Friday, March 31, 2006
if love was red
i'll never understand why the very thing i'm looking for is the one thing i'll never be able to see.
we look so young in those pictures, so very young and happy, and we're laughing and holding each other close, and i'm wondering why i never learnt how to smile into a camera. the younger you are, the faster you grow. you can literally watch seven-year-olds grow by the week. by the time you're seventeen, you grow by the month, but the change is still noticable. i thought of writing a letter to my twenty-five-year-old self, a la emily of new moon. then i realised.. what if i hadn't achieved all i'd set out to do? what if i were miserably tied down to a job i didn't love, in a place i didn't belong, and all my friends were blissfully married and i were all alone? reading a tongue-in-cheek, mildly caustic letter from my old romantic self would probably result in instant suicide. no, i can't risk that at all. (but somehow i can't bear to think of giving up my dreams and hopes and ambitions, because i am nothing without my ideals.)
you are what i am, yet everything i'm not. you confuse me. or maybe i confuse myself about you. i hate being confused. i wish everything were crystal clear and equally pleasant. i also wish i'd stop digging myself into holes.
gp was pretty fun today. haven't gotten so worked up in a while. it felt pretty good to vent it all out fairly legitmately, everything that's been happening recently, and that i've been trying to hold in. as a christian, i know that homosexuality is biblically wrong, and my christian values shape my thought and belief system etc. but it's quite an issue to me, because i've come to see that it isn't really something that you can control. you can't control love, you can't pen it in and pin it down. feelings, anyway. you can't determine whom you're gonna fall in love with, and who's gonna make your day. feelings are just too elusive, too changeable, too frightening. i recognise that love is more than feelings - it's a whole lot of committment and well, love. but that doesn't mean gays don't love each other either. it may be perverse in the sense that it doesn't seem to follow the natural order, but come on, look at gene mutation. do you see anyone being condemned for having mutated genes? you can't help being naturally drawn to certain sorts. even straight people can't explain their natural attractions. like i prefer quiet guys, because i like to believe that still waters run deep, but i can't explain why i prefer 'deep', i just do. similarly, how can you expect a gay to explain an inherent attraction? i'm not suggesting that we encourage it as a lifestyle, i'm suggesting that we accept them regardless of their tendencies. do you honestly think that condemning them is going to make anything better? you're just sending them straight into each others' comforting arms, and offering it as an alternative lifestyle for rebels without a cause. love the sinner, hate the sin.
the week has passed so quickly. and yet not at all. should start sleeping at a sane hour. if wishes were wings.. well, they aren't. i like savage garden.
10:11 PM ; 0 comments
you're such a cliche
it never rains but it pours.
i got home at 1130 and found my mother staying up to wait for me. my sister bent half-over with laughter at my account of rj's bucket drum.
met sheeni at the concert. she was an usher. she didn't recognise me at first. must have been the glasses and hair. the hair was an absolute mess thanks to the downpour earlier. but when she did, and came rushing to me, i realised who was in front of me, and lots of screaming and tight hugging and pulling back to stare at each other ensued. yes we made a great big scene right in front of the concert hall. what can i say, she doesn't embarrass me. now i miss everyone all over again. seeing her was the crack in the dam.
why is it that i only react spontaneously when surprised? if we'd planned to meet, i'd probably have stuck to just a 'sheeni!!' and a quick hug, not all the shrieking and hugging and almost crying that followed.
imissyoumissyoumissyoumissyoumissyousosomuch.
d'you think we'd ever be able to outrun our fears? if we can't, why do we try so hard to?
12:04 AM ; 2 comments
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
more than just an elaborate ruse
i'm back to the old schoolday routine. eatingreadingsleepingeatingplayingthepianochattingsleeping. really, really tired for no reason. and a little dazed. i keep having this vague feeling that i'm doing or saying things that i don't know about. like my automatic responses aren't being properly screened by my frazzled brain. i really hope it's pms. it's too depressing to think about the other possibilities.
it was our anniversary on monday. but we all forgot to note the occasion on the shared blog. and we didn't really meet up this year. okay fine so i made plans with someone else that night, but it wasn't the real night anyway, and half of you weren't there and i didn't really feel like seeing everyone (not you) and yes i'm just making up excuses for my inexplicable behaviour. by the way, i have no time to go down to the gghouse, so i'm just going to resign. *shrugs* i kinda forgot i was still registered.
aquarius doesn't make sense. it's beyond incoherence. but i like the strings bit. i always imagine the background instrumental coming from the left, and the vocals from the right. i think my brain doesn't function very well when it's damp. '... and your hunger and your lust for life and being free.. it's dragging me, it's killing me...' i never thought you could lust after life and being free, hmm. freedom is overrated anyway. there is no such thing as absolute freedom. anything 'absolute' probably deserves a big fat warning sign anyway. 'all about us' doesn't make sense either, for that matter. and it's probably ungrammatical. hooray i listen to such dumb songs for the bass and drums.
you don't always have to be so strong, you know. good girls don't cry, bad girls don't die.
reading the graphic novel version of v for vendetta. i prefer the movie. the pacing and the dialogue are better. and evey isn't such a goddamn wimp/air-headed bimbo/weak-willed and two dimensional character. okay you can tell i really despise evey-from-the-comic. like hello woman, get a grip on yourself! don't you ever question anything? being sixteen is no excuse. sixteen is plenty old enough to grow a brain. hmph. and i guess the mask has more impact in the show, because of its perpetual smile. the unnerving grin isn't as obviously unchanging in the comic. oh but it has a gritty side story. i kinda liked the lesbian side story in the movie, hmm. she was kinda cute when she was younger huh? with the straight blonde hair pinned up. hmm. i'm straight.
i write really long posts in the hope of discouraging everyone from reading them. i blog just to capture some of my thoughts, what i'm reading, what i'm listening to. i drown in ben and jerry's in between the waiting.
we've never been so many, and we've never been so alone.
9:23 PM ; 7 comments
Monday, March 27, 2006
a ben and jerry's day
some lyrics are ludicrous. some poems are even worse. and let's not even go into drama-serial dialogue.
i can't believe it's back to school tomorrow. every shred of my being protests against it. back to school? that dried-blood-red building with dirty walls and vandalised tables. hot, humid, dusty air and the feeling of grime on the pads of your fingers. lessons. the people. no, i definitely do not like going to school. it's so much better to stay at home, working on whatever i feel like doing, or reading or playing the piano or well, anything.
and every dog has its day. sometimes i feel like i'm sitting at a train station, watching all these trains rushing by without stopping, and i'm staring at the people inside.. they're smiling and chatting and getting on with their lives, but i'm sitting there alone at the train station, in the eerie silence, watching them pass me by. and the whipping, whipping wind is hurrying you away from me now.
i feel like you've stamped an expiry date on my forehead, and i'm watching my shelf-life flash before my eyes. i can't help it, i just can't.. i've got dreams and goals and ideals, and i'm not going to throw them away and settle for less, unless i'm sure it's the right thing to do. the trouble is, i'm not sure if i'll ever be sure. i really hate being this incoherent.
10:51 PM ; 0 comments
Sunday, March 26, 2006
and being free
watched v for vendetta. can hardly get my thoughts out. hy's going to lend me the comic book, hooray. i have this nagging feeling that i missed half the allusions. very good directing though. the mask creeped the hell out of me. the never-changing expression, the perpetual leer and half-laughing facade was psychotically inappropriate. and the scene where he pushed the little block and started the domino effect.. racing racing racing, unstoppable. spreading. i'm so incoherent. and it's making me impatient with everyone.
he said music is the greatest tool for manipulation. i agree somewhat. it's the highest form of communication, speaking without words, the clearest and truest line between two minds. it can induce the same emotions, but it may not induce the same reactions. i say it's the highest form of communication, because words and pictures alone do not do our emotions, our thoughts and inexplicable feelings enough justice. music attempts to overcome the barricades that we inherently put up when we adopt language. i do not say it succeeds entirely, but it certainly beats all other forms, since telepathy doesn't exist. which is why it's the greatest tool for manipulation. for if you can manipulate someone's emotions and hence thoughts, you control them. i love music, like i love books and beautiful things, but that doesn't mean i don't realise what they can do. against you.
what if my idealism leads me to a dead-end? what would i do then? with nowhere else to turn. would i lose it? or would i keep on chasing pots of leprechaun gold and climbing rainbow arcs? i find myself fluctuating between cynism and idealism, and i can't seem to find the middle ground that everyone else is on.
we've never been so many, and we've never been so alone
9:58 PM ; 1 comments
Friday, March 24, 2006
casablanca
never, ever, say the words 'life's boring'. something bad will happen to spice up your life. it's been proven. well, by nanz and i anyway. i'm trying very hard not to say those fateful words. but sometimes.. well. 'interesting', for me, usually means 'disastrous'. tough luck.
i've got all these dreams, and goals, and romantic ambitions (i mean sunlight and rainbows and pretty pearly clouds, not wining and dining), and i just need someone to pin these dreams on. it's hard to write a book with no main characters, and every song has a melody. maybe we're just playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, and i keep stabbing the poor donkey in the eye with the pin. and everyone's saying, it's okay, keep trying, a little to the left, a little down, no wait you missed it.. and i'm standing there blindfolded and thinking, hell i need a coffee break.
3:49 PM ; 0 comments
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Toy Soldiers - Markita
Step by step
Heart to heart
Left right left
We all fall down like toy soldiers
It wasn't my intention to mislead you
It never should have been this way
What can I say
It's true I did extend the invitation
I never knew how long you'd stay
When you hear temptation call
It's your heart that takes, takes a fall
Won't you come out and play with me
CHORUS:
Step by step
Heart to heart
Left right left
We all fall down like toy soldiers
Bit by bitTorn apart
We never win
But the battle wages on for toy soldiers
It's getting hard to wake up in the morning
My head is spinning constantly
How can it be
How could I be so blind to this addiction
If I don't stop the next one's gonna be me
Only emptiness remains
It replaces all, all the pain
Won't you come out and play with me
CHORUS
(eminem used the chorus in his song 'like toy soldiers'. there is a lot to be said about its haunting pseudo-innocence. like hell if i heard 'won't you come out and play with me' in the dead of the night, i would very probably freak out and screech. know how the scariest ghosts are kids because all they want is to be friends with you, and they just don't get that they aren't wanted, so you just can't shake them off? of course, the malicious ghosts are eviler, but that doesn't mean the innocent 'i just want to be friends' ghost isn't creepy. uh incidentally toy soldiers is apparently about drug addiction. yes. double whammy. like how nursery rhymes have sinister undertones. no wonder kids can't wait to grow up.)
8:46 PM ; 1 comments
Monday, March 20, 2006
keep that chin up, you'll be all right
exams traumatise most people. as they do me. it hadn't occured to me, however, that identification might be a bit of a problem with my uglifying campaign. the problem? i don't look like myself anymore. frankly even i get a bit of a jolt when i look at my pictures and think, hell, this was me? so there i was, minding my own business, trying to do the math paper, when the invigilator picked up my i/c and stared at the picture. then stared at me. and repeated this about five times until i was finally bothered enough to raise my head and offer a slight, apologetic smile. the visible shock on her face was embarrassing. i don't even know why i'm so bothered by the incident. besides the fact that the a'levels might prove to be a bit of a problem if i can't prove i'm me. i should have considered the inconvenience before embarking on my campaign to uglify myself. too late now, but people'll be completely blown away by my miraculous transformation back to my normal self when i finally get back to it. =D i snigger to myself at all the old ladies who struggle to lie politely to my mother about having two pretty daughters, when i'm standing right there in front of them with my short hair and glasses and dowdy clothes.
chris called just now. we talked for 34 minutes. i think her bill is going to explode. i'm getting a calling-card tomorrow so she won't have to live off other people. the trouble with brushing people off is that you become so used to rejecting them, you just don't know how to say 'yes' even when you really really really want to. it isn't a very comforting realisation.
sometimes i wonder who the hell reads this. o silent readers. hahaha. i want to watch gangs of new york. i was underaged when it came out. i like the picture of him with her up against the wall. it's incredibly hot. intense, simmering and a hair's breadth away from combusting spontaneously. like the peak of a crescendo just before it tumbles back down into a humming, lilting lullaby. the sort of thing that makes you cry in books, because beautiful things make you cry. when i think about eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, i think of fate and destiny, and how you can't run away from them, because you're inherently the same person who's going to go (and rather naturally at that) straight down the path that you automatically choose. i call it destiny. my sister calls it stupidity. either way, it's very real. if i could erase my memory, i would, but then i'd just make the same mistakes all over again, wouldn't i? there is a fine line between realism and pessimism, and sometimes i don't know which side you're on.
