It's Almost Christmas Time!

Today I had the best shopping experience ever. I never knew that shopping could be that much fun, and then I realised that this is probably what they call the true spirit of Christmas.

It may sound cliche, but it really is a good feeling buying presents for your loved ones. And it definitely helps that you've got a wonderful shopping companion by the name of Melmel. (: And you find out in weird ways that suddenly nasty salespeople and crowds don't bother you at all, that you're ridiculously happy even though it means that your bank account figure will be a measly number for the rest of the year, and that the warm fuzzy feeling you get from picturing the smiles on your loved ones' faces when they open their presents is immensely heartwarming.

I lost sight of the joy of Christmas somewhere along the way, but I'm glad that I'm starting to find it again.

Have a Happy Christmas all! :D

A Fool Spent from Defiance

And then it all voices down to being too idealistic, thinking that real life is like a TV drama.

So the adults were right.

The atmosphere in the ward during my uncle's last moments was terribly stifling - or no, it was intensely sad. I've come to understand that it is at the point of finality that is the breaking point for most people, the knowledge that the heartrate monitors have gone flat for good, and that the weak revivals of heartbeat are lost to the straight line on the screen. The funny thing is that the lines aren't completely straight, they're slightly, only very slightly, jagged. Or it might be some illusory trick that your eyes play when you stare too long at the screen. All I remember from that night is that we each have got our different ways of grieving, but mostly it has to do with tears.

The few nights this week I've spent going down to a certain multi-purpose hall in the Jurong West area. At the wake we get to see all kinds of people. People you never knew were related to you.

"Carolyn, Vanessa, come over here, this is my cousin and her husband, call her so-and-so and him so-and-so."

"Orh." Repeats after mom in a mumbly voice. I've never seen these people in my life.

"Ah, hi, hi. Waaah, both your daughters look like you ah." Some acute observation skills there.

And what can we do but smile condescendingly at the tableful of old people.

One cousin said "The best places to find a partner, are at weddings and wakes."

At the wake you get to shake hands with all kinds of people. Is it possible to tell the maturity of a person from the way he shakes hands with others? There were gangly teenagers who were awkward in handshaking, those who put only their fingers into the grasp, and try to take their hand away too soon. And then there were adults who used both hands to shake, fully engulfing your hand in theirs. Being the anti-social person I am of course I was hidden behind Bessie and Phillip with Joe, who also had a bout of anti-social last night. I was looking straight into the handshakers' eyes to see if I could find out anything. I gathered that about 64.7% of them probably have never seen the man lying in the coffin throughout their entire lives before.

But you definitely have to appreciate that they took time off to come to the wake, to spread a little love to the man's relatives. And you have to admit that a wake with a large crowd definitely gives off a better vibe as compared to one that only has a few people sitting around right right?

My aunt had the warped idea of taking photographs of the wake for remembrance, and the honour of the task fell on me. It felt strange. It was like someone was pulling a weird joke. What kind of memory does that make? Definitely not a happy one.

Later will be the last time I get to see my uncle in flesh. The cremation's taking place tomorrow, but there's a damned exam in the way. How funny that most organisations and institutions only allow compassionate leave for close family members. Who's to judge if family members are close or distant? What's the measure of relationships?

All bad things like happening at once don't they.

What do you say when you're faced with a man who has leukemia?



When leukemia, or any other sort of sicknesses, rear its ugly head in your face, you must not flinch. The real ugliness in sickness is not the sickness itself. It is the state that the patient is reduced to in the battle against it. You have to be there to fully understand the gravity of it, and to witness the extreme unpleasantness of it. The stories you hear on TV, they may make you cry out of sympathy, but when it comes down to the reality of it, you find that you don't cry much at all.

In fact, you don't know what to think of it. One part of you tells you "Look here now, his condition is deteriorating by the day, and they're all preparing to let him go, there's really nothing you can do now," and another part is saying "Well, maybe it's not that bad, you look at him, and you know that he wants to carry on living, and maybe, just maybe, that will keep him alive." And when you do cry, it's not out of sympathy, it's out of the prospect of loss.

There are times where you will feel angry too, and frustrated, and many times you will feel extremely helpless. Extremely. You feel angry and frustrated because all the adults are getting pastors to carry out baptism ceremonies, standing around discussing which undertaker's services should be engaged, which church the funeral should be held at, when the only thing you know for certain is that the man doesn't look dead to you. Dead people don't breathe. Dead people's pulses don't register on monitors. Dead people don't lie there fighting for life. And then you feel extremely helpless because you don't know how to make the man feel better, and you probably can't anyway. But it doesn't stop you from feeling helpless.

It's never as simple as sympathy.

When wave after wave of complications hit - fever, fungal infection of the lungs, blood infection, kidney failure, cardiac arrest, as if having leukemia was the green light for all other illnesses - all you can do is to stand there and watch him try so hard to breathe. You try to guess his thoughts, what he's thinking of when he's lying in bed, but it's probably too complicated, and a young girl like you probably won't understand. Is he in extreme pain? Does he miss his wife? Has he lived life the way he wanted? But mostly it's the pain question. Is he in a lot of pain?

You stand there listening to your mom stroke his forehead and repeat "don't worry okay? Have a good rest, just follow the light," and she asks you to speak to him. While all the time you're slightly angry, thinking, why do you ask him to rest when he doesn't want to, can't you see he's trying hard to fight for his life? But then of course you're never really sure if he still has the will to live, because whatever willpower he has might possibly be negated by pain.

There are all these thoughts running through your head, and your mouth is very dry. What's there left to say when they're all convinced he's not going to make it? When the only moment of brief consciousness is when the man opens his swollen eyes for 4 seconds and tears. When all you can see is the tube leading into his left nostril, and more tubes leading into his mouth, and you wonder where they end in the body. When you get gripped by paranoia when the damned heart rate monitor gives a long loud beep, and your mom, your dad and you immediately jerk your heads to look at it.
What's there left to say at this point?

When the hospital bills by far total up to at least 45 thousand dollars, and you see your aunties and cousin keeping vigil outside the ward almost each day, how does anyone know what to do? Who has the right to make decisions for the patient then?



What do you say when you're faced with a man who has leukemia?
What's there left to say?

The End of All Things Big and the Start of All Things Bigger.

The End of All Things Big

The Start of All Things Bigger

Does My Brain Still Belong to Me?

Time to time I'm reminded of how we're like two patches of fabric on a piece of patchwork. We change steps at the same time, open our mouths to speak the same instance, start humming the same song at once, (are both intensely in love with Jay Chou... not. XD) exclaim in the same fashion together at the same moment etc etc etc.

(Maybe by some bizarre twist of fate assenav isn't my twin, and instead, ahmoon is! Gasp! The horror, the horror! But incest can be kinky until you get serious and talk about giving birth to offspring-- inbred kids are so unkinky.)

Nah. How can ahmoon possibly be my twin. I think he's secretly a mind reader, and he reads my mind and copies my actions to make me think "Ah, we seem to read each other's mind, this must be what they call divine fate! He must be my destiny!" *Swoons*

No silly, I don't really think all that when we happen to mirror each other, I just laugh and silently think "haha we're cute like that." And those are nice moments. (:

The Superhero Chronicles

I ought to have done this much sooner, but I didn't want to come across as sappy and mushy, but on second thoughts if you are my friend you will NEVER say I'm sappy or mushy or both. NEVER. EVER.

So there's this little story that i'm going to tell, to anybody who has any query as to how Spongemo (I Clean up Aftermath!) came to know Momo (The Amazing Dancing Bear (don't ask me why I don't know either)).

