tea please, and the staff always looks at me as though she knows that I'm a dead rut, for a pronunciation that accurate for a name that peculiar can't be coincidental for a face like mine. Yet I take it with little to no shame anyway, from the counter always by the side, and settle into a seat. Sometimes I unlax into the curvature of a couch, sometimes I perch almost upright whilst on a wooden straight chair, both times I let the tea leaves and roasted nuts sit with the teaspoon pressing, and I savour for the next two hours. During, when the water level cuts below the mid, I take the bag out and lay it gingerly by the cup, and continue.

We found starkness on a bench outside the closed Pet Safari. We started the conversation simple, with friends and family, and moved on to books and movies in a gradual cycling manner. Alex told me of a movie very much similar to The Notebook and how the trailer was just sublime. Then the lights went off and we maintained our palaver with blatant recognition of the night's approaching end.

So yesterday I trudged into three different, far from home branches of Times just to get hold of a copy of One Day by David Nicholls. At the first I came across The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan while independently searching for the former, and I decided that I would buy that as well, at the second because I brought it up to the counter to ask of the existence of One Day with confidence that the lady would pull out a fresh copy from behind her with a bright beam. But she didn't- also I had a rough broken exchange with her on the availability of the book in other stores etc- so I got The Lover's Dictionary anyhow, as it was already laying there on the counter where I placed it and I'd feel goofed if I returned it to its shelf after countless pacing in front of it and left the second store empty-handed.

In the third store I found One Day simply on the third compartment I casually searched. A relative number of them rested on each other and I felt nearly hateful having to pick out the one I liked the best though they really did looked the same. It was disappointing for the cover of the book was not of its original, but of the movie's illustration, and in a way, it cheapens the eminence of the quixoticness to be buried in. With the actors in a tight liplock distracting the start of every read, I think I'd expect a whirlwind romance very like a film's each time, yet it may not be so and the process would be ruined.

Except I was not about to wait after three shops and sweat. I walked up to the laughing males and passed them the book with a speech planned in my head- oh I don't need a plastic bag, see? I have one here, I'd gesture to The Lover's Dictionary, hidden, and we would laugh together, or at least smile with a hint of chuckle in our eyes. I walked up deciding to be friendly, because I haven't smiled since the afternoon alone and I thought I'd start with these two guys. But they were wrapped into their own lively references that I forgot and went ahead with impersonal. I paid, they stared, and I left to meet Leon. Then Kamini and Kenneth.

The four of us gathered at Cineleisure Orchard to catch Glee Concert 3D, which was decent in this sense: I took my time in the toilet they had put at the back of the theatre (that was ingenious). We went for Pepper Lunch after that, took photos and jabbered all the way home. In between we had mini and medium tête-à-têtes.

00:00 the following day and I was finally home. I laid stomach down on my mattress, butt down, then again, and completed The Lover's Dictionary in small intervals over two to three hours. It was not a difficult book and I liked it very much; it made me weary just because it was sad and honest but it couldn't ignite burdened tears. But if there is something I learnt from reading these books, even though the situation may not be palatable, the words sure are:

ineffable, adj.
These words will ultimately end up being the barest of reflections, devoid of the sensations words cannot convey. Trying to write about love is ultimately like trying to have a dictionary represent life. No matter how many words there are, there will never be enough.

Also, it has a nice cover:

Christy, Valerie and I were at Kembangan for supper on Friday night. Before that Christy and I sat outside ION Orchard and caught up over loud event music. She said a relationship should be begun to have an end till death; I froze a little inside though I knew of it.

To bed.

Creative Writing

2011-08-31T05:20:00.003+08:00

This was my last journal entry for the class:

*

I adore cafes. Not insipid overly-franchised ones like Starbucks or Coffee Bean, though I greatly prefer the latter any day, but little queer ones hidden from the popularity of the world.

I’ve once been to Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic, for an international competition with my secondary school choir. (On a side note, let me brag for a bit. It was good. We screwed up bad, the last out of four songs, but we still got a Gold award.) It was probably around four years back, yet the family-run stores situated at the street corners still form the very motivation for my alone, ‘comfort only’ days in Singapore.

It is hard to forget, with how potent their impressions etch in one’s mind. Surrounded by archaic cobblestones, each cafe has a vintage tin sign hanging above chalky words of the daily special on a standing wooden board. Inside a genial couple’s eyes light up as the door handle chimes ring through the indie or vocal jazz tunes playing in the background. Customers are then served crisp pastries on floral ceramic plates and hot drinks in quaint teacups.

They are the kind of nosheries you would see in feel-good movies like Breakfast at Tiffany’s or Julie & Julia, and fervently wish to be at to either meet up with an intriguing blind date or an old lover, or to just escape from the rest of the world.

Ever since I returned from that beautiful place (oh my god, I can’t even describe how much I love and miss being around such idyll), I feel like I had become a romance freak. The movies I now watch are selectively chosen because my soul denies anything other than heart-retching sob films, for my giddy obsession with cafes brought about a wanted solace which is lonely at best. I adore happy endings, but it turns out, I don’t quite mind going through the hurt to get there.

The cafe I visit most often in our deprived-of-such homeland is one tucked away from the bellowing crowds in shopping centres, though it is also, ironically, part of a franchise. Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf is one of those delis which are severely overshadowed by the presence of its famous competitor. Honest to god, I am sick and tired of youths constantly mentioning and overselling Starbucks just because it possesses this cool aura of...(what is it exactly?), and yet, ignore what the other similar stores bring to the table.

Raffles Hospital’s Coffee Bean branch is the place I like best. When I first arrived there I was merely an obligated patroniser, just relieved to have somewhere away from the quizzical stares of others while waiting for a friend with punctuality issues to arrive. Then I noticed a power point, something Starbucks had always lacked at that point of time (or I was ignorant of), and the next time I went, I was with my laptop, ordering a creamy drink only because I didn’t know the intricate beauty of tea then, and because that drink was the key to keeping my privilege to stay there for many hours.

After a while, it just sort of sank in, the quiet poise of that cafe. It became my escape from the overwhelming drama of people my age and a place I go to on days I get to spend alone doing things I don’t normally have the chance to do- like write in a deviant custom, sketch not people, but objects no one gives a care about, and drink good tea with a hint of roasted nuts. I like how the baristas seem genuinely friendly, and not phony because they have to (I feel this way when I go to Starbucks).

Yet it’s sad, as I’m young and I look it too, and it feels nearly as pretentious pursuing such solace at cafes as going to a classy restaurant without ‘adults’. That’s why most importantly, I appreciate how it has an almost taciturn environment, where everyone is caught up in their own business and no one really notices as you push open the glass door and settle yourself into one of those seats. I appreciate the lack of attention, somehow.

*

to that Miss Hernie replied with a list of cafes she liked on days of solitary and thought I would too, which are places I would first hit when the vacation truly begins. I've been scrolling through review pages to look for such pensive joints and I know this is no old news, but I wish so badly that I can patronize those with you. Sometimes I think I'm pathetic.

I have other lame sheets on blackbirds and my envy, basketballers and their wasteful smoking, people-watching and ruptured thoughts...but you don't wanna hear about that.

Aimless words

2011-08-31T05:01:00.007+08:00

I've read somewhere: once one starts talking about a date that took place, it loses its value. It is because of the stranger(to the date)'s ignorance of its severity; it is because of that, the story gets undermined and understated into a bundle of emotions that it really isn't. And so she said, don't even try, and just keep it to yourself. That way it will always be precious and above all, yours.

which is why, like her, someone whom I both envy and condole, I've decided to keep the afternoon in my heart where it cornily belongs and not tell the world like I've been itching to. It's not like I haven't written it down (if you have forgotten the person whose mind you are casually trying to understand now: I have), but it's for eyes of mine and Miss Hernie to see only, though the version I sent her is a far under-cry of the actual event itself. Also, in a frenzy and a neurotic attempt to make the characters as close to and as separate from the originals, my short story had three sets of females' names, and two sets of males'. It was a work of a nightmare.

Later we will be sitting for our first and final paper of year two's first semester, and thus officially opening liberty for two months.

Just this recent Saturday I wandered around Cat Socrates to test the quaint waters and then settled into a couch at the back where a reading Caucasian woman last sat. There were a couple more seats in the place, not too many that I would brand it as a cafe itself though. It was more like a shop for wistful vintage lovers, and it sells a variety of objects which all, I would purchase in a heartbeat with no constraints.

I didn't do as much studying as soaking up the dulcetness. I also think the perfect present for me would be cups, and the perfect holiday job would be in a cafe like that.

Thoughts of random drown me in a matter of seconds. For example, now consider how deeply drawn I am to quiet guys, the one in the group who talks only when called upon and when he really feels to. I know one such person and I'm intrigued after a few observations, but we are not close at all, not one bit. We learnt in school of the Hawthorne Effect, a fancy name for the natural behaviour shift in humans amongst people unfamiliar, but it seemed that such an effect did not exist in his presence. It surprised me how his described personality never wavered even in the midst of noisy others, or in front of a new acquaintance like me.

I like captivation particularly in such animalistic packages, and I wonder so much about being his friend. Yet if he wishes so, a friend I shall not be, but merely a window to wind past his mellowness and anything else. I'd love for any of that sort.

Pride and Prejudice (the weary novel) is substantially finished too. It didn't exactly sit well for me because the language was too distraught and arcane by the generation I'm in, but I shall attempt it another; my mind shall be like opened reins and I would not skip a single word.

Don't posts of varied abrupt topics have slightly awkward endings?

Also p/s: Ivan has chicken pox and I've been avoiding him in a systematic order like freaking plague.

2011-08-16T20:19:00.002+08:00

The guy in the picture above, having a go at photographing the sunset, is Ryan. I don't know what it is, but he reminds me of Ivan each time I see or talk to him; someone so wise, so mellow, and that automatically makes me feel comfortable being around him. Fang, on the other hand, is just like a friend, an older sister yet not quite. She is beautiful inside and out, and I've never met a woman as strong. Amelia is Ryan's blessing, an erudite, brilliant person, and while one would think of such a being as disdainful, she is as humble as can be.

I think it was sometime last weekend when I shamelessly joined Kelvin's family for their extended family gathering at Labrador Park. Normally I dislike writing about things which details had mostly relinquished from my daily reverie, but the place was special, though not in a particularly nostalgic way like a talk-worthy place would usually be to me.

We went for a stroll down the humans' pavement half an hour upon reaching, the six of us- Kelvin's mom and aunt, sister Fang and I, and brother Ryan and girlfriend Amelia- and in those pairs, separated yet together. I like to call it the 'humans' pavement' for there are always rigid yellow stick-men painted on its rough surface.

As the older ladies continued with their gossip whilst walking along pretty briskly, the younger ones lagged far behind with traditional ice-creams in hand. "I love walks," I said to Fang, "But Kelvin doesn't like them very much." She then smiled sympathetically to me though she need not.

It was a dead-end where we youngsters, as Chinese elders love addressing their offspring and their offspring's offspring (I will not continue the line because there are only so few who live to hang with their great-grandchildren), first stopped and lingered. Of course it had to be picturesque. We were leaning forward from the railings, looking out to Sentosa and the likes, and passing around silly witticisms, when I realized. All I wished for then was to be there with someone who similarly adores the walk up such lofty romanced views. Then I thought of you, and how great it would have been if you were there next to me, your bicep against mine as usual. You don't even have to grab me close to you by the waist like how I loved it, but just be by my side, together pointing out at places we've been across the sea even though we can't be sure they are actually there.

As the four of us started walking back to the BBQ pit, Fang asked me, "Tell me honestly, I won't tell my brother. Who treats you better?" I said it's different, with a smile, but I know she saw it. She knows I still hurt like she does, and when I think that I'm not alone, I don't feel so bad about myself anymore.

I wanted to say that the sunset came to me like you did, yet it's not true. Nothing can ever really describe how or what or why of anything surrounding the topic of you, and I wish not to speak of it to most people but write. Sometimes I look at my brothers and they ask me, "Why are you so happy all the time?" and I laugh. They think I'm being cheerful again but I'm not. I just don't know what to say of this, of me, of you.

Handicapper of words

2011-08-10T22:55:00.007+08:00

I went out with the old friend around two weeks back now, and I've been trying to narrate the day in the best way I know and can, to precisely evince everything done and felt... Each day from that lunch, I'm forgetting a little more, remembering a little less, and I've never felt more pressured to write as promptly; yet most of the days it seems as though I am underplaying it with my words and so I stop writing. When I sit down on a chair and decide to continue to paint the almost-story, I can't, but when I'm at dinners pretending to be alright with us and our friendship, all the right terms plug my eyes and I cry a little inside. Sometimes I wish there was a button I could turn on, perhaps at the side of my hand, near the slit where my bicep and chest joins, and when it is glowing in green, my thoughts would be typed out in the English I like.