9:16 PM ; 2 comments
Friday, March 17, 2006
it has been implied
i think i really am allergic to fur. oh dear. i only played with trouser for a few minutes today, and i can't stop sniffling now. ugh this sucks, i really want to have a dog in the future. i guess i can live with a little sniffling huh.
neighbour's drilling drove me mad, so i gatecrashed jean's house and ate a lot of her food. she let me listen to the alchemist on her ipod =D i kinda like focusing on the different instruments and letting the melody/singing soar above, instead of letting it shadow the harmony. i guess i've always prefered the harmony to the melody. maybe because of my chinese name, hmm. hahaha
guess what. despite my self-righteous vows last week.. i still haven't planned this week's lesson. luckily i'm not doing the story this week. i'll be able to scrape together time to plan that next week though. ughhh i guess i'll just have to get everything done tomorrow, in addition to studying for math and econs. sometimes it gets depressing to think that i actually have to study. and all i get is a borderline pass. kinda miss secondary school days. at least i got some kind of reward for half the effort. maybe my brain has atrophied. maybe i'm incapable of higher-level thinking. maybe i'm.. just plain air-headed. darn. so much for wanting to marry a doctor. i'd never be able to converse intelligently because i can't seem to pass math or econs. depressing thought. maybe i'll fall in love with a roadsweeper instead, and together we'll have our very own sembawang fairytale, complete with the frog remaining the frog, and cinderella wearing the torn gown to the ball. so exciting, i know.
i've always admired belle. independent woman with a brain, oh yea! =D andddd. she loved the beast even when he still looked like a beast. he kinda looks a bit funny as the prince, hmm.
10:48 PM ; 0 comments
Thursday, March 16, 2006
they sell pods at ntuc!
i had a Vision today. i saw two old men sitting opposite each other in a hawker centre, playing chinese chess while an interested crowd of equally old men gathered around them, peering over each others' shoulders. oh wait, that wasn't really a Vision.. i think i was having a bad case of deja vu.. the scene was awfully reminiscent of my (male!) classmates playing chinese chess over lunch. honestly! hahahha the instant i saw the chess players, i thought of my incurably cheena classmates and burst out laughing. nanz was equally amused when i told her what had transpired last friday. oh well, at least we know what they'll be up to in about fifty years' time.
the sweet cream butter at mac's has gone awfully hard. and pale. it took ages for it to melt enough to be spread. i have since perfected the fine art of sprinkling pepper delicately over my hashbrown. chris, be proud of me! and oh, i didn't slide off my chair. a great achievement indeed. i am becoming very familiar with the boon keng area, no thanks to nanz. i managed to to get to the bus stop in one piece! without having to ask for directions! i even mananged to head in the correct direction after my short detour into the bakery, instead of accidentally going back the way i came. i truly deserve a nice big pat on the back.
i miss my cheekbones and collarbones and all other bones that should be visible. should really stop bingeing so much, and start paying attention to the loud protesting of my slowing metabolism. one day when i have time, i shall write an Ode to My (ex)Collarbones.
sometimes i wish i didn't stay so near school. i can't even step out of the house safely looking like a frump. this is absolutely tragic because i only dress up for church, concerts and important events (like my best friend's wedding, hint-hint jean). the most infuriating bit is that i tend to bump into people when i'm looking like something the cat spat out. nobody ever sees me when i'm having a great hair day (granted, it happens about once a year), but the entire town turns out to see me trip down the flight of stairs and right into a drain. okay, so we don't really have a town, but you get my drift.
my crazy ex-classmate and crazy junior just found each other. oh no. together they will wage war on civilisation and bring humanity to an end. ohhh no. i should never have told the said ex-classmate that the junior is in her school. but oh well they found each other already. i'm going to buy a one-way ticket to the moon. alisa chua if you are reading this, stop telling liz things about me! especially what i was like in my younger days! especially if they are embarrassing! and most of all if i remember nothing of the sort! i deny everything!
they get to find each other, i found no one. :( why, God?
8:25 PM ; 0 comments
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
one sheepie, two sheepies, three sheepies, four
i am apparently very unfocused. this is slightly alarming. actually, it is alarming only because i'm not that alarmed by it. hahaha. i've categorised it neatly under the general description of 'sad facts of (my) life', which include being an incurable romantic who manages at the same time to be completely pessimistic about life. paradoxes amuse me. anyway. focus, girl, focus! yes. must study. sometimes it feels like i have three parents - even my sister's nagging me about my lack of concentration. apparently reading for 3 hours in between every half an hour of studying isn't considered studying, so i pretty much blew yesterday off. dang. i vow to be very focused tomorrow. =D
today was fantastic. i love everyone =D =D =D okay must stop smiling before my lips crack. but honestly, no one gets me as high as the plc03/04. i laughed more in 2 hours than i usually laugh in a month. gosh i love them so much. even though they don't like my glasses. hahahha. it just feels - right - somehow. somehow with them i don't give a damn about who can hear us, and who thinks we're mad, laughing half bent-over. somehow it just doesn't matter, i could get up and start boogeying, and it wouldn't stop feeling right. i guess it's true, we're each made up of many different and sometimes totally diverse people, and we aren't always the same from one situation to the next. and i kinda forgot that we had an anniversary. oops. but hey i was the one who got the date right! haha. we should get a birthday cake for ourselves and smash it into siti's face. =D (siti won't see this til it's too late, because she's a blur sheepie wahahaha) i love you, i love you, i love you! okay must stop this. it isn't dignified. but who cares, i still love you! thanks so much for lunch, you really made my day. it was especially great seeing mich, who's been mia for more than a year. and one of my many (fake) lesbian partners, serene, whom i am starting to resemble. mellie, who's as insane as ever (and busybusybusy!), and nanz the emu (whom i see a lot, but will never get sick of) - triplets! to bev and eunice and siti and sam.. boo to you, turn up next week for our anniversary! let's run in the rain!!!!!
so much for sounding dignified. oh well. i've got the cutest (by this i mean most retarded) sheep thingy crawling across my screen. i'm having a lot of fun torturing it =D. it bounces when you drop it! wahahhaha. now, just to clarify, i love sheep, i really do. but this sheep is so retarded-looking, it's just asking to be bullied. really. this post does not warrant a report to the spca. oooh my sheepie found a mate! wait i mean the one on my screen, not siti.. yes. it's got a black face wahaha.
stupid sheepie. the one on my screen i mean, not siti. ooh it's shaking its butt. it runs like trouser hahaha. okay my obsession with this stupid sheep is slightly disturbing. sheepie whee!!
i spent too much money at artfriend. i hope my mother doesn't find out. i can't wait for blocks to be over, i've got 2 new craft projects planned! =D =D =D
ten, even five years from now, what would i remember about this year? i doubt i would remember much about school. maybe how i don't remember much about primary school - i don't really want to.
my sheepie just flew off in a ufo! all right, must really stop this..
10:56 PM ; 0 comments
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
keep watching from your picket fence
ever thought we try too hard to grow up too fast? or maybe we don't try. maybe the world forces us to. i know, decades ago i'd be married to some pig farmer (who'd probably resemble his charges) and already have twin children and a household to run, but that was a different society altogether. the girls spent their entire childhoods preparing to be wives and mothers. frankly i think we're better prepared to be careerwomen and go-getters than anything else. sure, human nature hasn't changed much, youth will always be angsty and rebellious (according to our famed greek philosopher), but some expectations have changed. and we've learnt from their past. we try so hard to avoid all their mistakes, try to vaccine ourselves against the evil onslaught of the world, but what if we're meant to make those mistakes, meant to learn something, gain some inner strength from them? some things can't be learnt, although they can be taught. sure, we save a lot of time (and hurt) by avoiding pretty obvious pitfalls. but we're missing out on what can be considered an experience. so how do you weigh them up, then? time versus experience?
sometimes i think we're meant to drift away, we're meant to be alone. loneliness is the human condition. it's inevitable. we'll never be able to stay at each other's side forever. it's physically and realistically impossible. is that why we seek solitude? i've been thinking about cliques and primary school and how things don't always change. little girls can be so mean. i remember standing in the minimart near my home one night, asking my mother to buy me a small packet of twisties for recess the next day so that someone would want to eat with me. the worst part is, i didn't even think it was pathetic to want to be wanted so much, and to be obviously disliked. i was what, seven or eight. the popular girls (how they got to be popular, i will never know, because i don't remember any of them) always had people to eat with them. but i'd have to sidle up to someone just before recess and coax them into a conversation in the hopes of following them into the canteen. yet i remember distinctly that i had a 'best friend'. her name was clara. but somehow that didn't quite solve my recess woes. i don't know where she went. maybe we ate together sometimes. i don't know why i didn't just walk off by myself. better to suffer silence than fools. but at eight, i cared too much about what others thought. i didn't want to be called a freak. i just wanted to fit in, and thinking about it now makes me want to slap that little girl i was, and scream that you don't have to be liked, you don't have to belong, you don't have to care, because those people don't matter.
the popular girls had all the fun. they were admired, exclusive, untouchable. and they had fun simply because they were exclusive. they didn't have to think about anyone else. don't deny that selfishness lends an edge to happiness. because it does. when you don't have to think about others. heck, i think about my secondary school days, and i know part of my happiness was because i was so eager to keep us together, to keep others out, so i'd never have to worry about whom i was gonna eat with, who would call me at night, who would take the bus home with me. they hated us on some level, and we didn't care, on another. because we were all that we needed, and we didn't really want to care that maybe someone else needed us, needed someone. i remember the first day of p3. we were playing whacko as an icebreaker. i was whipping my head around, trying to figure out who was whom. i heard voices, hissing, 'look at her eyes'. i'd always gotten into trouble with teachers and elders over my intense stare, but it wasn't til then that it occured to me that i could carve out a niche for myself with it. now that i think about it, it wasn't too bad a move. it's ensured that i'll never be the groveling pathetic fool i was. people leave you alone when they think you're cold. people don't question when you walk off by yourself, when you reappear alone.
i just wish i'd never had to ask my mother to buy me twisties so that someone would eat recess with me. why didn't she say something then? she could have refused to buy it and forced me to learn to be independent and self-sufficient. she could have said, they don't matter. why didn't she? primary school teaches you a lot of things. 1. you can be close to someone without actually liking them. 2. girls are mean. they like to talk behind your back and whisper malicious lies. but that's okay, because nothing matters if you don't let it. 3. hurt yourself first, so that nothing anyone ever says or does can ever hurt you, simply because you've done it to yourself already. 4. always have an insult or two ready on the tip of your tongue, because you never know when you might need it. and have a counter-insult lined up just behind it, because people are so predictable. 5. friends are nice, but they're human too, so depend on yourself first and foremost. 6. if you never hope, you'll never be disappointed. 7. if you never smile, people will appreciate your laugh that much more.
i can't say everything i learned was correct. most people would disagree violently with me. but that's okay, because you don't have to follow my poor example. i'm just glad that i will never ever say anything as ridiculous as 'mummy, can you please buy this so that someone will want to eat recess with me tomorrow?'.
on a lighter note, we overheard something extremely funny yesterday. a few children were fooling around in the pool, when a sudden shriek rang in the air, 'are you nuts?? why did you kick me in the head??' we burst out laughing. if it had been a typical singaporean teenaged male, there would probably have been a sandpapery growling of 'what the f***!' followed by a swift kick or punch. very civilised, i know.
okay i'm off to (try to) study. i hope to pass math and econs, since i won't be touching lit til those papers are over. chris i miss trying to study with you!! why the heck are you a continent away, three hours behind time, and at uni studying medicine when i'm stuck here with half my friends attached to gosh-knows-what.
