Wednesday, August 30, 2006
come back another day

lit was bad, bad, bad. i actually considered walking out because i didn't feel like writing. and i had no intros or conclusions or any real points or analysis, just words and words filling up the page. (and i'm quite sure my grammar was jumbled up somewhere within all those very convoluted and confused sentences) i think my teacher will vomit blood in solid pieces and have to be rushed to hospital when she gets to my script. when i passed her her teachers' day card just now, she said, 'i thought you wouldn't want to see my face after the paper,' and all i could say was, 'oh, but i wrote this before i actually did the paper'. in any case, if i had written anything more substantial, i'm quite sure the skin on my finger would have worn off entirely and i would have bled to death on my script. halfway through the paper i became convinced that the skin that rubs against the pen was becoming too red and loose and blistery, and i wondered if i could ask to get a plaster. in the end i decided against it and simply wrote a lot slower. gahhh. crashed and burned. and now i shall stop thinking about it.

oh, i almost did a janet. ie i almost fell asleep doing the gp compre. i wanted to whine about rich countries for the essay, but i've never been good at remembering which country did what exactly (hence the decision to drop history instead of continuing to make up facts during exams, and attribute filipino reforms to cambodia or something to that effect) so i whined about innovation instead. ah the irony. except i don't think of blogging as innovation. i see it quite simply as lazier extension of my journal-keeping self, only i keep names to a minimum and allow my friends to see the inner workings of my boring mind. i whined about sesame street instead. and for the compre aq, i raved on like the idealistic fool i am. (mrs lee told me i was idealistic and a perfectionist before she died.. because i went up to her to tell her what i didn't like about the school's policies, and ended up sitting in her office all day demonstrating how i could pull on a pair of pantyhose solely by its hem. apparently she had never seen anyone do that successfully before. but i still got into trouble regarding my socks despite my circus act.)

suddenly thought, if chris wants to be a rural doctor in malaysia (or she did some time ago), and i want to be a teacher in a developing country, we should move to some village in rural malaysia and battle the monstrous insects together. it'd be so idyllic. except to prove we're straight, we might have to marry appropriate people. like she could marry someone to be her nurse, and i could marry someone willing to teach the subjects i can't (like math and the sciences). i'm such a genius =D i hope she agrees. must remember to ask her when she replies my email. if i sell out and be a teacher in some secondary school somewhere in singapore, i'll just sit down and cry. i've thought it over, my departure wouldn't devastate anyone, thanks to co-curricular activities called boyfriends. i can't stay. i can't keep watching my friends leave. i've got to do the leaving.

i think i disappoint you. with my determination to find emotional independence. to stop relying on others, because no one is going to be there forever, and you can't ask that of them. (and God, God, where are you? are you in the friend i didn't make today, are you in the hi i didn't say? if i gave my life entirely to you, if i became a nun, would you show me your face then? would i dare to see it?) too much pride by far, she said. things haven't changed. they'll have to, soon. please, God, find me, find us. there is no future, there is no past. just here and now, and a hermit crab yelling over having to lose its shell.

i should tell you, i should tell you.
10:08 PM ; 8 comments

Tuesday, August 29, 2006
tweedle dee

finished my cca testimonial an hour ago. it took me three hours to write. mainly because i'm not used to writing about myself in third person, much less trumpeting my own horn in third person. had trouble cramming it all into one page because i am not by nature a concise person. i hope i don't look back five years from now be all 'geez! i was such a busy person', because i can't be any less busy than this and still qualify as something more than mould.

my sister picked up my lit text (that was lying about on my table, in the way of my stash of biscuits) and went, 'what's this?? four revenge tragedies??' but then she likes agatha christie. and didn't quite like the god of small things.

gp and pc tomorrow. what's there to say? what will be, will be. step by step, heart to heart, left right left, we all fall down, like toy soldiers.. bit by bit, torn apart, we never win, and the battle wages on for the toy soldiers.

i always thought 'bit by bit' could also be 'beat by beat'. har. har. i'd love to learn the drums only i have no sense of rhythm (or rhyme). my chinese name belies my natural inability. and because i'm bored (which i should NOT be),

the Romantic
Thanks for taking the test !
you chose BY - your Enneagram type is FOUR.

"I am unique"

Romantics have sensitive feelings and are warm and perceptive.