Today, like any other days, I'm having a dry spell. Also I try to prioritize my writings, despite my heart finding this particular diary entry above all articles due. I have 1,400 words for it but I'm not nearly done. There is just too much to say visually and emotionally, and I'm not about to give up.

If I were a painter
I would paint my reverie
If that's the only way for you to be with me

We'd be there together
Just like we used to be
Underneath the swirling skies for all to see

I'm so selfish.

Clumsy days, clumsy nights, okay sleep.

2011-08-06T20:57:00.006+08:00

There are just some people I want to get to know, I want to get to talk to, but just can't. The idea of it doesn't seem at all plausible.

I think I'm an incredibly awkward person but I can't help it; and when others acknowledge the fact, you'd think it makes it all easier, but it doesn't. In fact, their talking about it silences and constricts me even more. I don't know what it is. I didn't used to be like this. I dare say that I had a flair for being an easy person to speak to, and I even thought of myself for a couple of moments, years there as an ice-breaker itself, only that I'm not all that sharp and hard and metallic, not all that literal. Yet one day it suddenly gleamed on me and those around that I've lost that sense- I've lost that conviction to be liked, to be disliked, and above all, to be heard. Maybe some time soon, I'll gain that back again, that ready confidence to jump into conversations dauntless, and all will be well.

For now, it's just me and my inelegance.

We celebrated Shaun's 18th last Tuesday with slightly inept proceedings at Changi Airport Terminal 1 Astons. Leon and I did up his bikini, cleavage-spilling babe card in the audio suites back at school, and whilst being distracted by football and later, Wei Chong, I got the jerk a calender-like stand of babies displaying various mood expressions and a box of half a dozen Oreo donuts to act as his cake.

When I first saw the (book? calender? notepad? illustration?) stuffed between books on baby names (which are thrown useless with the internet), albeit its average pricing, I felt almost certain that that was the present for Shaun this year. I was imagining reactions so ridiculous like him dancing gaily around with the book clutched in both hands, or him flipping through the pages and giggling akin to a whimsical little girl. He didn't. It was rather awkward in fact, watching him peel off the wrapping zealously and redrawing to a silent while scrutinizing the gift page over page.

However birthdays for our clique, which has become nonexistent to an extent, had also become so especially mundane and ultimately, there's only a way around it with or without a surprise: food, cake, present. Being friends for years now, we've agreed to cut the surprise element out of celebrations, because it is losing its novelty and school isn't exactly a bliss to get by, leaving it entirely up to good dinner and good talk to turn the night around. But our lazy selves are forever looking at places which are within a walk or a few bus stops away, willing us to the same ol' mob scenes, and with a relatively big group like ours, it's too, nigh into a daunt for one to yap about life while the others listen, doe-eyed.

We don't know each other very well after all. Sometimes I feel like we are simply holding on to the friendship in hope to relieve some scarce, blithe memories from before. Yet sometimes I really feel like I love the lot, so much.

*

So many things have happened when I lost touch with words and got caught up in procrastination. My group is done with the filming of our second Single Camera project. The process of getting a horror production together was, in all honesty and surprise, a blend of mental states. My Creative Writing journals brought back a 17/20, fairly satisfying, and Miss Hernie (yes, I finally got her name) requested for permission to showcase them in a future school publication of good works, which is probably the best recognition for the kind of writing I do, ever. I also got more results- both for Single Camera and Broadcast Production- and they are mediocre. I don't know why I still go to school with sheer faith that things will turn around. And Bridge...oh Bridge. Troubles aplenty indeed.

r/s

2011-07-25T23:59:00.007+08:00

I watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II with Shaun last Thursday. It was after Basic Media Research tutorial and a wee bit of Audio Production assignment two doing; we bought the tickets and sat ourselves in Popeyes beside, hardly eating but devouring in fact, and touching on silly texts like grandmas and the likes.

Suddenly it dawned on us that we were late and we literally left food (what are the odds?) immediately for the theatre, only to come out a couple of seconds after to relieve ourselves, just in case a full bladder distracts us from the ensuing movie. I'd never peed faster in my entire life.

Shaun told me when we were settled that the movie would be epic no matter how badly produced it might be, seeing how it is the last of the decade's worth, and he was right. I can't seem to put my disposition aside and judge impartially when people ask me if Part II is value for money. I'd say that it is because the whole film and even more so, book series had been what morphed my childhood into the way it is. And the end of it would most definitely be epic to proportions unimaginable.

Sitting fidgety in the narrow seat and tearing at certain (many) takes, I wasn't sad only because the scenes themselves tugged on my feeble heartstrings, but I was too, because every second of the film passed was every second of my childhood waning away.

The kind of woe I vibe now, a week plus after, is not one that compels me to sob willfully. I don't know what it is, but I do know that being exposed to all the GIFs on Tumblr and interviews about Harry Potter from start to end is ruthless. Ruthless and just callous for people like me.

In the movie, I particularly like how McGonagall was putting on a brave front and trying to lighten up the atmosphere when it was so apparent that she was daunted too. It must make no sense but the conflicting emotions brought across clawed on my heart and tickled it at the same time. The whole movie was potent on its own, but that scene and that acting were especially powerful in reducing me to whimpers.

Snape's love for Lily, retained till death, was a given. It's just perplexing how J. K. Rowling, like I've read somewhere, used that nobility as part of what built the whole Harry Potter story, tagging every other love simply juvenile for a few drowned days.

News presenting assessment was on earlier this Tuesday for half of the class, which included me. I choked on saliva and jitters (not in this order), and even Leon agreed that I looked like a transsexual on screen (look as I retreat into the I-look-like-an-ass-even-in-good-makeup club); but ah well, c'est la vie aye?

That tutorial also reminded me how much of a speaking-handicapped person I am.

Creative Writing tutorial last week was another bout of presentations. Like or unlike Cameron, a guy in my class who seemed every bit like a clumsy-with-English, gawky dragon-boater, left me in awe throughout the course of him droning on Allan Folsom's The Day After Tomorrow. He was a closeted reader, I could tell, and I wish I'd caught his name. This coming Wednesday I'm presenting the acquired The History of Love and all look not too shabby.

Tonight something amazing emerged from tragedy. I don't think it is a befitting energy for such a somber affair, but what happened within it really was a triumph for myself indeed, especially when I spent the day at Ngee Ann Polytechnic maneuvering around pretty awkwardly. Everyone home had tears some way or another- mom was bawling and I was sniveling, I was bawling and Ivan was sighing, though that word probably isn't giving any justice to his confusion now.

Yet I finally told my brother how much he meant to me, in the way I've always wanted to say it. "I just want you to be happy, I don't want to lose you," I wept.

"I love you so much." But I can't stop crying.

They say a person isn't truly gone.

2011-07-25T12:17:00.003+08:00

A great talent was lost to the reverie two days ago. I like to call it a reverie because it is indeed like a dream, an everlasting dream of no hurt, no troubles, no nothing. Life was more than Amy Winehouse could gather so I guess she'd be happier being out of it. But who am I to say what she'd have preferred.

I've always liked her as a singer. If you've watched just one of her acoustic performances, you would know what I mean. When she was singing, it rarely ever seemed like she had a problem. She seemed to be having fun, hidden smiles and all. That is what music is supposed to do to you, and she was one of few who understood that so simply.

As I watched this, I drowned in the loss of a great presence, but I also shivered at the eternity of her genuineness. One day when I'm old and farty and have my own kids, I would sit them down not only to tell the story of love, but also of music. And Amy Winehouse would be mentioned most definitely.

2011-07-15T01:59:00.006+08:00

Something tells me that this is more than just a rough patch. I've been locking up angst for a long time now, but every time I try to break it to you slowly and gently, you'd dismiss me like my opinions didn't matter. You said I was so smart yet never once did you make me feel like it.

Perhaps he was right. We want too different things out of our significant others. How can this work?

Love doesn't have to be complicated and selfish. I don't have to be complicated. You don't have to be selfish.

Yellowed pages and yellowed thoughts

2011-07-13T23:59:00.002+08:00

Cameron from my Creative Writing class talked about the classic Dracula today. I was drawn not because his thoughts were very much abstruse like mine, but because he was an exemplar nerd who surprises through and through- he looked like a silent genius of a chemist with a guilty interest in quixotic poetry, but rattled on about his passion for gothic novels as if science or engineering or whatever he is studying, is beyond his world. I loved watching him as he ambled up to the front hunchbacked, yet spoke with such conviction when holding a book he so adored in hand.

Out of the many presentations, his was the only I truly enjoyed. The rest, in my eyes, either tried too hard to be as aureate as him or our teacher, or just floundered way under par in expressing their reviews. I felt as though they read their respective books for the sake of this assignment, and not for genuinely wanting to immerse themselves in good art.

I remember how I used to read intensely, whenever and wherever. It's ironic too, as those were the times I wasn't a writer anyone should be proud of. One day, I stopped. And I stopped for quite a while because it was tough to get back into the momentum. But today after a pressingly short Creative Writing lesson, Miss Hernie, in an attempt to divert me away from the idea of presenting The Notebook, introduced to me a novella she thought I'd have worthy opinions about- The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan. She told me with an almost lament that her friends and herself have read and ended with confusion, and she would like it if I tried the path as well, to see if I could come up with a conclusion contrastingly.

"It's going to be a quick death," she said, "unlike Lawrence (whom I've been trying to weather through)." She also said, "you're a writer," to which my heart thawed. Perhaps she broke the hiatus in my reading too.

So I left the school with Yin Jie, the only close friend I have in the class, and headed down to TIMES in Tampines 1 as solitary as can be. As I gait through the detectors I recalled the renovation- it had finished, and albeit the lingering trail of wash, I like the outlet for it is neater.

I think I must have spent an hour by the least pausing at different shelves, and restricting my reaching, thrilled arm from picking up the corny love stories which should serve as redundant pleasures only. In the end I caved and got myself a copy of The Notebook, for it had always been my intention to analyse it with the heart-wrenching version of film in mind. I was pleased yet embarrassed when the book laid gingerly between my thumb and the rest, but soon was forgotten when I found Tess of the d'Ubervilles and The History of Love- the recommended novels I'd longed to unravel.

Fifty bucks to the cashier, plastic bag with the babies to me, and that made two happy people. At least, I hope she's happy.

The moment I reached home, I boasted to my mom about my finds and then slumped myself on the sofa. An hour and a half later I was done with Nicholas Sparks and his melancholy declarations of love. I had bawled my eyes out without reserve because I felt like I could relate best when Allie and Noah were together, floating on old memories and new, through actions and words. Even when I took a toilet break, I sung songs of bitterness. It took me some time after finishing the novel to gather my thoughts again.

Right now, I am halfway through Nicole Krauss and a little less muddled than when I first began. Maybe I'll use this book for my presentation, though I believe I'd have so much more to say about The Notebook, despite its supposed vapidness.

I fear so many things right now. I fear since my future, for it seems bleak and meaningless. I fear dying without leaving an imprint in someone(important)'s life. I fear losing grasp of reality as the days go by.

I also fear cellulite. Just now after viewing photos of skinny celebrities struck with the unsightly "cheese", I ran to my mom and asked her to check out the back of my thighs. She said, "don't have la" so naturally; but why do I get the feeling she's just being a comforting mother?

Excerpts from the books which encompass my recent musings:

The words were spoken with such sincerity that she knew he wasn't saying it just to be nice. He truly believed in her ability, and for some reason that meant more to her than she expected.

She wanted something else, something different, something more. Passion and romance, perhaps, or maybe quiet conversations in candlelit rooms, or perhaps something as simple as not being second.

I am so afraid of dents in/on the books.

He doesn't know:

2011-07-12T21:48:00.002+08:00

my heart still buzzes. It buzzes alright.

Flowers only last so long.

2011-07-10T17:13:00.004+08:00

Over the last few weeks, as I'd told the old friend, I have been awkward as can be. He accepts it as it is, but I can't. I don't feel like I fit into school, or anywhere anymore. I feel like I'm forever patronizing people, even though I've promised myself to be on neither the receiving nor the giving end of; and the only periods of time I'm someone I can actually like are when I'm with people who don't give me as much distress as the rest do.