Alright so Spongemo is my superhero identity, and Momo is Raymond's. I dunno why he chose to be an Amazing Dancing Bear, but he has, and i shall not question his choice.

So anyway, i think most people out there are pretty curious as to how I got to know Raymond. (And I recently found out that even he wasn't aware of the full story. I suddenly feel mysterious.) And my evasive answers don't really inform much. Hey, it's not that i want to be evasive, it's just that i'm really shy. And then on a pretty, random day like this i decide to spill it all, including the stupid moments that took place in my youth. And then you all can laugh at me. But i won't mind. I won't. People have been laughing at me ALL MY LIFE UGRGH.


Let's see if my memory fails me. It's a pretty long story so I see the need to section out the parts.

Chapter 1 - It's almost like a life story because it dates way back.

So I used to be a girl guide in secondary school, and being girl guides we liked noisy cheers, playing with fire, cheesy games, scouts, and loud fun, (I seriously think there's no such thing as a quiet girl guide. Guides are all noisy. ALL.) and there's no better place where all the above converged than at campfires. Tadah! I remember loving campfires. They were the highlight of my guiding days. (: So, urm the very first time I saw raymond was at a campfire, I cannot remember which, but happy friend says that it was the queensway/commonwealth secondary one. (I forgot which she said even though she said it only 5 days ago. Yes my memory is THAT bad so you should not trust what you read in this blog.)

So anyway, at that time I was fourteen or fifteen I think, I can't really remember the details. So being the crazy Jielun fangirl I was at that time I naturally noticed this jielun lookalike sitting among the Gan Eng Seng Dragon Scouts. So happpy friend and I gushed about him for awhile during the campfire, and that was about it.

And like all cute guys you see at campfires you forget about them within a few days even with all the gushing back in school. And most importantly you never expect to see them again.


So when I saw this jielun lookalike the second time at another random campfire of course there was another mini commotion among 7 guides about this guy who looked like jielun. HAHA. Silly girls. (I know, what are the odds that there were 7 girls from the same class in girl guides right. Naturally we bonded.) =D So anyway, this jielun guy, for the second time! But still, coincidence; the west cluster schools only had that many troops what. So although what took place next appears to be a blurry smudge in my memory, i'm pretty sure the commotion lasted a little longer back in school this time. But of course this jielun lookalike was still all but a pretty stranger, a brief encounter, definitely not as forgettable as the last time, but still forgettable.
And then came the third time, which was the most vivid memory. Because I can still remember that it was held at RI, and that happy friend called dg on her phone to say that the jielun lookalike was standing on some balcony looking at the sky. And of course during the campfire I kept noticing that he was looking very disinterested. Of course anyone would be disinterested when all the RI scouts had for fire was an image on the screen, and all three performing girlguide troops had to dance to the same Jolin song. That was the worst campfire ever.
And then being the very stupid young girl I was, and the very good friends that my friends otaku and tofu are, we stalked him. YES RAYMOND I STALKED YOU FROM RI TO THE MRT STATION AND ALMOST INTO THE TRAIN, WE WERE RIGHT BEHIND YOU ALL THE WAY AND YOU DIDN'T NOTICE. (Now that you know, does that freak you out a little? You were right in calling me a stalker. -.-) Hurhur. But it also kind of happened by chance la. Cause the three of us decided to explore the RI building, and we were walking all around the school. And it just so happened that the GESS troop was still around when we'd finished exploring. So we stalked them. MAN I sound like a total loser can, fine, laugh all you want, I don't regret doing it. Not at all. Even if it sounds stupid. But hello that was age FIFTEEN can URGH. And it was the first and last time I ever stalked anyone. I swear. Cross my heart.

And after that I decided that I would like to get to know this person who looks so sad. (Now I know he looks sad because that's just the way he looks.)

And so one fine day I spoke to my cousin who was studying in GESS when we met.
"So, do you know any scout who looks like Jay Chou in your school?"
He took a while to register what I was saying.
"Mm, I think I know who you're talking about."
"Oh haha, urm, can I have his number?"
"Oh, urm I don't know him personally, but I have a friend who's a scout."
And so he gave me Boon Peng's number. (Nope, Boon Peng is not Raymond's chinese name.)

So who's this Boon Peng person you may wonder.

But I am going off to bed because I am sleepy. And I will continue the next time if I feel like it. Sheesh I am so annoying and I am finding it ridiculous that I used to be a one-time stalker.

Don't Stop Us Now.

Obsession;
if not now, then when?

On an entirely different note, I know it's annoying when people keep telling you how to live your life. When people start doing that, there're three ways of dealing with it. The first way is to comply. By listening to them because you know that fighting it will probably only make matters worse, and it probably is for your own good anyway (as they always like to say). The second way is to estrange yourself from those annoying people (and hopefully they'll just go away like the random beetle that flies into your house). But these people have a nasty habit of reappearing, always. (Not unlike the random beetle.) The last way, is to be a rebel, and do what rebels do best; rebel. Fight those annoying people till your last breath, and refuse to live the way they want you to live your life. Well afterall it's your own life, and you can bear any consequences that accompanies it right right? Rebellion is probably only for the very childish, or for the very mature. People who are in between probably can't afford it.

And on an entirely different note again, Assenav hasn't been doing a good job of keeping this blog going huh has she? Annoying brat.

Alien Abduction

No, I wish it were true, but no, too bad, Vanessa hasn't been abducted by aliens. Neither has she vanished from the face of Earth. I know some of you out there secretly wish her dead, and I hate to be the bearer of bad news BUT, she's still around, has always been, and she's irritating the hell out of me la. Dang.

In case you're wondering who I am, I am Assenav, the twin sister Vanessa never ever told you about. In fact I think none of her friends know of my existence. None. Shows how highly she thinks of me right. Well I guess I can't blame her for that, (in Vanessa's irritating voice) "who in the right mind would want the world to know of the existence of a twin sister who perpetually plots the death of random people?" That's what she always tells me when I ask her to introduce me to her friends. Well in my defence it's not that I do it for no reason, but random people really get on my nerves sometimes URGH. But hey! I do have love for humanity alright, and that applies to humans I know personally. (Which totals up to, 5?) I have a higher tolerance for them, but I never know when I'll snap lor.

Nowadays it's Vanessa who's getting on my nerves. She's really happy, prancing around the house, laughing at the littlest thing that isn't even funny. She says this is what sweet sunshiney love feels like, but I say she's gone mad. Mad I tell you. Straight out of the madhouse. When she's happy she's very happy. I pushed her into the river the other day and she didn't even mind. Crazy not? Usually she'd try to pull me in, but that day she just followed the currents and swam downriver. But then sometimes she wears this ridiculously forlorn look, and keeps her phone near her all the time, like as if the boyfriend would randomly pop out from the screen or something. That airhead.

I know, the worst thing is that she actually got me to keep the blog going for her la! I always do her sai gang for her. But there's nothing I can do about it because she's my twin sister afterall. And as much as I like to plot random people's deaths, I still have love for humankind. But at least now you guys know of my existence. There'll be more of me to come- my stupid sister is busy with her boyfriend.

Blue Monday.

So you see, there's this forlorn feeling inside, which must be something sweet.

It is when you don't feel like lifting your head to face the crowd because you know that there's no way you will see the face you want to see.
It is when your eyes meet and you want to look somewhere else, but yet at the same time can't because you can't seem to tear your eyes away.
It is when every waking moment together feels like a dream, and every moment apart almost too hard to bear.
It is when you don't want to tell anybody too much for the fear that once the words leave your lips the fragility of it all will be broken.
It is when you have nothing substantial to say, but still gripped by the need to text.
It is when what the two of you share belongs to only you both and nobody else.
It is when all you think of all day is really the other.
It is when there's this bittersweetness about it all.