10:36 AM ; 0 comments
Sunday, March 12, 2006
steal my heart with every note you play
we didn't get to watch munich. ughhh. i really wanted to watch it. as much as i wanted to watch the constant gardener, brokeback mountain and all the rest of them. and now i'll never get the chance to, because they won't be screening after blocks. ahh, life. murphy's law. but we did watch underworld: evolution or whatever it is. the vampires were kinda ugly in vampiric form. i prefer the way they look in interview with a vampire - fangs on a human face are just so sexy, no? and then the obligatory romance. then again i rather like the idea of loving the enemy. but the bit where he comes alive is so agitating! i mean, he's dead!! stay dead, can't you?? but nooo he has to use the ultimate pickup line: 'hi honey, i'm back from the dead' (in not so many words). it's very exasperating. i thought he'd die and stay dead and she'd be bitter and angsty forevermore. kinda like van helsing. hmm. which brings me back to the point.. kate beckinsale is so hot. how the heck she manages to fit into all that skin-tight leather and still move, is beyond me. and her eyes (when they're black. the blue irises scare me) and those red lips, and the slant of her cheekbones.. sigh, so hot. the guy wasn't too bad either, typical mr nice guy. i guess my favourite part was when he splashed paint can by can on the tall, high windows to block out the sunlight so it wouldn't burn her. if someone did that for me, i'd marry him. okay, maybe not. but still, there's a thought.
incidentally, i discovered today that more little boys aged seven know how to tie thumb knots, versus little girls of the same age. and they tie the knots a whole lot more violently too. i started thinking back to the little boy who taught me how to tie a bow when i was pretty young, about five or six, and how i never forgot that incident. then i started wondering if any of the little girls fancied any of the little boys, and after much observation, decided that little girls aren't above mild fancying. now now, don't assume that seven years old is too young. girls start early. really. a couple of them seemed to be fighting to stand next to this little boy with huge dark sparkling eyes (i am not kidding, they sparkle, don't ask me how, maybe a fairy waved stardust over him at his birth, i don't know) and dark skin. he's really adorable! serious-looking and quiet, nods and smiles a lot. not like the little devils i sometimes end up chasing around the classroom in my heels. i can't remember what i was like at seven, although i remember what went on around me, the colour of the sunset every evening and the exact path i used to cycle down. isn't that funny?
i'm still crazy about spanish guitar. it's been on repeat. somehow, it's the way she sings it so longingly, yearningly, wistfully.. 'i wish you'd hold me in your arms like that spanish guitar.. but you don't even know i exist'.. ah, the pangs of unrequited love! it brings me back to my point about there being econs in romance. requited love is a lot like barter trading; it requires a double coincidence of wants. hahaha okay i came to that conclusion last week when i was reading the notes on money and simultaneously marveling over the sheer number of couples i know. life's a big fat joke, keeping laughing and maybe you'll lose some weight.
9:25 PM ; 3 comments
Spanish Guitar - Toni Braxton
A smoky room a small café
They come to hear you play
And drink and dance the night away
I sit out in the crowd
And close my eyes
Dream you’re mine
But you don’t know
You don’t even know that I am there
I wish that I was in your arms
Like that spanish guitar
And you would play me through the night
’till the dawn
I wish you’d hold me in your arms
Like that spanish guitar
All night long all night long
I’d be your song
I’d be your song
Steal my heart with every note you play
I pray you’ll look my way
And hold me to your heart someday
I long to be the one that you caress with tenderness
And you don’t knowYou don’t even know that I exist
I wish that I was in your arms
Like that spanish guitar
And you would play me through the night
’till the dawn
I wish you’d hold me in your arms
Like that spanish guitar
All night long all night long
I’d be your song I’d be your song
Te sientas entre la gente
Cierras tu ojos
Y suenas que soy tuyo
Pero yo no siquiera se que estas ahi
Me gustaria tenerte entre mis brazos amor
I sit out in the crowd
And close my eyes
Dream you’re mine
And you don’t know
You don’t even know that I exist
I wish that I was in your arms
Like that spanish guitar
And you would play me through the night
’till the dawn
I wish you’d hold me in your arms
Like that spanish guitar
All night long all night long
I’d be your song I’d be your song
-- i can't help it, this song makes me want to stand in front of an ocean and let the fierce wind whip my hair around my face (okay so this isn't quite so possible anymore, but you get the point). gosh someone should write this up into a story! steal my heart with every note.. okay bed! no wonder i look crappy on sundays; i have to wake up at 7 plus to get to sunday school on time.
12:19 AM ; 0 comments
Saturday, March 11, 2006
still waters
i can't believe it's taken me about 5 hours altogether to prepare for tomorrow's activity. i took about 4 hours to photocopy, cut, paste, trim and punch holes in 16 copies of a mobile-craft thing. and i started as early as tuesday in between classes. sometimes i think we take teachers (especially primary school teachers who have to do this kind of fun-for-the-kids-torturous-for-the-teacher crap on a regular basis) for granted. and i have yet to learn up the songs and think up a prayer. i shall do it before midnight.
whyyy do i do these things to myself?? i could have started on the songs and prayer earlier! i shall start soon. i resolve to start on monday for next week's lesson. and i will absolutely finish by friday, latest, from now on. it's too stressful to worry about it all saturday night while i sleep.
i wonder if there's a nice way of letting depressed people know that they're depressed without depressing them even more. i mean, showing them pamphlets with symptoms of depression plastered across their fronts only makes them feel even more suicidal when they realise that they are, after all, clinically depressed. i tell you, finding out that you're depressed (as in, realising, coming to the sad conclusion, having it drop on your head like a bombshell) when you're already depressed enough, is quite likely to push you over the edge. dangerous tactic, really. tricking them into seeing a counsellor isn't much better. they'll just be offended and hurt. leaving them alone is considered irresponsible too. sigh, what's a person to do? at least with people who pretend to be depressed (i don't see what's so cool about it, frankly), you can just give them a tight slap and be done with.
no fear, i will cultivate some sort of patience with stupidity, as a favour to those who have cultivated patience towards mine, before long. i believe it is (was?) one of my new year resolutions.
siti said my haircut is tomboyish. i'm a little bit upset. i left that tomboyishness behind in p5, and have been proudly feminine ever since. but it seems i've come full circle - i'm back to short hair and glasses. my mother asked me the other day why i'm trying so hard to look ugly. well, it's convenient and i don't want to try too hard to look good - what's the point? it's just so common and boring, it's such a cliche. besides, i have a new (and unproven) theory that if you uglify yourself every now and then, when you go back to looking normal, everyone will think you look great (in comparison). so i'll stun everyone by looking normal in uni about 2 years after i graduate looking frumpy. i love my little theories. still, as a precautionary measure, i'm going to put little clips in my hair when i go out. being mistaken for a little boy when i'm not dressed up isn't my cup of tea - and i don't drive on that side of the road.
in a sudden moment of uncertainty, i searched an online dictionary for 'still waters run deep', and got this: A quiet person may be very profound, as in Susie rarely says much, but still waters run deep. The physical observation in this term dates from ancient times, but it has been used figuratively since about 1400. Anthony Trollope amplified it in He Knew He Was Right (1869): "That's what I call still water. She runs deep enough. . . . So quiet, but so clever." well i couldn't resist searching further and discovered that Trollope used the still water analogy in at least three of his books - Can You Forgive Her?, Framley Parsonage, and The Mistletoe. i guess even published authors can't resist the constant use of a favourite phrase or analogy. by the way, my favourite is from Can You Forgive Her? -- still waters, they say, run deep; and sometimes i think your waters run too deep for me to fanthom. -- i always knew the inexplicable attraction of a quiet demeanour wasn't quite so inexplicable after all; who can resist the subtle charm of the silently beckoning engima? yes yes siti, black horse!
here come the holidays! i intend to eat every single edible thing in the house before the week is up.
11:11 PM ; 1 comments
Friday, March 10, 2006
sometimes the very thing you're looking for is the one thing you can't see
as teenage as this sounds, life's one big fat irony. seriously.
one day i'm going to look back at all of this and laugh my fat ass off. beaver keeps telling me how angsty i was in lower sec. it's kind of embarrassing to think about it. she still has the letters. ugh. i'm half-terrified she might blackmail me in future. and it's quite alarming to think that i haven't grown any more sensible. incidentally, i think the word 'alarming' is very funny. aLARming. the roll of the tongue, a slight cynical drawl (yeowch said i've got a cynical way of saying, 'hi, yeowch'. is it even possible to sound cynical in two words??), and the mental image of an alarmed (hahaha) ie wide-eyed, goldfish-mouthed kid gaping idiotically. okay so maybe i'm the only person who gets so amused by it. the word 'mongoose' amuses me too. i was reading the story about the mongoose who didn't want to kill cobras to my sister last night, and i kept laughing because the word is just so funny. mongoooooose. hahahhaha
why are we so afraid of being emo/ angsty? whose great idea was it to scorn people who aren't as laid back, who aren't as coolly nonchalent? it's worrying to think that you might never be an easy-going cotton-candy sort of person.
i loved the music at the restaurant we ate at tonight. i loved every single one of their songs! all out of love, spanish guitar, everything i do (i do it for you), hard to say i'm sorry.. =D brings to mind the twelveth question of the gp paper - 'everything that is too stupid to be said, is sung'. i was really tickled by that quote and wanted to do that question, but i realised i don't know anything about popular music. the one about instinct interested me too, but because i started thinking chronologically, i ended up doing the third question on prejudice and ignorance. basically, i wrote a lot of bovine scratology. i enlarged my handwriting by about 1.5x and was thus able to expound at length one point for four sides. i really don't have much of an argument; i'm convinced my gp teacher will be tearing her hair out when she reads it.
imagine if no one ever got mad. if no one ever hated or felt cheated or hurt. imagine if no one ever loved.