How to Get Along with Me

- Give me plenty of compliments. They mean a lot to me.
- Be a supportive friend or partner. Help me to learn to love and value myself.
- Respect me for my special gifts of intuition and vision.
- Though I don't always want to be cheered up when I'm feeling melancholy, I sometimes like to have someone lighten me up a little.
- Don't tell me I'm too sensitive or that I'm overreacting!

What I Like About Being a Four

- my ability to find meaning in life and to experience feeling at a deep level
- my ability to establish warm connections with people
- admiring what is noble, truthful, and beautiful in life
- my creativity, intuition, and sense of humor
- being unique and being seen as unique by others
-having aesthetic sensibilities
-being able to easily pick up the feelings of people around me

What's Hard About Being a Four

- experiencing dark moods of emptiness and despair
- feelings of self-hatred and shame; believing I don't deserve to be loved
- feeling guilty when I disappoint people
- feeling hurt or attacked when someone misundertands me
- expecting too much from myself and life
- fearing being abandoned
- obsessing over resentments
- longing for what I don't have

Fours as Children Often

- have active imaginations: play creatively alone or organize playmates in original games
- are very sensitive
- feel that they don't fit in
- believe they are missing something that other people have
- attach themselves to idealized teachers, heroes, artists, etc.
- become antiauthoritarian or rebellious when criticized or not understood
- feel lonely or abandoned (perhaps as a result of a death or their parents' divorce)

Fours as Parents

- help their children become who they really are
- support their children's creativity and originality
- are good at helping their children get in touch with their feelings
- are sometimes overly critical or overly protective
- are usually very good with children if not too self-absorbed

Renee Baron & Elizabeth Wagele

The Enneagram Made Easy
Discover the 9 Types of People
Harper SanFrancisco, 1994, 161 pages

the result of this? i'm digging a hole to crawl into right now.

6:43 PM ; 0 comments

Monday, August 28, 2006
by the world forgot

you used to always know when i was writing about you. mostly because i never said your name. i never saw the point in naming - it erases the intimacy of our two-person existence by allowing others into our tangled world. except now i wonder if you still know when i'm refering to you. (and there are so many 'you's, the webs of my relationships are impossibly strung)

two years is a very long time. in two years i've gone from being able to watch bridget jones' to being able to watch underworld, both terrible sequels to terrible movies. from veet to an epilator. from never riding the bus home alone to doing so everyday - and liking it. from believing that knights came in all shapes and sizes, to knowing that they never existed for me. from poetry to an awful, awful silence. i don't take out my barbies anymore - they line the ledge above my bed, their beautiful empty eyes gazing at doors that haven't been opened in years, hair mussed from leaning against their boxes. dolphins and dragons. yes, two years is a very long time. you thought things might change - you tried to extract promises from me that i threw at your feet, blindly, freely, desperately. well, guess what. they have and they haven't. all that i said wouldn't come to pass, hasn't. but the other things that we forgot to take into account, have. pride only goes so far, my dear. but it goes far enough for me to be able to look you in the eye and tell you that goddamnit, don't doubt me, woman!

it took me two years to begin to tell you what had really happened so long ago. it'll take me many more years to finish the story. we've gone 'round the sun twice, only to come back to the same spot in the first three dimensions, but an entirely different one in the fourth. which is all that really matters, isn't it? i've gone 'round twice, and never been back to you.

what is in a name, anyway? a promise that can never be fulfilled? a heartbreaking tenderness as it catches on goodbye? a memory and a face you can't forget? i don't always dream of faces, but i always know your name in my dreams. literally. i'm still waiting for you to fade into a blur that i can chuck aside and replace with a clean-edged photograph of a better specimen.

but the greatest joke of all is how i, who talk too much, waited til the dust had settled before telling even my closest friends, the ones i trust with my life, the ones who are my life, that there was even anything beneath the dust. and i wonder if i'd do things differently if i had to do it all over again. very probably not. we always begin by making the mistake that we were born to make.
10:03 PM ; 2 comments