Such is the Bittersweet Life.

How ironic then, that the people who make you the happiest are the very same ones who have the ability (whether they are conscious of it or not) to make you the saddest.

Today is the first day of school. Last night I was in a general state of despair over the thought of having to go back to school. And then I went online and found like minded people, and I didn't feel so alone. It helps to know that there are people out there like yourself.
But today wasn't such a bad day. In fact it was not bad at all, it was actually quite a good feeling being in school and attending the only lecture I had today with the cohort. And the better part? Buying textbooks which really are novels; most of which with pretty covers. I have to say that the texts for this semester sound pretty interesting from the synopses. (: The best part? Getting to see the very people who made school worth going to - the crazy bunch of litmates. They never fail to fill the regular schoolday with laughter.

On a side note, I was staring intently at the professor (who reminds me of Adrien Brody) during lecture today. My attention was so concentrated that if you waved a hand in front of my face your hand would burn from the heat produced from the intense force of my attention. "NEVER have I PAID such GREAT ATTENTION in my ENTIRE LIFE!" I proclaim loudly with great flourish. (But yet I couldn't answer the questions Jeffer asked me after. Apparently attention isn't paid with the eyes. What is it then? Cash? Okay I see tofu/johan/people who don't appreciate lame jokes rolling their eyes at this point, "with your ears silly/fool/moron, your ears! Duh!") Anyway, I was paying attention to the prof when I suddenly felt a tingly sensation on my right arm. I was annoyed, and looked down to brush away the what-I-thought-must-have-been-hair that was sweeping against my skin.
To my SUPREME HORROR, IT WAS NOT HAIR IT WAS A BLOODY HUGE SPIDER WITH SUPER LONG LEGS. I FROZE IN TERROR for a split second, all the while hearing a blaring voice in my head go "SWEEP IT OFF, HAND, SWEEP IT OFF NOW!" (For a moment I suspected if MightyMe had gone into my head.)
And after all that commotion in my head my left hand calmly lifted up and gently swept it off onto the ground.

And then I turned to Jeffer and said, "Jeffer, there was a huge spider on my arm just now."

Jeffer was like "Where? Where?"

I pointed behind the lecture chairs. "There, running away."

Jeffer turned her head to look and she saw this:

Daddy Long Legs.

And when she turned back her arms were covered in goosebumps.

You know when they say that sometimes during moments of extreme fright your mind experiences extreme clarity? That happened to me today for the first time in a long time. See, that's why school is fun. You learn how to cope with crisis without losing your cool. Where else can you get spiders attacking you while you're paying close attention to a professor?

This semester is starting to look damn good.

Life through Speckled Lens

This was taken on the bus on the way to Genting. The rest of them were sleeping, but I was too excited.

Yes, part of 9P went on a Genting trip on the 6th July for 3 days. Today I watched "L - Change the World." I found it funny how he was obliged to clear his huge pile of backlogged cases even when he was about to die. This has got no link to this entry whatsoever except that if you'd realised, we came back from the trip on the 8th, and today is the 27th. This entry is 19 days late. But like Johan always says, "better late than never."

This is skippy looking excited about the trip. She was having gastric all the way there, but didn't let it affect her mood. (:

This is datou looking sleepy, but still feeling excited about the trip.

Carnie looking very happy here. XD
Shy tofu was too shy, so all she put out to pose for the camera was her hand.

We are the Happy Friends.

HAHA where got people take picture with this kind of place-your-head-here-stands still put up the twist sign one! Not realistic ma!
Notice how carnie doesn't have a neck. She has one in real life. Really she does.

Finally, a picture of shy tofu.

At this point in time I realise there's an even shyer person, and that I don't have pictures of her at all.

Datou looks very cute!
This was taken by the shyer person whose name is otaku teng. Now you should understand why she's shy.

Skippy looks like she's advertising for the bottle of water here.

This is what you see when you look out of the room window to the right.

This is what you see when you look out of the room window to the left.

This is what you see when two girls start going crazy about taking photos from a hotel room window of everything else but the two of them together.

This is the mysterious, alluring, silhoutte-ish backview I fell in love with.



And the owner of the mysterious, alluring, silhoutte-ish backview I fell in love with.



Our laughter caught in the carousel, amplified a hundred times over.

This is for mel and dg.

Not Old Enough to Grow Up.

When you're feeling like the loneliest person around in the office, what do you do?


You start thinking about how right you were when you decided that you're never going to work an office job.

When on the inside you're crying silently, but on the outside people are telling you to be strong for the others, what do you do?


You take deep breaths and take it as it goes.

When people turn to you, who do you turn to?


You look towards your inner self, and you see an escapist, who triumphs, and when things start to happen you ask yourself if it's your fault.
Or whether you should even have to take any responsibility for it at all.

What do you become?


You turn into a premature adult.

Why?


I wouldn't know why. Things happen for a reason.
But no matter how I look at it, I can't find a good enough reason.

The Weekender's Promise.

It's a very happy feeling to be doing something with people you love, even if it's something as slow-moving as going up on the Singapore Flyer.

Introducing, Love of My Life 1: Anita.

Introducing, Love of My Life 2: Jianwei

And the love of their lives...

...me.

Yes, make no mistake, we are all in love with one another, and thus we decided that like all lovers, we should go up on the Flyer.

And off we go.

Bad weather will not stop the Flyer from operating, neither will it stop us from having fun.

Fun like this,

this,

this,

and this.

And then the skies could take it no longer, and decided to open up in shower.

Rain that pelted on our capsule might have formed currents in the Nile river once before.

And we continued our fun.

The rain ended almost as soon as it started, and the sky started clearing into a lovely blue.

And the sun broke through the clouds, and Anita said that no matter what, the sun will still shine through. I will remember that for a long time to come.

My favourite picture. When we saw this we collapsed in laughter.

The two dears look so happy here, how wonderful if I can see them smile so vibrantly like that every single time.

We went home giddy with laughter that day.

It's been the happiest day I've had with them in a long time. I'm so glad we went up the Flyer. It's not so much of the event per se, it's really the people. And I'm thankful that these people are in my life. Thank you both of you!

When I Stare at Daniel Craig All Day.

I have been increasing my caffeine dosage over the period of work. On the first day of work I drank Milo for my breakfast drink, and managed to stay awake the entire day. Then I started drinking coffee made with two level teaspoonfuls of coffee powder, sugar and creamer. Then I realised the height of the coffee powder on my teaspoon was getting higher as the days went by. This morning I had coffee made with two heaped teaspoonsfuls of coffee powder, sugar and creamer. 6 hours of sleep each day doesn't qualify as sufficiency. ):

Work revolves around answering questions and feeling smart about it, like as if I were an IT genius. "Please close your browser and try again some time later. And don't worry your responses would have been saved" pretty much answers a whole list of technical questions along the likes of Fatal Errors, Denied Access and urm, uuurm, you know, the rest of it.

There's a Casino Royale postcard stuck on the cabinet compartment just above my workdesk, featuring Daniel Craig clad in a tuxedo, flaunting tall stacks of gambling chips, conjuring an enigmatic pose with his face tilted 34.9 degrees right, his pupils directed to the corners of his eyes, and the fingertips of his right hand placed in ever-so-light contact with a gun. Sometimes I feel him staring at the top of my head, but when I turn to look, his slitty eyes are back to staring sideways.