9:35 PM ; 0 comments
Thursday, March 09, 2006
blame it on the weather(man)
hot, humid days make people crabby. jan was crabby two mornings in a row. this is significant because she usually has the patience and tolerance of a very polite mule. and this is a compliment because i can't think of anything more patient and tolerant. in fact, it has become so unbearably hot and humid yet eye-drying that i have been hiding out in the library in a somewhat vain attempt to escape the heat. the strangest characters hang out there. yesterday i was having math peer tutoring (yes yes, bad enough to be eligible, etc) at one of the long tables, when i heard (male) giggling from behind and slightly to the side. when i got up to leave, i was very amused to find two guys sitting side by side with their heads close together, whispering and giggling girlishly. i mean, who sits side by side at a long table unless they are 1) tutoring or being tutored, 2) sharing a secret or 3) interested in each other and hence the instinctive need for proximity.
well, i guess we could continue blaming the weather for everything. just finished dinner, am now polishing off a bag of kettle chips - i blame the weather. gp exam tomorrow. i like not having to prepare for it, but i have this vague sense of impending doom. i have this tendency to write absolute rubbish at the most critical times, ie exams. it's all right for people to clap others very enthusiastically on the back and cry, 'believe in yourself!' - they aren't the ones who have to do the believing in admittedly less-than-talented/lucky individuals.
have you ever thought, what if who we are is fundamentally inexcusable? we like to blame everyone and everything except ourselves. our genes, our family background, our past experiences, everything. but what if who and what we are today has more to do with ourselves, our personalities, our inherent beings, than everything else that we blame? and then we blame our personalities. when people tell me off for being cynical and hostile, i retort that i'm a melancholic. they tell us not to change ourselves, because there is no 'right' or 'wrong' personality. just that phelgmatics seem to have a better time. i know i should believe in myself, because it's stupid to let your lack of confidence be the millstone around your neck, but where is the line between unwarranted arrogance and self-confidence? insult yourself, laugh at yourself, hurt yourself, so that even if others do it to you, it won't matter anymore, can't matter, because you'd have done it to yourself first.
if love is supposed to make you so strong, why does it make me feel vulnerable? loving is putting yourself, your heart out there on the line, and it's a little like playing russian roulette. you've just got to take the chance, and what if you're too terrified of the consequences to? you don't know if you'll end up in heaven or hell, and it's a one-way street either way, taking the chance on loving another human being. our imperfections rub off on each other, blunt each other's knife-points and smoothen the rough edges. but they also rub against each other, til there's a fire that either warms or engulfs you. maybe i'm being a tad cynical, but it's realistic. so what do you choose? a love that may (or may not) be Love, or the safety of never knowing the difference?
incidentally, i enjoy kenny g's music very much. about as much as i enjoy richard clayderman's. that is supposed to say a lot. sometimes when i'm just sitting there at the classbench listening to music on my ipod, i imagine things as they used to be, as they could be, perhaps, except i haven't the guts to realise my own dreams. and the pale wisps of clouds move across the sky and disappear.
you judge me, but you don't even know me. that's okay, because we all judge. i judge you too, i don't know you, and i don't want to know you, i don't even want to judge you, but i can't help it, none of us can, it's a reflex action that helps protect us. judgements.. who's to say who's right and who's wrong, the difference between moderation and disinterest, where it ends and where it all begins?
7:13 PM ; 0 comments
Sunday, March 05, 2006
(quick send in the clowns) don't bother they're here
standing on the outside, looking in at you. standing on the inside, knowing how others are standing on the outside, and what they see looking in. and i don't know how to show you what i can see, how to put it across to you, somehow let you understand what they see and how they're judging you, and how you could still turn things around. i want to protect you from their condescending assumptions and judgements, but i can't do it without being harsh and seeming to be unsupportive, unsympathetic. standing next to you, watching others watching you. i want to tell them why you do the things you do, why you say the things you say, but i'm not sure how to. so i just pretend i don't see anything, don't feel the vibes radiating outwards and the condemnation in their eyes.. pretend to be oblivious. sometimes i wonder if i make others this frustrated with my stubborn determination not to sell myself out.
funny how you see so much, and yet see nothing at all. i never understood before where the cliche about starry eyes came from. but if you've ever seen deep, dark eyes shining in the light of the morning sun, you'll understand why they bring to mind silver shots of stars that flash, luminous, like a secret in the night sky. of course, to de-romanticize everything, the person is probably thinking of what to eat next, while you're drowning in the said person's dark eyes. this brings to mind another cliche - the tall, dark and handsome stranger. there is something about dark brows and dark eyes, really. they are so drownable-in. i really do like cliches. they make so much sense, and put things so nicely, hence becoming cliches due to enthusiastic overuse by culprits like yours truly.
3:47 PM ; 13 comments
points and laughs -->
12:09 AM ; 0 comments
Saturday, March 04, 2006
one step forward, making two steps back, my oh my
i'm quite worried for page. she's sleeping too much. and eating too much. i complained about the above to my mother, and she said page is getting like me. thanks, mother dear. the difference is that page is getting scrawny and her fur isn't sleek and shiny anymore, and i'm very sad. hey, alliteration. hahaha. but my point is, i'm afraid something's wrong with her. she sleeps on her side! she never used to sleep on her side. and she's always looking so morose. although she still runs crazily on her wheel. but this afternoon i found her asleep on her wheel. which hamster falls asleep on her wheel?? i guess she's just getting old.. sigh. the trouble with loving any living thing is that all living things die. including plants. you can't run away from partings of any sort.
ugh this weekend is busybusybusy. so much for catching up with my work.
i've decided to continue with piano lessons and take my grade8 (eventually). i've quit too many things this past year. it'd be so easy to just stop lessons and say that it's pointless taking exams since i always freak out and play terribly, but it wouldn't solve the real problem. ten years ago i stopped ballet lessons because i had stage fright and didn't like performing in front of people. i still wonder if i'd be a different person if i'd kept up with ballet. maybe someone taller, thinner, more flexible and graceful, etc. i don't want to stop piano now and wonder if things would have been different. i've quit too many things, taken the easy way out too many times. i'm starting to lose respect for myself. people ask me why i dropped history, and i tell them the truth - i hadn't taken it in sec sch, it was a struggle the entire year, it was too much work for something i wasn't even interested in, etc. then they ask me why i resigned from uh, and i either give the polite or honest version. but i knew why i quit in both cases. and i'm much happier now without both burdens. they were just unnecessary torture that weren't necessarily aligned with my personal stand on matters in general. but piano.. it actually means something to me. music actually means something to me. personally. i can't just walk away because i'm scared to fail. my piano teacher said my biggest flaw is my lack of confidence and positive thinking. and all that i'm thinking is, where the heck would i ever get any confidence from? when i was a kid, i cried when i had to go for ballet, even though i liked ballet, because i didn't like dancing in front of people. i danced all the time when nobody was watching, but i couldn't loosen up and express myself, because i didn't want to be laughed at, didn't want to put myself and my innermost feelings on the line. now that i'm older, i realise it's the same for music. i can't play properly in front of anyone but me. i start to tremble and hit all the wrong notes, and the playing becomes just a flat rendition of a piece. but damnit, i'm going to slay this dragon, somehow, someday. i've been letting it take control of my destiny for too long.
somehow when i tried to explain my stand to my mother, all i could say was that it means something to me, and i don't want to regret quitting so easily. because the last time i tried to explain my decision to drop history, she just stared at me blankly. i get the feeling my sister will scoff at me and my grand ideas when she gets back from hk tomorrow.
'average' people wish they were more 'special'. 'abnormal' or 'strange' people wish they were less 'extreme' and more 'socially acceptable'. the grass is always greener on the other side because the mud hides below the blades of green. haaaaa.
--> one step forward, making two steps back, my oh my.. riding piggy on the bad boy's back for life. lining up for the grand illusion, no answers for no questions asked. lining up for the execution without knowing why.. keep watching from your picket fence, keep talking but it makes no sense. you say we're not responsible, but we are.. we are.. you wash your hands and come out clean, you fail to recognise the enemy's within, you say we're not responsible, but we are.. we are. <-- we are, by ana johnsson.
10:50 PM ; 0 comments
Friday, March 03, 2006
starless
nanz is sprawled on my bed, reading her lit text. see, we're so productive =D i tried doing my math homework but it took me a few hours to do a couple of questions. sighh. why do so many arts people do badly for math? besides the unfortunate fact that reduced usage of the left brain tends to atrophy it. i honestly don't remember being this bad in math when i was still doing tripsc. nevermind, God will make a way, somehow, someday.
i realise i'm a better aunt agony than friend. friends are there through thick and thin, but aunt agonies are only there when the going gets tough. somehow happy times don't seem so happy anymore. laughter comes easy, but it dies even faster. i remember the fading sunlight falling in through the glass panes, falling in slanted rays across the dusty tiled floor, spreading a soft glow over the scattered bits of souvenir, and the hot, humid, tired air clinging to our necks and fingers. the smell of kerosine and turpentine and gypsy rhapsody playing on the radio.. why don't some memories ever fade? i see you in every cloud in the sky, every star in the night. i guess we've just got too many memories to erase. laughing like we might never laugh again.
they painted the alternate walls a pale, sickly yellow. i am disgusted. it is an insult to a beautiful school. and the new green is two shades too light. who the hell decided on the paint, a colour-blind dottery old great-grandmother?
9:24 PM ; 0 comments
Thursday, March 02, 2006
slay your own damned dragon
what's the point in knowing so much, seeing so much, feeling so much, if you're never going to do anything about it? it's less about what you know, than what you do with it.
i can't do this. i don't know what to do. how can i choose? don't you see, i'm not you, i was never you. you can't expect brilliance from me, because some rocks are really just rocks, not diamonds in the rough. the trouble is, it actually matters to me.
by the way, i abhore the idea of elitists condescending to mix with 'unfortunates'. just because we're in a better school doesn't mean we're in any way better than them. who put you on the pedestal to condescend to others? just because you are better at studying than them, because your family circumstances are more 'fortunate'. all you're doing is highlighting the difference between the haves and have-nots. if i were one of those approached to join, i would definitely write a scathing reply and set up a spoof of the programme to mock the elitist jc students. it annoys me on a personal level because i hate the way smart people think they have the prerogative to be so condescending towards us lesser beings. so maybe you can mug, but would you put down your textbook for five minutes to persuade your friend not to jump off a building?
hy came up with a singaporean version of brokeback mountain that i think is utterly hilarious, simply because it's so, well, singaporean. think ns men, mount faber (which will be called faber mountain), hougang hdb flats, an air-con repair man and a white-collar professional, the daughter of a high-ranking official, an sbs bus.. yupp.
i love the way my ipod allows me to shut people out at will. especially on the bus. thank goodness i will never have to endure giggly ah-lians ever again.
i'm going to slay my own dragon, i am, i am. somehow, someday, i've got to fight it down and slay it because there's no such thing as a knight in shining armor.
9:58 PM ; 0 comments
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
aftermath
i'm incredibly proud of her, but somehow it's a lot harder to show it than if it were my friend, for an example. maybe because i expected stellar results from her anyway. she's the sort who can expect fantastic results. when she got 10a1s for o levels, i hugged her. this is significant because we aren't a very touchy pair of siblings. but when she came home that night, i gave her a little stuffed pink piglet and hugged her. this year i didn't buy her anything because i'm broke and anyway a third of her stuffed toys were bought by me and she just leaves them at the foot of her bed and kicks them around at night. but i'll probably make a card when i've formulated my thoughts. i'm not a very demonstrative person, and it's even worse in speech. it would be so much easier to scream and jump around and hug her tight, if we didn't live in the same house. because the excitement dies down somehow, and the awkward silent void that comes in its wake just isn't worth it, somehow. at least with friends, you leave them behind and go home to your own quiet (except for the music) and solitary (except for the phone and computer and occasional sister) room. i guess it's just weird to let her know how important her results are to me (because they are important to her, and not because i'm masochistic), because she has enough friends for that. it's easier to show how you feel when you aren't bloodsisters. it's paradoxical how the closer you are related to a person, the closer you are in some ways, but the more closed up you are in other ways.
it would be good if she could go, would go, but i'm going to miss her terribly. i've never known life without my older sister. and that's 17 1/2 years' worth of it. i cried every morning in childcare when she went to nursery. every. single. morning. i think the childcare people didn't know what to with me. at first i cried only after she left. then i cried as she was leaving. finally i started crying as soon as we arrived, because i knew she would be leaving. i was what, 3 years old? but i still remember how i cried and clung to her, and how she just went up that bus every morning. so i don't cry and cling anymore. well, i cry to other people and cling with my heart. she should go. she'd be wasted here. she wants to go. i'm scared she will but i'm scared she won't. am i always this confused and incoherent?
by the way, i can stop taking chinese now. thank God!
8:37 PM ; 2 comments
one step forward, making two steps back, my oh my.
you're my pretty baby.