Sometimes I'm sane but sometimes I'm not. Perhaps I'm becoming more brutal with my words and oh god-forbid, my thoughts too. I'm intolerant.

Also, I miss him.

For anal's sake, here's the proper poem others always misquote:

The rose is red, the violet's blue
The honey's sweet, and so are you
Thou are my love and I am thine
I drew thee to my Valentine
The lot was cast and then I drew
And Fortune said it shou'd be you.

I want to get a tattoo of my brothers' names, down the side of my rib-cage maybe.

Breathed together.

2011-07-06T01:55:00.005+08:00

I saw this video on Alex's blog and I can't even...

School's been more than school'd ever been. Every day and night feels like a rushing battle between my future and jadedness, and sometimes I just want to let it all go, not turn up for school for a couple of days, weeks; but then I know I want to write. And to write I have to work indurately.

I love my dad for he loves me in a way that is so apparent and so beneficial for our kinship. Just this recent Sunday, he stirred out of his slumber ever so swiftly early at 9am and drove me down to Outward Bound Singapore, East Coast Campus for an event coverage. It was not his to care, whether or not I was late or if I was stuck outside because of that, yet he wanted to wait till the South West representative came out and opened the gates for me, recognizing that I sweat simply. But the person wasn't answering her phone after a couple of rings and he had a late night, so I signaled to him from an opening leading to some place else (I think it was a surfing club), that all was okay, that he could leave. And he left, feeling relieved.

An hour later he drove all the way back from home, willingly and promptly, to fetch me to a coffee shop in Bedok which sells big prawns- the way I like it- because he knew I had no food before. After lunch he peered over to the unfitting pastry store beside the guy selling prata, gave me a red note of his own accord and said, nah, go buy yourself some chocolate muffins or cookies. I didn't even mention anything nearly as close to wanting them.

My dad often appears to swoon out of conversations when they are ongoing, what with his incessant nodding and 'hm's, but really, he is one of the most attentive people I know. I remember that one Chinese New Year gathering held at my current house: a primary 5-6 I was playing the guzheng for his friend very roughly (because he's proud of me like that) and suddenly, my dad started to explain to the onlooking audience how the instrument has 24 strings, and neither a 'fa' nor a 'ti'- facts that I'd told him 2-3 years back. Yet he recounted it with such aplomb, that it made me feel empowered at that moment. I played harder and more precisely, for my face and for my dad's. It ended well and I got a pat on the head from both my dad and his friend.

Today I ended Single Camera discussion with Leon at the airport late, later than my curfew. But my dad called me and told me, just call me when you're done, like the petrol charges and his astigmatism were nothing. While driving he repeated how health triumphs over work, and said that if all fails, I can always fall back on the company he built specially for us.

Recently when I see friends with fathers who don't drive them to school early in the morning or drive them back home late in the night, I can't help but have this fuzzy conflicting argument going on with myself as to whether this sort of taut love bond begets good in the end or not. I don't really know how to put it in words but I feel like if the whole world were to lose their dads at the same time, I would have it the most weary.

There are so many things I can talk about my dad, like how wise he always is, but I don't feel like I can express them with fullest justice right about now. Maybe if I said it like this: I would give up singing to have my dad forever. Never mind the transportation, just my dad.

He's 52 years old today. I wish I had the courage to hug him and tell him that I love him so much, more than I have ever loved any other man.

Underplayed, overplayed.

2011-06-30T22:14:00.001+08:00

'tis unthinkable, the amount of work I have and not done. I keep myself on pins and needles yet my grades don't show for it entirely, not even a bit I'd say. Kelvin concluded that I use too much of assiduousness on components that don't matter, but I told him that this is me. I like for things to be perfect if I can and it's too bad my definition of the word differs so much from the tutors.

I am hoping that one day, they would receive the melodrama in my writing and imagination as it is.

When you are describing,
A shape, or sound, or tint;
Don't state the matter plainly,
But put it in a hint;
And learn to look at all things,
With a sort of mental squint.

This snippet by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) posts the very ground of my words.

Also, I looked at photographs of wild course-mates and I realise I will never be like that.

Vieux amants,

2011-06-29T23:59:00.006+08:00

I feel compelled to write about today, for I'm daunted by my eclectic memory. I'm also undaunted for what I'm about to say, for I realise the people who matter most don't ever check out this page.

Today I went to school bearing a soul lifted with excitement. I wanted, as soon, to get my hands on a copy of the newly-released issue of Stop Press. Last month I wrote an article about my impassioned distaste for social text messaging, got overly emotional with it and finally sent it in to be featured in this month's number.

I was pleased with what I wrote- with all the sneaky half-profanities and quotes from foreign folk- but I was slightly perturbed too, as I know it's a common undertaking for my work to be edited, especially when it hit the word-limit. The last time anyone tried to "fine-tune" a piece I've menially written, my whole style and intention behind the words got altered right down into a dull tone, very unlike my melodramatic hand, and it upset me. I've never stopped hating it since.

And so there I was, standing in a cubicle of the ladies and clutching onto a folded copy of the monthly newsletter, flipping through the seemingly primeval-feeling sheets of paper desperately...then I saw it: right at the bottom-half of the seventh page, a cheesy tagline I don't recall contributing, and my article, minus the quirks which made it different from the rest, minus the me.

To think that I told Kelvin that I presumed I brought a contrasting style of writing to the school's newspaper. Perhaps I shouldn't be so sure any other time, 'cause I was ashamed, though it was fault on no one but my neurotic self.

Creative Writing class was well, Creative Writing class. Today we got to do something slightly more avant-garde than the previous lessons were. Mdm H (to be honest, I never did bother to find out her name. She just seems so mysterious and classy like that) gave out handouts of personal geographies and other maps of the imagination, one of which I really adored- The Road to Success by an unknown artist. And of course no handout comes without a go at replicating a similar art.

My inspiration was from the half-good, half-bad apple from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The dark shaded side of my disproportional, sketched apple consists of a few of many things that make me jaded, and the clear side consists of the opposites of those that make me blithe. In the middle I wrote "life!" because the mixture of both sides is what life is.

I wished I had more space to include more of my significant nit-bits and better materials to draw them out, but it's okay. I reckon I'm happy with it.

We were released after a short sharing and the returning of our character creation assignment (I did moderately for the amount of hard work I'd put in as usual. I hope one day someone would embrace my schmaltz for what it is), and I met up with an old friend. It was overwhelming, and I actually find it hard to tell what happened with fullest emotions other than transcribing in a blunt sense so...

Pardon me if the paragraphs are too abrupt- this is how my mind recounts stuff. Also, it is impossible to chronicle everything that we have shared with each other, and the exact words exchanged too; let's just leave it as that. Le:

So it started out with a deep hug.

We hadn't seen each other in months so we got to chatting almost immediately, missing several buses to the interchange but we had humour and laughter to accompany us. When I'm with him I feel ever so risible.

At the interchange, we waited for 10 to take us to Marina Square for Waraku. He shook his right ankle and told me of its recent injury and how it has yet to recover fully. He said, I will be consulting some other doctor soon. I don't want it to have problems in the future. I said, yeah, like pains when it's cold. He said, you'd know.

With mirth, we smiled at each other and looked down at our feet.

I told him about BRIDGE and Stop Press whilst seated in the bus, to which he said, you should show me a couple of your work sometime, I'm sure they will be interesting reads. And he said so so effortlessly, as if patronizing my little accomplishments was nonexistent and that complimenting me unintentionally came so naturally to him.

Our conversation was mostly maintained and we also sat with our biceps pressing against each other's in contented silence.

The bus was in the nostalgic vicinity of Siglap, where we saw a long-running Pizza Hut branch the road opposite. He told me about its oldness and what it had, then I flipped a coin from my iPhone application and we alighted a stop too late.

We were walking towards dinner and somehow we landed on the topic of weights. He said, but you are not heavy, unless your weight increased since the last time I carried you. I replied, you carried me before? He said, yeah. I said, when?

And he said, then.

Enter Pizza Hut.

During soup he animatedly told the epic tales of his mini escapade with friends; I beamed and I chortled, not only because the stories were genuinely absurd, but also because I'd never been depicted to so intricately before. I like it, for it made me feel crucial enough.

After two personal pan pizzas we sat there bellied and satisfied. I poured left-over syrup and a dash of parmesan into my empty cup (of initially iced lemon tea) and to that, he said, if you drink that all up, I'll pay for the meal. But I was too wussy so I said, how about if you- I added spices and more cheese- drink THAT, I treat!

He was gallant (and hard up for cash as it seemed haha), and downed the foul mix I previously took approximately half an hour to concoct. I paid, we fist-bumped and left gaily.

The first few moments we stepped out, we passed a foot reflexology store. How about a massage, he asked. I said, sure, just as long as you are paying for it this time; but what I really want now is some ice-cream. He said, of course I'll treat if you wanna. So we chatted all the way to Udders, and there we sat on the laddered stools, exchanging a couple of thoughts before getting up to leave after I realised I wasn't craving it that much at all.

Before, when we walked past a cafe/bar, the kind that I'd like to be amidst to chill yet can't, he commented, it sucks, because I love such places but I look too young for their setting. Deep inside my heart flutters, sending the same straight down to the stomach. I don't know why I didn't say that I had similar sentiments, but I did, I most certainly did.

We reached a bus stop. I joked about walking all the way back home while he looked at me in disbelief. He said, let's take 16 to Bedok interchange and take a random bus from there to anywhere. I said, sure, or we can just take 12 all the way back. I said, let's flip a coin. If it's heads, we continue. If it's tails, we call it a night. I'm gonna choose a US coin this time.

It rolled tails and we got onto 12. While waiting, he was close and prattled in french.

Then we relaxed side-by-side on the upper-deck. Seconds later he pulled out my left hand and grazed my palm gently. I told him, the scar has been there since I was a little girl, a staple got into it, and I took my hand back. He replied, I know that. But it was the faint lines, the lines no one ever notices, that he was puzzled and almost concerned about.

In the bus, he sang his originals softly and surely to me. It beget a familiar feeling altogether.

I said, hey it's Tanah Merah. The bus then leaves the bus stop. He said, wait...ah. We both know what that place meant. Expo was nearing too and it was early in the night, so I asked, hey, do you wanna alight and see what we can do at expo? He asked, you want to spend more time with me isn't it? I said, forget it, and we both chuckled.

Before we parted at the bus stop, he said, I don't understand why you always walk back from Tampines. I said, the bus stop with my bus home is near and I might stop there, but otherwise, the distance back home isn't too long. He smiled and replied, you don't have to wait for the bus with me you know. I said, really? He said, yes. I said, you sure? He said, yes.

So it ended with a even deeper hug.

Fun night, he said, but I ambled off. I'm probably never gonna see him again.

When it all amounts to nothing in the end.

2011-06-28T00:21:00.001+08:00

Aunty Gina's dope blend of strawberries and mangoes

Dubious sandwich from school's vending machine

4 FINGERS chicken wings and fries

I got back my first Single Camera individual assignment in the afternoon. We were all just roused back onto earth after an hour deep into our GoVenture, a business game, addiction, so I was too overwhelmed (I have been using this word too much recently) to gather myself for the returning of the booklets and the grades which came within.

Oh the grades.

I perceptibly recall spending two days in and two nights up to give the proposal the neediest of all. It didn't matter that I broke down in frustration copious number of times in the course of the writing, nor was it of anguish I bore when I cast stick figures out of the question and took in proper sketches for the storyboard. When Mr Teo handed over my baby to me, I caught a glance of the cover in between the slits of my frightened nervy eyes. When I looked past the 'D' hovering above the comments, I saw my content for what it really is- me.

At that moment I was impassive, even though I was surrounded by grades higher than mine, grades I knew I probably deserve nary the little flaws. But when I was lying on the soft velvet of the sofa in the evening as I always do after a long day out, Victor, my brother who has no freakin' clue how bloody genius he is, returned home and narrated the whole story of his "lucky" streak to me.

"Remember that paper I thought was scheduled to be a week after but found out it wasn't a day before? I watched Friends anyway, remember that?" He threw these questions my way matter-of-factly. I nodded for I remembered so clearly.

"I got the highest in class."

Then I came unglued. It was probably the first in ages my brothers had ever seen the tears leave my eyes; I'd always liked to just let them linger at the corners. They were apathetic towards my rants and had actions to show for it, and though singing brought me solace in a form no one ever can, I realise I need time to dwell past this.