Work has been occupying my time such that my morbid thoughts have been left aside. Which is good because then I don't muck around wallowing in self-pity, which is a situation I know that I am occasionally extremely susceptible to. But work doesn't really feel like work because there is virtually no work to do. I almost feel guilty updating this blog during work. And my heart skips a beat whenever people walk past my cubicle at the same time I am surfing the Internet. I almost feel guilty thinking that the company pays me to surf the Internet.
Almost.
Okay I do, I do feel guilty, sometimes. I try to improve the situation by asking the colleagues around me for work, but most of the time they don't have work for me to do.
And rather than sitting around getting paid for doing nothing, I sit around, getting paid for surfing.

And making lists.

The Weekender's To-Do list.

1. Post pictures of happy times in blog entry. (:
2. Go cycling with DG tomorrow morning.
3. Attend donut party with aforementioned friend and cousin.
4. Catch up on sleep.

When I failed, you bailed.






Why, why did you bail?











When you bail, I fail.

Sometimes We Learn, Sometimes We can Never Get it Right.

You are a trap I am aware of but keep falling into. A vortex that I cautiously try to avoid. You are a symbol in my life that represents nothing but yet so substantial. An ideal I stupidly cling on to.

Tonight I looked up in the sky and saw the stars that were always there. I thought of how much we have changed since the last time we looked at the bright dots in the sky, as well as the bits, pieces and chunks of ourselves that we have lost to growing up.

It's not difficult being around people yet feeling so alone. And that's when I start feeling rather annoyed. Annoyed that I let myself stupidly get entangled in the mind games you play. Annoyed that I tell myself everytime to take it easy but yet ignore my own advice. Annoyed that I can't seem to tell anyone what's really happening. Annoyed that the cycle never seems to break. Annoyed that I blindly pile importance and expectations on you and wait restlessly for you to step up to it, which you never do.

But it's okay, I'm used to it.
I know I can just hit the reset button when things go awry on my part.

I Wouldn't Know Until I Have Tried.

I miss the early morning ride we took in the back of your cousin's car back in Ipoh. Your cousin drove with the windows down. The wind was cold, crisp and fresh as it caressed my face. Wherever we drove to there was the constant chirping of birds. The sky was a lovely sleepy blue, there was just enough light to illuminate the words on the signs on the short buildings, but not enough to illuminate the face of the very ocassional passerby on the streets, much less the detailed patterns on the leaves of trees. There weren't many streetlights in Ipoh, unlike in Singapore, and that gave the place a strangely comforting quality. The imprint of trees against the sky has always been my favourite sight.

Life in Ipoh is nicely paced, laidback, but not that all. My first impression of the place was that we were surrounded by mountains in the distant horizon. Seemed like everywhere I turned I could see mountains in the faraway background, which was a nice feeling because everywhere you turn in Singapore you're surrounded by tall buildings. My second impression was that there are many dogs in Ipoh. There were dogs running freely on the roads, and there was a dog at the house I stayed in. Everywhere we drove we saw dogs. In Ipoh you have to drive to get somewhere because the shopping centres and buildings are pretty far apart. A whole lot of land they have.

We arrived in Ipoh at about 5 a.m. and were driven in two cars to some place like a big coffeeshop, because it was apparently the only place nearby that had light, to wait for 6 a.m. to arrive so that we could have breakfast at some dim sum place. (The dim sum was fantastic. Hoho. So many types I'd never seen before. Mmmm.) The other car almost got robbed, from the little Cantonese I understood from the adults' conversation. Apparently, 6 Malay motorcyclists took turns to ram into the back of the car, and according to one of the victims, if the driver had stopped the car and gotten down, they would have beaten him up and robbed the passengers. Quite scary considering that we had only just arrived. Fortunately there wasn't any loss or injuries sustained whatsoever. A little bit of morning terror and excitement.

The weather was sweltering hot, much hotter than Singapore in my opinion. I got slightly sunburnt staying in direct sunlight for about 2-3 hours. And you have to drink a lot of water when you're there because of the heat. Which I obviously didn't, and fell sick. Bloody hell. Kids, it's important to drink sufficient water every day, if you feel like you haven't drunk enough today, now's a good time to go get a glass. It's horrid to be sick in a foreign place without family members to take care of you. I felt a teeny bit sorry for myself for a while, and then I felt much better after a shower and bounced right back. When there's bad, it can't be bad forever-- there's always good next, and that's pretty much what I like about life.

People were speaking Cantonese everywhere around, even the non-Chinese. Amazing. Of course I also heard Malay and Mandarin being spoken. No English though, I felt a little crippled, but of course my command of Mandarin's good enough. :D Oh, I tried the famous hor fun that you find everywhere in Singapore. It's nothing like the Singaporean version. Ipoh's hor fun is the best I ever had; supremely soft and smooth. Like baby's skin, or even finer. Mmmm. The rest of the food we had was good too, maybe when I retire I'll move to Ipoh just for the food. I'm hungry now dang.

We visited a cave called "霹雳洞" (or pi li dong) which housed many statues and figurines of religious figures of either taoism or buddhism, I couldn't tell. There were paintings on the walls of the caves, and it was pretty cool in there, in all senses of the word. It was leaking though, and they were collecting donations to stop the leakages. The sun shone in through small holes in the rock formation and resulted in strong, almost solid beams of sunlight that I wanted to reach out and hold on to. But they were too high up, and it's silly to think that you can hold sunlight in your hand. I dunno, mysterious caves can make you think mysteriously silly thoughts. Oh there was a fortune teller there too, and I wanted to give it a shot because I'd never had my fortune told before. At this point I really want to say "Curiousity killed the cat." There. But I didn't get my fortune told because... because... because of mysterious reasons conceived in a mysterious cave that I have mysteriously forgotten.

Yes, Ipoh was a good experience. Our host, the aunt, was plenty nice, and got her sons and daughters to bring us around. A bunch of nice people I'd declare, although one of the sons tried to persuade us into going clubbing with him. And when we declined him twice, his ego got in the way and said "oh, luckily you all didn't agree, I was afraid you two wanted to tag along." I rolled my eyes so vigourously that they went 360 degrees in my sockets. No I didn't, that'd be rude. We just kept quiet-- I couldn't think of a comeback, our brains had retarded and been turned to mush by the heat outside. Okay I'm rambling right. But overall, still nice because he brought us around and made small talk.

And then I decided that I wouldn't mind living in Ipoh.

How We Sometimes are like Stars, or Something Along the Lines of Realisation.

The two of us are like stars. We are both fixed in position on the map of the night sky, forever kept at distance from one another. Even when the Earth rotates on its axis, orbits around the Sun, our spots in the sky don't change. From Earth's perspective, even when we move from one end of the sky to the other, we remain apart. The one following behind tries to break this order, to catch up with the one in front, but it's running an endless marathon.
Sometimes it gets cloudy. Either one star gets blocked from sight, and the other one wishes upon itself for the clouds to clear. It doesn't even mind falling if that would fulfill its wish for the other to shine. But sooner or later the clouds always clear to reveal the other. And then again I am reminded how you're always in sight, but always apart.

I Lick My Teeth.

I am looking out of the window, and the streets look so inviting at night that I am tempted to go for a walk. Something's preventing me from doing so, and it feels a little like caution, and it feels a little like Bessie's advice against staying out late. If I close the window the temptation might go away.

So instead, I decide to write an entry in this blog, because it's about the only thing that has the patience to tolerate my ramblings. I appreciate it in ways it doesn't and cannot even realise.
O why is my blog inanimate? I lament its indifference. ):

And narcissism decides to get the better of me, and I decide to make a list.

5 things you never knew, or already know, about me.

1. I like painting my nails.
I paint my nails because I've got a bad habit of picking at the skin around my fingernails, and painting them stops me from doing so.