12:49 AM ; 0 comments
if love was red
i'll never understand why the very thing i'm looking for is the one thing i'll never be able to see.
we look so young in those pictures, so very young and happy, and we're laughing and holding each other close, and i'm wondering why i never learnt how to smile into a camera. the younger you are, the faster you grow. you can literally watch seven-year-olds grow by the week. by the time you're seventeen, you grow by the month, but the change is still noticable. i thought of writing a letter to my twenty-five-year-old self, a la emily of new moon. then i realised.. what if i hadn't achieved all i'd set out to do? what if i were miserably tied down to a job i didn't love, in a place i didn't belong, and all my friends were blissfully married and i were all alone? reading a tongue-in-cheek, mildly caustic letter from my old romantic self would probably result in instant suicide. no, i can't risk that at all. (but somehow i can't bear to think of giving up my dreams and hopes and ambitions, because i am nothing without my ideals.)
you are what i am, yet everything i'm not. you confuse me. or maybe i confuse myself about you. i hate being confused. i wish everything were crystal clear and equally pleasant. i also wish i'd stop digging myself into holes.
gp was pretty fun today. haven't gotten so worked up in a while. it felt pretty good to vent it all out fairly legitmately, everything that's been happening recently, and that i've been trying to hold in. as a christian, i know that homosexuality is biblically wrong, and my christian values shape my thought and belief system etc. but it's quite an issue to me, because i've come to see that it isn't really something that you can control. you can't control love, you can't pen it in and pin it down. feelings, anyway. you can't determine whom you're gonna fall in love with, and who's gonna make your day. feelings are just too elusive, too changeable, too frightening. i recognise that love is more than feelings - it's a whole lot of committment and well, love. but that doesn't mean gays don't love each other either. it may be perverse in the sense that it doesn't seem to follow the natural order, but come on, look at gene mutation. do you see anyone being condemned for having mutated genes? you can't help being naturally drawn to certain sorts. even straight people can't explain their natural attractions. like i prefer quiet guys, because i like to believe that still waters run deep, but i can't explain why i prefer 'deep', i just do. similarly, how can you expect a gay to explain an inherent attraction? i'm not suggesting that we encourage it as a lifestyle, i'm suggesting that we accept them regardless of their tendencies. do you honestly think that condemning them is going to make anything better? you're just sending them straight into each others' comforting arms, and offering it as an alternative lifestyle for rebels without a cause. love the sinner, hate the sin.
the week has passed so quickly. and yet not at all. should start sleeping at a sane hour. if wishes were wings.. well, they aren't. i like savage garden.
10:11 PM ; 0 comments
you're such a cliche
it never rains but it pours.
i got home at 1130 and found my mother staying up to wait for me. my sister bent half-over with laughter at my account of rj's bucket drum.
met sheeni at the concert. she was an usher. she didn't recognise me at first. must have been the glasses and hair. the hair was an absolute mess thanks to the downpour earlier. but when she did, and came rushing to me, i realised who was in front of me, and lots of screaming and tight hugging and pulling back to stare at each other ensued. yes we made a great big scene right in front of the concert hall. what can i say, she doesn't embarrass me. now i miss everyone all over again. seeing her was the crack in the dam.
why is it that i only react spontaneously when surprised? if we'd planned to meet, i'd probably have stuck to just a 'sheeni!!' and a quick hug, not all the shrieking and hugging and almost crying that followed.
imissyoumissyoumissyoumissyoumissyousosomuch.
d'you think we'd ever be able to outrun our fears? if we can't, why do we try so hard to?
12:04 AM ; 2 comments
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
more than just an elaborate ruse
i'm back to the old schoolday routine. eatingreadingsleepingeatingplayingthepianochattingsleeping. really, really tired for no reason. and a little dazed. i keep having this vague feeling that i'm doing or saying things that i don't know about. like my automatic responses aren't being properly screened by my frazzled brain. i really hope it's pms. it's too depressing to think about the other possibilities.
it was our anniversary on monday. but we all forgot to note the occasion on the shared blog. and we didn't really meet up this year. okay fine so i made plans with someone else that night, but it wasn't the real night anyway, and half of you weren't there and i didn't really feel like seeing everyone (not you) and yes i'm just making up excuses for my inexplicable behaviour. by the way, i have no time to go down to the gghouse, so i'm just going to resign. *shrugs* i kinda forgot i was still registered.
aquarius doesn't make sense. it's beyond incoherence. but i like the strings bit. i always imagine the background instrumental coming from the left, and the vocals from the right. i think my brain doesn't function very well when it's damp. '... and your hunger and your lust for life and being free.. it's dragging me, it's killing me...' i never thought you could lust after life and being free, hmm. freedom is overrated anyway. there is no such thing as absolute freedom. anything 'absolute' probably deserves a big fat warning sign anyway. 'all about us' doesn't make sense either, for that matter. and it's probably ungrammatical. hooray i listen to such dumb songs for the bass and drums.
you don't always have to be so strong, you know. good girls don't cry, bad girls don't die.
reading the graphic novel version of v for vendetta. i prefer the movie. the pacing and the dialogue are better. and evey isn't such a goddamn wimp/air-headed bimbo/weak-willed and two dimensional character. okay you can tell i really despise evey-from-the-comic. like hello woman, get a grip on yourself! don't you ever question anything? being sixteen is no excuse. sixteen is plenty old enough to grow a brain. hmph. and i guess the mask has more impact in the show, because of its perpetual smile. the unnerving grin isn't as obviously unchanging in the comic. oh but it has a gritty side story. i kinda liked the lesbian side story in the movie, hmm. she was kinda cute when she was younger huh? with the straight blonde hair pinned up. hmm. i'm straight.
i write really long posts in the hope of discouraging everyone from reading them. i blog just to capture some of my thoughts, what i'm reading, what i'm listening to. i drown in ben and jerry's in between the waiting.
we've never been so many, and we've never been so alone.
9:23 PM ; 7 comments
Monday, March 27, 2006
a ben and jerry's day
some lyrics are ludicrous. some poems are even worse. and let's not even go into drama-serial dialogue.
i can't believe it's back to school tomorrow. every shred of my being protests against it. back to school? that dried-blood-red building with dirty walls and vandalised tables. hot, humid, dusty air and the feeling of grime on the pads of your fingers. lessons. the people. no, i definitely do not like going to school. it's so much better to stay at home, working on whatever i feel like doing, or reading or playing the piano or well, anything.
and every dog has its day. sometimes i feel like i'm sitting at a train station, watching all these trains rushing by without stopping, and i'm staring at the people inside.. they're smiling and chatting and getting on with their lives, but i'm sitting there alone at the train station, in the eerie silence, watching them pass me by. and the whipping, whipping wind is hurrying you away from me now.
i feel like you've stamped an expiry date on my forehead, and i'm watching my shelf-life flash before my eyes. i can't help it, i just can't.. i've got dreams and goals and ideals, and i'm not going to throw them away and settle for less, unless i'm sure it's the right thing to do. the trouble is, i'm not sure if i'll ever be sure. i really hate being this incoherent.
10:51 PM ; 0 comments
Sunday, March 26, 2006
and being free
watched v for vendetta. can hardly get my thoughts out. hy's going to lend me the comic book, hooray. i have this nagging feeling that i missed half the allusions. very good directing though. the mask creeped the hell out of me. the never-changing expression, the perpetual leer and half-laughing facade was psychotically inappropriate. and the scene where he pushed the little block and started the domino effect.. racing racing racing, unstoppable. spreading. i'm so incoherent. and it's making me impatient with everyone.
he said music is the greatest tool for manipulation. i agree somewhat. it's the highest form of communication, speaking without words, the clearest and truest line between two minds. it can induce the same emotions, but it may not induce the same reactions. i say it's the highest form of communication, because words and pictures alone do not do our emotions, our thoughts and inexplicable feelings enough justice. music attempts to overcome the barricades that we inherently put up when we adopt language. i do not say it succeeds entirely, but it certainly beats all other forms, since telepathy doesn't exist. which is why it's the greatest tool for manipulation. for if you can manipulate someone's emotions and hence thoughts, you control them. i love music, like i love books and beautiful things, but that doesn't mean i don't realise what they can do. against you.
what if my idealism leads me to a dead-end? what would i do then? with nowhere else to turn. would i lose it? or would i keep on chasing pots of leprechaun gold and climbing rainbow arcs? i find myself fluctuating between cynism and idealism, and i can't seem to find the middle ground that everyone else is on.
we've never been so many, and we've never been so alone
9:58 PM ; 1 comments
Friday, March 24, 2006
casablanca
never, ever, say the words 'life's boring'. something bad will happen to spice up your life. it's been proven. well, by nanz and i anyway. i'm trying very hard not to say those fateful words. but sometimes.. well. 'interesting', for me, usually means 'disastrous'. tough luck.
i've got all these dreams, and goals, and romantic ambitions (i mean sunlight and rainbows and pretty pearly clouds, not wining and dining), and i just need someone to pin these dreams on. it's hard to write a book with no main characters, and every song has a melody. maybe we're just playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, and i keep stabbing the poor donkey in the eye with the pin. and everyone's saying, it's okay, keep trying, a little to the left, a little down, no wait you missed it.. and i'm standing there blindfolded and thinking, hell i need a coffee break.
3:49 PM ; 0 comments
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Toy Soldiers - Markita
Step by step
Heart to heart
Left right left
We all fall down like toy soldiers
It wasn't my intention to mislead you
It never should have been this way
What can I say
It's true I did extend the invitation
I never knew how long you'd stay
When you hear temptation call
It's your heart that takes, takes a fall
Won't you come out and play with me
CHORUS:
Step by step
Heart to heart
Left right left
We all fall down like toy soldiers
Bit by bitTorn apart
We never win
But the battle wages on for toy soldiers
It's getting hard to wake up in the morning
My head is spinning constantly
How can it be
How could I be so blind to this addiction
If I don't stop the next one's gonna be me
Only emptiness remains
It replaces all, all the pain
Won't you come out and play with me
CHORUS
(eminem used the chorus in his song 'like toy soldiers'. there is a lot to be said about its haunting pseudo-innocence. like hell if i heard 'won't you come out and play with me' in the dead of the night, i would very probably freak out and screech. know how the scariest ghosts are kids because all they want is to be friends with you, and they just don't get that they aren't wanted, so you just can't shake them off? of course, the malicious ghosts are eviler, but that doesn't mean the innocent 'i just want to be friends' ghost isn't creepy. uh incidentally toy soldiers is apparently about drug addiction. yes. double whammy. like how nursery rhymes have sinister undertones. no wonder kids can't wait to grow up.)
8:46 PM ; 1 comments
Monday, March 20, 2006
keep that chin up, you'll be all right
exams traumatise most people. as they do me. it hadn't occured to me, however, that identification might be a bit of a problem with my uglifying campaign. the problem? i don't look like myself anymore. frankly even i get a bit of a jolt when i look at my pictures and think, hell, this was me? so there i was, minding my own business, trying to do the math paper, when the invigilator picked up my i/c and stared at the picture. then stared at me. and repeated this about five times until i was finally bothered enough to raise my head and offer a slight, apologetic smile. the visible shock on her face was embarrassing. i don't even know why i'm so bothered by the incident. besides the fact that the a'levels might prove to be a bit of a problem if i can't prove i'm me. i should have considered the inconvenience before embarking on my campaign to uglify myself. too late now, but people'll be completely blown away by my miraculous transformation back to my normal self when i finally get back to it. =D i snigger to myself at all the old ladies who struggle to lie politely to my mother about having two pretty daughters, when i'm standing right there in front of them with my short hair and glasses and dowdy clothes.
chris called just now. we talked for 34 minutes. i think her bill is going to explode. i'm getting a calling-card tomorrow so she won't have to live off other people. the trouble with brushing people off is that you become so used to rejecting them, you just don't know how to say 'yes' even when you really really really want to. it isn't a very comforting realisation.
sometimes i wonder who the hell reads this. o silent readers. hahaha. i want to watch gangs of new york. i was underaged when it came out. i like the picture of him with her up against the wall. it's incredibly hot. intense, simmering and a hair's breadth away from combusting spontaneously. like the peak of a crescendo just before it tumbles back down into a humming, lilting lullaby. the sort of thing that makes you cry in books, because beautiful things make you cry. when i think about eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, i think of fate and destiny, and how you can't run away from them, because you're inherently the same person who's going to go (and rather naturally at that) straight down the path that you automatically choose. i call it destiny. my sister calls it stupidity. either way, it's very real. if i could erase my memory, i would, but then i'd just make the same mistakes all over again, wouldn't i? there is a fine line between realism and pessimism, and sometimes i don't know which side you're on.
9:16 PM ; 2 comments
Friday, March 17, 2006
it has been implied
i think i really am allergic to fur. oh dear. i only played with trouser for a few minutes today, and i can't stop sniffling now. ugh this sucks, i really want to have a dog in the future. i guess i can live with a little sniffling huh.
neighbour's drilling drove me mad, so i gatecrashed jean's house and ate a lot of her food. she let me listen to the alchemist on her ipod =D i kinda like focusing on the different instruments and letting the melody/singing soar above, instead of letting it shadow the harmony. i guess i've always prefered the harmony to the melody. maybe because of my chinese name, hmm. hahaha
guess what. despite my self-righteous vows last week.. i still haven't planned this week's lesson. luckily i'm not doing the story this week. i'll be able to scrape together time to plan that next week though. ughhh i guess i'll just have to get everything done tomorrow, in addition to studying for math and econs. sometimes it gets depressing to think that i actually have to study. and all i get is a borderline pass. kinda miss secondary school days. at least i got some kind of reward for half the effort. maybe my brain has atrophied. maybe i'm incapable of higher-level thinking. maybe i'm.. just plain air-headed. darn. so much for wanting to marry a doctor. i'd never be able to converse intelligently because i can't seem to pass math or econs. depressing thought. maybe i'll fall in love with a roadsweeper instead, and together we'll have our very own sembawang fairytale, complete with the frog remaining the frog, and cinderella wearing the torn gown to the ball. so exciting, i know.
i've always admired belle. independent woman with a brain, oh yea! =D andddd. she loved the beast even when he still looked like a beast. he kinda looks a bit funny as the prince, hmm.
10:48 PM ; 0 comments
Thursday, March 16, 2006
they sell pods at ntuc!
i had a Vision today. i saw two old men sitting opposite each other in a hawker centre, playing chinese chess while an interested crowd of equally old men gathered around them, peering over each others' shoulders. oh wait, that wasn't really a Vision.. i think i was having a bad case of deja vu.. the scene was awfully reminiscent of my (male!) classmates playing chinese chess over lunch. honestly! hahahha the instant i saw the chess players, i thought of my incurably cheena classmates and burst out laughing. nanz was equally amused when i told her what had transpired last friday. oh well, at least we know what they'll be up to in about fifty years' time.
the sweet cream butter at mac's has gone awfully hard. and pale. it took ages for it to melt enough to be spread. i have since perfected the fine art of sprinkling pepper delicately over my hashbrown. chris, be proud of me! and oh, i didn't slide off my chair. a great achievement indeed. i am becoming very familiar with the boon keng area, no thanks to nanz. i managed to to get to the bus stop in one piece! without having to ask for directions! i even mananged to head in the correct direction after my short detour into the bakery, instead of accidentally going back the way i came. i truly deserve a nice big pat on the back.
i miss my cheekbones and collarbones and all other bones that should be visible. should really stop bingeing so much, and start paying attention to the loud protesting of my slowing metabolism. one day when i have time, i shall write an Ode to My (ex)Collarbones.
sometimes i wish i didn't stay so near school. i can't even step out of the house safely looking like a frump. this is absolutely tragic because i only dress up for church, concerts and important events (like my best friend's wedding, hint-hint jean). the most infuriating bit is that i tend to bump into people when i'm looking like something the cat spat out. nobody ever sees me when i'm having a great hair day (granted, it happens about once a year), but the entire town turns out to see me trip down the flight of stairs and right into a drain. okay, so we don't really have a town, but you get my drift.
my crazy ex-classmate and crazy junior just found each other. oh no. together they will wage war on civilisation and bring humanity to an end. ohhh no. i should never have told the said ex-classmate that the junior is in her school. but oh well they found each other already. i'm going to buy a one-way ticket to the moon. alisa chua if you are reading this, stop telling liz things about me! especially what i was like in my younger days! especially if they are embarrassing! and most of all if i remember nothing of the sort! i deny everything!
they get to find each other, i found no one. :( why, God?
8:25 PM ; 0 comments
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
one sheepie, two sheepies, three sheepies, four
i am apparently very unfocused. this is slightly alarming. actually, it is alarming only because i'm not that alarmed by it. hahaha. i've categorised it neatly under the general description of 'sad facts of (my) life', which include being an incurable romantic who manages at the same time to be completely pessimistic about life. paradoxes amuse me. anyway. focus, girl, focus! yes. must study. sometimes it feels like i have three parents - even my sister's nagging me about my lack of concentration. apparently reading for 3 hours in between every half an hour of studying isn't considered studying, so i pretty much blew yesterday off. dang. i vow to be very focused tomorrow. =D
today was fantastic. i love everyone =D =D =D okay must stop smiling before my lips crack. but honestly, no one gets me as high as the plc03/04. i laughed more in 2 hours than i usually laugh in a month. gosh i love them so much. even though they don't like my glasses. hahahha. it just feels - right - somehow. somehow with them i don't give a damn about who can hear us, and who thinks we're mad, laughing half bent-over. somehow it just doesn't matter, i could get up and start boogeying, and it wouldn't stop feeling right. i guess it's true, we're each made up of many different and sometimes totally diverse people, and we aren't always the same from one situation to the next. and i kinda forgot that we had an anniversary. oops. but hey i was the one who got the date right! haha. we should get a birthday cake for ourselves and smash it into siti's face. =D (siti won't see this til it's too late, because she's a blur sheepie wahahaha) i love you, i love you, i love you! okay must stop this. it isn't dignified. but who cares, i still love you! thanks so much for lunch, you really made my day. it was especially great seeing mich, who's been mia for more than a year. and one of my many (fake) lesbian partners, serene, whom i am starting to resemble. mellie, who's as insane as ever (and busybusybusy!), and nanz the emu (whom i see a lot, but will never get sick of) - triplets! to bev and eunice and siti and sam.. boo to you, turn up next week for our anniversary! let's run in the rain!!!!!
so much for sounding dignified. oh well. i've got the cutest (by this i mean most retarded) sheep thingy crawling across my screen. i'm having a lot of fun torturing it =D. it bounces when you drop it! wahahhaha. now, just to clarify, i love sheep, i really do. but this sheep is so retarded-looking, it's just asking to be bullied. really. this post does not warrant a report to the spca. oooh my sheepie found a mate! wait i mean the one on my screen, not siti.. yes. it's got a black face wahaha.
stupid sheepie. the one on my screen i mean, not siti. ooh it's shaking its butt. it runs like trouser hahaha. okay my obsession with this stupid sheep is slightly disturbing. sheepie whee!!
i spent too much money at artfriend. i hope my mother doesn't find out. i can't wait for blocks to be over, i've got 2 new craft projects planned! =D =D =D
ten, even five years from now, what would i remember about this year? i doubt i would remember much about school. maybe how i don't remember much about primary school - i don't really want to.
my sheepie just flew off in a ufo! all right, must really stop this..
10:56 PM ; 0 comments
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
keep watching from your picket fence
ever thought we try too hard to grow up too fast? or maybe we don't try. maybe the world forces us to. i know, decades ago i'd be married to some pig farmer (who'd probably resemble his charges) and already have twin children and a household to run, but that was a different society altogether. the girls spent their entire childhoods preparing to be wives and mothers. frankly i think we're better prepared to be careerwomen and go-getters than anything else. sure, human nature hasn't changed much, youth will always be angsty and rebellious (according to our famed greek philosopher), but some expectations have changed. and we've learnt from their past. we try so hard to avoid all their mistakes, try to vaccine ourselves against the evil onslaught of the world, but what if we're meant to make those mistakes, meant to learn something, gain some inner strength from them? some things can't be learnt, although they can be taught. sure, we save a lot of time (and hurt) by avoiding pretty obvious pitfalls. but we're missing out on what can be considered an experience. so how do you weigh them up, then? time versus experience?
sometimes i think we're meant to drift away, we're meant to be alone. loneliness is the human condition. it's inevitable. we'll never be able to stay at each other's side forever. it's physically and realistically impossible. is that why we seek solitude? i've been thinking about cliques and primary school and how things don't always change. little girls can be so mean. i remember standing in the minimart near my home one night, asking my mother to buy me a small packet of twisties for recess the next day so that someone would want to eat with me. the worst part is, i didn't even think it was pathetic to want to be wanted so much, and to be obviously disliked. i was what, seven or eight. the popular girls (how they got to be popular, i will never know, because i don't remember any of them) always had people to eat with them. but i'd have to sidle up to someone just before recess and coax them into a conversation in the hopes of following them into the canteen. yet i remember distinctly that i had a 'best friend'. her name was clara. but somehow that didn't quite solve my recess woes. i don't know where she went. maybe we ate together sometimes. i don't know why i didn't just walk off by myself. better to suffer silence than fools. but at eight, i cared too much about what others thought. i didn't want to be called a freak. i just wanted to fit in, and thinking about it now makes me want to slap that little girl i was, and scream that you don't have to be liked, you don't have to belong, you don't have to care, because those people don't matter.
the popular girls had all the fun. they were admired, exclusive, untouchable. and they had fun simply because they were exclusive. they didn't have to think about anyone else. don't deny that selfishness lends an edge to happiness. because it does. when you don't have to think about others. heck, i think about my secondary school days, and i know part of my happiness was because i was so eager to keep us together, to keep others out, so i'd never have to worry about whom i was gonna eat with, who would call me at night, who would take the bus home with me. they hated us on some level, and we didn't care, on another. because we were all that we needed, and we didn't really want to care that maybe someone else needed us, needed someone. i remember the first day of p3. we were playing whacko as an icebreaker. i was whipping my head around, trying to figure out who was whom. i heard voices, hissing, 'look at her eyes'. i'd always gotten into trouble with teachers and elders over my intense stare, but it wasn't til then that it occured to me that i could carve out a niche for myself with it. now that i think about it, it wasn't too bad a move. it's ensured that i'll never be the groveling pathetic fool i was. people leave you alone when they think you're cold. people don't question when you walk off by yourself, when you reappear alone.
i just wish i'd never had to ask my mother to buy me twisties so that someone would eat recess with me. why didn't she say something then? she could have refused to buy it and forced me to learn to be independent and self-sufficient. she could have said, they don't matter. why didn't she? primary school teaches you a lot of things. 1. you can be close to someone without actually liking them. 2. girls are mean. they like to talk behind your back and whisper malicious lies. but that's okay, because nothing matters if you don't let it. 3. hurt yourself first, so that nothing anyone ever says or does can ever hurt you, simply because you've done it to yourself already. 4. always have an insult or two ready on the tip of your tongue, because you never know when you might need it. and have a counter-insult lined up just behind it, because people are so predictable. 5. friends are nice, but they're human too, so depend on yourself first and foremost. 6. if you never hope, you'll never be disappointed. 7. if you never smile, people will appreciate your laugh that much more.
i can't say everything i learned was correct. most people would disagree violently with me. but that's okay, because you don't have to follow my poor example. i'm just glad that i will never ever say anything as ridiculous as 'mummy, can you please buy this so that someone will want to eat recess with me tomorrow?'.
on a lighter note, we overheard something extremely funny yesterday. a few children were fooling around in the pool, when a sudden shriek rang in the air, 'are you nuts?? why did you kick me in the head??' we burst out laughing. if it had been a typical singaporean teenaged male, there would probably have been a sandpapery growling of 'what the f***!' followed by a swift kick or punch. very civilised, i know.
okay i'm off to (try to) study. i hope to pass math and econs, since i won't be touching lit til those papers are over. chris i miss trying to study with you!! why the heck are you a continent away, three hours behind time, and at uni studying medicine when i'm stuck here with half my friends attached to gosh-knows-what.
10:36 AM ; 0 comments
Sunday, March 12, 2006
steal my heart with every note you play
we didn't get to watch munich. ughhh. i really wanted to watch it. as much as i wanted to watch the constant gardener, brokeback mountain and all the rest of them. and now i'll never get the chance to, because they won't be screening after blocks. ahh, life. murphy's law. but we did watch underworld: evolution or whatever it is. the vampires were kinda ugly in vampiric form. i prefer the way they look in interview with a vampire - fangs on a human face are just so sexy, no? and then the obligatory romance. then again i rather like the idea of loving the enemy. but the bit where he comes alive is so agitating! i mean, he's dead!! stay dead, can't you?? but nooo he has to use the ultimate pickup line: 'hi honey, i'm back from the dead' (in not so many words). it's very exasperating. i thought he'd die and stay dead and she'd be bitter and angsty forevermore. kinda like van helsing. hmm. which brings me back to the point.. kate beckinsale is so hot. how the heck she manages to fit into all that skin-tight leather and still move, is beyond me. and her eyes (when they're black. the blue irises scare me) and those red lips, and the slant of her cheekbones.. sigh, so hot. the guy wasn't too bad either, typical mr nice guy. i guess my favourite part was when he splashed paint can by can on the tall, high windows to block out the sunlight so it wouldn't burn her. if someone did that for me, i'd marry him. okay, maybe not. but still, there's a thought.
incidentally, i discovered today that more little boys aged seven know how to tie thumb knots, versus little girls of the same age. and they tie the knots a whole lot more violently too. i started thinking back to the little boy who taught me how to tie a bow when i was pretty young, about five or six, and how i never forgot that incident. then i started wondering if any of the little girls fancied any of the little boys, and after much observation, decided that little girls aren't above mild fancying. now now, don't assume that seven years old is too young. girls start early. really. a couple of them seemed to be fighting to stand next to this little boy with huge dark sparkling eyes (i am not kidding, they sparkle, don't ask me how, maybe a fairy waved stardust over him at his birth, i don't know) and dark skin. he's really adorable! serious-looking and quiet, nods and smiles a lot. not like the little devils i sometimes end up chasing around the classroom in my heels. i can't remember what i was like at seven, although i remember what went on around me, the colour of the sunset every evening and the exact path i used to cycle down. isn't that funny?
i'm still crazy about spanish guitar. it's been on repeat. somehow, it's the way she sings it so longingly, yearningly, wistfully.. 'i wish you'd hold me in your arms like that spanish guitar.. but you don't even know i exist'.. ah, the pangs of unrequited love! it brings me back to my point about there being econs in romance. requited love is a lot like barter trading; it requires a double coincidence of wants. hahaha okay i came to that conclusion last week when i was reading the notes on money and simultaneously marveling over the sheer number of couples i know. life's a big fat joke, keeping laughing and maybe you'll lose some weight.
9:25 PM ; 3 comments
Spanish Guitar - Toni Braxton
A smoky room a small café
They come to hear you play
And drink and dance the night away
I sit out in the crowd
And close my eyes
Dream you’re mine
But you don’t know
You don’t even know that I am there
I wish that I was in your arms
Like that spanish guitar
And you would play me through the night
’till the dawn
I wish you’d hold me in your arms
Like that spanish guitar
All night long all night long
I’d be your song
I’d be your song
Steal my heart with every note you play
I pray you’ll look my way
And hold me to your heart someday
I long to be the one that you caress with tenderness
And you don’t knowYou don’t even know that I exist
I wish that I was in your arms
Like that spanish guitar
And you would play me through the night
’till the dawn
I wish you’d hold me in your arms
Like that spanish guitar
All night long all night long
I’d be your song I’d be your song
Te sientas entre la gente
Cierras tu ojos
Y suenas que soy tuyo
Pero yo no siquiera se que estas ahi
Me gustaria tenerte entre mis brazos amor
I sit out in the crowd
And close my eyes
Dream you’re mine
And you don’t know
You don’t even know that I exist
I wish that I was in your arms
Like that spanish guitar
And you would play me through the night
’till the dawn
I wish you’d hold me in your arms
Like that spanish guitar
All night long all night long
I’d be your song I’d be your song
-- i can't help it, this song makes me want to stand in front of an ocean and let the fierce wind whip my hair around my face (okay so this isn't quite so possible anymore, but you get the point). gosh someone should write this up into a story! steal my heart with every note.. okay bed! no wonder i look crappy on sundays; i have to wake up at 7 plus to get to sunday school on time.
12:19 AM ; 0 comments
Saturday, March 11, 2006
still waters
i can't believe it's taken me about 5 hours altogether to prepare for tomorrow's activity. i took about 4 hours to photocopy, cut, paste, trim and punch holes in 16 copies of a mobile-craft thing. and i started as early as tuesday in between classes. sometimes i think we take teachers (especially primary school teachers who have to do this kind of fun-for-the-kids-torturous-for-the-teacher crap on a regular basis) for granted. and i have yet to learn up the songs and think up a prayer. i shall do it before midnight.
whyyy do i do these things to myself?? i could have started on the songs and prayer earlier! i shall start soon. i resolve to start on monday for next week's lesson. and i will absolutely finish by friday, latest, from now on. it's too stressful to worry about it all saturday night while i sleep.
i wonder if there's a nice way of letting depressed people know that they're depressed without depressing them even more. i mean, showing them pamphlets with symptoms of depression plastered across their fronts only makes them feel even more suicidal when they realise that they are, after all, clinically depressed. i tell you, finding out that you're depressed (as in, realising, coming to the sad conclusion, having it drop on your head like a bombshell) when you're already depressed enough, is quite likely to push you over the edge. dangerous tactic, really. tricking them into seeing a counsellor isn't much better. they'll just be offended and hurt. leaving them alone is considered irresponsible too. sigh, what's a person to do? at least with people who pretend to be depressed (i don't see what's so cool about it, frankly), you can just give them a tight slap and be done with.
no fear, i will cultivate some sort of patience with stupidity, as a favour to those who have cultivated patience towards mine, before long. i believe it is (was?) one of my new year resolutions.
siti said my haircut is tomboyish. i'm a little bit upset. i left that tomboyishness behind in p5, and have been proudly feminine ever since. but it seems i've come full circle - i'm back to short hair and glasses. my mother asked me the other day why i'm trying so hard to look ugly. well, it's convenient and i don't want to try too hard to look good - what's the point? it's just so common and boring, it's such a cliche. besides, i have a new (and unproven) theory that if you uglify yourself every now and then, when you go back to looking normal, everyone will think you look great (in comparison). so i'll stun everyone by looking normal in uni about 2 years after i graduate looking frumpy. i love my little theories. still, as a precautionary measure, i'm going to put little clips in my hair when i go out. being mistaken for a little boy when i'm not dressed up isn't my cup of tea - and i don't drive on that side of the road.
in a sudden moment of uncertainty, i searched an online dictionary for 'still waters run deep', and got this: A quiet person may be very profound, as in Susie rarely says much, but still waters run deep. The physical observation in this term dates from ancient times, but it has been used figuratively since about 1400. Anthony Trollope amplified it in He Knew He Was Right (1869): "That's what I call still water. She runs deep enough. . . . So quiet, but so clever." well i couldn't resist searching further and discovered that Trollope used the still water analogy in at least three of his books - Can You Forgive Her?, Framley Parsonage, and The Mistletoe. i guess even published authors can't resist the constant use of a favourite phrase or analogy. by the way, my favourite is from Can You Forgive Her? -- still waters, they say, run deep; and sometimes i think your waters run too deep for me to fanthom. -- i always knew the inexplicable attraction of a quiet demeanour wasn't quite so inexplicable after all; who can resist the subtle charm of the silently beckoning engima? yes yes siti, black horse!
here come the holidays! i intend to eat every single edible thing in the house before the week is up.
11:11 PM ; 1 comments
Friday, March 10, 2006
sometimes the very thing you're looking for is the one thing you can't see
as teenage as this sounds, life's one big fat irony. seriously.
one day i'm going to look back at all of this and laugh my fat ass off. beaver keeps telling me how angsty i was in lower sec. it's kind of embarrassing to think about it. she still has the letters. ugh. i'm half-terrified she might blackmail me in future. and it's quite alarming to think that i haven't grown any more sensible. incidentally, i think the word 'alarming' is very funny. aLARming. the roll of the tongue, a slight cynical drawl (yeowch said i've got a cynical way of saying, 'hi, yeowch'. is it even possible to sound cynical in two words??), and the mental image of an alarmed (hahaha) ie wide-eyed, goldfish-mouthed kid gaping idiotically. okay so maybe i'm the only person who gets so amused by it. the word 'mongoose' amuses me too. i was reading the story about the mongoose who didn't want to kill cobras to my sister last night, and i kept laughing because the word is just so funny. mongoooooose. hahahhaha
why are we so afraid of being emo/ angsty? whose great idea was it to scorn people who aren't as laid back, who aren't as coolly nonchalent? it's worrying to think that you might never be an easy-going cotton-candy sort of person.
i loved the music at the restaurant we ate at tonight. i loved every single one of their songs! all out of love, spanish guitar, everything i do (i do it for you), hard to say i'm sorry.. =D brings to mind the twelveth question of the gp paper - 'everything that is too stupid to be said, is sung'. i was really tickled by that quote and wanted to do that question, but i realised i don't know anything about popular music. the one about instinct interested me too, but because i started thinking chronologically, i ended up doing the third question on prejudice and ignorance. basically, i wrote a lot of bovine scratology. i enlarged my handwriting by about 1.5x and was thus able to expound at length one point for four sides. i really don't have much of an argument; i'm convinced my gp teacher will be tearing her hair out when she reads it.
imagine if no one ever got mad. if no one ever hated or felt cheated or hurt. imagine if no one ever loved.