Now hours later, I don't woe over the mistakes because I knew that I liked, no, loved what I wrote as an aspiring writer. I just taste...unjust, a strong splash of its bitterness too, for I've never worked so hard only to have the superficial academics pull down my self-esteem in an instant.

But it's alright. I shall be fine. I'm always fine.

And I'm sorry to which ever man should meet my sorry state.
Watch my steady lonesome gait and beware
I will never love a man cause love and pain go hand in hand
And I can't do it, again.

But I couldn't get into his head just what was going through my mind,

It's Fang's birthday today. The most blessed birthday to the best sister of a boyfriend in the world.

#suchislife

2011-06-25T02:25:00.003+08:00

Laura Marling's other songs are disappointments. Many things are actually, but people who yield them towards my course don't realize it. Apologies and white lies do not serve as bleach for the stain on my heart but they do bring a certain degree of comfort. However less, a bit still entails to rid of this qualmish glum.

I wish I didn't have to state it out too blatantly for my liking, but it's you- the one whom I have grown to care so distractedly about is also the one who has grown to neglect. I don't understand how my many hints could be diminished to cipher as soon as they come. I'm not in bliss, not now notably.

I can't keep sucking it up; all the nonsensical things said and done which never stop upon genuine fury, and selfishness. Oh how I abhor egotism.

Hurt:

2011-06-22T21:35:00.011+08:00

Someday, we'd be having laughs and talk over some cakes and tea.
You'd ask, how has love been for me and I'd reply cordially.
Then you'll, notice the blush on my face.
We'd smile, soaking it all until the bubble burst.

Inch Chua's mellowness is by far, one of the two local ones I only appreciate. The other is Olivia Ong and I'm pondering over the addition of Nathan Hartono to the list. But it befuddles the workings of the said list because he is not exactly Singaporean. Mixed blood, in fact.

Still, I can't find his album anywhere online or in the stores and it upsets me somehow. When I hear good music, I must have it. Certainly I must. I've already got Laura Marling's two albums (spurred on by her New Romantic which I adore so much) and Jessie J's Who You Are. Pretentious is me now. Well, almost.

Does it irk you, my abrupt style of writing? Ah.

Starlight night.

2011-06-21T22:58:00.005+08:00

The prestige was a fine affair called Community Sports Festival 2011. There were probably thousands of old and young demographics we had to cuddle between in the search of the person in-charge and cordial-looking people to interview, and I've come to a conclusion that the coverage of events is veritably a solo job, and there shouldn't be any other means around it. I think I'm less of a socially-inept wuss when I'm left alone or amongst unknowns by myself- undoubtedly a rather strange contrast to the cliche in life.

So fatigued I (and Kelvin) decided to leave after an hour, or perhaps even shorter, only to result in being intrigued to watch the Singapore Poly's female baseball practice, and enjoying it much more than the mass event before. I have always found athletic girls particularly enthralling, and I have always wanted to be one of 'em as I thought musicians are nary less than common.

It bugs me how people around me readily pick up the guitar for a motive none other than to be part of the 'cool' crowd or to impress someone/everyone. Music is meant to be learnt only when for good intentions only; yet these imbeciles...they only put true aficionados to shame.

My head's exploding and I feel almost mean now. Some people can't sing and they should be told.

I'm tired. I have so many thoughts but the time is never right to write about them. Maybe tomorrow.

We lay hand in hand, head to head, eye to eye
The stars staring down, as if they were in envy
The moon radiating light upon us, as if it we were a showcase

20th of June, 8 months; but it feels like forever.

We will all be dainty.

2011-06-19T03:54:00.004+08:00

I'm feeling more sane tonight.

Kamini, Kenneth, Leon and I met up on Friday night, and I had the best time in ages. Their presence inadvertently wiped out my demented frame of mind and with them, I chortled till the painful depths of my soul. (Also, Kenny is unbelievably handsome.)

The Indian said, I remember always catching you for your skirt, and I laughed at the truth blatantly floating above her statement.

We had a brutally sweaty dinner at Chomp Chomp Food Centre, a chillier gradually-morbid supper at Icez Pool @ Kovan, and a reliving set of swinging at a park nearby. It was a tortuously-dandy meet up with old friends indeed.

The malt candy which ripped off part of Leon's front tooth

While waiting for Kamini

Best out of the dishes we ordered

My usual waffle with maple syrup and a scoop of ice-cream on top

Quaint candle

Leon really likes to over-edit the photos

My pals

Heart-to-heart, nostalgic talks while being complete kids

All of us at Icez

I have been presented another event to cover for BRIDGE later at 7.15am, Dover. I'd be more animated about the whole deal, but again, jinxing a hefty pass like this is the first of my kooky worries so I figured I'll not be too frantic (even if the location, exact details of the festival, and the rabid timing are throbbing on my might). Besides, my boy will be a great consort and a scissors for my awkward I-don't-know-anyone-here moments.

All will be just dainty.

Please have exact change.

2011-06-18T03:25:00.004+08:00

I cannot continue being like this:

So many people and things irk me now, it's impossible to keep track. The only people I can really stand are Leon, Wei Chong...and the list probably stops here. Everyone else seems to just be having two possible intentions when conversing with me- they want to fucking annoy, or make me feel like dog poo.

Dog poo, I said, dog poo.

I can't even type now. I can't even convey my thoughts properly. This morning I got into a taxi I booked and the uncle had to repeat his every question at least three times. "Where do you want to go?" "Er..." "PIE or straight route?" "I..." " This gate or the other gate?" "What?" Normally these answers come to me easily but not recently. I sat there in a dazed reverie, even though I had plenty of (disturbed) rest.

What's happening?

Today I felt pass over me
A breath of wind from the wings of madness.

- Charles Baudelaire

I wanted Kelvin to comfort me and tell me it's okay, I'm not crazy, but he doesn't adore me like this. No one does, not even I, not particularly.

Too many mindless thoughts, too little a platform.

2011-06-16T18:02:00.001+08:00

I upmost hate it when others feed me with white lies, information which are patronizing yet entirely false, on a constant daily routine.

I still think I'm troubled, in a rather inane I-want-you-to-know-but-I-don't-wanna-talk-about-it way around it.

I refused to cave and I did.

Meh, you guys, meh.

2011-06-16T02:20:00.009+08:00

If there is one thing I can say about the holidays being here, it would be "meh". A friend used that word ever so frequently throughout the years of me knowing him, but I never really did understood what it meant. I guess if its context is something of a woe value, then yeah, it's applicable to how I'm feeling right now.

They might as well not give us a break (I kid about the exaggeration of course. What would I do without a breather away from the false pretenses and dread, aye?), what with the many assignments due by the end of it. It's funny nonetheless; you'd think I learnt my lesson and start on 'em at the earliest possible time, but to date, I have been doing almost nary but diddling.

I do quite adore that word. Diddling.

Though! I have completed my compilation of Creative Writing reflective journals, on my giddy obsession with cafes and more aberrant quirks. I have one which touches on basketball, which inspiration attached while I was trying to be a good girlfriend by watching Kelvin and his pals aggressively sweating it out. (Speaking of which, my boy won't see that he is truly a superb player and even more so as a radio presenter. I have used all my good words and kind of need new convincing ones.)

And since I'm lazy to state in proper well-structured neurotic sentences, what I've been doing lately:

I *HEART* DMNCHOIR shirt-gathering at choir camp

Rapping (with failure) to Love The Way You Lie with Isaac, Joy, Alastair and Leon for the girl's (belated) birthday

Beef Goulash, robust roll and same ol' rants from Joanne last Saturday

My usual Coffee Bean order of Genmaicha while we got tossed into the troublesohtroubles side-track again

A part of Alex's and my Waraku mini set

Plain tutu from Tampines 1 after meeting up with Kelvin

Writing and waiting for him at Sultan Plaza instead of a quaint cafe the next day

Tuesday (yesterday) afternoon, a change of place at Raffles Hospital, and myself

Today I spent all afternoon at Shaun's place for a first, with WC of course, discussing the schedule for tomorrow's filming initially, then doing what we do as choir people- sing, with the not-too-shabby guitar playing of the host- and just having some joyful friend-time. I'd post up the videos of the house visit, but I promised not to, so...

And,

in the evening, I met up with my boy for a Raja Inn's steamboat buffet date at Tiong Bahru Plaza. I find it kinda weird how the previous, and also the first, time I went there, the mall was almost neglected, a contrary of what it was just now, and that I ate at the ramen store beside Raja Inn with the ex. Must say it was just nostalgic being back there, with my current boyfriend too.

Nevertheless the food and the time spent with Kelvin was beyond amazing, and the night wrapped up pretty nicely with helping his friend preparing a sweet token for the girl he fancies.

The days are okay, my soul has been strong and earnest to a certain degree, but apparently not very tolerant with attention whores anymore (oh, you have no idea the fretting number of them crowding in my social circle now). I just don't get how some people can be so clueless of the whole damn world around them. They can go on and on regarding their so-called "drama" and "life-sucks-scenarios" without a care less about those who are hapless obligated-listening friends.

Grab a hint, anyone?

2011-05-28T05:16:00.001+08:00

I like to be perfect, so sue me.

I have to get up, get on with this act.

2011-05-22T01:04:00.007+08:00

When I need to write about writing I tend to write about writing. But not in the way they want it. In the way I need it.

I don't know if it's just me, but I yearn to be the genre of my words. If it's a jaded piece on school or life, I'd like for myself to be actually disheveled, for what I am wearing to stink of pungent exhaustion, for the ugly oil in my skin to emerge. If it's an emotional piece about unrequited love, I'd like for tears to collect at the bags of my eyes, for them to drip as I type a sentence so impactful, for my heart to wrench and my left palm to itch when it does. If it's a piece with joy, I'd like for my soul to be grateful, for an intensely reflective hand to narrate, for pictures which show.

For this, a professional piece to be handed in within a short amount of time, this ridiculous Single Camera proposal, I gathered my hair into a low ponytail- neat, pushed against my scalp the irritating strands of babies, got into my one and only Hello Kitty PJs and, (can you guess?)

aye. My thick black-rimmed spectacles are in place. I look like a nerd I never was, and by default, I should be fleeting through the background research fluently; instead I'm here, here: writing colloquially about stuff that are not graded.

I once told Kelvin, "Inspiration hits you best when you stop vexing about it." I thought that was pretty true. But how do you not fret, especially when you need it the most?

I don't like repetition in most cases, too.

Disastrous.

*

On a lighter note, practice at Zerlina's just now was better than I expected. She really never fails to impress others with her voice and her chirpiness.

With a hippie bookmark,

2011-05-21T01:56:00.006+08:00

I have a book literally named Sons and Lovers, by D. H. Lawrence. You'd think the novel brings some form of mystic to the reader, what with the title and fairly interesting synopsis swirling at the back of the beige number; yet it's a hard read. I'm barely able to get myself to fly past the pages like with any other stories, but maybe it's because this probes on the discomfort of the genre I'm not accustomed to.

I started reading this book because it claims to be "rich with universal truths about relationships". You can say I wanted my head out of the darn clouds already; but it has been what, half a year? Still, I'm pathetically hovering around the middle of the very first part (in my defense, the parts are each about 150 pages long). I could have had more resilience like I did for reading, now nary coming back with the distractions of the internet. Perhaps I would have been able to swim through my writing assignments more easily.

Today I had an eventful day at school. Okay to be honest, it was ONE event- CMM (my course- Communications and Media Management a.k.a. mass communication) busking in lecture theatre 18- but it is probably the best school day I had ever since I kicked start my studies in a polytechnic. It was nothing really, just one measly performance of Price Tag from Leon and I (I thank everyone who was so enthusiastic and groovy about our apparent nerves and no-one-knows-us-ness), and loads of jamming with old and new people outside the LT.

I found out that I would rather play the guitar for an newly-made friend or acquaintance to sing along, than to have it the other way round, even though I do adore singing to the extent of rendering descriptive words useless. How do I go about explaining this strange revelation...? Hm I guess it's because I feel that as a singer, I am obliged to follow the guitarist's rhythm and own interpretation of the song. After all a voice can be altered accordingly and easily, but even for someone of a professional playing standard, to ask him to alter the strumming pattern he is most comfortable with- now that's ridiculous.

If it's with my SMILE mates or just someone I'm exceedingly snug with, then yea, singing it is. I would not touch the guitar unless I feel need be. But if it's someone I know almost nothing about...I mean, I wouldn't want a stranger of a fussy singer myself. Though maybe it's just my neurosis blasting. Again.

While someone was having their turn at performing.

Also I feel incredibly fat tonight.

Food and good ol' friends.