2. I am often in a dilemma over painting my nails vs cutting them short to facilitate in guitar/keyboard playing.
I do have the urge to make some music-sounding noise sometimes. I can't even play the guitar properly with my nails short, nevermind them being long. Long nails click horribly on the keys of the keyboard and when that happens I feel like cutting them off. But then I am faced with the possibility of the bad habit returning, so I usually just mope around until I lose the urge to make more music-sounding noise. ): But sometimes I choose to heed my musical calling and cut my nails till they are really short.

3. I sometimes talk to inanimate objects.
Like this blog. And my guitar which I had (impulsively) named Cherrystone. And the Spongebob stuffed toy. And Vanny the monkey. And my daily planner. And sometimes to the general crowd of inanimate objects in sight. And sometimes to air. Oh and I talk to some insects too. Only some though, those I am not afraid of, like flying ants and moths. Only. I occasionally talk to myself in the mirror too. And trust me, I am not loony.

4. My conversation skills (when I am with most real people) are almost nonexistent.
I perpetually lack appropriate topics to talk about, and sometimes appropriate responses to what people are saying. When people ask me to talk I clam up even more. Gah. I don't like it-- having nothing to say, and having people ask me to talk. ): But of course there are some who I am extremely comfortable with, and that's a different case altogether.

5. I didn't know how to spell acoustic until end of last year.
I don't seeing spelling mistakes on posters and signs, and when I was with Lim and George at DXO, there was this poster which said "Acoustic band" or something like that and I pointed at it and said "acoustic's spelt wrongly isn't it? It should be double c right?" And then Lim pointed out that I was wrong and that "acoustic" is spelt the way it is on the poster. Ah. What can I say, we're never too old to learn spelling.

Speaking of which I was watching the Scripps National Spelling Bee on ESPN the other day, and it was amazing the kind of words that actually exist in this world. I can't even remember what words the kids were asked to spell, and they were like, 12 to 14 year olds?
This twelve year old was asked to spell 'bulbul'. Yes I know it's a bird and you've heard of it before. That was not so bad. Another guy was asked to spell 'torii', which is Japanese. Why would they test them on Japanese?! Another was tested on the word 'trophallactic'. And this-- 'cryptococcosis'. Or how about 'sciuromorph'? (My jaw drops.) Whaaaaaaaaat...? And this was only round 7. They went all the way to round 16. Words like 'écrasé', 'aptyalism', 'esclandre' and 'hyphaeresis' don't even sound like English to me. Some of them probably aren't I wouldn't know.

Urgh. But those kids are terribly brilliant. Wow. I'd make my kid take part in a Spelling Bee in future like an evil parent. That is if I even have kids in the first place.

Abundant Growth of Lalang

There's nothing quite like watching aeroplanes take off on the runway about 500 metres away. It's an inexplicable rush of adrenaline that makes you want to whoop for joy, scream against the loud roar of the engines, and to become a pilot.

There's also nothing quite like watching aeroplanes drop really low, flying in for landing, especially when they fly over a body of water with the beam from their headlights reflecting off the surface. It's inexplicably overwhelming, and it makes you want to grin widely like a silly fool and throw your hands up in the air, scream against the loud roar of the engines, and to sit there forever, counting the planes that come in.

There's also nothing like the fleeting quality of the moment, like as if the beauty of plane watching lay in its repetitive transience.

We talked, we sang and we laughed on our tour de east.

When you were taken away from this world, how did it feel like for you?

For me it felt like the invisible ropes binding us together were cut, and all I have left to rely on are photographs we took together - your face and all of its expressions caught in my head - written excerpts in my diary of the things we did - letters you wrote to me - that particular scent you used to wear - your name off my lips -- all of which I would have to stow away in a safe place, a place where I can visit to relive our pristinely preserved memories over and over again, a place where Time is inconsequential, an impregnable fort which even Time's acidity cannot corrode.

I kept you in my wretched heart for a long while. With every turn of the head I caught your silhouette in my peripheral sight, but when I looked you had vanished. You only existed in another dimension--the psychological dimension of peripherals. With every waking morning my eyes could hardly open, dried and crusted by the tears they'd shed the night before. With every impulse to call you I get crushed by the vacuum on the other end of the line. With every nightfall the pain intensified.

The crippling loss left me struggling to keep afloat in the sea of people I'd immerse myself in to remind myself that I am still alive. I think when you died a part of me died too.

The day you went away the only place that Time couldn't reach, where the memory of you could have been kept pristine and undefiled, was destroyed. When you left the world you took a fragment of my heart with you into the unknown. Over the years I tried to replace that missing fragment with anything I could find-- happiness, excitement, new friends, peace, anger, a pet dog, delirium-- but nothing worked. You held the missing piece which could only be returned if you came back to life. But you didn't, and I gave up on the thought that you ever will.

Time attempted to fill up the gaping hole that you had left by slowly blurring and dissolving our shared memories. They couldn't remain pristine, and when the yellowed photographs faded, so did the pain I felt.

But you remain irreplaceable.

It was selfish of you to leave me alone here like that. I think I was angry at you for a while. I got angry when I thought about you leaving the pain you couldn't feel in death behind leeching onto the lives of those who were still around in the world. But of course I know you didn't mean to.

You didn't mean to.

This is when I am having difficulty distinguishing dreams from reality.

Certain scenarios I cannot remember if they belong in my dreams, or whether they had really happened.

So there's this deep, hollow feeling that has been plaguing me and I can't explain it.


I think we all occasionally feel hollow.

Sick Sad Little World.

Something is wrong with the world when at any point in time in your cosy circle of close friends you have more sad friends than happy ones.

Recently the number of sad friends in my cosy circle has been increasing. And it's heartwrenching that when we meet up, they do such a good job of keeping their feelings under wraps, their faces straight or even smiling, such that I can't seem to detect the possible undercurrents of sadness that they might be feeling inside. Which makes me feel quite lousy when I find out after that they'd been putting up brave fronts. I admire them because they're considerate about other people around them which makes me love them even more because they must be feeling very crappy inside. ): My lovely friends deserve better.

"If I had one ray of sunlight to hold in my hand

Maybe we can be happy again."

Rachie sent me this Phantom Planet song while we were in J1 if I remember correctly. And I think of her when I listen to it. She's currently in Australia, and feeling unwell. ): At times like this I am helpless, and all I can do is to tell her to drink more water and get sufficient sleep, which is hardly any comfort. It must be hard on her, and all I can take comfort in is that at least there is the Beng to take care of her. She's coming back on 30th June, which is about one month from now, and I am looking forward to that. The last time she came back for a period of two months we only met like what, 3 times? I know it was so silly.

Previously, on Tuesday I went cycling with Yanni at Sentosa in a weak attempt to take her mind off stuff. I realised cycling is an activity that allows you think more about stuff. My bad. Although she said she had fun at the end of the day, it still made me feel kinda bad, especially after I read what she wrote, that she was actually hurting a lot inside. She is silently resilient like that. What she wrote made me face up to the fact that perhaps our friendship needed a bit of tweaking and repairing. I'm going to work on it because after all like she said, 十三年半的友情绝对不是蓋的。I don't even know what the second last character means, but I figured it probably translates to something like, thirteen and a half years of friendship definitely is for real. (Enlightenment anyone?) Sometimes, the way I look at this relationship, we are like a married couple with kids, and we know that the other one is around at close proximity, but we just don't see that need to reach out to each other. Yanni is my oldest friend, and I have known her for more than half my life, and all I know is that I have to be there for her.