Sunday, August 27, 2006


keep remembering emily of new moon. and the way, at the end of the third book, teddy was all, 'don't tell me you can't love me, you can, you must,' (i think he said 'must') and then as he stared into her eyes, he cried, 'why, emily, you do!' you must understand that they had a very long, complicated and convoluted relationship spanning more than a decade before that. talk about childhood sweethearts. and all the usual angst about how they think their love is unrequited when they've always been madly in love with each other, some spiteful person gets in between, both are too proud to reconcile etc etc etc. used to think i'd end up like emily. at least everyone said i would. i remember all the threats about how i'll lose my one true love because of my pride and stubborness (only i always wondered how can it be my one true love if it doesn't come true) and yadda yadda bang bang, and all i have to say now is it won't matter anymore. cos having a dog will make up for everything. (i know you think i'm crazy. and more than a little obsessive. but don't you think it's a nice, safe alternative?) reality and i never did agree too well.

i'd just like to clarify that i'm a lot less crazy than i sound. sometimes even sanity needs a holiday, though. and jean called just now. it's weird asking if she's had breakfast when it's dark (and not starry) outside my window. it was good to hear from her. especially since it's local charges haha.
9:23 PM ; 7 comments


am in a fantastic mood today.

my sunday school kids performed so well! (in my opinion.. i told my co-teacher that they performed surprisingly well) no one cried onstage or tried to hold anyone's hand or touched anyone inappropriately or behaved badly, and they sounded like angels (to me) and i was so incredibly proud of them. must remember to buy them little snackpacks of chocolates next week. anddd. i got presents! from two girls only la. but still, it's so sweet! i almost didn't know how to react - i never know how to accept gifts graciously - and i was all *gasp!* oh! so sweet! thank you so much! it really was very sweet. one of them gave me cookies in a little cup with little cut-outs pasted on, and a note on top, and the other gave me ferrero rochers and a (pink but nevermind) pen with the word 'teacher' on it, in this bag of weaved paper that she made. i think about my own childhood and feel a bit bad that i never did anything this nice for my own teachers. makes me want to write cards for my current teachers, just to thank them for wasting their time on me. (not that i waste my time on my kids, just that preparing every sunday does take quite a lot of time and energy, and i do like rochers)

and i LOVE this song: adolescent song of mindless devotion, by the lucksmiths

I love you from the heart of my bottom
I love you from the bottom of my soul
I love the soles on your feet
I love you from the foot of the hill
(I promise I will)

I'd sail the driest desert
I'd walk the wildest seas
I'd swim the highest mountain
I'd swallow chalk and swear it was cheese

If you said please
Because I la-la-la-la-love you
And I na-na-na-na-need you
And I wo-wo-wo-wo-want you
To be ma-ma-ma-ma-mine
Because I la-la-la-la-love you
And I na-na-na-na-need you
And I wo-wo-wo-wo-want you
To be ma-ma-ma-ma-mine

I love your diamond lips
I love your rosy-red eyes
I love your cheeky cheeks
I'd tear the stars out of the midday sky
(if you said 'hi')

I'd help you walk through the window
I'd sing to you beneath your door
I'd change my name to Matthew
And be the welcome mat on your floor

I don't know what five
Because I la-la-la-la-love you
And I na-na-na-na-need you
And I wo-wo-wo-wo-want you
To be ma-ma-ma-ma-mine

'Til the end of lunchtime

cracks me up every time.
3:38 PM ; 0 comments

Saturday, August 26, 2006
where forever melts into a line

and all you can do is stare at it, its infinite symmetry, its sullen mystery. and ah hahah. i rhyme.

must be the glasgow love theme. i love the bit where it rises and soars and dips like a bird, like the sun rising, its glow spreading across the sand. yeech. sun rises aren't my thing.

i ran to call you, but all i got was your voice mail. what a cliche. i sniffle, but only because i lick the wasabi powder off the peanuts before eating them. i think the tip of the tongue is extremely sensitive to the wonders of wasabi powder.

my mother claims she told me not to pierce my ears. i have vague memories of her saying something like that, but i didn't think she meant it. anyway she's only saying it because my sister'll complain that i get too much leeway otherwise. she didn't think i'd actually dare to do it. of course i dare. what is the prick of a needle, compared to what i face during flares? i didn't wait til after a's like i meant to, because.. it's something i needed to do. a little like cutting my hair, only permanent. as permanent as i want it to be. some people wear their hearts on their sleeves. i wear your memories on my ears, and a locket and ring around my neck. fortunately i only have fourteen friends. i counted.

met van after school yesterday. i think we are rather fatalistic people. what will be, will be. no love in sight, just beautiful apartments for her, and gardens with huge dogs for me. what will be, will be. people spread out across continents. thank God for the internet. (but still, you can't hold my hand when you're not there, can you?)

thought of that song, curve of the earth. 'i'm a sucker for a good lie, the way you say you understand, and how you talk of catching me but never open up your hand.' wonder if anyone has it. when i think of you, i remember the lies we told each other, the promises we couldn't keep. and i know that if i tried again, i'd do it all the same - and so i will never play that game again. at the end of the day, the only thing that's really yours, is your pride. which, thank goodness, i have plenty of. too much, she said. but what is it to you?

sandpiper sandpiper sandpiper joy.
11:35 AM ; 8 comments

Thursday, August 24, 2006
so, i heard.

why do people never tell you while they're going through the process, but wait instead to spring it on your unfortunate head when it's all been decided? i don't think i can take another shock. not this soon. not this much.

i feel nothing.

there's nothing to feel anymore, anyway. just a host of negativity and self-doubt and the wind whispering in your ear. just the blue blue-ness of the afternoon sky and leaves that fall like the rain. and the sound of silence.

people die, beauty fades, love changes, you will always be alone. why do i remember such bad lines? when the shit hits the fan, you run out the door. that's what you do.

and baby, they'll always be an awful lot like you.
2:22 PM ; 4 comments

Wednesday, August 23, 2006


i haven't done my math homework for tomorrow. i don't know what i'm going to do. there's no way i can finish it in time - it took me an hour to do a question in class (but only because my math is abysmal) - and what am i going to say to the teacher? 'sorry, i didn't feel like doing my homework yesterday'? or maybe 'i spent the whole night online with a friend, generating enough angst to fly us both to the moon'?

because we've stopped hoping. because we've stopped seeing the need for company, for conversation, for anything beyond our choosing. because i still imagine i know what she's thinking, how she's feeling, even after years of establishing that we'll never know each other's thoughts in their entirety. because crying's like opening a can of worms that slither down your back and devour your dignity. because an invisible line runs across my wrist, an invisible line with invisible instructions.

and because even when i've run out of words to say to her, i still love her, because i couldn't stop, wouldn't know how to stop, even if i wanted to.

there's this perpetual feeling of sinking slowly and effortlessly through a thick semi-liquid body of gel. unstoppable, uncontrollable, almost graceful. a fall you can't fight. with no one to break it, and nothing to break it on. a life, a love, a purpose she wanted like falling. a disastrous, suicidal step towards the ledge - arms outstretched - bent knee, pointed toe, a slow fluid descent into anything that dared to make sense. and all i remember is the love she wanted like falling.

even in solitude.
10:04 PM ; 0 comments




i did not cry.

maybe it gets easier with practise, this art of saying goodbye. maybe it's because we hardly saw each other anyway. at least on a daily basis. maybe it's because there were so many people we didn't know there. (and janet made me hold hands with a stranger for the prayer because she claimed she has a boyfriend. i mean it's true that she has a boyfriend, but just because i don't have one doesn't mean i like holding strangers' hands. although to do him credit he didn't sweat all over my palm.) or maybe it's just because we didn't focus on the actual leaving. yeah, that's probably it.

don't think too much, don't care too much, just let go and drift, drift, drift. that's what they've been telling me all along. except i never wanted to hear it.

is it even possible for shallow and superficial people to become depressed?
7:28 PM ; 0 comments

Saturday, August 19, 2006
of singing dogs and weeping nightingales

there's this line from the horse whisperer that i love - '... how forever was nothing but a trail of nows and the best each [wo]man could do was live each one fully in its turn.' the thought of forever scares me sometimes. how this is nothing but a blip on the screen.

jean's leaving in a few days. i know i've been moody and a bit taciturn (sorry), but i just keep thinking about how you don't know what you've got til you lose it, and you don't know what you're missing til you find it. (and how sometimes the very thing you're looking for is the one thing you can't see, but that's not immediately relevant.) people die. beauty fades. love changes. you will always be alone. thank you for life's lessons, nightworld.

i'm scared i'll cry. i can't cry. i mustn't cry. i shall be strong and cheery, shall smile as i'm saying goodbye and shall not bawl on anyone's shoulder. i remember crying at the airport last january (and singing 'all my bags are packed, i'm ready to go..' to myself) and that is not how i want to be remembered. (which brings to mind another song, from casper. my life could be a very badly written, overtly emo musical) and hiyahhhh.

i need a dog. 1. it'll be desperately, endlessly loyal to me. 2. it'll protect me (from naysayers! haha maybe not) and i'll never have to look over my back again. 3. it'll be my one true companion. 4. it'll never pms on me or tell my secrets. 5. it'll think i'm the best thing since chew toys (and i could use the ego boost). 6. it'll attack on command (naturally, since it'll be my dog). 7. it won't ever, ever, leave me. which is, after all, the most important reason of all. i'm tired of humans. i've already given up on romance, and my friends are all too human. people let you down, you know? (i know. i let people down. a lot.) i don't want to be let down anymore. it'll just be my dog and me, and a guitar by the sea. (and bright stars in the night sky, the crash of waves, etc etc, see poem written four years ago.) i shall get a dog. it'll love me. it will, it will, because i'll love it first.

you're going. you're all going. (but what if i'm already gone? haha so emo.) tell me, do you recognise yourself when you look into the mirror?

dying's easy. it's living that's hard. but it's not-living that most people find themselves trapped into doing.
9:37 PM ; 6 comments

Thursday, August 17, 2006
maybe one day

we'll both outrun our own demons.
11:14 PM ; 0 comments

Saturday, August 12, 2006
just another saturday

my computer's down, and i just irritated my sister by being unable to spell her password (due to an extremely limited vocabulary coupled with an inherent diablity to spell in general) so i'm using my parents'. oh joy. they don't have any good music on their com (by which i mean 2 beds and a coffee machine) so the sound of the wind will have to make do.

incidentally, i went to school yesterday! and lasted all day! amazing feat. spent a great deal of time orchestrating bev's birthday and jean's surprise party at the same time. bet i blew up my free msgs. but oh well i guess all the tension and fingernail biting (okay i don't) and worrying was worth it when she got the shock of her life and trouser was so freaked out that he ran around all jittery. good meeting bev too. her school's having prom at fullerton. if our school had it at fullerton i might actually go, if for no other reason but the chance to be surrounded by the sheer romance of that golden building straight out of a fairytale. i don't even know where ritz carlton is, i'm not about to waste 85 bucks on food i probably wouldn't eat, and feel threatened by all the dressed-up, squealing girls around me all night(i can just imagine all their thick makeup, yeech), so i'll just go out with my friends all night. =D oh but jan says i can do her nails if she doesn't get them done, so yay! =D

they say youth prefer sunrises, and although i acknowledge that they're pretty enough, they just don't whack me in the face the way sunsets do. sure, they signify a new beginning and all that, but so what? all it turns into is another day of too-bright sunshine in your face and humidity clinging to your arms. sunsets, on the other hand, inspire a bittersweet awe in their controlled grandeur, rolling back slowly, drawing in their power like huge, unstoppable magnets, curling up into themselves, leaving a velvet darkness thick enough to touch. daylight is only useful when you're looking at pretty things; the clouds' random and ever-changing shapes, the different hues of blue in the sky, the silhouette of trees against the sun, etc etc. but the night is powerful. it hides, it whispers, it surrounds you. it becomes you. and that, my friend, is power.

besides, haven't you noticed how people look better at night? for a very good reason? okay i'll try to cut down on the sniggering.

am off medication. haven't started the new one yet - i want to enjoy eating everything i can for a while. started off with icecream yesterday, gone on to gourmet chips today. life's good, life's good. chocolate, anyone?

and oh yes, siti! thank you so much for the flower, darling. it was a very pleasant surprise. considering my birthday was two months ago. haha. but i like it very much anyway. it's standing in my water bottle right now because all the vases are being used. yes i know my hygiene is worrisome, but i'll find another bottle soon. and you look so good in contacts! almost makes me wish i could be bothered to wear mine more often haha. should have lunch some day, and catch up with everyone. you know, i dreamt and indirectly came up with the perfect way to humiliate mellie's (or anyone else's) bf should he not prove satisfactory as a lesser half - pin him to the floor, write: 'down with chauvanist assholes' on one cheek and 'this is for the girls' on the other, his name in block letters on his forehead (her bf's name isn't that long) and draw a big red shiny dot on his nose, all with my beautiful crimson smudge-proof-water-proof-practically-permanent lipstick, then say, 'you know the perfect way to say goodbye?', lean in as if you're about to smooch, and then.. slap him across the face! hahaha i love me sometimes. hope mellie sees this. it's exactly the sort of thing we'd have done back when we were in secondary school, and were openly anti-guy. i'm still having trouble reconciling that mellie with this mellie. it's just not possible. m must be one hell of a dream guy. i'm still waiting for the day bev finds hers. it'll be dead hilarious - and we'll all help plot the perfect dumping routine. =D
6:08 PM ; 7 comments

Tuesday, August 08, 2006
bleaugh

and okay, just for the record, i haven't been malingering. i've been suffering from a flare that lasted more than a day longer than it should. so basically i've been spending 5 days curled up in pain and refusing to leave the house. and it's always kind of amusing how i lose a few kg when i'm sick and constantly throwing up, and then gain it all back rapidly when i get better. hopefully, tomorrow. at least i'm up at the computer now! that's a lot further than i've gone since friday. i'm refusing to take any more medication since i can't handle the side effects, and it restricts my food intake, and i cannot live without cheese and yoghurt and raisins and chocolate and soy sauce (wth, really) and sour cream and ahh you get it. in any case, i doubt i can make it for prelims at this rate - i can't catch up with the daily work, much less study for prelims. but hell who's life is it anyway? so i screw it up. so i die. big deal.

been listening to miss saigon. i've forgotten how cheesy love songs can be. rather nice, but the lyrics are cringe-worthy. some of them anyway. gah off to rumage for some food that i can actually eat.. maybe rice grains with salt and pepper? who knows.

wow i am not optimistic. at all. sorry if this disappoints people like siti (who for some reason think i'm coping fine with fibromyalgia.. except i'm not, i'm resentful about it when i can't deal with it) and jean (whom i hope never actually reads this because i've been telling her i'm okay, since she's leaving and i'd rather she be all chirpy about it) but this is life. i'll be strong when i can start walking properly again. until then, bravery is wasted on a body that one can't even control anymore.
9:47 AM ; 7 comments

Wednesday, August 02, 2006
nothing is still something

just woke up. think i'll go back to sleep again. feels like i got run over by a fedex truck. i thought the hard part's supposed to be over? it's been at least 2 weeks since i started the new medication, it's supposed to be working already. my optimism regarding the rest of my life is fading very quickly. the only things i'm sure of now are death and taxes (haha). have a nagging feeling i have something to do..

it doesn't bode well for my future when i have zero interest in overseas unis and the only pages that i ever read carefully in career guides are those pertaining to teaching. it's like i've sealed my own fate. the government will always need to employ more teachers right? nobody wants to teach brats spoilt by the absence of the use of rods. not t0 mention the lousy pay and personal-life-sucking job. plus you can't just take leave when you want to go off somewhere. i don't understand why i even want to teach, why i feel compelled to think i should and will (unless it's because i'm too lazy to think of other, possibly better, options. or maybe i'm *gasp* altruistic after all!), and maybe i should start thinking in case i'm really destined to be something else, like say a clerk in some law firm. if they even need clerks anymore. wow i could work for my sister. okay, not a good idea, she'd be a slavedriver. darn. i have no dreams. then again i never did. it was my father who kept telling me to be a lawyer.

i wish my mother hadn't told me about my ct's comments on my block tests report. now i feel pressured by the reminder that other people besides my family and myself actually know my results and have opinions about them. scary thought. why can't everyone just disappear? (cue teenage angst) off the face of this world. leave nothing but greenery and a brisk little breeze. a river blue and tiny white shells. no wait. i should do the disappearing. they say suicide's a sin. so is lying, honey.

oh blessed, blessed, blessed sleep. been clocking nine or ten hours a night. maybe a bit less since it takes me hours to actually fall asleep, and then i doubt i actually sleep at all since i'm always aware whenever people come in and out of my room. mainly my sister, who really shouldn't be poking about my dresser at insanely early hours.
9:58 PM ; 0 comments