2011-05-20T02:45:00.003+08:00

Greetings fellow weary humans,

Life had done me quite a fair bit of justice last Friday. Not only did I scrape through the first reflective journal for my broadcast module just a couple of minutes before the time of the deadline and rocked it within my own neurotic standards, I also received news that the article I wrote for the school's newspaper (the one I posted two posts back) was accepted by the tutor I thought had a distinct distaste for me, and that it is going to be featured in the upcoming issue.

Man, that's a mouthful! All's cool though, all's cool.

Got to hang out with my favourite people last weekend too:

Aye, I know we look good together

"We used to be best friends." HAHA remember, Kamama?

And my best friend!

Kamama and Kenny

The cutest boys!

No comment.

All of us

While trying to garner myself for my second Broadcast reflective journal, I figured that if I don't get to expressing how I really about life I probably wouldn't be able to complete it. It's like an obligation weighing down on the essence of my inspiration; it has been hours but I barely wrote anything.

Deadline: later at 5pm

Topic and experience with it: broadcast-ed interviews, and my knowledge is barely negligible

Word count: 46 out of about 600 words

First lesson tomorrow: Introduction to Audio Production at 9am

Time now: 3am

a.k.a. Considered myself screwed.

I'm also preparing myself for one helluva weekend- saturday night at Zerlina's (oh I hope it goes well) for choir camp talent time alumni practice, and a severe baggage of workload I just got to know about. Think the greatest amount of essays to be written. Ten Creative Writing journals of at least 500 words each, a story character synopsis of at least 300 words, and a Single Camera proposal which I literally know nothing about.

I know it's cliche, but procrastination is indeed my worst enemy. Oh life!

2011-05-13T03:05:00.000+08:00

I'm too nostalgic for my own good.

My best work so far...

2011-05-10T01:15:00.003+08:00

...and I went overboard with 1273 words of frustration and tears (literally). I guess I wanted so much for my first STOP Press article to be immaculate.

*

You’d think that a technology-reliant teenager like yours truly would be an advocate of all that is convenient; yet as much as angst Singaporeans spit on the People’s Action Party in this year’s General Election, my soul rebels against not iPhones, not Blackberrys, not Galaxy Tabs, but the devil of a kid of all cell phones: social text messaging.

I won’t say I hate it entirely, for ‘hate’ is a very strong word, nor will I say I haven’t fallen victim of such atrocity in my entire life, because who hasn’t? After all, it is through experiences, and oh what painful ones of that, did my love-hate relationship with it surface. Don’t get me wrong though, text messaging (on its own) is good, more than good actually, it is probably one of the greatest inventions Anno Domini. I mean, what can be better than receiving a near immediate reply for an important question? It is almost ingenious.

But SOCIAL text messaging…now that is the one that irks me.

To me, the very ideation of using text messaging to uphold a conversation with someone else is ridiculous. It is a pathetic way of getting to know someone, it is fake (only a more potent word for ‘insincere’), and not to mention, a growing concern in today’s society.

I’m sure we have all been preached by similar haters like myself that social text messaging in frequent, often doses disrupts a person’s ability to interact with others face-to-face. Some of us take in and ponder over the argument presented, while some of us chuckle and say, “Hey, all’s fine man. I know how to react fine with the presence of both worlds; I’m not a dumb-”

We say that. However, it is hard to resist the sheer addicting nature of turning a simple question-and-answer into a long-running intriguing text conversation, especially when it is initiated by someone you are deeply interested in.

Think a seemingly-harmless text; from something which expects an immediate reply such as “WHERE IS THE LECTURE HELD AT?! I forgot to check before I left the house! I’M SO LATE!!” to something as frivolous as “Hey! Do you think I should cut my hair? I’m waiting at a salon now and I can’t really make up my mind...”

Either one, you send it to a pal of yours and wait patiently (or impatiently for that matter, as do most neurotic human beings) for a reciprocation. It comes in a few seconds, no, minutes, no, hours later, only to have the answer chained with the spin-off question of “How are you anyway?”

One reply leads to another, and the conversation, then, doesn’t seem to have an end.

Meanwhile, you are in class having a group discussion, being ushered to an available hairdresser, or better yet, on a date with someone you have been dying to bond with. Still, you just, can’t, stop, replying.

I don’t blame you. We have all experienced it, that natural human inclination to respond once being called upon. I don’t want to go into the complex sciences of such behavioural element in us, but it is what it is: researchers believe that a texter is never fully present in a setting and is usually more fixated on the person they are messaging than the person sitting next to them.

So are we all really going to gradually treat everyone like souls who do not deserve our fullest attention in real life? You decide.

Another thing I cannot stress more about is how social text messaging ruins romantic relationships. A character from How I Met Your Mother, a growing fame of an American TV sitcom, Robin Scherbatsky once exclaimed to a boyfriend on Halloween, “Oh I got to stop making jokes in emails; it’s so hard to convey tone!”

She broke up with that guy by the end of the episode, though the emailing probably had nothing to do with it.

It is the same with text messaging.

Emoticons are great, they are cute and we love to add them in the course of our text messages to supposedly “act effect” to them, yet they can only represent so little to no emotions. Sometimes a ‘:- )’ does not even justify the intensity of our true happiness, nor does a ‘:- (’ seek to tell the receiving end how miserable we really feel. And don’t even get me started on ‘>:- (’.

For one, the face shouts ‘adorable’ so much more than what emotion it is intended for, similarly for the two aforementioned, which may lead your significant other into thinking that your anger, sadness, or joy is all a big fat gag.

Love gurus always say that one of the most important aspects of a stable relationship is good communication. But how is it in any way, GOOD communication if you are not taken seriously at all?

Also, with the screen of your phone and the thought of a far amount of distance away from the person you are dealing with as shields, people tend to be braver than they actually are in real life and most of the time, this courage is not put into good use, but into bad.

Quarrels between couples are more likely to be aggravated through text messages, just because guts get swollen with no pressure of the human eyes on them. Adding on to the missing feel of the text conversations they may have had before, this can easily lead to huge mushroom clouds of misunderstandings such as the presence infidelity, lost of interest, etc, killing any chances of success a relationship originally had.

Sometimes too much texting can also create a sort of impasse at times where continuing the conversation becomes an obligation. You may have cute lovey-dovey texts going both ways but then someone starts to wonder who is going to be the first person to stop. Things go stale because it comes to a point of dullness where you’re not chatting, but just exchanging way too many texts back and forth.

I side most with Ashton Kutcher on his piece in Harper’s Bazaar magazine, entitled ‘Has Texting Killed Romance?’. In the article, he passionately states how the pure convenience of technology, or more specifically, text messaging has turned the anxious wait for a phone call (that is to last for hours in total quixotic intrigue) after a first date, into a vague text message which usual paranoid females over-analyse.

It’s like receiving your first “I love you” from your other half through a text message instead of during a face-to-face conversation, or provided only with an almost meaningless, virtual form of comfort when you are feeling extremely suicidal. Being a diehard romance fanatic myself, I find that guys who dense such important pieces of a relationship into words readily fitted into a screen are driving a hopeless pursuit in a courtship.

I cannot deny that text messaging and its incredible convenience help us in ways I’d never imagined possible. I mean, I would have been caught roaming around at the concourse of Temasek Polytechnic’s Business school if not for my friend’s apt reply to my urgent text message for help. But as the Hollywood star faithfully delivers, “But the reality is that we communicate with every part of our being, and there are times we must use it all. When someone needs us, he or she needs all of us. There’s no text that can replace a loving touch when someone we love is hurting.”

We all still need to preserve our humanity and never let something so robotic take over significant bits of our lives. Can I get an “aye”?

Fallen victim under the evil of technology

2011-05-01T15:05:00.001+08:00

There are really only two main reasons why someone doesn't reply to your text. They can shove your understanding, gullible soul with tons of excuses, but it all boils down to two:

1. They didn't notice the incoming tone.
2. Your text is not important enough for it to be replied.

Fuck all the other "valid reasons". If you ponder over it, you will realize they all fall under those two categories.

That's why I am not a fan of texting. People get tired when I don't and it is a twist in the stomach saying, "I told you so, you shouldn't have given up your no-chatty-texting motto for anyone."

It may seem like I'm a total neurotic control freak (and I spit on myself for that) but that doesn't change the fact that I feel cheated; cheated out of my whims. Well done, you, well done.

A near welcome back, my old self!

2011-04-28T00:20:00.001+08:00

I finally got Creative Writing as my cross-disciplinary subject for year two. I have been eyeing that module for quite a while now, with the sole intention of writing stories again (without appearing too wistful) in mind, and all my pursuing, though not much, paid off with such a pat on my back. I like how I didn't succumb to peer pressure or, as a matter of fact, laziness. Nay, instead I went ahead and appealed out of French like I wanted to but was skeptical about, and boy did it feel like an achievement (however ridiculously minute) at the end of it all!

Yesterday was the first tutorial and since I was only transferred today, I missed it. It's pretty intimidating, the thought of entering a brand new class with people prolly older and more influential with their words and stories than I am; but I'm keeping an open mind. After all I figured, I don't really need more friends, I have all the bestest friends I can ever ask for.

Aye I know I'm corny but that's what it is. Xoxo

Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams.

2011-04-25T02:22:00.005+08:00

I had a dream about you again. This time it was much lovelier than in the previous, and as usual, I adored it while it lasted.

Perhaps...an entire week after that too.

It was a simple chimera really; I can barely remember the details, but I do recall us strolling together along a corridor and behaving like old pals- a total opposite of what we really are in real life- and your reflective Facebook status update of the day. You said you were sad that the day ended so quickly, and that you had the best time of your life.

"The best time of my life, was spent with you."

No one had ever said that to me before.

Everything felt so surreal in that dream, yet what's weird is, I did feel a tinge of reality within.

Whenever I see you, it's strange. We make small talk in the littlest amounts but somehow somewhere, there's a certain something dangling in the air between our souls. I'm aware that I'm probably the only one experiencing such a...connection (a totally indescribable one of that); yet it is so eminent to me, I just have to share.

I don't know what it is, and what category of emotion it falls under. Butterflies? Familiarity? Novelty? Curiosity? Countless growing words provided in the dictionary, but none of them seem to quite fit.

Maybe it's that thing again. Maybe I'm thinking too much, and idealizing my dull life into a vibrant quixotic drama again, like I need any more shit to aggravate my intense bouts of premenstrual syndrome. Still, hey:

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.

- John Lennon

So sick of the running charade.

2011-04-16T00:56:00.007+08:00

I don't think I write about what happens in my life enough. After all, this is supposed to be an online diary filled with the occurrences of many days I can't possibly remember in the future; but I find myself being drawn to the idea of posting only when I'm drifting on the edge. I don't adore this subconscious concept much, for it feels like it's only a matter of time before I see this blog as a taboo for mellow beginnings and endings.

I've been following this blog (loud and proud) for a month or so now, and I truly admire how the author is able to transfer so much insight onto the reader by using simply quaint little understandable words. Quite frankly, I'm sick of the perfect punctuation and bombastic language. I think they are greatly responsible for my neurosis, and for the chore blogging had become for me. I want to keep up with my thoughts with the words I will speak in real life, not the words I used to include in my compositions to blow teachers off their feet.

This is no exam, I must remind myself.

...maybe I'll start tomorrow. After this rant:

I miss how relationships were so intriguing back in the days- all the faithfulness that never fades, romance that never burns out, and love that never dies. Now all's who's hurt are beckoning away from the thought of a new connection, fault on the immense poignant failure of the last one, two, three...every one of them. Sometimes it makes me doubt that my happiness is short-lived too, and that adds on to every inch of the insecurity I already have.

Maybe I've been brainwashed by romances shown on those primeval screenplays (which I'm very very inveigled by), but isn't there some essence of truth in television? Why else would such ideas be planted in the human mind for film production in the first place?

Where is the love?

Inferiority at its best.

2011-04-14T23:30:00.003+08:00

I get jealous. Jealous because I try so hard to think that God's fair, that everyone seemingly good is equalized with others by their flaws; but what if their flaws are so insipid, so tiny that they are easily overlooked by the talents they possess.

Charismatic (okay-looking) girl with a humour everyone gets. Pretty (unfriendly) girl with a blessed flair for the arts. Quiet-attractive (untrusting) girl with a grasp at the English language, so strong it warps your mind around. Most of all, a quirky-beautiful (angst) girl, with everything going for her.

And it almost infuriates me to see such perfect beings beating themselves up over the littlest things.