Anita, the one who has the world on her shoulders to bear. Some time back, I had the revelation that she's the strongest person I ever knew. Don't be fooled by her whiny antics and her ah lian appearance. I think most people don't have an inkling of the things she has to go through. It's pretty amazing how she does it, and I know that she's not getting much help. From Anita I learnt that things happen when they want to, and all you can do is to face them head on. By the strength that she thinks she does not have, I am secretly inspired, because in obscure and strange ways, I see it in her. Some of you must be thinking, "What can Anita possibly be going through? I've been through much worse in MY life." This is where some of you may be wrong. Or this might be where I am wrong to think that most of you couldn't have been through what Anita is having to go through right now. But from what I know, Anita deserves much, much better. Salute, and a big pat on the back for her!

Went out with jiawen, poon and evey last Saturday. Jiawen was her usual crappy and crazy self. I swear being with them brings out the noisy side of me. Well, YES I AM USUALLY QUIET and I will push you to the ground if you disagree. So anyway, I think jiawen was probably troubled over certain stuff, but the way she carried herself that night was admirable. She was positively sprightly, and proactive, trying to secure every chance she has to achieve what she wanted. I know whatever she's going through must be disheartening, I know for sure that if it happened to me I'll lock myself in the room and sleep for one whole week before I come to terms with it, but that's not jiawen to mope about. I know we don't meet up very often, but I enjoy every moment that we do.

Have been meeting up with skippy a few times, and this lamo never fails to make me laugh each time. She doesn't wear her hurt on her face, and is forever making lame jokes that I lamely laugh at. Haha. I know. It's a certain vibe cultivated by 7 years of friendship that runs through the 9pees. I still think it's pretty amazing really. With skippy it's not easy to convince her that she can do better than that. But in reality we all think that she can, and we are sometimes exasperated because we can't seem to successfully put that across to her. I think that being in TP dance has changed her tremendously. Skippy doesn't voice out the distress that she is experiencing when she is out with us, neither does she let it affect her and in turn affecting us. Sometimes there are glimmers which hint that she had let down her guard for a moment there, but most of the time they come and go as quickly, and all at once she is looking at you with normalcy on her face again. What I think she needs now is time, a LOT of time. And really skippy, THE NEXT ONE WILL BE BETTER.

Everyone I know can be my greatest inspiration at times.

Honestly people, Honesty.

An exhilarating experience, in which I lost my pretty mobile phone, and got it back the next day by tracking down and going after the person who took it with the help of a cleverly implanted tracking device in the memory card slot.

Well no actually the Nice Person who picked up my pretty mobile phone handed it over to the security personnel of the Cathay, and they called me saying that my phone has been found. Long live the Nice Person, you had just accumulated good karma!

And therefore I decide to make a list of my Pet Peeves. (Which really has nothing to do with the above incident.)

A List of My Pet Peeves:

Peeve No. 1: When people ask me questions while I am brushing my teeth and am therefore unable to answer them due to toothpaste lather in my mouth.

The only time I get an inexplicable to urge to respond to questions is when I am brushing my teeth, and I am annoyed that at the only time that I want to give a response I am prevented from doing so by toothpaste lather, and I therefore get irritated at the person who asked the question. Chances that the other person actually gets what you're saying through the toothpaste lather is supremely slim, so I just feel irritated and keep quiet instead of trying to reply.

Peeve No. 2: When people talk, be it to me or to each other, when I am watching TV.

I get irritated when I cannot hear the TV set. Especially when I'm watching a programme like House, with fast and witty dialogue, and bombastic medical jargon, or Lost, which relies rather heavily on sound and atmospheric effect. Well actually I get irritated too when someone talks during Spongebob Squarepants. Okay I just have a problem with the TV set being drowned out by people's voices. Urgh.

Peeve No. 3: When any part, and by that I mean like the sleeve or handbag or arm or hair, of any random stranger on the street comes into contact with any part of me.

Basically this means that I hate coming into any kind of unintended physical contact with strangers on the street. I think it's probably an extension of my misanthropic tendencies. The other day on the bus the lady beside me kept digging in her bag, and her arm was brushing against mine. I leaned away from her, but her arm just kept touching mine, so I turned my head and looked at her. She didn't show any sign of knowledge that I was looking at her, but the arm brushing did stop. I am MEAN like that grrr. But I am only mean to strangers, so if you're my friend it's okay. BUT it's NOT okay if you're my friend and you speak to me when I am brushing my teeth, or talk when I am watching TV because I will still get pissed.

Peeve No. 4: When I get woken up by noises coming from my room door opening and people walking in, of people talking, the radio or TV, or the telephone ringing etc. Exception of noise from the alarm clock that I set with the intention of being woken up by.

(Urm sidetrack, THERE'S A COCKROACH IN MY BATHROOM!! AAAAAAAAH!!! I just came back from the kitchen, where I was washing my face, and in the midst of washing I thought I saw a moth flying to my left, so I turned to look. But there was no moth, so I stared at the space for a while, and TO MY HORROR THE COCKROACH CRAWLED INTO SIGHT ON THE BATHROOM DOOR. I am freaked out because I had used the toilet about 3 minutes ago, which means that I probably had been enclosed in the small space with the big cockroach for about half a minute. It's a pretty unbearable thought. Once again, attestation that ignorance is bliss. I hope it gets knocked out with one long jet of insecticide, because that is all I managed to spray at it before it crawled out of sight. Illogical fear that it might fly onto me keeps me bay.)

So as I was saying, I do not like being awoken by noise. Who in the right mind does anyway? Oh then again I can't say for sure.

I am pretty sure that's not all of my pet peeves, but I can't think of anymore at the moment.

But anyway, I am majorly thankful to the Nice Person who picked up my pretty mobile phone. Maybe cynicism should be kept to the minimum.

Curiousity Killed Who?

What happens when you get a moment of unexpected clarity of a third-person-kind on the situation that is happening that you are caught in with your friends?

Not unlike an out-of-body experience, you feel the urge to go back into your self that is currently caught in said situation, and pretend that the moment of unexpected clarity never happened, and that you can continue ambling along with the same views you had and be agreeable and all, but no, it does not happen that way. Unexpected moments of clarity are irreversible.

It's unfortunate how people set standards for others based on their own yardsticks. I find myself doing that quite often, especially to my family members. I know, it's pretty sad how restricted the mind can be right? It's unsettling when people try to impose their opinions and experiences on you. (Like what I'm trying to do to you by writing this entry. Bloody hell, there's no such thing as being unbiased is there.)

I was disturbed today when I went out with dt and skippy.

dt: "Ay I bought this Snapple lip balm online, it's disgusting."
And she proceeds to take the lip balm out, which was amusingly designed like a Snapple drink.

dt uncaps it: "Smell it! It smells sweet, but it tastes horrible."
Skippy and I both smell it, and yes it smelled sweet.

dt: "Taste it!"

Skippy did.
"Urgh" and she made a face.

I did.

Me: "It's sweet!"
dt: "Nooo."
Skippy: "No it's not! It's bitter, with a bit of metallic taste!"

"It tasted sweet to me."
"NO it's NOT."

Well okay. I don't know what happened there, but I swear on my life it tasted sweet. And I sure as hell wouldn't have mistaken bitter for sweet.

And then reality went into magnifying glass mode and I was quiet for a while.