9:35 PM ; 0 comments
Thursday, March 09, 2006
blame it on the weather(man)
hot, humid days make people crabby. jan was crabby two mornings in a row. this is significant because she usually has the patience and tolerance of a very polite mule. and this is a compliment because i can't think of anything more patient and tolerant. in fact, it has become so unbearably hot and humid yet eye-drying that i have been hiding out in the library in a somewhat vain attempt to escape the heat. the strangest characters hang out there. yesterday i was having math peer tutoring (yes yes, bad enough to be eligible, etc) at one of the long tables, when i heard (male) giggling from behind and slightly to the side. when i got up to leave, i was very amused to find two guys sitting side by side with their heads close together, whispering and giggling girlishly. i mean, who sits side by side at a long table unless they are 1) tutoring or being tutored, 2) sharing a secret or 3) interested in each other and hence the instinctive need for proximity.
well, i guess we could continue blaming the weather for everything. just finished dinner, am now polishing off a bag of kettle chips - i blame the weather. gp exam tomorrow. i like not having to prepare for it, but i have this vague sense of impending doom. i have this tendency to write absolute rubbish at the most critical times, ie exams. it's all right for people to clap others very enthusiastically on the back and cry, 'believe in yourself!' - they aren't the ones who have to do the believing in admittedly less-than-talented/lucky individuals.
have you ever thought, what if who we are is fundamentally inexcusable? we like to blame everyone and everything except ourselves. our genes, our family background, our past experiences, everything. but what if who and what we are today has more to do with ourselves, our personalities, our inherent beings, than everything else that we blame? and then we blame our personalities. when people tell me off for being cynical and hostile, i retort that i'm a melancholic. they tell us not to change ourselves, because there is no 'right' or 'wrong' personality. just that phelgmatics seem to have a better time. i know i should believe in myself, because it's stupid to let your lack of confidence be the millstone around your neck, but where is the line between unwarranted arrogance and self-confidence? insult yourself, laugh at yourself, hurt yourself, so that even if others do it to you, it won't matter anymore, can't matter, because you'd have done it to yourself first.
if love is supposed to make you so strong, why does it make me feel vulnerable? loving is putting yourself, your heart out there on the line, and it's a little like playing russian roulette. you've just got to take the chance, and what if you're too terrified of the consequences to? you don't know if you'll end up in heaven or hell, and it's a one-way street either way, taking the chance on loving another human being. our imperfections rub off on each other, blunt each other's knife-points and smoothen the rough edges. but they also rub against each other, til there's a fire that either warms or engulfs you. maybe i'm being a tad cynical, but it's realistic. so what do you choose? a love that may (or may not) be Love, or the safety of never knowing the difference?
incidentally, i enjoy kenny g's music very much. about as much as i enjoy richard clayderman's. that is supposed to say a lot. sometimes when i'm just sitting there at the classbench listening to music on my ipod, i imagine things as they used to be, as they could be, perhaps, except i haven't the guts to realise my own dreams. and the pale wisps of clouds move across the sky and disappear.
you judge me, but you don't even know me. that's okay, because we all judge. i judge you too, i don't know you, and i don't want to know you, i don't even want to judge you, but i can't help it, none of us can, it's a reflex action that helps protect us. judgements.. who's to say who's right and who's wrong, the difference between moderation and disinterest, where it ends and where it all begins?
7:13 PM ; 0 comments
Sunday, March 05, 2006
(quick send in the clowns) don't bother they're here
standing on the outside, looking in at you. standing on the inside, knowing how others are standing on the outside, and what they see looking in. and i don't know how to show you what i can see, how to put it across to you, somehow let you understand what they see and how they're judging you, and how you could still turn things around. i want to protect you from their condescending assumptions and judgements, but i can't do it without being harsh and seeming to be unsupportive, unsympathetic. standing next to you, watching others watching you. i want to tell them why you do the things you do, why you say the things you say, but i'm not sure how to. so i just pretend i don't see anything, don't feel the vibes radiating outwards and the condemnation in their eyes.. pretend to be oblivious. sometimes i wonder if i make others this frustrated with my stubborn determination not to sell myself out.
funny how you see so much, and yet see nothing at all. i never understood before where the cliche about starry eyes came from. but if you've ever seen deep, dark eyes shining in the light of the morning sun, you'll understand why they bring to mind silver shots of stars that flash, luminous, like a secret in the night sky. of course, to de-romanticize everything, the person is probably thinking of what to eat next, while you're drowning in the said person's dark eyes. this brings to mind another cliche - the tall, dark and handsome stranger. there is something about dark brows and dark eyes, really. they are so drownable-in. i really do like cliches. they make so much sense, and put things so nicely, hence becoming cliches due to enthusiastic overuse by culprits like yours truly.
3:47 PM ; 13 comments
points and laughs -->
| Your Brain's Pattern |
 You have a dreamy mind, full of fancy and fantasy. You have the ability to stay forever entertained with your thoughts. People may say you're hard to read, but that's because you're so internally focused. But when you do share what you're thinking, people are impressed with your imagination. |
12:09 AM ; 0 comments
Saturday, March 04, 2006
one step forward, making two steps back, my oh my
i'm quite worried for page. she's sleeping too much. and eating too much. i complained about the above to my mother, and she said page is getting like me. thanks, mother dear. the difference is that page is getting scrawny and her fur isn't sleek and shiny anymore, and i'm very sad. hey, alliteration. hahaha. but my point is, i'm afraid something's wrong with her. she sleeps on her side! she never used to sleep on her side. and she's always looking so morose. although she still runs crazily on her wheel. but this afternoon i found her asleep on her wheel. which hamster falls asleep on her wheel?? i guess she's just getting old.. sigh. the trouble with loving any living thing is that all living things die. including plants. you can't run away from partings of any sort.
ugh this weekend is busybusybusy. so much for catching up with my work.
i've decided to continue with piano lessons and take my grade8 (eventually). i've quit too many things this past year. it'd be so easy to just stop lessons and say that it's pointless taking exams since i always freak out and play terribly, but it wouldn't solve the real problem. ten years ago i stopped ballet lessons because i had stage fright and didn't like performing in front of people. i still wonder if i'd be a different person if i'd kept up with ballet. maybe someone taller, thinner, more flexible and graceful, etc. i don't want to stop piano now and wonder if things would have been different. i've quit too many things, taken the easy way out too many times. i'm starting to lose respect for myself. people ask me why i dropped history, and i tell them the truth - i hadn't taken it in sec sch, it was a struggle the entire year, it was too much work for something i wasn't even interested in, etc. then they ask me why i resigned from uh, and i either give the polite or honest version. but i knew why i quit in both cases. and i'm much happier now without both burdens. they were just unnecessary torture that weren't necessarily aligned with my personal stand on matters in general. but piano.. it actually means something to me. music actually means something to me. personally. i can't just walk away because i'm scared to fail. my piano teacher said my biggest flaw is my lack of confidence and positive thinking. and all that i'm thinking is, where the heck would i ever get any confidence from? when i was a kid, i cried when i had to go for ballet, even though i liked ballet, because i didn't like dancing in front of people. i danced all the time when nobody was watching, but i couldn't loosen up and express myself, because i didn't want to be laughed at, didn't want to put myself and my innermost feelings on the line. now that i'm older, i realise it's the same for music. i can't play properly in front of anyone but me. i start to tremble and hit all the wrong notes, and the playing becomes just a flat rendition of a piece. but damnit, i'm going to slay this dragon, somehow, someday. i've been letting it take control of my destiny for too long.
somehow when i tried to explain my stand to my mother, all i could say was that it means something to me, and i don't want to regret quitting so easily. because the last time i tried to explain my decision to drop history, she just stared at me blankly. i get the feeling my sister will scoff at me and my grand ideas when she gets back from hk tomorrow.
'average' people wish they were more 'special'. 'abnormal' or 'strange' people wish they were less 'extreme' and more 'socially acceptable'. the grass is always greener on the other side because the mud hides below the blades of green. haaaaa.
--> one step forward, making two steps back, my oh my.. riding piggy on the bad boy's back for life. lining up for the grand illusion, no answers for no questions asked. lining up for the execution without knowing why.. keep watching from your picket fence, keep talking but it makes no sense. you say we're not responsible, but we are.. we are.. you wash your hands and come out clean, you fail to recognise the enemy's within, you say we're not responsible, but we are.. we are. <-- we are, by ana johnsson.
10:50 PM ; 0 comments
Friday, March 03, 2006
starless
nanz is sprawled on my bed, reading her lit text. see, we're so productive =D i tried doing my math homework but it took me a few hours to do a couple of questions. sighh. why do so many arts people do badly for math? besides the unfortunate fact that reduced usage of the left brain tends to atrophy it. i honestly don't remember being this bad in math when i was still doing tripsc. nevermind, God will make a way, somehow, someday.
i realise i'm a better aunt agony than friend. friends are there through thick and thin, but aunt agonies are only there when the going gets tough. somehow happy times don't seem so happy anymore. laughter comes easy, but it dies even faster. i remember the fading sunlight falling in through the glass panes, falling in slanted rays across the dusty tiled floor, spreading a soft glow over the scattered bits of souvenir, and the hot, humid, tired air clinging to our necks and fingers. the smell of kerosine and turpentine and gypsy rhapsody playing on the radio.. why don't some memories ever fade? i see you in every cloud in the sky, every star in the night. i guess we've just got too many memories to erase. laughing like we might never laugh again.
they painted the alternate walls a pale, sickly yellow. i am disgusted. it is an insult to a beautiful school. and the new green is two shades too light. who the hell decided on the paint, a colour-blind dottery old great-grandmother?
9:24 PM ; 0 comments
Thursday, March 02, 2006
slay your own damned dragon
what's the point in knowing so much, seeing so much, feeling so much, if you're never going to do anything about it? it's less about what you know, than what you do with it.
i can't do this. i don't know what to do. how can i choose? don't you see, i'm not you, i was never you. you can't expect brilliance from me, because some rocks are really just rocks, not diamonds in the rough. the trouble is, it actually matters to me.
by the way, i abhore the idea of elitists condescending to mix with 'unfortunates'. just because we're in a better school doesn't mean we're in any way better than them. who put you on the pedestal to condescend to others? just because you are better at studying than them, because your family circumstances are more 'fortunate'. all you're doing is highlighting the difference between the haves and have-nots. if i were one of those approached to join, i would definitely write a scathing reply and set up a spoof of the programme to mock the elitist jc students. it annoys me on a personal level because i hate the way smart people think they have the prerogative to be so condescending towards us lesser beings. so maybe you can mug, but would you put down your textbook for five minutes to persuade your friend not to jump off a building?
hy came up with a singaporean version of brokeback mountain that i think is utterly hilarious, simply because it's so, well, singaporean. think ns men, mount faber (which will be called faber mountain), hougang hdb flats, an air-con repair man and a white-collar professional, the daughter of a high-ranking official, an sbs bus.. yupp.
i love the way my ipod allows me to shut people out at will. especially on the bus. thank goodness i will never have to endure giggly ah-lians ever again.
i'm going to slay my own dragon, i am, i am. somehow, someday, i've got to fight it down and slay it because there's no such thing as a knight in shining armor.
9:58 PM ; 0 comments
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
aftermath
i'm incredibly proud of her, but somehow it's a lot harder to show it than if it were my friend, for an example. maybe because i expected stellar results from her anyway. she's the sort who can expect fantastic results. when she got 10a1s for o levels, i hugged her. this is significant because we aren't a very touchy pair of siblings. but when she came home that night, i gave her a little stuffed pink piglet and hugged her. this year i didn't buy her anything because i'm broke and anyway a third of her stuffed toys were bought by me and she just leaves them at the foot of her bed and kicks them around at night. but i'll probably make a card when i've formulated my thoughts. i'm not a very demonstrative person, and it's even worse in speech. it would be so much easier to scream and jump around and hug her tight, if we didn't live in the same house. because the excitement dies down somehow, and the awkward silent void that comes in its wake just isn't worth it, somehow. at least with friends, you leave them behind and go home to your own quiet (except for the music) and solitary (except for the phone and computer and occasional sister) room. i guess it's just weird to let her know how important her results are to me (because they are important to her, and not because i'm masochistic), because she has enough friends for that. it's easier to show how you feel when you aren't bloodsisters. it's paradoxical how the closer you are related to a person, the closer you are in some ways, but the more closed up you are in other ways.
it would be good if she could go, would go, but i'm going to miss her terribly. i've never known life without my older sister. and that's 17 1/2 years' worth of it. i cried every morning in childcare when she went to nursery. every. single. morning. i think the childcare people didn't know what to with me. at first i cried only after she left. then i cried as she was leaving. finally i started crying as soon as we arrived, because i knew she would be leaving. i was what, 3 years old? but i still remember how i cried and clung to her, and how she just went up that bus every morning. so i don't cry and cling anymore. well, i cry to other people and cling with my heart. she should go. she'd be wasted here. she wants to go. i'm scared she will but i'm scared she won't. am i always this confused and incoherent?
by the way, i can stop taking chinese now. thank God!
8:37 PM ; 2 comments
one step forward, making two steps back, my oh my.
you're my pretty baby.
12:49 AM ; 0 comments