I'm jealous. Why can't I be funny enough, or talented enough, or spontaneous enough, or sporty enough. Why must I be...me.

On a side note (which is also totally unapt), Dunman choir brings another Gold with
Honours for the school again! Highlight of my week definitely.

We all need a bit of romance in our lives.

2011-04-02T23:57:00.000+08:00

You must know.

I am a big fan of cheesy date ideas like picnics, strolls in the park, museum visits, boats rides, riverside dinners...only to have an interest like that shoved away in an abandoned drawer because there isn't anyone to do that with me, whether romantically or platonically. Well at least not anymore.

It's funny, for I used to have one person I felt totally at ease doing such corny stuff with (just because I've known him for so long and we share the same kind of quixotic-ness in our souls), but I can no longer speak to him, even more so hang out with him after...y'know.

You must know.

I'm a natural romantic and without special dates in my relationship/friendships I feel dull, bored, and almost worn out. Maybe I'm trying to idealize my life, but it keeps me blithe being able to experience such idyll in my sheltered life. If only you'd make some effort...

I don't think I write well.

2011-03-27T18:13:00.003+08:00

I'm far from that purpose actually.

Genuine hats off to those who can sit down and type out whatever they want, from the moment they start thinking it. My thoughts and mind and hands and words...they can never seem to coordinate. It's frustrating really. You can't imagine how many infinite times in my lifetime I've ever backspaced or even result the passage into nothingness- just because I don't see it as a masterpiece to be shown.

Oh I'm neurotic alright. *crawls to a corner and starts wiping nonexistent dust off my shoes*

Also, it scares me how council juniors back in secondary school still label me as their 'director' in their blog links. That label is ancient, and what if, what if, a silly blasé fool decides to pop by, only to have his mind splashed with the vulgarities I frenziedly spill? I think it's an irony in itself, but not so much a speak-worthy topic for now.

I can do without drama in my life.

2011-03-20T17:48:00.007+08:00

Thursday was the most...fun, wrapped in a liberty package, I had in an epoch of my own. I must sound like I'm amplifying what is the basis of my emotions, to anyone who (unfortunately) chanced upon this silly leaf out of a life he/she has probably no interest in; but god, how true it is! The day was a mixture of people I've longed for long to spend my time on- my genuine best friends and not to mention, myself.

I think we too often and too carelessly label the new-and I quote from a dear old pal of mine- convenience friends in our lives as besties, so much so that we forget the ones truly close to our hearts. But let's not get into such an esoteric topic so early into the post.

We had dimsum at Geylang like discussed and walked a few blocks down to have tauhueyyoutiao! And what predicted had really occurred. Wei Chong did divulge the gloom that is his dole in his current choir, and both of us did get the inside scoop of the Secret Lives of Leon Ho (there was nothing much really, which was a fiasco for the supposed sixth sense in me).

The constant flow of delectables and friends like brothers made up a perfect wrap-up for the night!

Right now I'm trying to keep my mind duteously occupied by the the article I have to complete by this coming week...to no avail (what's new). Yet the animadversion is not on the event coverage itself; in fact, my first ever professional walk-around-take-pictures-write-notes was swell. I met the in-charges, who were all completely affable, and made a couple of new day-friends in dainty packages of curious secondary school kids.

But if I had to pick something as a (slight) fluke, I would say the mysterious CMM-looking guy who was so intimidating with his various camera equipment, and the fact that I didn't have the balls enough to ask the names questions.

It was cool though. At least I was given sort of a carte blanche, in a way.

I was to write my assignment (yes, with pen on paper) at midnight while camping overnight at Tampines Macdonald's with Wei Chong; then my boyfriend decided to drink way overboard and I had to cab all the way down to Zouk as part of being a devout girlfriend. A total of 6 hours was spent getting him off the cold cobblestoned ground, settled into another taxi, and tucked into bed.

60 bucks away, by the least, and the rowdy youths hurling everywhere outside spoils the beauty of the quay nearby. (Conclusion: clubs are lame and a complete waste of time/money/energy.)

Surprisingly, even though guys who club are prolly in the top few of my bête noire list, I feel nothing over this incident. No pique, no chagrin, no...no trepidation even. Maybe fatigue, but nothing more. Also when chancing upon evidence of a possible change of heart, I remained pretty much collected and emotionless.

To be honest, it did prick quite a bit when I foolishly decided to analyse old wall posts exchanged by the old ex-lovers. It's only stupidity at its best, 'cause the aftermath was demoralizing. My self-esteem, perhaps, got flattened. So thanks, the little curiosity fucker in me.

This is my second attempt at starting on the article. The result? 988online.net (Esther and Kelvin are h i l a r i o u s), Blogger and my bitch of a bladder (I'm reluctant to leave my VAIO open in Raffles Hospital Coffee Bean while I proceed to a toilet miles away. The whole country seem to have found out about my favourite chill-out cafe).

But hey, give me credit for trying- I have three paragraphs waiting.

/edit: writer's block, thank you very much.

Lover's cave.

2011-03-17T05:02:00.004+08:00

Tomorrow is huge; so dire, so pivotal, I can't even...

I initially planned to keep a lid on it till I get my first pay-check (I'm even, reluctant to say that, in fear that I would jinx it), but I thought I would just pride myself in some form of vaunt anyway: I'm freelancing for a community newspaper- as a writer naturally- and in five more hours, I am to be at the first ever event I need to officially cover for.

Yes, not a measly article I have to rush out for school (though I do have to thank those little nit-bits for building up a sustainable-enough portfolio), but an actual article for an actual newspaper.

Breathe, Iris, breathe.

You can never envisage the mount of anxiety that holds me down now. I'm literally (and by that I really do mean figuratively) shitting on the earth of my undies. The only thing that is keeping this reverie from turning into reality is the fact that the person-in-charge has yet to get back to me with the exact venue for the event, FIVE HOURS BEFORE IT STARTS.

I know! Talk about the nerves, I feel like I can faint any moment.

Okay it's not like I don't know where it is held roughly, but the place is ample...more than ample; it's a fucking country (I brag)! There are probably exhibition halls in numbers of skittles in an average packet, so do you fathom my woe now?!

*Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts*

Something to be cheery and positive about tomorrow: Meet-up with Leon and Wei Chong exclusively, finally! Come to think of it, we only went out that mere one time to celebrate post-SYF, and that was eons back. We caught 'Handsome Suit' and patronized Manpuku at Tampines 1 (it just opened then, so that speaks a lot).

Tomorrow we are having dimsum at Geylang to satisfy my selfish craving. I look forward to hearing all about Leon's holiday life (in which I'm totally nonexistent), and nodding my head liberally to Wei Chong's choir rants.

On a side note...

This is where I have been spending my days and nights these few weeks...I should seriously grab on to a life.

Wish me luck for tomorrow and for the week after, for I need it to write the most confounding article on the face of the depleting planet! God, I gotta get some zzz.

P/S: Did you donate? #prayforjapan

Old habits die hard, after all.

2011-03-14T14:30:00.002+08:00

I discovered that somehow, small habits that may post as 'no harm, no foul' now, are much easier to be rid off than major habits of late.

I mean it was a pretty huge habitual thing for me- the meet-ups and the maintaining of the friendship we tried so hard not to cease- but I gave it up 'cause I know you want me to. And I'm only asking you to do the same, for that silly and seemingly picayune routine of yours, as it wears me down just as much as I don't want it to. Yet no, you've either cleaned that out of your 'precious' memory (and I mock) or simply, put my narrow want to upmost disregard.

And for that I only have one word for you, sir: selfish. Yes, you're as selfish as you can be. You can't expect people to give up things very much similar to the things you can't give up. It's rather, oh I don't know...contradictory, don't ya think?

Swirling.

2011-03-09T02:16:00.018+08:00

I think I am deeply troubled.

I can't help it. I keep telling myself to stop with all these emotionally floundering passages that make sense to no one but the unsettled dramatist (myself), but no. I simply have too much to say to the world, yet too much I can't say to anyone at all. So bear with me; I'm trying to.

I don't know when it started, this silly obsession of mine, though I do remember waking up one day demanding for a change in life, to feel some novelty in the person I was. ...what was I? It's a vague memory really, and I can barely call upon the impressions. I used to look in the mirror everyday and pick on the insipid features I didn't quite adore, manned up to them and got on with life. It was no fatuous trait of insecurity, rather, a routine that gave me the love I needed for myself. I had no planner/organizer/whatnots, but I never missed a single responsibility. Nor did I bear the obligation to be so god-damned steadfast and likable. When I wanted to cry, I did. When I wanted to shut up, I did. When I wanted to scream, I did.

I didn't give much of a fuck and life was good.

Guess things changed when I realised people around me were turning into perfect little beings, at least in my eyes they were. Close friends who didn't used to sing, came out of the blue and amazed like I never could. Classmates trailing behind caught up and got their way into the smarter label. Strangers became prettier, sexier, and altogether, better. And all those while, I remained as I was. Suddenly I turned from confident and capable from my own knowledge, to disgustingly average, or below average in some cases. And everything just decided to whorl out of my grasp in front of me, and it all happened so fast.

I try so hard to manage my life properly again, to do so many kinds of things and be so many kinds of people, but I feel like the more I try, the more I am losing grip of what was. I know they always say that we shouldn't hold on to the past or else we will never move on to become the person we are meant to become, but what if I am to be someone less than who I was, who I loved and respected? I can't even harbor the thought of myself being anything 1% less than the Iris in 2008-2009...what if I am fated to not succeed the way I want myself to?

I can't be this person any longer. I can't care about the giddy things which are making me insane, like how I am starting each paragraph with an 'I' and how seemingly narcissistic this post is going to sound, how I can never be the inspiring teacher I imagined myself to be to my students, how I cannot sing along flawlessly to a song I heard just a few seconds ago, how chubby my face will always be, how I probably only have a handful of friends I can be fully true to, how I am always saying the wrong things, how I am not saying anything at all, how I...

Some things are hard to write about. After something happens to you, you go to write it down, and either you over dramatize it, or underplay it, exaggerate the wrong parts or ignore the important ones. At any rate, you never write it quite the way you want to.

- Sylvia Plath

I don't think people who know truly understand what I am. They think I'm being insecure but in reality, it is way more than that. Maybe I'm dramatizing situations, but how can anything this awful be categorized as mere insecurity? Won't that just be underplaying it?

Still, I reject help. I'll spit on sympathy. I just want some genuine care without even asking for it (irony, oh yes), and above all, I want some humanity. I feel like almost everyone is losing touch with it. It is as though we are masked with selfishness, and nothing else but ourselves matters.

You know what's not cool?

2011-02-28T23:58:00.004+08:00

Corneal ulcers.

Actually, it's to be cursed with them during the holidays, very much similar to the previous time.

Just when I thought I could finally be an inch closer to being a hedonist, going around the city (no matter how seemingly puny it is) and experience the dreamy pace of life by sipping genmaicha green tea and reading classics in cafes, whilst looking totally fine of course (I was even planning on a makeover)...this has to happen.

Just. My. Luck.

But to be honest, I really ought to see that coming. I mean, who sleeps with their contact lens on not once, but several ill-fated times, and expect all to be fine after? Naïve, that's what that is.

I just went to the doctor's yesterday. She was incredibly composed and a bit like a shy adolescent in fact, despite my mom's usual attempts at poisoning her mind with false claims of how I'd ignored the supposed advice of the specialist the other time to stay off the horrid plastics for at least a year.

A year? What bollocks!

Yes indeed, that grungy old woman did mention not donning contact lens for prolly the rest of my life, said what, my irises are way beyond the severity of minor scratches...but there was nothing about "a year". My mom always tries to dramatize the misdeeds I commit with her own dear statistics and words, yet no doubt doing the exact opposite in this case.

Nevertheless (and this must come with some form of randomness in itself), I love my mom very much, more so, my dad. I feel like these few weeks have served the relationship between my parents and I a whole lot of turmoil, and you wouldn't believe the degree of lapse my mentality had fallen to.

I'd been a horrible child (I probably deserve a lump of coal for Christmas), far from what they expect from me and way more from what I expect from myself.

It's only recently, my being's not strong/patient enough to take on vile sources of perplexity of my own and my mom's menopausal streaks at the same freaking time. And it most certainly does nothing positive to the situation when callous people practically float around me.

So much for giving others the heads-up of my short fuse.

Though, I've learnt to just veil on a mask of ignorance when it comes to jerks like that, and their negative annoying vibe in comments. No use fighting with insensitive rascals, aye?

Hear hear, I'm losing my initial will to deliver a proper blog post. End.

You're more awesome than I will ever be.

2011-02-23T23:50:00.006+08:00

I think I have only two friends, who will never judge me under any circumstances and will love me no matter what. I know I don't express this often or enough at all, but I love you, Leon and Wei Chong. I wish we would hang out more often all together.

Astray.

2011-02-22T04:04:00.004+08:00

I don't know how, within such a short period of time, I can turn from something to nothing. Popularity contests, fake fronts, and forced conversations; these pretty much give a vague description of why I chose to dissolve rather than coerce myself into a faux pas (or many, for that matter) I would never rise from like before.

It doesn't matter if no one understands me anymore, 'cause hey, that would mean we are on the same boat. I can't even...write, or sing, now. I am wavering at the repeated thought of who I am and what I am capable of, and I am indeed in need of some WC; but the few people who can actually make me feel like the self I love and respect again, are too engaged moving on with their astir lives and the last thing I wanna do is hold them back with me.

How, how could I have lost myself in this tiny world?

The Symposium (Plato of Athens).

2011-01-30T12:22:00.000+08:00

First of all there was a third sex, the androgynous, combining the two,
with four arms and legs, and the rest to match. Men had become very strong, and
troublesome to the Olympian gods, yet they could not afford to annihilate them;
so Zeus resolved to cut them in half to humble them. He declared that they shall
walk upright on two legs, but each forever desiring his other half, so they will
come together, and throwing their arms about one another, be entwined in mutual
embraces, longing to grow into one.

Each of us when separated is always
looking for his other half. Men who are a section of that Androgynous double
nature are lovers of women. Women who are a section of the woman do not care for
men, but have female attachments. But they who are a section of the male seek
the company of men, and embrace them. Such men are not shameless, as some say,
but are valiant and manly, and grow to become our statesmen. When they reach
manhood they are not naturally inclined to marry but are satisfied to live with
one another in love.

What real lovers are really craving for is to
become really one, soul and body, with their other half. But if we fail in
piety, we are in danger of being quartered instead.

- Aristophanes

Forced into an impasse.

2011-01-28T22:27:00.005+08:00

Seriously, tell me how many more times you're going to disappoint and upset me, so that I won't be so let down all the fucking time. And if you don't like what you are getting into, then don't even bother being half-heartedly in it.

I hate that I'm so full with angst because of you.

Dreams.

2011-01-28T11:34:00.002+08:00

I keep having dreams about you, dreams I know with a clear mind that will remain dreams. But at the wistfully-chimeral back of my mind, what if it's a sign?

OH HELP.

Doesn't mean that he's different, that means that he's not the same.

2011-01-27T03:54:00.006+08:00

I think I lost myself for a moment there and let other people influence my judgement upon acquaintances. But it is only legit that the truth will always surface in the end. All these while, you are the one being daft and solely looking at what's apparent to you, ergo disdaining the blatant fact that he is in fact, a person with better morals than you have.

On the contrary, I don't think you are being very virtuous yourself by not practising what you preach. And I'm only saying this because I believe I know you well enough to bear the right to do so. I just wish I have more bravura and less hypocrisy in me to actually confront you with a slap of revelation.

And since that plate's going, I wish for...resilience; resilience to decline the happening of whatever that will plague me after.

Ma crib.

2011-01-26T03:11:00.003+08:00

I put so much effort into it, I just had to show someone.

Neurosis.

2011-01-24T23:43:00.003+08:00

Oh I'm disgusted all right. In fact, not at you, but at me, at how easily I can feel so imperfect, when I hadn't planned for things to turn out this way for me. I was going to be unyielding throughout the run of this whole relationship, only ceding what was necessary and keeping my heart sewn tightly on my sleeve. Yet what really happened in the end?

I retreated back into being a girl so...ordinary, and meek. Even passing those words by, I'm putting my mental gag reflex on hold. It's too pathetic, too ignominious, and too unfitting for what I should be. Iris should be a girl of strength, of finesse, and of savoir-faire, and gradually with reassurance, I’ve come to possess faith in leaping milestones and that churns regal results. However, now it feels as though I’m letting someone else remind me I’m not that great, after all. Worse still, callow. And flawed.

Sensitivity? Probably; but Leon and Wei Chong would have easily accepted me for who I am.

Maybe I’m not good in this, at least not for now. Maybe in relationships, I tend to clamp up and perform below par (hah, like that component in my life is another chance for the neurotic me to prove my supposed “cygne noir”). Maybe no one’s right for me. I don’t know.

A mess, this is what it is. My thoughts are in a ball of everything, anything and nothingness, and ‘insane’ is what I almost can deduce about it all. I want and expect too many things out of people and most of all, myself, so much so that I feel that life is never going to be blithe in general.

I want to write so well, till it stuns others. I want to have organized thoughts. I want sing the best. I want to impress friends and strangers with my voice, intellect, class and basically every single inch of me. I want my room to be perfect, just perfect. I want songs to be soothing and ‘feel-good’. I want to blog about something I really care about, anything, without fussing over language. I want to have a better grasp at my descriptions and not go overboard with sheer enthusiasm for imposing words which nobody gets. I want to win every argument. I want to be right all the time. I want people to be dumbfounded when I state my point and be immediately inspired when I give a speech. I want to cook and make people crave for more. I want to be kind and forgiving, mature and wise, giving and understanding, filial and loyal. I want to be spontaneous and courageous enough to have in my life, new sports, new instruments, new adventures, new experiences, and new friends. I want to be brilliant in arts, to draw, to colour, to paint with artistic angles which confounds. I want to dance like a star, and have everyone’s jaws drop at the sight of every slight movement I make. I want to turn heads and be effortlessly beautiful 24/7. I want everything...everything.

I’m obsessed with being perfect, I know I am. I just wish there was someone special who would understand and still have high regard for me no matter what. But who am I kidding. How can anyone love me for who I am. Who will...

Ich habe dich immer geliebt.

2011-01-10T23:22:00.005+08:00

I can't live knowing that that's all we are ever going to be. You don't know how much that kills me inside.

Wenn du mich berührst...

2011-01-09T23:12:00.009+08:00

The best part of having a relationship is getting to call the person or lay down next to them and tell them all the crazy things that happened to you all day long. And in the end that’s what it’s about, kids. It’s not about the sex, it’s not about the money that they give you or whatever. It’s not about how good-looking they are, it’s about, can they listen to you talk for hours and hours and hours about stupid shit that doesn’t matter. And if they can, then you’re meant to be together forever. Even if that means you have to call them 100 times, that’s okay.

- Tegan Quin

It's thwarting me that with different people, I feel so many different things. It's almost as though my heart is an open gate, and the love, hate, pain, regret, nostalgia, etc, are splashed with denied rein to enter and leave as and when they please. Sometimes I wish emotions have the delicate purport less enough to be personally classified into groups- with friends, one group, with family, one group, and with lovers in general, one group; but who am I kidding. Life never will grant you such naiveté, and such would be vapid on a day's basis too. We have to feel what an outside subject makes us feel, after all.

I am okay with the times when I seem almost lost in my own and my friend's world of laughter, nor am I peevish about the wistful catching up sessions with old friends. No no no... How do I even go about trying to explain the very circumstance which wearies me? I suppose that it's the conflicting feelings, the feelings felt with apparently the wrong people, and being consumed by 'em feelings altogether.

It sucks that words can't provide justice for whatever everyone is emotionally enduring, because if they did, we will probably all sound less infantile. But maybe that's the deviant thing about emotions, words should never try to compete with them.

I hate this ambivalence. I hate feeling like this again.

Lol on a side note, had lunch and dinner with Bryan today. I had fun just talking, and Robertson Quay is by far, the jazziest, most bathetic and (in fact) reminiscent place to be.

Brief Nummer zwei.

2011-01-05T02:35:00.010+08:00

Day two- a letter to your boyfriend.

The only time I find myself equipped with the words I want to publicly convey to you, happens to be the time we are going through what I'm new to calling, a rough patch. Things rarely get more ironic than this.

It's been a fun ride, this relationship. Quite frankly, I thought I'd never be able to feel so secure with a guy I fancy in the years of my existence, for I'm an awkward self-cautious lil' turtle whilst in love, until you came along and swatted that assumption back into its beyonds.

I wouldn't exaggerate my comfort or deny the presence of any passing innuendos of silly insecurity- nothing sets to be perfect, or it might as well be categorized as a drag instead- but at the end of the day, I look back to see clearly only jiffies of which I was treated generally with fondness and warmth. And with that, it is that mere guilt I have, for not reciprocating as a conventional girlfriend of the slight clinginess that already irks me, which makes any anger of mine seemingly puerile the second it gets out of my system.

Albeit all said, if there's one thing I'm certain of this time, it is that I have the right to be livid in this case, no doubt I could have been less harsh in my language. Yet if only you could glimpse at it from the light of my eyes instead, and try to make sense of whatever I was rambling bitterly on in the text; for I don't entirely think I was being an unreasonable bitch, but rather, an insecure girl who's feeling extremely common by... You know. No one likes undergoing such self-doubt in a relationship, I'm sure you don't too.

I've never seriously gotten mad at a boyfriend before, partly because I only had one before this, and perhaps therefore it makes me wonder why it is not in your mental riposte to respond automatically with an apology. Maybe it wasn't clear. It wasn't clear that I was not jealous, but hurt by insensitivity. It wasn't clear that I was perfectly okay with talking about other attractive people, but I wasn't at all alright with the flattery reused on them and I. It was such a promising morning, wholly diminished by the sight of overblown emotional coquetry.

Still, nothing changes the fact that we have a good thing going on besides all these pettiness on both parts. Won't you just dump the bleak silence and tell me your take on this? Avoidance is not and will never be maturity.

Frohes neues Jahr!

2011-01-03T02:59:00.012+08:00

It's a new year and I feel like I should have accomplished something big in 2010, yet I haven't. I mean don't get me wrong, I did make new friends in poly and maintained pretty well old secondary school friendships, but it's different all in all. As compared to 2009, I had no fresh leadership opportunities, or notable moments in my musical journey- in fact, I think I might be losing my voice to the great big world of horrible singing.

But a new year is indeed a new year. I can honestly say I haven't reminisced much at the end of 2010, for it had all been made up for during the year itself. Day by day and night after night, I found myself dwelling over what was, what is, and what could have been, so much so that it had crippled my ability to do things I was capable of, if I'd just went spontaneous and tried. So I guess this year, it would be an impending need to mark down at least one resolution, of which is to stick closely by this quote as much as I can:

Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.

- Chesterfield

To not end this (lazy) reflection on a mellow note, among all the great things that befalled me in 2010, I'm most grateful for my Friends. Wei Chong, Sheri, Shaun, Mark and Hannah. Thank you guys for our meet ups which kept most of us sane, and may we be friends forever.

This is to a happy 2011! And a happiest birthday to the Freeman!

Wir brauchen keine Elend.

2010-12-14T22:12:00.003+08:00

I know it's severely cliche, but I wish I was perfect. I wish I had the willpower to do the right thing at the right time, and I wish I'm not always fucking up the moment I feel like I'm back on track again. I wish someone real would listen and not judge, not judge at all, for I'm disgusted enough myself. Disgusted by the way I'm living life, by everything, in fact.

I wanna cry, but how to, when the tears won't flow? I wanna write, but how to, when the words won't grow? Understatements and revelations; it's almost as though life's a dying station.

This is the worst I've ever felt in a long time.

Kindisch Idioten.

2010-12-12T05:48:00.008+08:00

I just have no inch of respect at all for people who think that it's okay to try weed because it's "not a drug". If it isn't, then why don't some governments legalize it? Fuck all your excuses and defensiveness, I wish I can tell all of you guys to shut the fuck up and grow some maturity.

Ein Update auf kein Ende.

2010-12-09T03:24:00.006+08:00

Howdy!

It seems like ages since I last had the patience to type with accordance to an occasion that happened in my life, so long so that I've lost touch with the journalistic taste in my being. This semester in TP has been treating me kindly yet all I do is reciprocate with a much more indolent attitude towards assignments, which are not many or futile to begin with. I feel like I'm finessed into a chimera of fake veracities and realities I can't rouse from, for I know clearly the urgency, yet something is pulling me back or nothing is pushing me forward at all.

I need to stop being a tyrant towards school and maybe the consistency will come creeping back.

So my favourite festival of the year is arriving, with a much greater expectation than other years before, since my normal days have been so surrounded with the very essence that is Christmas.

A few weeks ago, a group of us held the honour to be able to carol at a primo club for some pre-Christmas event. There were literally, busty waitresses promenading around in their risqué Mean Girls Christmas costumes, with an arm akimbo and the other leading straight up to a silver platter of rich caviar. Kids were even trimmed to the brim with bow-ties, frilly frocks and the likes; it's just the typical scene in any indulgent businessmen party.

Nevertheless, all's well that ends well. The straining of my voice lasting through Ping An Ye, and then reaching that almost impervious note in Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, have left me with one clingy bitch of a cough (at least I hope that's the reason behind its tenacity). But we did so eminently well, that the club's manager has requested for us to perform again for Christmas Eve- oh the joy!- and apparently, we even had the brazen pass to turn down an invitation to sing at someone's wedding, no doubt one of lavishness.

We're... Not bad at all.

That was my second time caroling, and first, with such a big group of that. There's almost nothing left to say, but: I love singing, so so so much; especially choral pieces 'cos let's face it, they are the songs that really suit my voice the best. Though the utter company was a bite of it, the blast, for me, ultimately came in the solace of singing professionally again.

At times, I ache to online videos of unsung singers (forgive my pun) whom I recognize that I can never be as talented as. But hey, we can't have everything.

Anyway, I got myself this publication of complied poetry and prose from local authors in a quaint vintage bookstore in Chinatown. Here's a snippet of what's inside:

Croissant

Butter mimicks the yellow-ish hue of the morning,
glare that reflects off ceremic tile

[A touch]

Crisp golden-brown flakes fly
like ash around your twisted body.

- Alene Tan

What a clever little poem, isn't it? Teeming at the tip with such mild words yet ethereal thoughts. Frankly, I haven't been able to get past the first few pages of the omnibus without rereading a couple of times. I guess the sublimity of the context is too much for my menial grasp of the language to withhold, though I'm sure with gradual familiarity, these complex nuances will seep naturally in.

On a side note, that day was a good one. Wei Chong, Shaun, Hannah and I took on another road-trip to said bookstore specially for Sheri's birthday gift, then to Holland V for a chat/interview over the delights of Coffee Bean and a wee bit of laksa and nasi lemak, and finally down the city roads for a glimpse of the Christmas decorations (not without window shopping and snacking at Takashimaya after that of course).

The lights have fallen terribly short this year, what with all the tawdry electric blue and the aluminium Christmas trees, but (and I know I preach this one too many times. I'm just sentimental like that) who will really fuss with close friends and carols around?

Just a silly photo to end off with- something Wei Chong and I have been collaborating for two years now.

For Christmas, I wish for myself to be efficient again, to have a deftness for composing words and advices, and to embrace novelty of any kind with an open mind. I also wish for a Christmas tree, with the dainty ornaments and all that.

Wenn alles läuft auf nichts am Ende.

2010-12-01T15:38:00.005+08:00

I think we all try too hard to be special, until somehow or another, we all end up being the same.

Es tut mir leid, ich bin ausgebrannt.

2010-11-27T01:23:00.099+08:00

All this time, I tried to convince myself that the nagging qualm lies within the source and not in my own shortcoming to function in this; yet I've come to realize that it's me, it's the fact that the unfamiliar tires me out only too easily, and that every little new brings out an extra worry in me. It was not a gradual revelation of the norm, but instead, a sudden knocking of enlightenment whilst in the presence of comfortable pals.

It frightens me, what I'm feeling and I'm not. It's like the joy I have is not one of genuine mirth, and the relief is greatly against my conscience. Sometimes I fervently wish my emotions were simpler- true blue happiness in days of general and loads of security, nonetheless- and not as complicated as it is now. Sometimes I'm brimming with undaunted trust and a gallant heart, phlegmatic about rabid episodes that will splash me with emotional detriment any other day.

It's a constant struggle between the two, and to be honest... I'm exhausted, to the extent of an inability to smile, to laugh, to converse, or to be human, in fact.

For everyday I subconsciously ponder upon the doubt as to whether I'm truly in bliss or not, and try to swallow the lie that I am, so that it would not result in such an early mess of nothingness. And while I think of the expositions of this facade, I find myself trapped in a complexity of copious- contrasts in values, morals, lifestyles, passions, definitions, understanding of life, etc- so much so that tension headaches are obliged to shrilly writhe their way into the saner part of me.

I want to place confidence in the hope that beatitude is de facto, what permeates throughout my past few weeks; but I only know better. When can I start doing things for me?

Ich bin ein braves Mädchen.

2010-11-24T01:53:00.000+08:00

Mom and Dad, I don’t do drugs, I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t party, I don’t stay out til 3am on a weekday. I don’t skip class, but I don’t make you proud either. You’re always nagging at me because I’m not focused, because I’m chatting to a friend while completing my homework. I’m not perfect, but there are kids worse than me, why can’t you see that? I’m mad at myself for displeasing you. I’m sorry.

- raindropsonguitars

Mach mich nicht versuchen zu hart.

2010-11-23T03:06:00.010+08:00

What if? What if? What if?

For once, I just want to be certain about something that hasn't been. I want to put my faith in love, in kinship, in a new life, and in success; I want to risk it all without bearing the sickening bite of qualm. Yet somehow, I know I'm too skeptical for the mild possibility of a 'what if'. It's the clingy peer of 'expectations', 'letdowns', who adds to the weighing dubiety that is my heart.

So it all comes down to this: I try, I try so hard to make this work in ways benefiting to your style, to be foolishly oblivious to the little feats that habitually guise my heart in a veil of fog; but. Communication is indeed a two-way street, after all. One can't possibly keep up with her zest any much longer when all she see is herself rambling on like a bimbo to only, a fucking wall.

I thought I was never typical of a burn-out douche, then came brushing across my axiom and rubbing it off, was this. I'm such of a lighted candle, one being inched closer by this fiery cant, in the form of a subtle tire, towards the bottom of what's left of the temperamental wax.

You can continue with your silly spurn, adding fuel to the flame, or alternatively, smother it quickly with what should be reciprocated. For time is most definitely a factor and I'm already starting to feel the burnt ends.

... u shud be happy and in bliss!

- Wei Chong

I'm glad at least one person thinks so. Once again, thanks man. xxx

Ausgebrannt.

2010-11-09T14:54:00.002+08:00

What does it take to feel together and hale with life like before? A compos mentis stroll in the lull, a bout of psychosis in an almost nostalgic novel on a cafe lounge, belting out futile tunes with a mean showerhead and water from the likes of a pepper shaker... What is it?

I want to taste the mirthful flow of the course again. Except, maybe I'm surfeited, surfeited by change yet at the same time, aching to fling conformity aside. It's like a perpetual argument between 'what if's and 'you know it ain't going to get better's, taking place in the essense of my mind.

Du bist wie die Schwerkraft.

2010-10-23T17:21:00.001+08:00

Sometimes when I look at you, and you’re looking back at me, I can see something. This teeny wheeny hint of something more, something you’re feeling but can’t say. When our eyes meet, it’s like we’re instantly connected. And I know no one catches it but me and you, but I like it that way. It’s like our own little secret; a place we go to when everything around us is crazy and we just need some semblance of normal.

- runawaytrain

Mutter, hörst du mich?

2010-10-17T23:59:00.007+08:00

It is unbelievable how things come and go so swiftly.

I'm back from a merited getaway on a cruise! Though granted it was only
worth two days and nights, it's apparent that I really needed that break from my
mundane chant of life and the surroundings of it all; 'cos now, my mind and body
seemed to have had been treated to the trimmed version of a renaissance.
Back home, the sweetest person surprised me with presents all the way from
China, all laying neatly in my room. I think soon, I'll be cloyed to its damnest.

I typed that in the afternoon when I was feeling just dainty, but now all that's gone. They vanished with the angry brief breaths of a near heart-attack after a cruel lashing out with my mom.

She's so fucking impossible, I don't even know where to begin.

I seriously question where all the times of me saving her fucking life, me rushing home from outside just to let her pinch and scratch every inch of my being whenever she gets the gastrics, me pathetically lugging her up from her worse and wiping away her drops of weaknesses, me voluntarily guiding her in her singing, me literally shielding her from harm and getting injured in the process, etc, went to.

A gift back a return, or even a rare 'thank you' was not what I was expecting for. I was just hoping for her to look past the very few moments I really couldn't take it anymore and blew my top at her, and ultimately not brand me with the tainted name of an 'unfilial child'.

Yes, I may be rebellious, I may be stubborn, I may be naive, I may be vain, I may be anything, but there's nothing else I'll be so darn sure about: I am definitely not one deserving of even a near characteristic of an ingrate daughter.

I spent nights in my life repenting to whoever's that's listening, repenting my raised tone towards you after a bad day, repenting my bratty adolescent days, repenting my late nights spent out, repenting my lack of company, repenting my forgetting of a Mothers' Day present that lone time, repenting every possible mistake made in my entire 17 years; and for what? Only to have her throw the word carelessly into my face and into the descriptions of me to her friends?

Injustly degrading me like that, does she really think it's even a pinch bit fair?

Sometimes I wish that I wasn't such of a wuss. I wish that I was convincing enough in my big speeches, that I wouldn't end up shouting for everyone to "fuck out of my room" and "let me breathe", and that she would one day see through everything and grasp the reality that she can't always be bona fide.

I love my mother like you wouldn't believe; if otherwise, I would have left her to die amongst one of the many blatant opportunities. But I'm so weary of stifling my right to be humanly livid just because of the fear of being known as... Unfilial.

Hey, dont feel bad about urself girl. Remember all the stuff i said about
you. Come on. Im already so awesome and i think ur even more awesome than
me.

- Wei Chong

Thank you dude, you are the one person I know I can always count on to tide me through barrages in life.

Alles Gute zum 17. Geburtstag zu mir!

2010-10-15T01:40:00.008+08:00

My 17th birthday, and I had only the best day in forever.

Wei Chong's entire message was incredibly moving, but the line on the card that really got to me was:

Yes, I love you so much.

- Wei Chong

It is probably the first time in four years I've ever seen that come out of him, and man, did it make me tear up like a silly coon! I love you so much too, my best friend.

I'm entirely thankful for everything- the five celebrations, the four cakes (strawberry, coffee, chocolate and durian respectively), the piano cover video from Leon, the presents, the wishes (special note to those via little packages of sweet texts), the company, and just... The whole caboodle.

17 years. Life hasn't been a breeze but with family and friends, I know I'll continue to live it soundly with the very zeal inspired by their love. Hugs and kisses, you guys.

Kunstwerke.

2010-09-29T01:18:00.002+08:00

Prolly the only work I will ever be proud of. Design can suck on my (figuritive) balls.

Brief Nummer eins.

2010-09-26T23:59:00.009+08:00

Day one- a letter to your best friend.

It has been a long four years of friendship, each permeated with its own heavy adventures and life-changing affairs, granted it wasn't always swelled up with such jadedness (a word we find ourselves throwing around in the descriptions of our days, a lot).

There were many moments of comfortable silences, like the terribly rangy bus rides to everywhere and movies watched during fagged periods, which I am certain I won't feel as at ease with if they were to happen with someone else. We've grown too snug in the presences of one another, so much so that sides we fervently promised our inner shame not to showcase to the world and its judgmental minds, we gradually did leaked to each other.

But it's not like that's a bad thing after all.

Sometimes this pure platonic and dependable relationship makes me wonder, and even more so, plague me about the future without you warm. It is almost impossible for us to remain being classmates for the next year and so, as the first, second, third and this surprisingly fourth time are already taking up too much of fate for it to happen again.

I can't imagine surviving a bad school year without your support at the end of it all. I can't imagine not hanging out, not eating together, not buying stuff together, not singing together, not failing together, not studying together, not passing together, and basically not doing almost everything together.

It's funny to reminisce and remember myself coming into secondary school without a glimpse of hope for a lasting friendship at all. In fact, I do recall yielding to the idea of it all. Yet not only do I have exactly that in a rather respectable amount, I also found my bestest of best friends.

Deny I won't, about the many times in the past, when I feel outrighteously used and was convinced that you're the most egocentric prick on the face of this universe. But throughout the years, we have indeed outgrown ourselves, and realised that compromise is the one of the keys to a harmonious relationship, romantic or not.

Although four years may seem like a negligible number for a friendship, you and I both know that it has matured into something so much more than the time can ever render. We are like siblings, and may we always be.

From:

To:

Thank you for standing by me through the heartbreak, the parental issues, the tears, the testiness, and well, everything.

Happy very very very very very belated birthday my friend!