And then I came up with the conclusion that it's tiring to be a human brain, and that if there ever is a next life I would not want to become a human brain, because then I'd be subjected to too many different opinions and sayings and beliefs and whatnots that I'd be a very confused brain, and the human I am residing in would be a very confused human.
You see, the thing is, everything they tell you - how do you know everything you hear can be trusted? You want to believe yourself, and believe what you come away with from every different experience. And then there are people, especially when they're more than one, who tell that no, THAT's not it, it's like THIS. And when you insist on believing yourself, then you are minority, and susceptible to doubting yourself, if you'd made the right judgement, that maybe if everybody around you say that it's THIS way, then it must be THIS way, and there must be some mistake you made along the way.

Which is why Procrastibuddy says that she only believes herself.
But what if I'm wrong?
What if the lip balm was really bitter, and the sweetness I tasted was imagined?
And had I tried to impose that on dt and skippy I'd be unreasonable, because they had tasted that bitter taste after all.

Ugh fuck it. Numbers will be my best friends from now on.

High on Air

This is moments after the rain.

The green looks especially green, and the air feels especially airy. Emerging from puddles of water, even my feet look cleaner and fairer against the blue of my slippers. I am almost skipping home from the bus stop today because the soundtrack of Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium is playing in my earphones, and the glorious surroundings are making feel chirpy inside. It is a moment of pure magic, I swear. Alexandre Desplat (the composer) is brilliant. (Although I am certain that some of the magic is coming from my having watched the movie, nevertheless, it's good music.)

And it's rather lovely how music always changes the mood.

I decide that if I ever have a dog, it'd be a golden retriever, and it'd be called Hamilton. Or Milcote. Or AJ - yes, that's it. AJ sounds like a cute generic name for golden retrievers. Or I could name it Bob, like as in Bobdog. Okay bad joke. Or I could call it Harry, although I think Harry, like Baldwin, is generally a wrong name whether on guys, ladies or animals. (Unless you're thinking of a snake named Harry. But I think snakes should be named Sissy because it rhymes with Hissy.) Or I could call it Danny. Danny sounds like a pleasant golden retrieverish name. Nah. AJ still sounds better because the name itself sounds like a bundle of energy. (I mean it rhymes in an obscure way, like EN-ER-GY --- N-A-J. But anyway.) I like them because they're big and furry, (like bears, but bears are fierce) nice and friendly, and boundy. Always bounding.

Them golden retrievers look like they'd make lovely friends, and I won't mind having one as a friend. (:

But anyway.

p.s. I'm sorry tofu, that we cannot celebrate your birthday today, but I promise we'll make it up to you!

Maybe the Moon can see Me.

You know how some things simply lose their magic because you were foolish enough to have thought that by verbalising it there wouldn't be a difference?
But there always is a difference when you say things out loud, which makes it better sometimes to keep your thoughts to yourself, and be selfish for a bit, while the world continues its rotation on its imaginary axis.

It is okay to be self-centred for a while, to be the core of my own universe every now and then.

It is okay to tap my feet in time to the music that is playing in my earphones and bob my head with the beat and pretend that it is due the train carriage's instability.

It is okay to be awkward in social situations and fade into the background, rather than try, and make things even more awkward.

It is okay to not try sometimes.

It is okay to have (momentarily) lost direction in life.

It is okay to be convinced that it just a momentary thing.

It is okay to give up dreams when financial means don't allow them.

It is okay to think that I have got the best family in the world.

It is okay to dislike the rain sometimes, and like it at other times.

It is okay be politically apathetic and not read the newspapers in order to keep up with current affairs.

It is okay to want to cry, and then cry, because I feel like I have screwed up one module.

It is okay to feel loved one moment, and feel lonely the next.

It is okay to be living in this world without knowing what it's really like to have lived in another country in another life.

It is okay to go on about things that I think are okay to experience.

It is okay to think about lost friends sometimes, and wonder if things could have worked out differently one way or another.

It is okay to fall in love with an inanimate object.

It is okay to dislike noisy children.

It is okay that I have never travelled in an aeroplane before, and not feel like it is blasphemy.

It is okay to feel sad because of most of the things I think that are okay which really are not, on hindsight.

It is okay to talk to my blanket.

It is okay to bite myself when I am very, very frustrated.

It is okay to grow up.

It is okay to believe in purely aesthetics without deeper meaning.

It is okay to pick up calls from people who rarely do so, and try to carry out normal conversation.

It is okay to feel down for a bit.

It is okay in wanting to be left behind by the world.




It is okay, really.

Hi Paps!

Three sharp raps on my bedroom door sucked me back into the shitty dump that is reality.

"Come in."

The door opens and behold, MightyMe storms in.

"What are you doing online when you should be STUDYING?!" she booms.

"But tonight is rest night..."

"Why you insolent brat, don't you take that tone with me!"

"Urm, what tone? That's how I normally speak," I whimper. I always seem to be whimpering around her. "And I can't start studying when I've got one more assignment due."

"Then? My problem ah? Get it DONE LA!"
I didn't know MightyMe spoke Singlish.

"Oh okay, I will when I've thought of a direction for the essay."

She glared at me and I mysteriously shrank.

"That will take you eons, don't think I don't know you!"

With that she closed my IE window, and opened a blank Word document.

"DO!" She booms.

I experience a bad case of deja vu.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Papa is amazingly brilliant at solving the Rubik's cube. I mean, not that he managed to get all six sides, but he did simultaneously get four sides almost done, which I think is not bad, not bad at all, really. He is secretly brilliant like that, and I never knew this before he attempted the cube. I've got new found respect for him, and currently he's probably the coolest dad around. (Unless you compare him to Will Smith's character in the Pursuit of Happyness, but then I don't know Will Smith personally, so Philip is the next best.)

Oh and he once told me before that he named himself after the character Pip from Dickens' Great Expectations, whose real name is Philip Pirrip. The more I think about it, the more wonderful my dad is turning out to be.

I remember Philip did an art assignment for me when I was in Primary School. I was supposed to sketch a gourd, and he did such a lovely job that the piece got selected for the year-end art exhibition in school. Of course he never gained the recognition he deserved for that piece of art. I was full of admiration for him then. Only recently did the memory of this incident resurface, and once again like history repeating itself, I am filled with admiration for him.

This is Papa in new light, like I have never known him before.

Peppercorn Mourn.

The last book of the Harry Potter series is the ultimate tear jerker. First few chapters into the book and I was tearing. Last few chapters got me crying quite badly.

I think it might be PMS.

I think this qualifies as a still from a horror film.
Or a still from my life it it were a movie.

A Hundred Days and Ninety-Nine Nights.

This fine morning I was rudely awakened by a stranger hovering beside my bed. I felt her presence even before I opened my eyes, and when I eventually did, she immediately said

"Oi you! Wake up and do your assignment!"

And I'm like all groggy, "Unnggxhh. whooo aare yooou?"

And she's like, " I'm your MightyMe."

And, not unlike a retard, I go "Whoooo?"

And she goes "Whomighty shoomighty. MightyMe! I'm your MightyMe! I'm the part of you you never knew existed."

I swallow a large amount of saliva that has been collecting under my tongue and it tasted like lack of sleep.
"Uuurm I'm going to go back to bed okaaaay."

"Oh no you don't! Stop running away from things like you always do! Wake up and continue on that wretched assignment!" she hollers. And for someone so petite, I've got to admit she's got an irritatingly loud voice. "Wake up! WAKE UP! WAKE UP NOW!"

I sat hunched on the edge of the bed and looked at the life form in front of me. MightyMe looked nothing like me. For one she had impeccably neat short hair, matched with impeccably creaseless clothes. I felt like the grubbiest, dirtiest girl on earth just sitting there looking at her.

"Urm, I'm gonna go wash up. Catch you around, bye."

"Bye? No, don't you shoo me off like that with a wave of your hand and on the word 'bye'. I'm here to stay, and there is nothing else you can do about it but to accept it and to accomodate."

With that MightyMe yanked me up from bed and plopped me down in front of the computer and opened the Word document that is my assignment.

"DO!" she booms.

"Okay," I whimpered, looking eye-level at her timidly, and proceed to contribute to the mass of words on my screen.

"You'd better submit this TOday or ELSE..." she menacingly growls.

"Yes ma'am." I meekly reply.

This is going to be one hell of a journey.

Oh, turd.

Yesterday I went on a walk with Bessie and we talked.

"I want to be happy everyday."

"You know that's not possible right, if you're happy everyday, it wouldn't be happiness, it'd be reduced to normalcy."

"Come again? I didn't absorb that."

"You see, if you were happy everyday, you wouldn't think of it as being happy, it'd just be an average feeling, because in order for one to feel happiness, one has got to not feel happiness in the time prior to the onslaught of happiness. It has to be a cycle you see. That's how things work."

"Well, ol-- no I mean, middle-aged people see things very differently."

"Hahaha."

When people ask me if I like what I'm doing in school, I am sometimes momentarily at loss for words. Because it's not that simple an answer like yes or no. I always find myself having to weigh out the pros and cons each time before giving an answer. Most of the time I know that I like it, but again I don't want to give any false impressions that I like everything about it. Things are always changing, and in a sense I don't like that. Why I might be saying that I don't like change now, and in another 10 minutes I might say that change is the best thing that can ever happen. How drastic, this concept of inconsistency.

Nowadays it's increasingly difficult to find someone to confide in. I know my friends are there, but to what extent are they there when they've got a whole lot of other stuff to worry about? It's becoming more and more apparent that school, work, significant other halves, projects, CCAs, physical distance do drive some mightily big wedges between us. It's like there's always something more important. Something. And it really isn't that appropriate lamenting to you about me when you've always got that something which is really much more significant. I dunno.

One thing that's obvious though, is that when you don't ask, people don't tell. More and more I am relying on extremely superficial indicators like MSN nicknames and blog entries to keep me updated on people and the state they're in now. And even then those aren't accurate indicators.

And you really don't want to start thinking about those who are absolutely inactive online, because that's too much to cope with. It doesn't help that people are too busy to meet up, or to even talk on the phone. And then you've got to worry about those who are just terrible telephone conversation partners, like me. It really doesn't help that in meeting up I've got to be very, very comfortable with you before I really start talking, like, talking you know. Sometimes you just find that you don't know what to say, and sometimes there's just so much to say but you don't know if it's too much, and all that comes out is a morose sounding "yea. haha," and then you feel utterly stupid, to the extent of wanting to kick yourself.

And there are topics of conversation to worry about. Why are things made tedious that way?

I want a strawberry sundae right now, but because I am about to declare hermitship for about 3 weeks, I think I'll save it for 3 weeks later.

Okay. Hermitship, now.

In (Lesser) Memoriam

The first time I came into contact with a lifeless human body was when my Grandma died. I was fifteen then, and that was an age where you're too young to even start and try to comprehend the workings of the world, but too old to reach out for your parents. Two things at age nineteen I'm pretty sure of though, is that you're never going to be able to even start comprehending the workings of the world, and that you'll never be too old to reach out to your parents.

When I walked into the front door I saw that everyone was separated by space - at least in my memory they were, and I don't know how much this memory has altered. You know how sometimes you're so absolutely certain that some things you'll remember for life, (how can you ever forget, how?) and then in a while you don't know what to think because everybody tells you that memories are capable of change? But you were so sure... or maybe not.

The elders were standing around the dining table, each clearly buffered by a pocket of space from the other. I have got no impression of the cousins though. I only remember one or two of them sitting on the steps to the second storey. I don't even remember Carolyn being present. Maybe she wasn't, maybe she was. Should I ask her or will that be awkward. Why should it be awkward now that 4 going on 5 years have passed right? Not that it matters now, because these dregs of minute details will eventually dilute in time to come.

Phillip and Bessie went into the room, and I followed, because that seemed to be the right thing to do. Can the dead hear then, because I was speaking to Grandma with a voice in my mind. She used to speak Cantonese, and I used to call her Po po. I've got a photograph of her feeding me rice off the table with a pair of chopsticks, and I've got one of me watching her watch me play with Mickey Mouse. I don't have any photographs after the age of ten taken individually with her. I didn't even know how old she was exactly.

I held her hand, and it was cold.
I got scared.
She was lying on the bed, looking like she was sleeping. But the difference was that she wasn't breathing, and that made all the difference in the world. I was afraid of the Po po I saw lying on the bed that night.
She wasn't the Po po I knew. Not anymore.

I cannot remember if Bessie cried. I left the room when the coldness from her hand passed on into mine. I joined my cousin on the steps, sombre, not knowing if it was appropriate to even smile. We talked about school. I think the ambulance arrived at this point.
They put a white cloth over Grandma.

It was not nice. All of it. All of it was not nice.

They embalmed the body for the funeral. I remember thinking that Po po's face now looked like plastic. We all had to wear black and white, and we stayed up through the night, almost every night.
I got scared when I looked into the coffin, because I was afraid that Po po would open her eyes. After all, I was fifteen then, and that was an age where you're too young to even start and try to comprehend the workings of the world, but too old to reach out for your parents.

We had to kneel a lot in the prayers the temple people chanted. There were many people I didn't recognise who came. There were a lot of joss sticks to light. I had to exchange schoolbags with Jiawen because mine was in bright red, while hers was in grey and blue, and I had to go to the funeral after school, and at funerals you're not supposed to have anything brightly coloured on you.

The most terrible part was the incineration.
They put Po po into the fire.
All that came out was ash, and chunks of bones that the fire couldn't and wouldn't consume, like it knew we needed physical proof that she was gone, and at the same time needed something to linger.

On the way back in the bus we were all quiet, drinking our packet drinks, like it was taboo to speak.

At the age of nineteen my grandma comes to mind occasionally.
And on a night like this, I wonder.

We Learn. Every Day.

Would you still be friends with me when you find out that I have done the following:


1. Shaved my head completely bald in a fit of intense frustration over the collective of hay that constantly flops down my short forehead. Without hair my forehead looks like it extends all the way to my nape. There's no knowing where my forehead starts from/end at because the barber did such an amazing job that it looks like I either waxed my head to remove all hair roots as well, or was born without pores on my scalp such that hair cannot grow. In other words my head is now smooth as a marble, literally, and when you touch it it feels like a baby's ass - minus the fine hair on the baby's ass of course.


2. Went to the barber's instead of the hairdresser's to shave aforementioned head.

3. Officially changed my name to Baldwin because of a simple thought which grew into dislike for the name, which eventually got me hung up on, which snowballed into something like fascination, and then it become an obsession. Thus I am now known as Baldwin Tan. Suits my hairless image fine too.


4. Bathed, when I say bathed I mean I shampooed my head of thick long hair (when I still had a head of thick long hair) and soaped the entire surface area of my fat body, with just one full pail of water, which I amazingly found out, is still excessive. I shall start campaigning for "One Pail Per Bath" in a bid to save water. Lovely.


5. Sat at a coffeshop in Avenue 4, where I was positively sure I was the youngest around, thinking of how much is excess when it comes to thinking of a person. (Is it me being fussy, or do you detect a subtle difference between "thinking OF a person" and "thinking ABOUT a person".) And then enjoying it.








6. Has lied to you twice in this entry alone, specifically in saying that I've done points 1, 2 and 3. Did you really think that I'd go to a barber, huh? A barber?!







And no, I wasn't lying when I said that I bathed with just one full pail of water. Go on try it! (: