My body is a cage
That keeps me from dancing with the one I love
But my mind holds the key.
Didn't actually want to blog but then it started raining, so my choice was made for me. Thank god for rainy days like this. Esp on a day when I'm feeling all moody and reflective and depressed right from the get-go. Idk why I'm feeling like that (actually I sort of do but it would be unbecoming and uncharacteristic of me to blatantly share like that) but when the rain started I just thought ah at least the heavens are in alignment with me. Okay actually nth so dramatic or hocus-pocus, but you get my point.
So I sort of cheerioed up a little, at this divine sign of acknowledgment. Simple pleasures.
So I'm gonna keep it short and hopefully sweet. You'll be the judge of that. I should really stop judging myself and evaluating myself etc etc. Story for another day.
Let's stick to Arcade Fire, which I think I can safely classify under - epiphany - or maybe - revelation - or sth similar. Only really listened to Crown of Love previously, but now.. Almost non-stop since I woke up heh.
So there was that song My Body is a Cage. It was a striking coincidence to that dancing bit I had in my previous post and I thought the lyrics are so poignant. I know that one day I'll regret my lack of dancing bones and that one day I'll long to dance with the girl I love (with all my heart, both the longing and the loving) but that I'll be unable to cause I'm just so inadequate. And that my body will never be able to convey in its truest form, the expression of love I have so painstakingly conjured up in my mind. And that one day I will be so heartbroken cause I'll never be able to fully describe to the girl I love how much I love her, because of the limitations that our bodies, that words, language, impose upon us. And I think of how beautiful it would be if our minds could one day dance with each others', I think of our thoughts taking flight and interweaving in the most beautiful manner possible.
One day we will be free of our cages, and I refuse to believe that this life is all there is, and so I fiercely believe in the Heaven waiting for us at the end of our transient existences here on Earth.
I'm not even taking my faith into account here, I just think it's something people have to believe in. There are so many things in the previous paragraph I could (and secretly want to) talk at length about, but I'll leave it at that cuz I know my penchant for going on and on and on and on. Next.
There's this song 'Laika' which is the name of the first dog spent into space. A canine cosmonaut, or maybe, canimonaut? Haha sry. And I sort of have an inkling of a story in my head now, either about a canimonaut (okay it's a terrible term, I'll stick to using Laika) or about being sent away, for good. She died, by the way, from overheating shortly after entering orbit, I think. Hmm I might try to write the story but maybe the moment of inspiration is gone now and it'll come out terrible (as always?) sigh.
Then there's Wake Up. I didn't actually read the lyrics until today, cause I was just caught up with the magnificence of the music last night. Then I read it and I was like, woah. It's just simply arresting & staggering. I had my mind blown for a while, I think, then I recovered my wits just in time to blog about this.
Something filled up
My heart with nothing
Someone told me not to cry
But now that I'm older
My heart's colder
And I can see that it's a lie
This part was so awesome in how it doesn't seem to make sense, at least not on the surface. He's older and his heart's colder (so well-put, really) but he realizes it's a lie - to not cry, that is. He realizes that there are things worth crying over, that it's a lie when people tell you to harden your heart and to bury things (which slowly eat you up, fact.) and to repress your emotions, and you slowly and inexorably become cold and unfeeling and emotionless. Don't believe them. Never never never never believe what they say. Never.
Children, wake up
Hold your mistake up
Before they turn the summer into dust
I think this is about how we shouldn't be afraid to make mistakes. To never let our fears govern us.
If the children don't grow up
Our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up
We're just a million little gods causing rainstorms
Turning every good thing to rust.
This part was just simply brilliant. The use of the simplest words here to paint pictures so breathtaking. What an amazing way to describe growing up - Our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up - and I choose to think of the second part as a picture of people all over the world crying. Goosebumps.
I guess we'll just have to adjust
I thought this was such a sad statement to describe the world as it is, that sooner or later all of us are going to have to adjust, to this grown-up world of indifference and hurt. And because I think that this song is essentially about growing up and lost innocence, that adjusting is such a sad way to describe growing up. Ohwell.
With my lightning bolts a-glowin'
I can see where I am going to be
When the reaper, he reaches and touches my hand
With my lightning bolts a-glowin'
I can see where I am going
With my lightning bolts a-glowin'
I can see where I am going
You better look out below!
I loved this part because of how childlike it is, what with the music and the lightning bolts. And the part about the reaper is such a poetic way to describe death isn't it. Somehow the lyrics harken back to the days of our childhood where we were allowed to dream of having superpowers like flying (on wings, or on winged shoes, or on thunderclouds, or on magic carpets, or) and being able to hurl lightning bolts and fire and ice etc etc.
So maybe it's a way of saying, be a child again, and "you can see where you are going" i.e. enlightenment or sth along those lines.
Yep hope you enjoyed reading all that and maybe agreed with some of the things I thought. This is the first time I ever dissected a song like that haha. Ofcourse it could mean a million different things, but today this is what I think it's about.
Well this wasn't exactly short, but that's about it now. Except that my facebook experiment to look for dinner kakis has sort of failed quite sadly, in that I had practically no replies whatsoever haha! Imma have dinner alone I guess, maybe I'll check out clementi's new shopping centre? Hope they don't just have all the same-old same-old boring fare and franchises!
Happy Easter Sunday and Happy Whatever it is you're doing now!
Sunday 24 April 2011
"Oh Don't Talk Of Love," the shadows purr.
Sigh it's me again. As of my last post, I've watched No Strings Attached and youtubed. Did not read. Did not write. Did not do anything the world deems useful really. That means in the eyes of people I will be perceived as useless. Perceptually useless, conceptually useless, plain useless.
Not an ounce not one grain of regret though. Haha! I'm still stuck on the "YouTube mix for The xx" to be honest. Them, Young Marble Giants, Portishead, even abit of The Cure and Shriekback (Nemesis is terrifically retro eh! That guy looks like he's from the mummy or sth and those masks are just awful/some haha.) Not Aaliyah though, so weird to have her songs on the playlist -.-
Can't decide which of them are most awesome atm, everytime a new song starts I think "This is sheer brilliance" and I'm confounded all over again. Really like the ending of Islands' video and the lamp swinging in VCR and and and and and aiyo!
The xx - You've Got The Love (feat. Florence)
I thought this was just amazing! The stark contrast in The xx's minimalist bleakness and black emo outfit and their facial expressions with Florence's red hair and crazy amazing vocals and vivacity. Speaking of which, here's Roads by Portishead.
Portishead - Roads
Actually (and I'm pretty sure that this is the accurate meaning) I think the song is about that moment in your life when you suddenly realize life isn't peaches and cream like you were told all your life. Usually around 18-22 years old, your quarter-life crisis. You struggle to adapt to the adult world and find yourself and find your way in life, this can include spirituality. Sturggle to be a good person and struggle to cope with the world's woes.......etc. - One of the comments on the song on songmeanings.com.
Which is why it's my go-to website for song lyrics! Always interesting to see some of the brilliant interpretations of songs in the comments. And it's also the source of quite a fair bit of the music I listen to, I just trawl through the top 100 songs and try them out. Haha sounds like such a geeky thing to do (almost as bad as trolling on forums! which i've always wanted to do for kicks actually) duznnit!
But it's where I discovered Dog Days Are Over, Sweet Disposition, We Are The People, Little Lion Man, Home (is wherever I'm with you!) Beirut, Fleet Foxes, Manchester Orchestra, yada yada yada yadadadada. Argh so many bands&songs I doubt I'm gonna sleep tonight!!
Sheesh, I willingly lead myself into all these kinds of stuff all the time. Conceptually useless haha. I should get all upset with myself, I'll probably do it after listening to all of these songs which means never so it's a win-win situation hurrah.
Anyways I wanted, really, to blog about No Strings Attached and Natalie Portman! I didn't plan on watching it cuz I thought it's just one of those regular rom-coms y'know. But now I think maybe I'm abit too hard on chickflicks and romcoms etc, just cuz I'm trying to be 2indie4myowngood. Sigh pretentious prune. (I always disappoint myself slightly when I consider myself honestly. another story altogether.)
Okayokay really now let me get back on track. Super-enjoyable (my second one in consecutive days life is good) and so fun to watch. So many crazy random scenes I had to lol (one of the only times I've ever used this acronym properly) but I certainly didn't lmao (it's still attached, thankyou.) Natalie Portman is damnnnnnnn cute lah! So pretty and sexy and (insert positive adjective here. also, feminine. so no nonsense like idk hunky or sth please.)
Actually the rest of the characters were pretty awesome too, esp Patrice and Wallace! I didn't even mind Ashton Kutcher, although I am jealous of him.
I imdb-ed Natalie Portman and found out she was vegan amongst other super impressive stuff, apparently after reading Jonathan Safran Foer's veggie book (though she was vegetarian before), which I had wanted to buy a while back. I didn't cause I was afraid I'd be too convinced by him (after all he's a genius) and then I considered for a while whether I was the sort of person who could have the conviction to give up sth like meat and sadly I came up short by my own reckoning. So I didn't get the book.
Btw I can't imagine how Jonathan Safran Foer's marriage with Nicole Krauss must be like srsly. I think it must be mindbending and out of this world and imagine the kind of love letters they pen to each other!!
Which reminds me I don't have any of their books, not since I gave away Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. And if there's any book I must possess it's that, so I guess some shopping is in store! Yay sigh.
Anw I've just self-learnt (oh what would we do without you google and by extension wikipedia) the meaning of hyperbole [a rhetorical device (yet another technical term)] and of bathos (the art of sinking in poetry) and I realized how terribly lacking in knowledge and uneducated I am in all these terms and such, the proper name for literary devices etc. I'd take literature in uni if not for the fear I'd be caught up in all these technical jargon and the belief that singapore is not exactly a good place to study lit. Just like the new liberal arts college, I'm not sure we're prepared, or able, to embrace the concept. Sigh such is the sad lack in our education system, which fortunately or unfortunately, works (all too) well.
That was not my point actually. What I wanted to share were these 3 brilliant examples of bathos:
Sigh at times I think I'm always a little too self-conscious, or maybe self-aware? Whatever it is, I don't like it much. I sometimes wish I could be someone other than who I am, but I'm all too aware that that's never gonna happen.
Okay break time here's Arcade Fire with a seriously awesome song.
Arcade Fire - Wake Up
I don't really like the part at the end (~5.36) so I usually click back to (0:00)
Haha sorry poor joke there. But the middle/end part makes me feel like dancing around much like this song here
Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros - Janglin
does. Too bad I'm nothing if not terrible at dancing haha! I can rejoice though, and quite well too, so okay these songs make me want to rejoice! Or at least bob my head about for a bit in a poor imitation of dancing, and maybe wave my arms around, hopefully not looking too frantic or sth.
I often stare into the mirror and deep into my eyes (as I am wont to do in the middle of the night) and ask myself quite seriously: Am I human. Or am I dancer? (courtesy The Killers, 2008)
The answer quite sadly quite clearly is no :( I am no dancer. I think my body cannot cope when too many different parts of it are moving (no, flailing) around, supposedly in sync and in tandem (not that that's sth I've noticed when I try to do that) so finally what happens is that I'll beat a retreat and hide in some corner and start sulking instead. I am denser!!
Sigh I was gonna be all introspective and all but I took the scenic route and I have gone so far off-track srsly. Infact so out of the way that I'm gonna hightail it and crash through the metaphorical metal barrier of my metaphorical thought highway and hopefully drop somewhere in the metaphorical sea with a satisfying plop! or gloop! or sth, but that really doesn't matter cause the sound isn't an actual sound it's a metaphorical one so I can make it out to be whatever I want. So there! I are winner.
I'm going on for too long as usual. One last note here, that I found a perfectly posh word (and probably unnecessary too haha) to describe those songs/movies/books/anything really which move you beyond words. It's - wait for it - visceral. Haha I know you probably rolled your eyes or frowned and knit your eyebrows tgt or sth and I can understand that, cause this seems like such needless posteuring right! [That's spelt wrongly but I think it's more apt than posturing, I mean poseurs are (pseudo-ly) cooler than posers aren't they! that's silly actually, how can one group of faux-cool people be cooler than another?! It's all in the brilliant insertion of the 'e' really.]
Oh wells I know.. But I still can't help myself from throwing in posh words from time to time! Maybe I truly am a poseur after all!! My being aware of it elevates me slightly from your regular posers, hence I get the coveted 'e'. Yey. Words like faux. Which is pronounced fəʊ (foh to us normal people) which I totally did not know about. Thank goodness I've never tried to use it and made a booboo out of myself. Which also means that I'll never use the word in an actual conversation cause it sounds terrible doesn't it! "I bought foh-VCDs from that dirty old uncle over there" yuck. Haha sorry terrible example there.
Unless it's faux pas (pronounced fəʊ ˈpɑ or simply foh-pah) but to do that convincingly I think I have to learn french first and be able to assume an air of uppity classiness or sth i.e. "Oh what a fashion faux pas, you turd!! An extremely unfashionable one at that." Okay for some reason the first thing that came to mind was socks with sandals HAHA alamak.
Oh mannn I'm not even simply digressing anymore, I am positively finding new (and metaphorical) roads to go on just so that I can digress further.
Anw yeah visceral. Some stuff seem to connect with us so frighteningly and we intuitively embrace them. That took a long time coming -_- My last note was not, in fact, that.
This was wayyyyyyyyyyyyy longer than I had intended (just like that way right there, I am shocked with how many 'y's there are :O) Blast my dancing fingers and my blasted mind the shadow puppeteer behind everything! This spells less sleep for me so :( is the expression on my face (amongst other things which I shall not reveal but nonetheless, sigh! and triple :(s or :(((( or whatever):
Ohwell. Stone Temple Pilots, Arcade Fire, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Animal Collective, Fleet Foxes, Manchester Orchestra. I blame them for my sleeplessness. It's not my fault!
Not an ounce not one grain of regret though. Haha! I'm still stuck on the "YouTube mix for The xx" to be honest. Them, Young Marble Giants, Portishead, even abit of The Cure and Shriekback (Nemesis is terrifically retro eh! That guy looks like he's from the mummy or sth and those masks are just awful/some haha.) Not Aaliyah though, so weird to have her songs on the playlist -.-
Can't decide which of them are most awesome atm, everytime a new song starts I think "This is sheer brilliance" and I'm confounded all over again. Really like the ending of Islands' video and the lamp swinging in VCR and and and and and aiyo!
The xx - You've Got The Love (feat. Florence)
I thought this was just amazing! The stark contrast in The xx's minimalist bleakness and black emo outfit and their facial expressions with Florence's red hair and crazy amazing vocals and vivacity. Speaking of which, here's Roads by Portishead.
Portishead - Roads
Actually (and I'm pretty sure that this is the accurate meaning) I think the song is about that moment in your life when you suddenly realize life isn't peaches and cream like you were told all your life. Usually around 18-22 years old, your quarter-life crisis. You struggle to adapt to the adult world and find yourself and find your way in life, this can include spirituality. Sturggle to be a good person and struggle to cope with the world's woes.......etc. - One of the comments on the song on songmeanings.com.
Which is why it's my go-to website for song lyrics! Always interesting to see some of the brilliant interpretations of songs in the comments. And it's also the source of quite a fair bit of the music I listen to, I just trawl through the top 100 songs and try them out. Haha sounds like such a geeky thing to do (almost as bad as trolling on forums! which i've always wanted to do for kicks actually) duznnit!
But it's where I discovered Dog Days Are Over, Sweet Disposition, We Are The People, Little Lion Man, Home (is wherever I'm with you!) Beirut, Fleet Foxes, Manchester Orchestra, yada yada yada yadadadada. Argh so many bands&songs I doubt I'm gonna sleep tonight!!
Sheesh, I willingly lead myself into all these kinds of stuff all the time. Conceptually useless haha. I should get all upset with myself, I'll probably do it after listening to all of these songs which means never so it's a win-win situation hurrah.
Anyways I wanted, really, to blog about No Strings Attached and Natalie Portman! I didn't plan on watching it cuz I thought it's just one of those regular rom-coms y'know. But now I think maybe I'm abit too hard on chickflicks and romcoms etc, just cuz I'm trying to be 2indie4myowngood. Sigh pretentious prune. (I always disappoint myself slightly when I consider myself honestly. another story altogether.)
Okayokay really now let me get back on track. Super-enjoyable (my second one in consecutive days life is good) and so fun to watch. So many crazy random scenes I had to lol (one of the only times I've ever used this acronym properly) but I certainly didn't lmao (it's still attached, thankyou.) Natalie Portman is damnnnnnnn cute lah! So pretty and sexy and (insert positive adjective here. also, feminine. so no nonsense like idk hunky or sth please.)
Actually the rest of the characters were pretty awesome too, esp Patrice and Wallace! I didn't even mind Ashton Kutcher, although I am jealous of him.
I imdb-ed Natalie Portman and found out she was vegan amongst other super impressive stuff, apparently after reading Jonathan Safran Foer's veggie book (though she was vegetarian before), which I had wanted to buy a while back. I didn't cause I was afraid I'd be too convinced by him (after all he's a genius) and then I considered for a while whether I was the sort of person who could have the conviction to give up sth like meat and sadly I came up short by my own reckoning. So I didn't get the book.
Btw I can't imagine how Jonathan Safran Foer's marriage with Nicole Krauss must be like srsly. I think it must be mindbending and out of this world and imagine the kind of love letters they pen to each other!!
Which reminds me I don't have any of their books, not since I gave away Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. And if there's any book I must possess it's that, so I guess some shopping is in store! Yay sigh.
Anw I've just self-learnt (oh what would we do without you google and by extension wikipedia) the meaning of hyperbole [a rhetorical device (yet another technical term)] and of bathos (the art of sinking in poetry) and I realized how terribly lacking in knowledge and uneducated I am in all these terms and such, the proper name for literary devices etc. I'd take literature in uni if not for the fear I'd be caught up in all these technical jargon and the belief that singapore is not exactly a good place to study lit. Just like the new liberal arts college, I'm not sure we're prepared, or able, to embrace the concept. Sigh such is the sad lack in our education system, which fortunately or unfortunately, works (all too) well.
That was not my point actually. What I wanted to share were these 3 brilliant examples of bathos:
- The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
- (Jennifer Hart, Arlington)
- They had but one last remaining night together, so they embraced each other as tightly as that two-flavor entwined string cheese that is orange and yellowish-white, the orange probably being a bland Cheddar and the white . . . Mozzarella, although it could possibly be Provolone or just plain American, as it really doesn't taste distinctly dissimilar from the orange, yet they would have you believe it does by coloring it differently.
- (Mariann Simms, Wetumpka, AL)
- The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.
- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1978)
Sigh at times I think I'm always a little too self-conscious, or maybe self-aware? Whatever it is, I don't like it much. I sometimes wish I could be someone other than who I am, but I'm all too aware that that's never gonna happen.
Okay break time here's Arcade Fire with a seriously awesome song.
Arcade Fire - Wake Up
I don't really like the part at the end (~5.36) so I usually click back to (0:00)
Haha sorry poor joke there. But the middle/end part makes me feel like dancing around much like this song here
Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros - Janglin
does. Too bad I'm nothing if not terrible at dancing haha! I can rejoice though, and quite well too, so okay these songs make me want to rejoice! Or at least bob my head about for a bit in a poor imitation of dancing, and maybe wave my arms around, hopefully not looking too frantic or sth.
I often stare into the mirror and deep into my eyes (as I am wont to do in the middle of the night) and ask myself quite seriously: Am I human. Or am I dancer? (courtesy The Killers, 2008)
The answer quite sadly quite clearly is no :( I am no dancer. I think my body cannot cope when too many different parts of it are moving (no, flailing) around, supposedly in sync and in tandem (not that that's sth I've noticed when I try to do that) so finally what happens is that I'll beat a retreat and hide in some corner and start sulking instead. I am denser!!
Sigh I was gonna be all introspective and all but I took the scenic route and I have gone so far off-track srsly. Infact so out of the way that I'm gonna hightail it and crash through the metaphorical metal barrier of my metaphorical thought highway and hopefully drop somewhere in the metaphorical sea with a satisfying plop! or gloop! or sth, but that really doesn't matter cause the sound isn't an actual sound it's a metaphorical one so I can make it out to be whatever I want. So there! I are winner.
I'm going on for too long as usual. One last note here, that I found a perfectly posh word (and probably unnecessary too haha) to describe those songs/movies/books/anything really which move you beyond words. It's - wait for it - visceral. Haha I know you probably rolled your eyes or frowned and knit your eyebrows tgt or sth and I can understand that, cause this seems like such needless posteuring right! [That's spelt wrongly but I think it's more apt than posturing, I mean poseurs are (pseudo-ly) cooler than posers aren't they! that's silly actually, how can one group of faux-cool people be cooler than another?! It's all in the brilliant insertion of the 'e' really.]
Oh wells I know.. But I still can't help myself from throwing in posh words from time to time! Maybe I truly am a poseur after all!! My being aware of it elevates me slightly from your regular posers, hence I get the coveted 'e'. Yey. Words like faux. Which is pronounced fəʊ (foh to us normal people) which I totally did not know about. Thank goodness I've never tried to use it and made a booboo out of myself. Which also means that I'll never use the word in an actual conversation cause it sounds terrible doesn't it! "I bought foh-VCDs from that dirty old uncle over there" yuck. Haha sorry terrible example there.
Unless it's faux pas (pronounced fəʊ ˈpɑ or simply foh-pah) but to do that convincingly I think I have to learn french first and be able to assume an air of uppity classiness or sth i.e. "Oh what a fashion faux pas, you turd!! An extremely unfashionable one at that." Okay for some reason the first thing that came to mind was socks with sandals HAHA alamak.
Oh mannn I'm not even simply digressing anymore, I am positively finding new (and metaphorical) roads to go on just so that I can digress further.
Anw yeah visceral. Some stuff seem to connect with us so frighteningly and we intuitively embrace them. That took a long time coming -_- My last note was not, in fact, that.
This was wayyyyyyyyyyyyy longer than I had intended (just like that way right there, I am shocked with how many 'y's there are :O) Blast my dancing fingers and my blasted mind the shadow puppeteer behind everything! This spells less sleep for me so :( is the expression on my face (amongst other things which I shall not reveal but nonetheless, sigh! and triple :(s or :(((( or whatever):
Ohwell. Stone Temple Pilots, Arcade Fire, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Animal Collective, Fleet Foxes, Manchester Orchestra. I blame them for my sleeplessness. It's not my fault!
Saturday 23 April 2011
As Right As Rain (of pH < 7.)
There are two thoughts warring in my head now. The first is to sleep right now and clear some of my sleep debt (which runs into the hundreds of hours, believe you me you me you.) The other is to document my current suffering. For what is suffering undocumented?
Really not sth I'd intended to embark upon but it reminds me of that character from The Joke, the guy who wrote the letters from prison or sth. Sth about narcissism or sth, I can't recall. About how self-serving his suffering was or sth like that. Ohwell clearly not gonna be able to come up with much with my current state of mind.
(Would you be able to put up with suffering if you knew for a fact that nobody would ever know, much less care?)
So yeah, right now I feel about as right as shite. No sleep on thursday night (I blame DotA HAHA), arriving back home at 3+ last night, and waking up at 7am this morning to book in for confinement. Life sux to the macks. Make that lives. More than enough suffering to go around. I was just thinking about it and I came to the conclusion that I am positively depressively miserable. :(
(Discovery of the Day :O - A quick search told me that manic depression is also bipolar disorder, which actually is sort of obvious if you consider the word mania technically.)
But pretty worth it nonetheless! Last night was happening, man. I only left the house at 5pm, but it seems like we managed to squeeze in quite a bit eh? Hurray to boyz nightz outz.
Marche (what an interesting concept! Actually no. Glamourized foodcourt with pricetags that set your heart racing haha. It's terrible but I've never been there, I wonder where I've been all this while. So many places I've never been sigh.)
then Cold Stone (apparently the original version which Cold Rock is based on, and not the other way round! And you can't beat an ice cream with a name like, I can't rmb exactly, but it's sth like Apple Pie a la Sth Sth Something. Nothing shouts classy and awesome like a name consisting of "a la", that and the use of italics ofc.)
then pool (heaps of embarrassment there! I was outrageously bad haha. To think it's been 4 years since I first picked it up and thought myself a little master back then. I'm a-shambles now!!)
then Source Code (which I must say, was super enjoyable and way better than I'd expected. Nothing spectacular or original or breathtaking or arresting or wtv, just entertaining fare is all, but still better than most of all the film fodder out there.)
then tauhuey (we got the prime location, that is, the tables by the road, with the unfortunate drawback of being unceromoniously chased away of course.)
then 3N (the midnight bus, for those of you who are unnocturnal, innocturnal, disnocturnal, whatevurnal. Misnocturnal?! Haha sry. 40mins is an interminable wait though. But it goes almost straight to my doorstep. Life is a many-splendoured thing.)
then I was home!
Brilliant, eh? Finally someone bothered to ask me out, and made me feel like I be cool again. Thanks kinonn (my favourite rugby captain. also my only one.) And Lucas Off-His-Rockers (it rhymes you know, wow.) And Thor (who otherwise is known more affectionately as woonshin and to whom the rest of us are merely blips on the wrong end of the bell curve ):
I have to add how loser-ish it is to keep falling asleep on the train/bus. On my way to somerset I was trying to read my book but kept nodding off even while standing. I got about as far as page 8. A Wild Sheep Chase by Murakami no less. I collided my forehead with this lady's back too, thankfully only once, when I drifted off to sleep and my knees buckled. Sth is terribly wrong when I can describe that scene and include the word "thankfully" haha.
And on the way home I kept dropping my handphone and book, like at least 3 times. Startled myself awake and had to give those surreptitious glances around to see if anyone noticed haha. Probably everyone lah, bing biang boom went my phone. The best part is in trying to pretend that I didn't fall asleep (and look extremely foolish) so must act all nonchalant and act like it's a very normal thing to be dropping my possesions all over the floor. Horrid.
Loser-ish man. I think buckling knees are embarrassing in the extreme!
But srsly if I didn't keep dropping my stuff I'd probably have missed my bus stop man. I'm not sure if anyone ever feels this but there's this phenomena I experience where the closer I am to my stop, the more likely is it that I'll fall asleep. I can even doze off (and ultimately miss my stop) when I'm 1/2 bus stops away! Weird phenomena. Like the lift-pee phenomenon where the moment you step into the lift and it closes you have this unbearable urge to relieve yourself. Haha yurgh.
Sokay. Now I arrive at the end of my post. Young Marble Giants and Portishead my new discoveries after listening to some of their songs which were in a The xx playlist on youtube (which clearly is a misnomer) and I thought they sounded pretty interesting. Maybe the xx were influenced by them or sth, in particular Young Marble Giants I think. Good songs to sleep to too haha. Wooo!
Armed with A Wild Sheep Chase(Murakami) Sandman: Book of Dreams (Neil Gaiman, or at least Gaiman influenced) and How Late It Was, How Late (James Kelman) against the dastardly confinement! I'm gonna win, you know.
Well have a nice Good-Easter Saturday. G'day!
Really not sth I'd intended to embark upon but it reminds me of that character from The Joke, the guy who wrote the letters from prison or sth. Sth about narcissism or sth, I can't recall. About how self-serving his suffering was or sth like that. Ohwell clearly not gonna be able to come up with much with my current state of mind.
(Would you be able to put up with suffering if you knew for a fact that nobody would ever know, much less care?)
So yeah, right now I feel about as right as shite. No sleep on thursday night (I blame DotA HAHA), arriving back home at 3+ last night, and waking up at 7am this morning to book in for confinement. Life sux to the macks. Make that lives. More than enough suffering to go around. I was just thinking about it and I came to the conclusion that I am positively depressively miserable. :(
(Discovery of the Day :O - A quick search told me that manic depression is also bipolar disorder, which actually is sort of obvious if you consider the word mania technically.)
But pretty worth it nonetheless! Last night was happening, man. I only left the house at 5pm, but it seems like we managed to squeeze in quite a bit eh? Hurray to boyz nightz outz.
Marche (what an interesting concept! Actually no. Glamourized foodcourt with pricetags that set your heart racing haha. It's terrible but I've never been there, I wonder where I've been all this while. So many places I've never been sigh.)
then Cold Stone (apparently the original version which Cold Rock is based on, and not the other way round! And you can't beat an ice cream with a name like, I can't rmb exactly, but it's sth like Apple Pie a la Sth Sth Something. Nothing shouts classy and awesome like a name consisting of "a la", that and the use of italics ofc.)
then pool (heaps of embarrassment there! I was outrageously bad haha. To think it's been 4 years since I first picked it up and thought myself a little master back then. I'm a-shambles now!!)
then Source Code (which I must say, was super enjoyable and way better than I'd expected. Nothing spectacular or original or breathtaking or arresting or wtv, just entertaining fare is all, but still better than most of all the film fodder out there.)
then tauhuey (we got the prime location, that is, the tables by the road, with the unfortunate drawback of being unceromoniously chased away of course.)
then 3N (the midnight bus, for those of you who are unnocturnal, innocturnal, disnocturnal, whatevurnal. Misnocturnal?! Haha sry. 40mins is an interminable wait though. But it goes almost straight to my doorstep. Life is a many-splendoured thing.)
then I was home!
Brilliant, eh? Finally someone bothered to ask me out, and made me feel like I be cool again. Thanks kinonn (my favourite rugby captain. also my only one.) And Lucas Off-His-Rockers (it rhymes you know, wow.) And Thor (who otherwise is known more affectionately as woonshin and to whom the rest of us are merely blips on the wrong end of the bell curve ):
I have to add how loser-ish it is to keep falling asleep on the train/bus. On my way to somerset I was trying to read my book but kept nodding off even while standing. I got about as far as page 8. A Wild Sheep Chase by Murakami no less. I collided my forehead with this lady's back too, thankfully only once, when I drifted off to sleep and my knees buckled. Sth is terribly wrong when I can describe that scene and include the word "thankfully" haha.
And on the way home I kept dropping my handphone and book, like at least 3 times. Startled myself awake and had to give those surreptitious glances around to see if anyone noticed haha. Probably everyone lah, bing biang boom went my phone. The best part is in trying to pretend that I didn't fall asleep (and look extremely foolish) so must act all nonchalant and act like it's a very normal thing to be dropping my possesions all over the floor. Horrid.
Loser-ish man. I think buckling knees are embarrassing in the extreme!
But srsly if I didn't keep dropping my stuff I'd probably have missed my bus stop man. I'm not sure if anyone ever feels this but there's this phenomena I experience where the closer I am to my stop, the more likely is it that I'll fall asleep. I can even doze off (and ultimately miss my stop) when I'm 1/2 bus stops away! Weird phenomena. Like the lift-pee phenomenon where the moment you step into the lift and it closes you have this unbearable urge to relieve yourself. Haha yurgh.
Sokay. Now I arrive at the end of my post. Young Marble Giants and Portishead my new discoveries after listening to some of their songs which were in a The xx playlist on youtube (which clearly is a misnomer) and I thought they sounded pretty interesting. Maybe the xx were influenced by them or sth, in particular Young Marble Giants I think. Good songs to sleep to too haha. Wooo!
Armed with A Wild Sheep Chase(Murakami) Sandman: Book of Dreams (Neil Gaiman, or at least Gaiman influenced) and How Late It Was, How Late (James Kelman) against the dastardly confinement! I'm gonna win, you know.
Well have a nice Good-Easter Saturday. G'day!
Friday 22 April 2011
Love And Sorrow, They Come In Waves.
Hei lo. I was thinking of "sorrow comes in waves" or sth like that cause I knew I read sth about that somewhere, and google told me it was Shakespeare with "When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions." The Bard indeed eh?
Anw I had this sudden thought because I was all of a sudden swamped by this very odd feeling just now, while on my way home on the MRT. A very odd feeling of.. dissatisfaction. Like something vital (or precious) is missing. Curiously unsettled. Ill at ease. Like there's something gnawing at my subconscious (or conscious or unconscious wtv) but I just can't put my finger on it. Troubled over nothing in particular, really. Just a weird mood that descended and settled on me.
But yesterday (wednesday that is) was bad. I'm such a disappointment srsly. A burden. I was damn poor. Ohwell. At least I had nights-out and ate at The Soup Restaurant at tampines.
And today I ate Out of the Pan at Raffles Place, so I've been having some gastronomical adventures! I had a crêpe for dinner okay! I felt so classy haha. Then I came home and lo & behold my dad offered me beer. Bewildered?! Actually they bought tsingtao beer specially for me just because I was there during sailing -.- And my dad asked me to try the asahi beer, which I'd never had before, so I did. And I ate peanuts too. So from classy crêpe guy I became this beer guzzling peanut chomping uncle sigh. Imma become fattssy boms boms with beerbelly soon.
I had dinner alone on both occasions, and in fact I had to shake my friends off to have dinner alone at the soup restaurant. There is a solace in solitude don't they know? Like watching movies alone (which I know nobody believes in, somehow!)
My random thought for the day is that: We must not admit the existence of hope, for once we do, it becomes a real thing. And real things, as we all know, cause real hurt. What we do not admit, what we choose not to believe, cannot hurt us.
Anw everytime I try to sing There is a Light That Never Goes Out in my head, I segue into Morrisey's Suedehead. "Take me out tonight / I'm so sorry." And I never manage to get the song. That's what happens when the lead singer of some band buggers off and pursues a solo career. Confusion reigns!
On that note, I was listening to songs on my friends ipod until he remarked that the songs I was choosing were mostly from 500 days of summer. I was like "Oh. Ya hor." At the moment he said that, I had just embarked on Regina Spektor's Hero and I realized I knew exactly which part of the movie the song played. It was an awesome part. Poor Tom.
It's extra awesome to hear a song you like in a movie you like isn't it! Walking on a Dream (or Standing on the Shore?) by Empire of the Sun and Temper Trap's Sweet Disposition. Little pleasant surprises when watching a movie. Brilliant soundtrack, really, when you think of She's Got You High and all that.
And Zooey Deschanel's rendition of Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want! By the way I really like the ending song of Bourne Identity (Extreme Ways by Moby) which I recall even though I watched the movie on Funshion like more than a year ago haha. And then there's You'll Be In My Heart from Tarzan [hands up if you recall Tarzan and Jane! (Not just that silly song)]
I drafted a list of 70 songs (that's 2 pages in my journal book) that I'd want on my playlist now, mostly off the top of my head, and I think I came up with a pretty good one hehe. I tried as best I could to have as wide a spread as I could, meaning less of the usual stuff I listen to (possibly also cause I might have tired of them a little.)
Arctic Monkeys - 505
The xx - Islands
The xx - Crystalised
The Naked and Famous - Young Blood
Tilly & the Wall - Heartbeats
Florence and the Machine - You've Got The Love
Mew - 156
Tegan & Sara - Walking With A Ghost
Mumford and Sons - Little Lion Man
White Stripes - Seven Nation Army
Yeah Yeah Yeah's - Runaway
Anberlin - Unwinding Cable Car
The Naked and Famous - Serenade
Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism
Death Cab for Cutie - We Are Tourists
Lover Lover - Freebirds
Empire of the Sun - Walking on a Dream
Empire of the Sun - Standing on the Shore
Empire of the Sun - We are the People
Garbage - You Look So Fine
The Strokes - Reptilia
Kaiser Chiefs - Ruby
Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek
Camera Obscura - Hey Lloyd I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken
Belle and Sebastian - Write About Love
Belle and Sebastian - Waking Up to Us
Belle and Sebastian - Another Sunny Day
Aqualung - Strange and Beautiful
Jimmy Eat World - Nightdrive
Depeche Mode - Mr Strangelove
Arcade Fire - Crown of Love
Eisley - Many Funerals
John Mayer - Heartbreak Warfare
Regina Spektor - Raindrops
Regina Spektor - Hero
Snow Patrol - Set the Fire to the Third Bar
Queen - Radio Ga Ga
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Don't Forget Me
Coldplay - Amsterdam
Coldplay - God Put A Smile Upon Your Face
Coldplay - Lhuna
Coldplay - X&Y
Neon Trees - Animal
The Bee Gees - How Deep Is Your Love
Frou Frou - It's Good to be in Love
Elbow - Grounds for Divorce
The Carpenters - Close to You
Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out of This Country
The Smiths - There is a Light That Never Goes Out
The Killers - Sweet Talk
The Killers - Change Your Mind
MGMT - Love Always Remains
The Cure - Just Like Heaven
The Beatles - While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Modest Mouse - Dashboard
Blur - Song 2
Morrissey - Suedehead
Radiohead - My Iron Lung
Kings Of Convenience - Know How
Guns 'N Roses - November Rain
U2 - Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own
La Roux - I'm Not Your Toy
La Roux - Tigerlily
Mumm-Ra - She's Got You High
She & Him - Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want
Regina Spektor - Us
Temper Trap - Sweet Disposition
Radiohead - High and Dry
Zee Avi - First of the Gang
Sufjan Stevens - For the Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti
Ta-da. May your Friday be a very Good one indeed, hope you manage to spot a bunny or two, and proceed to mercilessly rob him of his egg, although what business a bunny has with an egg is absolutely unfathomable to my poor mind, so he probably deserves to be mugged anyways.
Happy Easter all.
Monday 18 April 2011
Little Lion Man & His Rabbit Heart.
There was this turtle
He was purple
So he was, a purple turtle!
Purple turtle's name was Myrtle
At super slow speeds he could hurtle
But he was, no wartortle.
:(
"But it was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line."
"Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight"
Hilow. I have just frittered my whole day away, despite that I have a test tmr, that I have grave suspicions I will do awfully in. WHY?! you may ask. The answer most likely, is that I am a burden. And lazy. And an idiot. And hooked onto some awesome shite on youtube.
Seriously. I-youtube-d my day away (paradoxical I-You there) and abit of mrbrownshow as well, and talk cock sessions. Holy smokes! The nonsense we talked about were quite fantastic, really, from Qui-gon Jinn and Darth Maul to the Rugrats and movie posters and travelling and rhyming the word turtle and Love and other things besides. Mucho fun. And bad poetry, according to my friend HAHA.
So that was my inspiration for Purple Turtle which is absolutely atrocious, I know! Hahahaha. I had way too much fun composing that, that and the dearth of rhyming words, I could only think up hurtle and Myrtle really. So that was that! Hope you found it as wonderfully awful as I did :))))
So what I really wanted to say is that The xx are seriously too good. I can't stop listening to them! Crystallized is awesome and so is Islands (awesome video there too) and of course their other stuff too. I feel like I could just lose myself in them. There's something brilliantly haunting about their songs. So yeah that's the main point of this post!
Was also listening to other stuff like Little Lion Man which I first heard a few months back but didn't really like, think it's pretty good now though. And Florence and the Machine who I realized looks gorgeous, I mean, her hair and those legs?! (check out the video for You've Got The Love haha) Not right at all. Oh and Adele too, what a voice eh? Particularly like the video for Chasing Pavements. And The Naked and Famous, again, I like the female singer lots! Haha.
A little bit of We The Kings (undecided as to whether I like them much, although I only discovered that the 'run baby run' was Check Yes Juliet haha) Two Door Cinema Club and Tokyo Police Club (both equally undecided) The White Stripes (only like the song Seven Nation Army) The Kooks (what accents, have to listen to them abit more though) Tegan and Sara (Walking With A Ghost) and re-listening some of the older songs I used to have from the Raconteurs and Spoon (which I clean forgot about.)
That was basically my day. Except that I finished Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha too. I'm not sure how to describe it actually. But it was damn good. As it neared the end.. heartwrenching. I especially loved the parts about Sinbad, may be an older brother thing. Sigh. Authors who can narrate an entire story from a different perspective are genius. To capture childlike thought patterns and speech or sth (A Clockwork Orange comes to mind) is something I could never do, so I find it really unbelievable how they manage to do stuff like that. Oh and Flowers for Algernon as well.
My mother was such a dear today, she msged me to ask me why I didn't go home (I clean forgot to inform my family about my confinementSSS) and when I told her maybe another 3 weeks before I'm home, she asked, Won't you run out of supplies? Haha! I think she's quite sad that I'm never home :/
I might get to nip home for a bit this friday though, apparently we're not allowed to be confined on public holidays. I MUST restock on my books cause I have no reading material left (I can borrow a few rather good reads from my friend, but I don't much like borrowing stuff) On a slightly pertinent note that 100 books question thing on facebook featured quite a few of the books that I have bought but have yet to read. I really need to catch up on my reading.
By the by, Shirley Manson of Garbage is also gorgeous, cuz I'm listening to them now. Except when she goths up too much lah.
Alright I've got nothing much to add except for the Shenanigans my body has been up to against me.
I think my large intestines are quietly leading a dark conspiracy to oust my mind from mine body. My tummy (diarrhea) my thighs (oh the burnnnnn) my brain (that most cunning of conniving connivers.) I'm convinced they are up to some vile shenanigans against me. Foul!
Waging holy war against me and my evil eating habits. Tummy terror. Yurgh. 3 weeks of indigestion now :(
Thanksfully, I visited the medical officer and got medicine + antibiotics. Evil has been stamped out. The Fight Against Terror has been won. God bless America. Okay whatever.
Alright goodnight for now.
He was purple
So he was, a purple turtle!
Purple turtle's name was Myrtle
At super slow speeds he could hurtle
But he was, no wartortle.
:(
"But it was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line."
"Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight"
Hilow. I have just frittered my whole day away, despite that I have a test tmr, that I have grave suspicions I will do awfully in. WHY?! you may ask. The answer most likely, is that I am a burden. And lazy. And an idiot. And hooked onto some awesome shite on youtube.
Seriously. I-youtube-d my day away (paradoxical I-You there) and abit of mrbrownshow as well, and talk cock sessions. Holy smokes! The nonsense we talked about were quite fantastic, really, from Qui-gon Jinn and Darth Maul to the Rugrats and movie posters and travelling and rhyming the word turtle and Love and other things besides. Mucho fun. And bad poetry, according to my friend HAHA.
So that was my inspiration for Purple Turtle which is absolutely atrocious, I know! Hahahaha. I had way too much fun composing that, that and the dearth of rhyming words, I could only think up hurtle and Myrtle really. So that was that! Hope you found it as wonderfully awful as I did :))))
So what I really wanted to say is that The xx are seriously too good. I can't stop listening to them! Crystallized is awesome and so is Islands (awesome video there too) and of course their other stuff too. I feel like I could just lose myself in them. There's something brilliantly haunting about their songs. So yeah that's the main point of this post!
Was also listening to other stuff like Little Lion Man which I first heard a few months back but didn't really like, think it's pretty good now though. And Florence and the Machine who I realized looks gorgeous, I mean, her hair and those legs?! (check out the video for You've Got The Love haha) Not right at all. Oh and Adele too, what a voice eh? Particularly like the video for Chasing Pavements. And The Naked and Famous, again, I like the female singer lots! Haha.
A little bit of We The Kings (undecided as to whether I like them much, although I only discovered that the 'run baby run' was Check Yes Juliet haha) Two Door Cinema Club and Tokyo Police Club (both equally undecided) The White Stripes (only like the song Seven Nation Army) The Kooks (what accents, have to listen to them abit more though) Tegan and Sara (Walking With A Ghost) and re-listening some of the older songs I used to have from the Raconteurs and Spoon (which I clean forgot about.)
That was basically my day. Except that I finished Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha too. I'm not sure how to describe it actually. But it was damn good. As it neared the end.. heartwrenching. I especially loved the parts about Sinbad, may be an older brother thing. Sigh. Authors who can narrate an entire story from a different perspective are genius. To capture childlike thought patterns and speech or sth (A Clockwork Orange comes to mind) is something I could never do, so I find it really unbelievable how they manage to do stuff like that. Oh and Flowers for Algernon as well.
My mother was such a dear today, she msged me to ask me why I didn't go home (I clean forgot to inform my family about my confinementSSS) and when I told her maybe another 3 weeks before I'm home, she asked, Won't you run out of supplies? Haha! I think she's quite sad that I'm never home :/
I might get to nip home for a bit this friday though, apparently we're not allowed to be confined on public holidays. I MUST restock on my books cause I have no reading material left (I can borrow a few rather good reads from my friend, but I don't much like borrowing stuff) On a slightly pertinent note that 100 books question thing on facebook featured quite a few of the books that I have bought but have yet to read. I really need to catch up on my reading.
By the by, Shirley Manson of Garbage is also gorgeous, cuz I'm listening to them now. Except when she goths up too much lah.
Alright I've got nothing much to add except for the Shenanigans my body has been up to against me.
I think my large intestines are quietly leading a dark conspiracy to oust my mind from mine body. My tummy (diarrhea) my thighs (oh the burnnnnn) my brain (that most cunning of conniving connivers.) I'm convinced they are up to some vile shenanigans against me. Foul!
Waging holy war against me and my evil eating habits. Tummy terror. Yurgh. 3 weeks of indigestion now :(
Thanksfully, I visited the medical officer and got medicine + antibiotics. Evil has been stamped out. The Fight Against Terror has been won. God bless America. Okay whatever.
Alright goodnight for now.
Saturday 16 April 2011
Merely An Accessory On Your Periphery.
There is magic in the midnight sun
When the stars decline to glow
There is wonder in the parched ocean
Where the water never flows
There is beauty in the flightless bird
Whose wings refuse to grow
There is anguish in us mice and men
For love we do not know.
___________________________
His smile was torn
His soul was worn
All the pain that he had borne.
But what, truly, do we mourn
That on his sleeve was still adorn
His heart.
___________________________
I wrote these about 3/4 days ago. The first came about from a line off The Killer's A Dustland Fairytale, and the second when I was mulling on the words worn and torn. I soon came to the word adorn (borne, mourn, rhyming as usual) and remembered that bit by Shakespeare about wearing your heart on your sleeve for daws to peck at, so there you go.
I'm not sure if these are poems or wtv but I seem to be doing more of these of late don't I? I've been coming up with shorter sentences and phrases, rather than any long stories or lengthy writing. Can't seem to muster the energy to complete my half-written story somehow sigh.
Butttt today I stumbled upon this website, PoemHunter.com (awesome name or what?) and discovered that poems are really quite pretty after all! I was searching for the song which goes "on and on it seems to go, and you don't know what you've got till it's gone" or sth like that (I never actually found it in the end, do enlighten me if you know it haha) and instead got a poem by Edgar Allen Poe! A Dream Within A Dream.
And thus did I discover the world of poetry! I had abandoned this world because I felt quite inadequate (~50 marks EVERY literature test in sec1/2) and cause I thought they all went over my head :( But I read a bit of Robert Frost, Edgar Allen Poe, William Wordsworth and E.E Cummings, and they were quite delightful! Possibly cause those poems were in the top 25 list and thus more readily accessible to the unenlightened like me haha.
But yeah. Some very powerfully poignant words and phrases there! I spent like ages staring at my tiny phone screen cause I couldn't peel my eyes away from the website haha. So I was just thinking, Goodness, yet another area unexplored (along with theatre, dance, plays, musicals etc.) so I better retire early (50yr old plz) so as to have enough time for them all! Haha sigh.
Although I'm not sure I'd make a good retiree, they seem to get bored alot haha! Might be happy for a month or two, before boredom sets in or sth! Maybe drive a taxi or open a mamashop or rear a bird or sth then :)
I have many other things on my mind, I've been rather pensive of late actually. About precious and precocious people. About happiness. About cheap apologies. About Free Flow Escargot haha. But I don't think I shall continue now.
Here's E.E Cummings.
When the stars decline to glow
There is wonder in the parched ocean
Where the water never flows
There is beauty in the flightless bird
Whose wings refuse to grow
There is anguish in us mice and men
For love we do not know.
___________________________
His smile was torn
His soul was worn
All the pain that he had borne.
But what, truly, do we mourn
That on his sleeve was still adorn
His heart.
___________________________
I wrote these about 3/4 days ago. The first came about from a line off The Killer's A Dustland Fairytale, and the second when I was mulling on the words worn and torn. I soon came to the word adorn (borne, mourn, rhyming as usual) and remembered that bit by Shakespeare about wearing your heart on your sleeve for daws to peck at, so there you go.
I'm not sure if these are poems or wtv but I seem to be doing more of these of late don't I? I've been coming up with shorter sentences and phrases, rather than any long stories or lengthy writing. Can't seem to muster the energy to complete my half-written story somehow sigh.
Butttt today I stumbled upon this website, PoemHunter.com (awesome name or what?) and discovered that poems are really quite pretty after all! I was searching for the song which goes "on and on it seems to go, and you don't know what you've got till it's gone" or sth like that (I never actually found it in the end, do enlighten me if you know it haha) and instead got a poem by Edgar Allen Poe! A Dream Within A Dream.
And thus did I discover the world of poetry! I had abandoned this world because I felt quite inadequate (~50 marks EVERY literature test in sec1/2) and cause I thought they all went over my head :( But I read a bit of Robert Frost, Edgar Allen Poe, William Wordsworth and E.E Cummings, and they were quite delightful! Possibly cause those poems were in the top 25 list and thus more readily accessible to the unenlightened like me haha.
But yeah. Some very powerfully poignant words and phrases there! I spent like ages staring at my tiny phone screen cause I couldn't peel my eyes away from the website haha. So I was just thinking, Goodness, yet another area unexplored (along with theatre, dance, plays, musicals etc.) so I better retire early (50yr old plz) so as to have enough time for them all! Haha sigh.
Although I'm not sure I'd make a good retiree, they seem to get bored alot haha! Might be happy for a month or two, before boredom sets in or sth! Maybe drive a taxi or open a mamashop or rear a bird or sth then :)
I have many other things on my mind, I've been rather pensive of late actually. About precious and precocious people. About happiness. About cheap apologies. About Free Flow Escargot haha. But I don't think I shall continue now.
Here's E.E Cummings.
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)i am never without it(anywhere i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling) i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true) and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)EDIT: Oh dear I forgot to mention The xx and The Naked and Famous (which I discovered from life! which is why the straits times is worth it, all 90cents of it). Truly brilliant sounds! Have not actually heard their lyrics yet though haha. But methinks me is biggie fan now!
Sunday 10 April 2011
Give Us All The Courage To Be Mad.
Why hello guys. Hope you like that story there. It's directly inspired by Eisley's Laughing City, and I'd always wanted to write about a laughing city, but never knew how to. Suddenly after hearing The Cure's Boys Don't Cry (a perennial favourite) with the lines: "And I just keep on laughing / hiding the tears in my eyes" I decided I'd just do a short little story.
Worth a listen though, Laughing City sounds somehow beautifully sad. Anw I've been listening to both You Are A Tourist (oh that video, oh those light-up suits, oh how I wish I owned one) and Lover Lover's Freebirds rather obsessively of late. I really like that song, so much understated emotion in there. Also I re-discovered The Carpenter's Close To You. Eliza would say, Lurvely!
So these few days have been pretty happening (for me that is, could very well be par for the course for you.) Haha okay I momentarily forgot what I did on Friday, but thankfully the moment in the momentarily didn't last too long. Here goes.
I went down to Marina Square to collect my race pack, and pleasantly enough, I got a free cap! Cuz the singlet was out of stock, they gave me that as goodwill, and promised to mail the singlet over to me! That's what I call service. On that note, I find that service standards in Singapore in general has improved a fair bit, so I don't see why singaporeans should be griping anymore!
So that was that, and the fact that I was wandering around marina square like a lost child looking for the shop. Then, because we were supposed to have dinner at home with the brand new grill & steamboat gadgets we got, I decided to go and look for dear mom and dad at orchard. Not before stopping over at the esplanade though, haha.
So I explored the esplanade for a bit (since it was just opposite marina) which isn't something I'd ever done before. Somehow it's the more famous (and hence more touristy?) things and places in singapore that I've never been to. Which makes me a bit of a mountain tortoise, and a frog in the well. (We have been frogs in a well with a lid on it and a fat man was sitting on the lid. I actually quite like this phrase of mine haha.) Exemplified most definitively by the fact that I'd never been to the library@esplanade.
What a most pleasant place it is indeed. Along with the rooftop (which I also visited) they offer you a most agreeable tranquility in the heart of the city. And I realized all the different artforms I have left undiscovered. Dance, drama, theatre, film. All those foreign films! Like neglected goldmines. That's why I'm going to retire early and be a metaphorical miner, and maybe a literal farmer (a notion inspired by my brother's plan to bugger off to scotland or sth and live out his life with sheep.)
So along the way, I read a few noteworthy quotes or lines that caught my eye.
If this thought is madness, God! Give us all the courage to be mad. (From the poster of a play called A Madwoman's Diary)
Stories are the fabric of life. (Saw it in the window of a shop, and which I certainly believe to be true.)
At the melancholic string concert. (I just thought that this sounded really good. Like it could mean so much or sth, I dunno how to put it.)
So, that was literally (literarily) a very fruitful trip! (I'm quite pleased with that bit of cleverness there HAHA.) Oh and that rooftop bar certainly looks very agreeable.
Then I took the bus down to orchard (taking a bus has unfortunately become a rather rare occasion now, despite that I much prefer buses over MRTs.) I headed to Borders to squander my money, as usual. Officially the reason is cause I have a voucher expiring this month. So I bought 2 new books! Numbers 6 and 7, all in the span of 8days since returning here. Well this is getting absurd!
It's not fair that Borders unleashed this new short story galore on us. I couldn't resist, and I'd have bought more if I didn't have iron self-control. P.G. Wodehouse's The Crime Wave at Blandings and H.G. Wells' The Door in the Wall. I've heard of wodehouse somewhere, so I decided to purchase the book, plus of course the fact that the blurb seemed interesting enough. And short stories by the father of sci-fi, who was I to refuse?
There was Ian Fleming, Angela Carter and more. And I also saw at least another 5 books that I intend to buy, including Pigeon English, A Confederacy of Dunces and Everything is Illuminated. Sigh. Nevermind, bulging pockets are overrated anyways.
Then I waited outside NAC (a most horrible looking acronym for Ngee Ann City, apparently, aka Takashimaya, which sounds waaaaaaaay better.) There was this... oldish (of indeterminate but most definitely unable to be labelled as young) couple busking which was really nice! They seemed so happy to be there performing, so I stuck around for a listen. A few oldies, the overplayed I'm Yours, and finally the clincher, Close To You.
I went to 'tong' my money into their bag, and told the nice lady that I loved the song, which I hope brightened up her day as she did mine. There was also this group (possibly foreigners, maybe cause I can't picture singaporeans doing that) who stopped and gave money, and were acting quite loopy. Dancing in the streets to I'm Yours and happily taking pictures with the lady. Most of us are much too dour and dull to do stuff like that. Pity.
Then I walked away and I saw this adorable angmoh girl throwing popcorn on the floor to feed the pidgeons (or wtv fauna orchard has to offer) which flocked all around her and her brother and sister. Such a delight to watch children at play.
To be a child again. When everything we do isn't carefully considered, isn't all measured and weighed. Unrestrained. Somehow I'm at this topic again, which was totally unplanned for really.
So I met my mama and went home, to a grand dinner of shabu shabu and sukiyaki. The rest of the food is irrelevant, really, except for the unimpeachable (doesn't mean they don't contain peaches HAHA) meat balls. It was nice, but I suspect I had an overload of meat, based on how I didn't really enjoy my iEat Superburger at Aston's the next day :(
Which I ate at City Square Mall, which apparently turns one this year, another random useless fact for the day.
Which I went after going rockclimbing with my brother and his friends at climbasia again. I sucked. Truly madly deeply. Sexy naughty bitchy. It seems all the strength have seeped out of my fingers, and all the climbing I did before have been for naught. I felt ridiculously pathetic back there, and I'm sure my brother too was aghast and ashamed of me. I was a disgrace, :(
I thought I was getting somewhere before sailing, like I was getting to be a decent climber. That's all gone down the drain now though, sigh. I guess it's now a time for rebuilding! Should buy one of those clenchy thingies or sth.
Also, there were these pretty little alliance de francaise (idk why I immediately thought of that) girls learning how to rockclimb (that surely sounds much better than learning how to climb rocks) too! Super adorable. Actually it's not that angmoh kids are cuter (at least in my opinion, I know some people think so) than singaporean ones. But they do seem to do more fun things don't they? A singaporean parent would probably scold his/her kid if they threw popcorn on the floor or sth, and are more likely to be too afraid to send their kids to learn rockclimbing.
And I felt like a.. balle. Yesterday I was wondering what a male ballerina is called, and on the grounds that santarina is the female version of santa, I concluded that he must be called a balle. Although I guess a smarter guess would have been ballerino, but some handy research I just did tells me that this too is not correct cause there's no such word. The correct word apparently is danseur. Anyway as I was saying, I felt like a balle because my feet were being squashed into those rockclimbing shoes and my toes were in agony, and I stupidly forgot to cut my toenails too.
After all that, I went to the 80/10 comms parade. In a nutshell, bittersweet. All my batchboys there. My buddy matthew (I somehow forgot he was called wei shuen too haha!) and my mates luther, zhi wen, tiny, lester, brian, james, the Raven Warriors. My dear classmate benny, OG mate how sun, ex-classmate junyang, and many others. And of course swoonshin doing his thang, making all the girlfriends and sisters (and I heard, even some mothers and though a little impossible to believe, grandmothers even) swoon and fall head over heels for him. Please ask me about the story about the old lady HAHA.
I was really thinking, dang, that should be me down there too. Ohwell! Just another 3 more months sigh. So I saw many familiar faces from BBSS/JJ which was quite a pleasant surprise. Didn't think I'd see many people I know. But I was kinda.. tongue-tied? HAHA. Debonair De is a myth, I fear.
And today there was the run. Not too shabby I guess, even though I really must give myself a good kicking for not training at all haha. I think I let only around 5 people run past me, which I think is quite an achievement, even though I did start near the back haha! Have no idea how long I took, but hopefully it was under 55mins! Highly doubtful though. Had a stitch from 1.5km onwards, which was nasty, and an almost-cramp on the final 500m.
I couldn't let myself cramp up though, it would have been so paiseh! All the onlookers and finishers would be watching me writhing and twitching all over the floor or sth haha. So I had to pull off some limp/dance/stunt in that final stretch to not trigger the cramp. Phew.
Very much thanks to yeemin who fetched me there (and whom I abandoned at the start haha!) and there were also more pleasant surprises abounding too. Saw a few friends there like joel (that madman, way too fast for his own good) and cheryl, whom I've not seen for ageeeeeees. And more, of course. Didn't think there were so many runners around.
So here I am now and I refuse to dota, and I'm just waiting to book in basically. Maybe I'll take a nap, sounds like the most awesome of plans duznnit!
I shall end here then, on a non-note. (It is neither a happy note or a sad note or a death note you see.)
EDIT: Oh oh I forgot to add that I want to stay at someplace like Mt. Pleasant or sth. You'd be so happy to return home from work everyday and all! Or like when you tell the taxi driver your address he'd be happy too. Ohwell random thought as I passed by Mt. Pleasant flyover on a cab, that it sounded so awesome, have no idea what it actually is like though!
Worth a listen though, Laughing City sounds somehow beautifully sad. Anw I've been listening to both You Are A Tourist (oh that video, oh those light-up suits, oh how I wish I owned one) and Lover Lover's Freebirds rather obsessively of late. I really like that song, so much understated emotion in there. Also I re-discovered The Carpenter's Close To You. Eliza would say, Lurvely!
So these few days have been pretty happening (for me that is, could very well be par for the course for you.) Haha okay I momentarily forgot what I did on Friday, but thankfully the moment in the momentarily didn't last too long. Here goes.
I went down to Marina Square to collect my race pack, and pleasantly enough, I got a free cap! Cuz the singlet was out of stock, they gave me that as goodwill, and promised to mail the singlet over to me! That's what I call service. On that note, I find that service standards in Singapore in general has improved a fair bit, so I don't see why singaporeans should be griping anymore!
So that was that, and the fact that I was wandering around marina square like a lost child looking for the shop. Then, because we were supposed to have dinner at home with the brand new grill & steamboat gadgets we got, I decided to go and look for dear mom and dad at orchard. Not before stopping over at the esplanade though, haha.
So I explored the esplanade for a bit (since it was just opposite marina) which isn't something I'd ever done before. Somehow it's the more famous (and hence more touristy?) things and places in singapore that I've never been to. Which makes me a bit of a mountain tortoise, and a frog in the well. (We have been frogs in a well with a lid on it and a fat man was sitting on the lid. I actually quite like this phrase of mine haha.) Exemplified most definitively by the fact that I'd never been to the library@esplanade.
What a most pleasant place it is indeed. Along with the rooftop (which I also visited) they offer you a most agreeable tranquility in the heart of the city. And I realized all the different artforms I have left undiscovered. Dance, drama, theatre, film. All those foreign films! Like neglected goldmines. That's why I'm going to retire early and be a metaphorical miner, and maybe a literal farmer (a notion inspired by my brother's plan to bugger off to scotland or sth and live out his life with sheep.)
So along the way, I read a few noteworthy quotes or lines that caught my eye.
If this thought is madness, God! Give us all the courage to be mad. (From the poster of a play called A Madwoman's Diary)
Stories are the fabric of life. (Saw it in the window of a shop, and which I certainly believe to be true.)
At the melancholic string concert. (I just thought that this sounded really good. Like it could mean so much or sth, I dunno how to put it.)
So, that was literally (literarily) a very fruitful trip! (I'm quite pleased with that bit of cleverness there HAHA.) Oh and that rooftop bar certainly looks very agreeable.
Then I took the bus down to orchard (taking a bus has unfortunately become a rather rare occasion now, despite that I much prefer buses over MRTs.) I headed to Borders to squander my money, as usual. Officially the reason is cause I have a voucher expiring this month. So I bought 2 new books! Numbers 6 and 7, all in the span of 8days since returning here. Well this is getting absurd!
It's not fair that Borders unleashed this new short story galore on us. I couldn't resist, and I'd have bought more if I didn't have iron self-control. P.G. Wodehouse's The Crime Wave at Blandings and H.G. Wells' The Door in the Wall. I've heard of wodehouse somewhere, so I decided to purchase the book, plus of course the fact that the blurb seemed interesting enough. And short stories by the father of sci-fi, who was I to refuse?
There was Ian Fleming, Angela Carter and more. And I also saw at least another 5 books that I intend to buy, including Pigeon English, A Confederacy of Dunces and Everything is Illuminated. Sigh. Nevermind, bulging pockets are overrated anyways.
Then I waited outside NAC (a most horrible looking acronym for Ngee Ann City, apparently, aka Takashimaya, which sounds waaaaaaaay better.) There was this... oldish (of indeterminate but most definitely unable to be labelled as young) couple busking which was really nice! They seemed so happy to be there performing, so I stuck around for a listen. A few oldies, the overplayed I'm Yours, and finally the clincher, Close To You.
I went to 'tong' my money into their bag, and told the nice lady that I loved the song, which I hope brightened up her day as she did mine. There was also this group (possibly foreigners, maybe cause I can't picture singaporeans doing that) who stopped and gave money, and were acting quite loopy. Dancing in the streets to I'm Yours and happily taking pictures with the lady. Most of us are much too dour and dull to do stuff like that. Pity.
Then I walked away and I saw this adorable angmoh girl throwing popcorn on the floor to feed the pidgeons (or wtv fauna orchard has to offer) which flocked all around her and her brother and sister. Such a delight to watch children at play.
To be a child again. When everything we do isn't carefully considered, isn't all measured and weighed. Unrestrained. Somehow I'm at this topic again, which was totally unplanned for really.
So I met my mama and went home, to a grand dinner of shabu shabu and sukiyaki. The rest of the food is irrelevant, really, except for the unimpeachable (doesn't mean they don't contain peaches HAHA) meat balls. It was nice, but I suspect I had an overload of meat, based on how I didn't really enjoy my iEat Superburger at Aston's the next day :(
Which I ate at City Square Mall, which apparently turns one this year, another random useless fact for the day.
Which I went after going rockclimbing with my brother and his friends at climbasia again. I sucked. Truly madly deeply. Sexy naughty bitchy. It seems all the strength have seeped out of my fingers, and all the climbing I did before have been for naught. I felt ridiculously pathetic back there, and I'm sure my brother too was aghast and ashamed of me. I was a disgrace, :(
I thought I was getting somewhere before sailing, like I was getting to be a decent climber. That's all gone down the drain now though, sigh. I guess it's now a time for rebuilding! Should buy one of those clenchy thingies or sth.
Also, there were these pretty little alliance de francaise (idk why I immediately thought of that) girls learning how to rockclimb (that surely sounds much better than learning how to climb rocks) too! Super adorable. Actually it's not that angmoh kids are cuter (at least in my opinion, I know some people think so) than singaporean ones. But they do seem to do more fun things don't they? A singaporean parent would probably scold his/her kid if they threw popcorn on the floor or sth, and are more likely to be too afraid to send their kids to learn rockclimbing.
And I felt like a.. balle. Yesterday I was wondering what a male ballerina is called, and on the grounds that santarina is the female version of santa, I concluded that he must be called a balle. Although I guess a smarter guess would have been ballerino, but some handy research I just did tells me that this too is not correct cause there's no such word. The correct word apparently is danseur. Anyway as I was saying, I felt like a balle because my feet were being squashed into those rockclimbing shoes and my toes were in agony, and I stupidly forgot to cut my toenails too.
After all that, I went to the 80/10 comms parade. In a nutshell, bittersweet. All my batchboys there. My buddy matthew (I somehow forgot he was called wei shuen too haha!) and my mates luther, zhi wen, tiny, lester, brian, james, the Raven Warriors. My dear classmate benny, OG mate how sun, ex-classmate junyang, and many others. And of course swoonshin doing his thang, making all the girlfriends and sisters (and I heard, even some mothers and though a little impossible to believe, grandmothers even) swoon and fall head over heels for him. Please ask me about the story about the old lady HAHA.
I was really thinking, dang, that should be me down there too. Ohwell! Just another 3 more months sigh. So I saw many familiar faces from BBSS/JJ which was quite a pleasant surprise. Didn't think I'd see many people I know. But I was kinda.. tongue-tied? HAHA. Debonair De is a myth, I fear.
And today there was the run. Not too shabby I guess, even though I really must give myself a good kicking for not training at all haha. I think I let only around 5 people run past me, which I think is quite an achievement, even though I did start near the back haha! Have no idea how long I took, but hopefully it was under 55mins! Highly doubtful though. Had a stitch from 1.5km onwards, which was nasty, and an almost-cramp on the final 500m.
I couldn't let myself cramp up though, it would have been so paiseh! All the onlookers and finishers would be watching me writhing and twitching all over the floor or sth haha. So I had to pull off some limp/dance/stunt in that final stretch to not trigger the cramp. Phew.
Very much thanks to yeemin who fetched me there (and whom I abandoned at the start haha!) and there were also more pleasant surprises abounding too. Saw a few friends there like joel (that madman, way too fast for his own good) and cheryl, whom I've not seen for ageeeeeees. And more, of course. Didn't think there were so many runners around.
So here I am now and I refuse to dota, and I'm just waiting to book in basically. Maybe I'll take a nap, sounds like the most awesome of plans duznnit!
I shall end here then, on a non-note. (It is neither a happy note or a sad note or a death note you see.)
EDIT: Oh oh I forgot to add that I want to stay at someplace like Mt. Pleasant or sth. You'd be so happy to return home from work everyday and all! Or like when you tell the taxi driver your address he'd be happy too. Ohwell random thought as I passed by Mt. Pleasant flyover on a cab, that it sounded so awesome, have no idea what it actually is like though!
To The Laughing City.
Follow me now, to the laughing city! It is brilliant there! A brilliant facade. It is mesmerizing. We all look terribly happy there, we do! We really do.
We laugh for those who've lost their laughter. We laugh for those whom we've lost. We laugh for the dying, the sick, the poor (in spirit or otherwise), we laugh for those who laugh no longer.
For this is the laughing city.
There is a splendid painting we have there. Resplendent! It is of a woman bent over the body of her slain husband. Her face is a picture of anguish. We gaze upon it and we laugh! Ha ha ha!
There is more than a touch of madness in our proceedings. There is madness, and tears, in our laughing eyes. We shall speak of it no more.
Follow me now, to the laughing city! Ha ha ha.
We laugh for those who've lost their laughter. We laugh for those whom we've lost. We laugh for the dying, the sick, the poor (in spirit or otherwise), we laugh for those who laugh no longer.
For this is the laughing city.
There is a splendid painting we have there. Resplendent! It is of a woman bent over the body of her slain husband. Her face is a picture of anguish. We gaze upon it and we laugh! Ha ha ha!
There is more than a touch of madness in our proceedings. There is madness, and tears, in our laughing eyes. We shall speak of it no more.
Follow me now, to the laughing city! Ha ha ha.
Friday 8 April 2011
So Laugh, Love, Live Free & Sing.
Hmm I couldn't think of any nice title so I had to trawl through some of my old stuff. Sigh, I sometimes think that my mind doesn't function quite as well as it used to.
"But my heart, it don't beat,
it don't beat the way it used to
And my eyes, they don't see you no more.
And my lips, they don't kiss,
they don't kiss the way they used to.
And my eyes don't recognize you no more."
Yep. Well today started off pretty well, before taking on a slightly depressive note right near the end. Ohwell. Life.
I went swimming today and discovered a joy in it that was hitherto unbeknownst to me. Have I ever told anyone that I'm terrible in water? Hmm. Terrible maybe not the right word. Terrified, maybe. Yeah I'm secretly a little hyrdophobic..! I'm not scared of water per se, more of like being in water without any support/land close at hand? Yep.
But it was quite enjoyable nonetheless, I swam more than I ever had before (which is still not alot really.) Then I bought a shoebag and a runner's pouch thing. Serious splurging ugh. This is awful, I have to rein in my spending sometime soon.
Then I went a little out of my way to a mamashop which I frequented back in the day when I was a primary schoolkid. It was heartening to know that the icepop thingy still costs 20cents! At least there are some things in this world unaffected by the horrible winds of change and inflation and whatnot. So I promptly bought one (I only had 50cents on me) and sucked it all the way home.
I went home using a route that I took back in the days. And I was struck, as I always am, by how carefree life used to be. Reminiscing on the times back then, looking at secondary school kids just hanging around the park, a primary schoolkid walking to school. I remember back then, you didn't have to bother about anything other than yourself.
I don't mean being entirely selfish or self-centred or anything. It's how.. nothing seemed to affect you. The world of adults was extremely distant, possibly alien, to us back then. Money, work, stress, love even, never infringed upon our happy little worlds. I couldn't have given two hoots to the people I saw, JC kids, NSmen, working adults, whoever. My self-contained bubble was more than enough for me.
Those were the days you could walk home in the rain. You could jump into puddles and feel nothing but elation. You could lie down on a grass patch and even roll around. You could spend hours at a playground. You could get all grimy and slimy and seriously quite gross. You didn't have to worry.
You didn't worry about your clothes getting wet, or dirty, or wtv nonsense little kids get up to. (Which is alot of nonsense, and of course, we didn't think we were little kids back then.) You didn't think you'd get all itchy and get rashes or sth when you took a rough and tumble on the grass or mud or sth.
Which is quite amazing actually. Somehow I never got a single grass rash or sth until I was much older. I think it's cause of that belief in your own invincibility you had when you were a kid. You never believed anything bad or harmful could every happen to you. I've always believed in belief, that it creates some sort of aura around you or sth.
Those were the days when all you had to do when you liked a girl was to, naturally, annoy the hell out of her as best as you can. And I was good. I shot rubber bands, shot paper pellets using rubber bands, and was generally a world class pest. She did like me back eventually. :)
Then you got older and became more aware of how you affect the people around you, and of how you've been affected by the world. And you lose that belief in your invincibility. And everything else goes tumbling after.
Anw had a gathering (mustering!) at chuang's house today with the rest of the division. Was pretty fun, and we (re-)watched Despicable Me! I had no idea Julie Andrews was in it! Haha how awesome. Still love the part where Agnes goes "It's so fluffy!!" after getting the unicorn (instead of the oft quoted "It's so fluffy I'm gonna die"!) And love Margo too.
Other than that, was pretty fun, despite my getting lost en route. Just how many different roads have to have similar names?! Watten Drive, Watten Estate, Watten Heights etc. Extremely unsubtly ploy to get people lost, and ending up at Pepperoni Pizzeria as I did. Gah.
That was also where and when I heard about stuff I'd been hoping would never come to pass. It's a tragedy when not all of us is able to stay the course. It's a tragedy that the day we'd been aiming/striving for together will not feature all of us on that parade square. Comrade and friend, things will not be the same without you. I'm sorry you had to fall by the wayside, and that I never even tried to arrest the slide.
We'd been fighting, side by side, for the last 9 months. I can't imagine what it must be like for him now. Damn.
Ahh. I'm at a loss. Don't know what to think. Poop.
Well, these are some stuff I'd thought about a while back now.
Pitter-patter, our dreams ashatter.
Pitter-patter, our doubts ascatter.
The rainy day, oh dismay.
This rainy day, I'll give my love away.
For we know not what is love, and we know not how to love.
We may have many Likes but no Love. (In reference to facebook's Likes)
Expectation is the Enemy of Enjoyment.
Yeh, absolutely random, but oh wells. Nothing much else to add, except that I should probably go running soon in preparation for 2xu on sunday! Swimming counts as training too, I guess? Excuses!
Okay finally, I'm not sure if I've ever shared these pretty lyrics by Florence and the Machine with ya, but I can't really be bothered even if I have.
"No more dreaming like a girl,
So in love with the wrong world."
But I'm still dreaming, I am. And I intend never to stop.
"Cause you may say that I'm a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one."
Goodnight, you.
"But my heart, it don't beat,
it don't beat the way it used to
And my eyes, they don't see you no more.
And my lips, they don't kiss,
they don't kiss the way they used to.
And my eyes don't recognize you no more."
Yep. Well today started off pretty well, before taking on a slightly depressive note right near the end. Ohwell. Life.
I went swimming today and discovered a joy in it that was hitherto unbeknownst to me. Have I ever told anyone that I'm terrible in water? Hmm. Terrible maybe not the right word. Terrified, maybe. Yeah I'm secretly a little hyrdophobic..! I'm not scared of water per se, more of like being in water without any support/land close at hand? Yep.
But it was quite enjoyable nonetheless, I swam more than I ever had before (which is still not alot really.) Then I bought a shoebag and a runner's pouch thing. Serious splurging ugh. This is awful, I have to rein in my spending sometime soon.
Then I went a little out of my way to a mamashop which I frequented back in the day when I was a primary schoolkid. It was heartening to know that the icepop thingy still costs 20cents! At least there are some things in this world unaffected by the horrible winds of change and inflation and whatnot. So I promptly bought one (I only had 50cents on me) and sucked it all the way home.
I went home using a route that I took back in the days. And I was struck, as I always am, by how carefree life used to be. Reminiscing on the times back then, looking at secondary school kids just hanging around the park, a primary schoolkid walking to school. I remember back then, you didn't have to bother about anything other than yourself.
I don't mean being entirely selfish or self-centred or anything. It's how.. nothing seemed to affect you. The world of adults was extremely distant, possibly alien, to us back then. Money, work, stress, love even, never infringed upon our happy little worlds. I couldn't have given two hoots to the people I saw, JC kids, NSmen, working adults, whoever. My self-contained bubble was more than enough for me.
Those were the days you could walk home in the rain. You could jump into puddles and feel nothing but elation. You could lie down on a grass patch and even roll around. You could spend hours at a playground. You could get all grimy and slimy and seriously quite gross. You didn't have to worry.
You didn't worry about your clothes getting wet, or dirty, or wtv nonsense little kids get up to. (Which is alot of nonsense, and of course, we didn't think we were little kids back then.) You didn't think you'd get all itchy and get rashes or sth when you took a rough and tumble on the grass or mud or sth.
Which is quite amazing actually. Somehow I never got a single grass rash or sth until I was much older. I think it's cause of that belief in your own invincibility you had when you were a kid. You never believed anything bad or harmful could every happen to you. I've always believed in belief, that it creates some sort of aura around you or sth.
Those were the days when all you had to do when you liked a girl was to, naturally, annoy the hell out of her as best as you can. And I was good. I shot rubber bands, shot paper pellets using rubber bands, and was generally a world class pest. She did like me back eventually. :)
Then you got older and became more aware of how you affect the people around you, and of how you've been affected by the world. And you lose that belief in your invincibility. And everything else goes tumbling after.
Anw had a gathering (mustering!) at chuang's house today with the rest of the division. Was pretty fun, and we (re-)watched Despicable Me! I had no idea Julie Andrews was in it! Haha how awesome. Still love the part where Agnes goes "It's so fluffy!!" after getting the unicorn (instead of the oft quoted "It's so fluffy I'm gonna die"!) And love Margo too.
Other than that, was pretty fun, despite my getting lost en route. Just how many different roads have to have similar names?! Watten Drive, Watten Estate, Watten Heights etc. Extremely unsubtly ploy to get people lost, and ending up at Pepperoni Pizzeria as I did. Gah.
That was also where and when I heard about stuff I'd been hoping would never come to pass. It's a tragedy when not all of us is able to stay the course. It's a tragedy that the day we'd been aiming/striving for together will not feature all of us on that parade square. Comrade and friend, things will not be the same without you. I'm sorry you had to fall by the wayside, and that I never even tried to arrest the slide.
We'd been fighting, side by side, for the last 9 months. I can't imagine what it must be like for him now. Damn.
Ahh. I'm at a loss. Don't know what to think. Poop.
Well, these are some stuff I'd thought about a while back now.
Pitter-patter, our dreams ashatter.
Pitter-patter, our doubts ascatter.
The rainy day, oh dismay.
This rainy day, I'll give my love away.
For we know not what is love, and we know not how to love.
We may have many Likes but no Love. (In reference to facebook's Likes)
Expectation is the Enemy of Enjoyment.
Yeh, absolutely random, but oh wells. Nothing much else to add, except that I should probably go running soon in preparation for 2xu on sunday! Swimming counts as training too, I guess? Excuses!
Okay finally, I'm not sure if I've ever shared these pretty lyrics by Florence and the Machine with ya, but I can't really be bothered even if I have.
"No more dreaming like a girl,
So in love with the wrong world."
But I'm still dreaming, I am. And I intend never to stop.
"Cause you may say that I'm a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one."
Goodnight, you.
Thursday 7 April 2011
Playing Mind Games With Ourselves.
A resigned optimist? Well.. Maybe not. Sounds like a rather depressive idea. Maybe more like easily content, so disappointment doesn't strike quite so hard. You can be quite satisfied with what you get, no matter that it never quite matched up to your inflated expectations. Does that mean I settle for less? If you insist, and really want to put it that way, I can't exactly say you're wrong. (Although I must say I'm very much against settling for less!)
I wanna watch the Black Swan again by the way. A tour de force.
I also want to DotA. And play Pokemon. Wut?!
Watching the series of 'Home' videos made me think, All those kids with all those dreams. Doctor, teacher, fireman. What we're doing here, now, is to allow these kids their dreams. To allow them to pursue their dreams in peace. And who's going to do it, if not us?
___________________________________
So the things I truly want, I don't get. The things I deem unnecessary, superfluous, I get (oftentimes without effort.) Is that how it's going to work? But I have no choice. I have to try nonetheless.
___________________________________
So it was a picture perfect day. The sun low in the sky. A light fog over the city. Tall, gleaming structures. Sailing slowly, quietly into the harbour. A solitary fisherman salutes us. 'Qingdao Welcomes You', a large signboard blares. Boom boom boom. A military band awaits us. The sun glints off the sparkling brasswork. 150 seamen standing at attention, awaiting our arrival. We sail past a large destroyer, several black, sleek submarines. The still is piped.
___________________________________
Not Enough Warmth For Myself
15/03/11 (34.3-35.2 degrees celsius)
I wore 5 layers of clothes and I was freezing! I've almost never felt worse. Throbbing headache, like a 'wire in my brain' (a la Shutter Island.) Coughing, which created intercranial pressure = worse headache. Swallowing hurt, and my throat was like all swollen. I was cold but my face was all red, which was odd. Sleep had never seemed like such release.
Bye bye headache! I'll see you again, in 3 hours.
Blankets are a great invention are they not?
Bolsters too, but too bad I don't have one now.
I love bolsters.
From the way I'm writing I seem to be quite feverish still. Hah. Fast forward a day and I'm 37.7 degrees and sweating. While wearing a mere 3 layers of clothes! Would you have ever thought the day would come, where you would use the word 'mere' in reference to 3 layers!
So I had this thought that, goodness, I hardly have enough warmth for myself! How can I have enough for others? Which I don't know is figurative or metaphoric or literal or wtv. Need someone who studies lit to explain to me maybe!
___________________________________
I'm Coldhot92 Indeed
(The wee hours of 16/03/11)
Okay, so last night I had the hots, so I slept without my long johns. I was veritably melting. Pssst. I felt so warm I could hardly fall asleep. Then I did. At 3:21am I woke up, probably cause my legs were shaking so hard I kicked myself awake. I was, yet again, freezing! Brrrr.
I had this terrible dilemma, to try to sleep (precious, precious!) or try to remedy the situation? Naturally, I attempted the former, but failed miserably. Brrr!
So I scrambled off my bed and put on my beautiful long johns (a brrrilliantly conceived invention.) I was still pretty much freezing though, but at least I managed to sleep at last. But for the rest of the 1.5 hours of sleep, I was suffering :(
Then I woke up and by 6am, I was melting?! My body really outdid itself this time, I was hopelessly and utterly confused. I was like sweating and all, and I was wearing just 2 layers of clothing.
Of course, the weather should be warming up double quick time, with the aid of both our southward passage and the winds of time. The last vestiges of winter is being blown away now, and the spring must well and truly be in bloom! However, I'm like on a ship miles away from land, so I don't see its effect, sigh.
And when we finally sight land, we'll be, very unfortunately, back in the tropics! Oh dear. Back to days of humidity, and sweltering heat, and humidity, and sweat, and day after day of 24-32 degrees forecasts!! Gotta be the most unimaginative temperature range ever, dunno why we even bother with a forecast really.
___________________________________
I can't seem to muster the energy for anything at all. A smile, a witty repartee. Seems to take alot of effort all of a sudden. I'm down in the doldrums.
Only 9 days left though. Let me pull through. And I'm so tired too, I shouldn't be!
I think I could stay in Singapore. It's not an entirely unfeasible scenario. And not entirely unpalatable either.
___________________________________
If I Can't Be Good, Maybe I Can Be Deliciously Bad.
I'm quite terrible, I am. No talent. No musical talent. No artistic talent. No skirt-chasing talent, et cetera.
So maybe I can be bad. Not in that sense, y'know.
But it's like, if I have no taste in stuff, why not get like the ugliest rubbish around? (Not actually ugly, more of like tacky and useless, in reference to the souvenirs I buy back.) Way more discernible. I could be different.
Am I? I've been told I'm different, that I think differently. I'm not sure how exactly. But it's a compliment. So I shan't conform. I don't have to.
But I have to change. My temper. My impatience. More of the latter I think. I'm very impatient and get riled rather quickly. But I don't usually explode wih rage or something, I just get pissed off. Pissful person.
At least 3 times now, this MSTD. Incorrigible. What now? Can't stop trying to change. Then I get pissed off again. Sigh.
I really hate this about me. It's a hateful thing to have a temper. You know you're saying terrible stuff which are hurtful, you just can't stop. Righteous anger and all, and I don't give.
And pride. Worse, wounded pride.
___________________________________
22/03/11
(02:35H)
I did a cartwheel today :)
And I flunked a test I thought I'd pass! Damn loserzzx.
(07:35H)
Gonna kick soccer. Let's have some fun today! RUGBY C'MON.
Will I regret MSTD? I think so, yes. And yet I don't. I've enjoyed myself some, helped my division. I could have been selfish, tried to up my own value. To my own detriment, probably, I didn't. Which is probably not such a bad thing. Sigh.
I really could and should have done more. Too late for wistful thinking now. Let's ride out the rest of this. I'll be home soon.
(22:55H)
Flunked another test. Another cocktail. Another day.
S.S.D.D
Can't wait for this to be over.
___________________________________
Tell The World I'm Coming Home.
That'd be nice wouldn't it? But reality bites, as it always does. Probably nobody is gonna care whether I'm home. I would tell the world but nobody'd give me the time of the world. (Too many the worlds there!) So lovelorn and forlorn. Goodness. Garn!
Let this end please.
I'm losing drive here.
I'm losing my mind.
I'm losing myself.
I am lost.
Who will find me when I am lost? I don't know. I don't think there's anything to know.
Ohwells. Let me stop whingeing now! So tired, I want to sleep.
___________________________________
Mindless Machines, Dying Drones.
So mind-numbingly boring, garn! 2230-0300, 4.5 hours of Crappy Copying. Totally dying back there. I hit a brick wall, really couldn't continue writing a single word. So exasperating, frustrating, mind melting. Never done anything that felt so meaningless. Geez.
Must watch a movie (My Fair Lady?)
Read books. Hello hello Murakami! I think I'm in love. <3 <3 Should read the classics. Dumas, Kipling, Twain, Austen (?! Maybe never.) Wuthering Heights or something. Although they sound so moody and girl and dreadfully colonial. Not girly maybe, but a full-on romance novel.. will be odd. But if I never read them I'll be terribly uncultured and all.
Something about period movies/books, the ones featuring the brits in the 1800s or something. Terribly boring lives! The counts and duchesses and fair ladies of good social standing. They seem to do nothing with their lives at all! Just socialize and go for balls and walk their horses or sth. Fluffy existences.
It's amazing how rested I feel after just minutes, couple hours of rest. 2 quick shut eyes and poof, 100% me. Still a bitch to get out of bed though :/
My complexion is going down the drain. Ugh. Complection. Inflexion. Where is it that "x" and the "ct" is used interchangably?
Hmm. Dennis Lehane and John le Carre too.
___________________________________
The End.. Is Nigh!
Monkey off my back indeed! Nothing left but a few days, let's not make a hash of it!
Lepak mode: ON
Just get me home. And tell the world while you're at it.
Oscar Wilde, fascinating. Must read Importance of Being Earnest (thought it was Hemmingway or sth! What did that guy write though?)
Oh dear, I'm losing my facility (faculty?) I wrote right instead of write. Right ain't right, ain't write! And I did it again for the second time, alarming.
My Fair Lady is just Pygmalion embellished, except with an extremely odd ending. I mean, Higgins?! I have to watch My Fair Lady! (Maybe there are many subtle going-ons) The script conveys nothing of the sort. Poor Eliza! Poor Freddy! Can't imagine how Alan Jay Lerner could have discerned such an ending from George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. I thought Freddy made her feel like a Queen! Alan DooLittle was hilarious though, didn't quite expect a comedy. Interesting to read a script though, must say I found it quite entertaining.
Sleeping in till 8am! Fanstastix and Bombastix.
Happy Sunday! :)
But lingering fatigue, it seems. How else to explain slipshod writing like that! Oh, pleasant week ahead, I hope.
Expectation is the Enemy of Enjoyment.
Time to purchase mani mani boox. All that I've read so far, pretty good. Let's buy them! Asterix and Obelix Go To Buy Boox.
I think no more sleep tonight! Thank goodness for so much sleep last night! Phew?! Horror of horrors.
(03:51H)
Suffering. Like. A. Dog.
HELP! SLEEP PLEAZ!
___________________________________
And The Majik Werd Is!
Have you ever been so delighted to hear the word Johor?!
17 miles off the coast of Johor.
Yipee! Home Sweet Home. Goo'goo'g'job!
___________________________________
Hullo it's me now, not an excerpt from my MSTD journal. It's a wednesday night and I'm back home.. and it is not a disagreeable sensation, no, not at all!
I realize how depressed I must sound in some of my journal entries. So forlorn and hopeless and etc. Oh well, what can I say! Throw a boy/man/handsumboi into a ship with many other boys/men and embark on a journey to the far north (and back) for all of 42 days and that is what you get. Seriously, it really was a drag. Day after day we were being ground and apparently, moulded. Very demoralizing stuff.
Of course there were little breaks here and there in the monotony. Eating bugs (cockroaches, crickets/grasshopers idk which, frogs, and sth like flies or beatles or sth. Small little crunchy things taken two at a time.) etc. May not be very exciting and all, but some breathing space nonetheless. Towards the end it got better too, and I even wrote a silly little ditty (not a little silly ditty, it is extremely silly) too!
Not currently in the mood to go on babbling about my trip. Let's talk about today instead!
Might have been a short day, but there are 3 things that I thought I'd talk about.
Firstly (and the most serious of all) was when my ex-buddy told me that he admired people like me. I was quite at a loss as to how to respond. I felt it was entirely unjustified.
He asked, how can people like you just absorb things like that, understand things so quickly? Or something along those lines. I didn't know what to say. How can I say I can't help it? That it's something I've been blessed with since I was born? I have done absolutely nothing to achieve it, to earn it, to deserve it. Nothing. How could he possibly admire me for something I played no part in attaining?
It is not right. It is unfair, unjust. It's not fair for someone like me to almost effortlessly do things that other people struggle to do. The whole system is unfair. It is unfair for us, for my ex-buddy, to live in these times, where the things that he struggles with, the things that seemingly come to me so naturally, are the things that are highly esteemed. It is not fair.
I wish I could help him but I don't know how (if) I can. And I have let him down, all this while. It is the truth, as much as I wish it were otherwise. I was very angry with myself a while back for this, but now it's more of regret.
That was the first thing. The second thing is that I have for the third time in a week, bought a book. At least it is singular this time! And I used my $10 Harris voucher, so all's well! I bought Never Let Me Go (by some Jap author) which is actually now a Major Motion Picture. Which I'd wanted to watch but didn't have a chance to (I'm not too sure whether it actually is out already or not but my strong suspicions are that it has ended its run.)
You know how I claimed that I'd never buy a book which said Major Motion Picture on its cover, or sth like that? I defied myself this time (what a rebel!) because the cover looked so pretty! As compared to the other version, that is. And I'm quite sure Carey Mulligan is on the cover, so. Can't argue with that!
As of now I have 10-11 books that I've purchased but not read yet. So my recent Book Binge is really quite inexplicable. Spells trouble for my wallet!
Oh oh on this topic let me add that Stardust is yet another awesome book by Neil Gaiman! It's one of the two books (the other being Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, both being part of yet another Book Buying Spree sometime last year) that I stashed away in my cabin in OCS in case I was ever bored enough to rifle through them. Not a very good boredom vanquisher, I guess, since I was done with it in all of 2 days! Haha.
Okay so that was no. 2. No. 3 was this: A woman came up to me at Jurong Point and told me she was from some.. Singapore Heart Foundation I think. There are a few things that can be drawn from this. First, that I must look pretty old, for whatever it is she needed me to do requires the person to be at least 21 years of age.
This I know because I'd been approached by this same foundation 3 times prior. Which brings me to the second point. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I think I have the face of a sucker. Somehow, everyone who's looking for someone to do a survey/donate money/sign up for insurance/et/cetera casts their eyes upon me. Almost everyone.
Backtrack a few years, in hongkong, even a policeman came up to me and asked me, where are you from? What are you doing here? I recall his dubious expression when I held up my ez-link card vividly. Then on the ferry back from macau, I was stopped by the customs guy there, and had my bag searched. Then I HAD MY GOOSE CONFISCATED FROM ME BY THE CUSTOMS GUY AT CHANGI AIRPORT.
Seriously. And on all these occasions, I'm like the only person to be stopped?! Random checks me arse! Either I look like a terrorist or I look like a sucker, and I can't decide which is worse. Pfffffffffft!
I'd love to say that it's cause I'm simply magnetic, or that there's just something very alluring about me or something, but well, somehow I don't really think those are very satisfying explanations. Sigh. I am stumped, bewildered, mystified, mystical. Yeah. There's something very mystical about all these going-ons.
If I were a conspiracy theorist and prone to paranoia, I'd probably be stowed away in one of my nuclear bunkers already. Ohwell.
So that's the third thing. And, Surprise! There's a fourth! Betcha didn't see that coming did you? One box of happy surprises after another, that's me.
I thought we'd book out today early enough for me to catch Mary & Max, but I was disappointed there. Didn't actually think that was gonna happen, actually, but fool's gold looks gold nonetheless. And was a tad too late to watch Rango at Cineleisure too! By the looks of it, it'll be off the screens by tomorrow, which is a crying shame. Thankfully, and hopefully, I believe Mary & Max still has one week left in it, and also, Norwegian Wood is opening tomorrow! Hurrah!
Wonder if I should read the book first (which'd be a challenge since I can't find the exact cover I want, despite the book being available almost everywhere I look!) or watch the movie first. I've almost never watched a movie before reading the book it was based on, in fact I can't recall any instances of that. Except most recently, with Shutter Island. Which leads me to believe that reading a book first before watching the movie works out better than vice versa.
Maybe I should give it another shot, instead of prematurely coming to that conclusion! Wouldn't want to spoil my experience actually, but in the name of scientific enquiry, maybe I shall! Choices, choices! Ho hum.
I shall end here on this characteristically sad note (haha!), that as of now, I've had diarrhea for the past one week :( Ho hum.
EDIT @ 11:39am - Norwegian Wood opens on the 14th instead! And there's noway I'll be out on a thursday for the third concurrent week.. Sigh!
Oh oh and I forgot to add that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is going for $8.90 at Harris now! The hardcover version too. I remember thinking: what a steal! when I bought it for $20 last time. $8.90 is criminal! How it can be so cheap, I have no clue. Weird.
And check out youareatourist.com for some death cab for cutie goodness! Lurvely.
When there's a burning in your heart
An endless yearning in your heart
Build it bigger than the sun
Let it grow, let it grow
When there's a burning in your heart
Don't be alarmed
This fire grows higher
When there's a doubt within your mind
Because you're thinking all the time
Framing rights into wrongs
Move along, move along
When there's a doubt within your mind
When there's a burning in your heart
And you think it'll burst apart
Or there's nothing to feel
Save the tears, save the tears
When there's a burning in your heart
I think it'd be pretty if it were -
Save the tears, save the tears
For when there's a burning in your heart.
I think there's something beautiful about that, about using tears to put out the burning in your heart. Or that's just me! Ta-ta.
I wanna watch the Black Swan again by the way. A tour de force.
I also want to DotA. And play Pokemon. Wut?!
Watching the series of 'Home' videos made me think, All those kids with all those dreams. Doctor, teacher, fireman. What we're doing here, now, is to allow these kids their dreams. To allow them to pursue their dreams in peace. And who's going to do it, if not us?
___________________________________
So the things I truly want, I don't get. The things I deem unnecessary, superfluous, I get (oftentimes without effort.) Is that how it's going to work? But I have no choice. I have to try nonetheless.
___________________________________
So it was a picture perfect day. The sun low in the sky. A light fog over the city. Tall, gleaming structures. Sailing slowly, quietly into the harbour. A solitary fisherman salutes us. 'Qingdao Welcomes You', a large signboard blares. Boom boom boom. A military band awaits us. The sun glints off the sparkling brasswork. 150 seamen standing at attention, awaiting our arrival. We sail past a large destroyer, several black, sleek submarines. The still is piped.
___________________________________
Not Enough Warmth For Myself
15/03/11 (34.3-35.2 degrees celsius)
I wore 5 layers of clothes and I was freezing! I've almost never felt worse. Throbbing headache, like a 'wire in my brain' (a la Shutter Island.) Coughing, which created intercranial pressure = worse headache. Swallowing hurt, and my throat was like all swollen. I was cold but my face was all red, which was odd. Sleep had never seemed like such release.
Bye bye headache! I'll see you again, in 3 hours.
Blankets are a great invention are they not?
Bolsters too, but too bad I don't have one now.
I love bolsters.
From the way I'm writing I seem to be quite feverish still. Hah. Fast forward a day and I'm 37.7 degrees and sweating. While wearing a mere 3 layers of clothes! Would you have ever thought the day would come, where you would use the word 'mere' in reference to 3 layers!
So I had this thought that, goodness, I hardly have enough warmth for myself! How can I have enough for others? Which I don't know is figurative or metaphoric or literal or wtv. Need someone who studies lit to explain to me maybe!
___________________________________
I'm Coldhot92 Indeed
(The wee hours of 16/03/11)
Okay, so last night I had the hots, so I slept without my long johns. I was veritably melting. Pssst. I felt so warm I could hardly fall asleep. Then I did. At 3:21am I woke up, probably cause my legs were shaking so hard I kicked myself awake. I was, yet again, freezing! Brrrr.
I had this terrible dilemma, to try to sleep (precious, precious!) or try to remedy the situation? Naturally, I attempted the former, but failed miserably. Brrr!
So I scrambled off my bed and put on my beautiful long johns (a brrrilliantly conceived invention.) I was still pretty much freezing though, but at least I managed to sleep at last. But for the rest of the 1.5 hours of sleep, I was suffering :(
Then I woke up and by 6am, I was melting?! My body really outdid itself this time, I was hopelessly and utterly confused. I was like sweating and all, and I was wearing just 2 layers of clothing.
Of course, the weather should be warming up double quick time, with the aid of both our southward passage and the winds of time. The last vestiges of winter is being blown away now, and the spring must well and truly be in bloom! However, I'm like on a ship miles away from land, so I don't see its effect, sigh.
And when we finally sight land, we'll be, very unfortunately, back in the tropics! Oh dear. Back to days of humidity, and sweltering heat, and humidity, and sweat, and day after day of 24-32 degrees forecasts!! Gotta be the most unimaginative temperature range ever, dunno why we even bother with a forecast really.
___________________________________
I can't seem to muster the energy for anything at all. A smile, a witty repartee. Seems to take alot of effort all of a sudden. I'm down in the doldrums.
Only 9 days left though. Let me pull through. And I'm so tired too, I shouldn't be!
I think I could stay in Singapore. It's not an entirely unfeasible scenario. And not entirely unpalatable either.
___________________________________
If I Can't Be Good, Maybe I Can Be Deliciously Bad.
I'm quite terrible, I am. No talent. No musical talent. No artistic talent. No skirt-chasing talent, et cetera.
So maybe I can be bad. Not in that sense, y'know.
But it's like, if I have no taste in stuff, why not get like the ugliest rubbish around? (Not actually ugly, more of like tacky and useless, in reference to the souvenirs I buy back.) Way more discernible. I could be different.
Am I? I've been told I'm different, that I think differently. I'm not sure how exactly. But it's a compliment. So I shan't conform. I don't have to.
But I have to change. My temper. My impatience. More of the latter I think. I'm very impatient and get riled rather quickly. But I don't usually explode wih rage or something, I just get pissed off. Pissful person.
At least 3 times now, this MSTD. Incorrigible. What now? Can't stop trying to change. Then I get pissed off again. Sigh.
I really hate this about me. It's a hateful thing to have a temper. You know you're saying terrible stuff which are hurtful, you just can't stop. Righteous anger and all, and I don't give.
And pride. Worse, wounded pride.
___________________________________
22/03/11
(02:35H)
I did a cartwheel today :)
And I flunked a test I thought I'd pass! Damn loserzzx.
(07:35H)
Gonna kick soccer. Let's have some fun today! RUGBY C'MON.
Will I regret MSTD? I think so, yes. And yet I don't. I've enjoyed myself some, helped my division. I could have been selfish, tried to up my own value. To my own detriment, probably, I didn't. Which is probably not such a bad thing. Sigh.
I really could and should have done more. Too late for wistful thinking now. Let's ride out the rest of this. I'll be home soon.
(22:55H)
Flunked another test. Another cocktail. Another day.
S.S.D.D
Can't wait for this to be over.
___________________________________
Tell The World I'm Coming Home.
That'd be nice wouldn't it? But reality bites, as it always does. Probably nobody is gonna care whether I'm home. I would tell the world but nobody'd give me the time of the world. (Too many the worlds there!) So lovelorn and forlorn. Goodness. Garn!
Let this end please.
I'm losing drive here.
I'm losing my mind.
I'm losing myself.
I am lost.
Who will find me when I am lost? I don't know. I don't think there's anything to know.
Ohwells. Let me stop whingeing now! So tired, I want to sleep.
___________________________________
Mindless Machines, Dying Drones.
So mind-numbingly boring, garn! 2230-0300, 4.5 hours of Crappy Copying. Totally dying back there. I hit a brick wall, really couldn't continue writing a single word. So exasperating, frustrating, mind melting. Never done anything that felt so meaningless. Geez.
Must watch a movie (My Fair Lady?)
Read books. Hello hello Murakami! I think I'm in love. <3 <3 Should read the classics. Dumas, Kipling, Twain, Austen (?! Maybe never.) Wuthering Heights or something. Although they sound so moody and girl and dreadfully colonial. Not girly maybe, but a full-on romance novel.. will be odd. But if I never read them I'll be terribly uncultured and all.
Something about period movies/books, the ones featuring the brits in the 1800s or something. Terribly boring lives! The counts and duchesses and fair ladies of good social standing. They seem to do nothing with their lives at all! Just socialize and go for balls and walk their horses or sth. Fluffy existences.
It's amazing how rested I feel after just minutes, couple hours of rest. 2 quick shut eyes and poof, 100% me. Still a bitch to get out of bed though :/
My complexion is going down the drain. Ugh. Complection. Inflexion. Where is it that "x" and the "ct" is used interchangably?
Hmm. Dennis Lehane and John le Carre too.
___________________________________
The End.. Is Nigh!
Monkey off my back indeed! Nothing left but a few days, let's not make a hash of it!
Lepak mode: ON
Just get me home. And tell the world while you're at it.
Oscar Wilde, fascinating. Must read Importance of Being Earnest (thought it was Hemmingway or sth! What did that guy write though?)
Oh dear, I'm losing my facility (faculty?) I wrote right instead of write. Right ain't right, ain't write! And I did it again for the second time, alarming.
My Fair Lady is just Pygmalion embellished, except with an extremely odd ending. I mean, Higgins?! I have to watch My Fair Lady! (Maybe there are many subtle going-ons) The script conveys nothing of the sort. Poor Eliza! Poor Freddy! Can't imagine how Alan Jay Lerner could have discerned such an ending from George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. I thought Freddy made her feel like a Queen! Alan DooLittle was hilarious though, didn't quite expect a comedy. Interesting to read a script though, must say I found it quite entertaining.
Sleeping in till 8am! Fanstastix and Bombastix.
Happy Sunday! :)
But lingering fatigue, it seems. How else to explain slipshod writing like that! Oh, pleasant week ahead, I hope.
Expectation is the Enemy of Enjoyment.
Time to purchase mani mani boox. All that I've read so far, pretty good. Let's buy them! Asterix and Obelix Go To Buy Boox.
I think no more sleep tonight! Thank goodness for so much sleep last night! Phew?! Horror of horrors.
(03:51H)
Suffering. Like. A. Dog.
HELP! SLEEP PLEAZ!
___________________________________
And The Majik Werd Is!
Have you ever been so delighted to hear the word Johor?!
17 miles off the coast of Johor.
Yipee! Home Sweet Home. Goo'goo'g'job!
___________________________________
Hullo it's me now, not an excerpt from my MSTD journal. It's a wednesday night and I'm back home.. and it is not a disagreeable sensation, no, not at all!
I realize how depressed I must sound in some of my journal entries. So forlorn and hopeless and etc. Oh well, what can I say! Throw a boy/man/handsumboi into a ship with many other boys/men and embark on a journey to the far north (and back) for all of 42 days and that is what you get. Seriously, it really was a drag. Day after day we were being ground and apparently, moulded. Very demoralizing stuff.
Of course there were little breaks here and there in the monotony. Eating bugs (cockroaches, crickets/grasshopers idk which, frogs, and sth like flies or beatles or sth. Small little crunchy things taken two at a time.) etc. May not be very exciting and all, but some breathing space nonetheless. Towards the end it got better too, and I even wrote a silly little ditty (not a little silly ditty, it is extremely silly) too!
Not currently in the mood to go on babbling about my trip. Let's talk about today instead!
Might have been a short day, but there are 3 things that I thought I'd talk about.
Firstly (and the most serious of all) was when my ex-buddy told me that he admired people like me. I was quite at a loss as to how to respond. I felt it was entirely unjustified.
He asked, how can people like you just absorb things like that, understand things so quickly? Or something along those lines. I didn't know what to say. How can I say I can't help it? That it's something I've been blessed with since I was born? I have done absolutely nothing to achieve it, to earn it, to deserve it. Nothing. How could he possibly admire me for something I played no part in attaining?
It is not right. It is unfair, unjust. It's not fair for someone like me to almost effortlessly do things that other people struggle to do. The whole system is unfair. It is unfair for us, for my ex-buddy, to live in these times, where the things that he struggles with, the things that seemingly come to me so naturally, are the things that are highly esteemed. It is not fair.
I wish I could help him but I don't know how (if) I can. And I have let him down, all this while. It is the truth, as much as I wish it were otherwise. I was very angry with myself a while back for this, but now it's more of regret.
That was the first thing. The second thing is that I have for the third time in a week, bought a book. At least it is singular this time! And I used my $10 Harris voucher, so all's well! I bought Never Let Me Go (by some Jap author) which is actually now a Major Motion Picture. Which I'd wanted to watch but didn't have a chance to (I'm not too sure whether it actually is out already or not but my strong suspicions are that it has ended its run.)
You know how I claimed that I'd never buy a book which said Major Motion Picture on its cover, or sth like that? I defied myself this time (what a rebel!) because the cover looked so pretty! As compared to the other version, that is. And I'm quite sure Carey Mulligan is on the cover, so. Can't argue with that!
As of now I have 10-11 books that I've purchased but not read yet. So my recent Book Binge is really quite inexplicable. Spells trouble for my wallet!
Oh oh on this topic let me add that Stardust is yet another awesome book by Neil Gaiman! It's one of the two books (the other being Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, both being part of yet another Book Buying Spree sometime last year) that I stashed away in my cabin in OCS in case I was ever bored enough to rifle through them. Not a very good boredom vanquisher, I guess, since I was done with it in all of 2 days! Haha.
Okay so that was no. 2. No. 3 was this: A woman came up to me at Jurong Point and told me she was from some.. Singapore Heart Foundation I think. There are a few things that can be drawn from this. First, that I must look pretty old, for whatever it is she needed me to do requires the person to be at least 21 years of age.
This I know because I'd been approached by this same foundation 3 times prior. Which brings me to the second point. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I think I have the face of a sucker. Somehow, everyone who's looking for someone to do a survey/donate money/sign up for insurance/et/cetera casts their eyes upon me. Almost everyone.
Backtrack a few years, in hongkong, even a policeman came up to me and asked me, where are you from? What are you doing here? I recall his dubious expression when I held up my ez-link card vividly. Then on the ferry back from macau, I was stopped by the customs guy there, and had my bag searched. Then I HAD MY GOOSE CONFISCATED FROM ME BY THE CUSTOMS GUY AT CHANGI AIRPORT.
Seriously. And on all these occasions, I'm like the only person to be stopped?! Random checks me arse! Either I look like a terrorist or I look like a sucker, and I can't decide which is worse. Pfffffffffft!
I'd love to say that it's cause I'm simply magnetic, or that there's just something very alluring about me or something, but well, somehow I don't really think those are very satisfying explanations. Sigh. I am stumped, bewildered, mystified, mystical. Yeah. There's something very mystical about all these going-ons.
If I were a conspiracy theorist and prone to paranoia, I'd probably be stowed away in one of my nuclear bunkers already. Ohwell.
So that's the third thing. And, Surprise! There's a fourth! Betcha didn't see that coming did you? One box of happy surprises after another, that's me.
I thought we'd book out today early enough for me to catch Mary & Max, but I was disappointed there. Didn't actually think that was gonna happen, actually, but fool's gold looks gold nonetheless. And was a tad too late to watch Rango at Cineleisure too! By the looks of it, it'll be off the screens by tomorrow, which is a crying shame. Thankfully, and hopefully, I believe Mary & Max still has one week left in it, and also, Norwegian Wood is opening tomorrow! Hurrah!
Wonder if I should read the book first (which'd be a challenge since I can't find the exact cover I want, despite the book being available almost everywhere I look!) or watch the movie first. I've almost never watched a movie before reading the book it was based on, in fact I can't recall any instances of that. Except most recently, with Shutter Island. Which leads me to believe that reading a book first before watching the movie works out better than vice versa.
Maybe I should give it another shot, instead of prematurely coming to that conclusion! Wouldn't want to spoil my experience actually, but in the name of scientific enquiry, maybe I shall! Choices, choices! Ho hum.
I shall end here on this characteristically sad note (haha!), that as of now, I've had diarrhea for the past one week :( Ho hum.
EDIT @ 11:39am - Norwegian Wood opens on the 14th instead! And there's noway I'll be out on a thursday for the third concurrent week.. Sigh!
Oh oh and I forgot to add that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is going for $8.90 at Harris now! The hardcover version too. I remember thinking: what a steal! when I bought it for $20 last time. $8.90 is criminal! How it can be so cheap, I have no clue. Weird.
And check out youareatourist.com for some death cab for cutie goodness! Lurvely.
When there's a burning in your heart
An endless yearning in your heart
Build it bigger than the sun
Let it grow, let it grow
When there's a burning in your heart
Don't be alarmed
This fire grows higher
When there's a doubt within your mind
Because you're thinking all the time
Framing rights into wrongs
Move along, move along
When there's a doubt within your mind
When there's a burning in your heart
And you think it'll burst apart
Or there's nothing to feel
Save the tears, save the tears
When there's a burning in your heart
I think it'd be pretty if it were -
Save the tears, save the tears
For when there's a burning in your heart.
I think there's something beautiful about that, about using tears to put out the burning in your heart. Or that's just me! Ta-ta.
Sunday 3 April 2011
Travel & Travails.
Hullo all. I'm sure everyone has been eagerly awaiting my return yeah? Haha who am I kidding. Okay first and foremost I shan't be blogging much about my trip, chiefly cause it's 4:28am and I want to sleep. Instead I shall recount my last few days back in Singapore which believe me you, have been rather exciting too!
So on wednesday after arriving back here, I had dinner at home before heading out to watch Morning Glory. I was initially thinking of watching Sucker Punch but random comments on facebook convinced me otherwise. Morning Glory was awesome! I was so glad nobody was sitting beside me cause I was laughing so hard. I don't think I've ever watched Diane Keaton but she was pretty good! Some great dialogue and lines there.
Then I spent thursday uploading photos. Yes, that was basically all I did for the day. I will forevermore be amazed by people who dilligently upload photos within hours or days of their being taken. My photos were stored in my camera for more than a year! I think I spend so much time cause I'm thinking of my captions actually.
I will deviate here for a moment. During sailing I actually kept a diary of sorts, I did not document what I did everyday, but I did pen down many of my thoughts, so it was sort of like an offline blog. Which actually makes absolutely no sense, you know. Cause a blog is an online diary. You know what I mean. It's just that modern words and ways of thinking have taken over our lives, sigh. Okay that was another digression. So this is what I had to say.
Some people see the world in pictures. I see it in words. Well, I don't know how to better put it. When I take a photo, I think in terms of captions. That is about the best I can explain it. For someone who claims to see the world in words I prove to be remarkably unadept (actually inept) at articulating just how I feel. Haha. My photos mean about as much to me as the caption I attach to it. I don't know if you getting my drift. Sometimes I look at something and think of a caption, before I actually take the photo. Of course, there are times when the beauty of a scene speaks for itself and I snap it.
On a sider-note I think the photos I have of Malaysia look fantastic! Of course, they were enhanced (just slightly a little bit) by photoshop by my sister, so I don't know exactly what happened to them. And the MSTD ones look pretty decent too, although nowhere near as fantastic. I think I have some flair! Oh shut up. Unfortunately due to it's long incubation, I forgot quite a few of the captions that I intended for the photos. Ohwell. Occupational hazard of a procrastinator.
Moving on. Then on friday I decided to watch Mary & Max. Sounds terribly delightful, and there's the voice of Philip Seymour Hoffman (I think, well the guy from Doubt anyway.) To my utter surprise, it was all sold out by the time I reached Cineleisure!!! It's a clay animation (I think) for goodness sake, who'd have expected it to be sold out?! I took it in my stride and went to visit my mother at work.
It's always a tad embarrassing to do that, to be honest. Dear mother always takes the opportunity to proudly display me to all her colleagues, and y'know as the shy boy I am... And then all of them remark that: oh, the (younger) brother is taller than him right? which although I am quite inured to by now, is still embarrassing to have out loud! Sigh. Genetics sure has dealt me a bad hand.
And I spent an hour scuttling between taka and wisma for this Project Blood something shop to look for a man-bag/purse/pouch. Which sounds terribly gay, I know, but I assure you what I'm looking for is nothing of the sort. All I want is something to put my book(s) in, and a pen if need be, and my wallet/handphone/mp3/keys/tissue paper/umbrella (optional) as well. Something without a sling or whatnot, maybe a sort of man-clutch. Urgh. Probably it's something like a laptop holder, I think? I can't be the only guy who wants sth like this, can I? Ridiculous that's it's not something readily available at a store near me.
Then I went to kino to hunt for Norwegian Wood (not a very exciting hunt, the book is everywhere now, but I'm looking for the Vintage cover and not the "Now a major motion picture" one. I never buy those if I can.) but I was disappointed. So I headed to that excellent Borders at Wheelock and did not find it either. I did, however, get A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami (a most brilliant author, I may elaborate in future posts!) and The Little Prince.
I remember being quite disappointed at not finding it during the Popular book fair last year, especially since its blown up cover was on one of the pavillions there. I really must thank jiamin for introducing her favourite book to me (at the tender age of 18!) As well as The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and one of Neil Gaiman's short stories as well.
After the inspired purchase of the books, I headed back to Cine to watch Sucker Punch (Digital). Okay, I've never watched a digital show, nor have I watched Sucker Punch Non-Digital, so I'm not too certain what it does? HAHA. I'm quite sure I paid extra for it by the way. I think I see the digital parts sometimes, but how am I to know whether they're supposed to be there anyway?! How was I to know / They never told me / Can't believe that I'm the fool again..
Anyway I'm 70% sure the show was meant to be camp. There were too many awesomely ridiculous/exaggerated scenes for it to be taken seriously. Millions of cliched/corny lines and scenes in there, and there's no way that would have slipped past the director of Watchmen (& 300 for that matter, except that I haven't watched it yet :O) I must say, though, that Jena Malone was absolutely cracking! And Abbie Cornish, but Rocket was really the scene-stealer.
It was the 10pm show and I had to cab back after that. (Don't get me started on my ill-discipline when it comes to taking cabs nowadays! I'm totally splurging.) At least I took the MRT all the way to kranji (last train) before hopping onto the cab because the stupid MRT just cannot go one more stop. ONE.
Also on the topic of friday, which I somehow forgot, was visiting annabel and amanda at NTU. Thanks a bunch for hosting me, you guys were such gracious hosts. Haha. My primary mission was to get a printer (not such an easy task, the thing is gargantuan. Story for another day.) and bugger off, but thanks to my hosts I had quite a pleasant afternoon.
And before that I was at JP's Harris where I bought 3 books. Ignorance by Milan Kundera, and 2 other books that randomly caught my eye (they were 3 for the price of 2 actually haha.) How Late It Was, How Late by James Kelman which incidentally, is the Booker Prize winner of '94, which I had absolutely no idea about. And The Right Attitude To Rain by Alexander McCall Smith which looked delightful, but I have just, at this very moment, discovered that it is part of a series. Which dismays me because I cannot begin on a book without having read its prequels. Sigh! I now have to buy another 2 books at least. And Norwegian Wood. And all of Murakami actually. And all of Milan Kundera. Garn!
So that was friday. I bet you thought I'd never end, or that I'd remember it was only friday! So, Saturday, which was today. At 6:40 I made the snap decision to watch Let The Bullets Fly, which was 7:45 at Plaza Sing. Within 2mins I was out of the house and within an hour, at the box office. I quite like being able to get dressed within a minute and not have to dither about, and agonize alot, and muck about with make-up and all. Haha! I'm kidding, of course.
So let me share with you why it was awesome I went to watch the movie alone. I got the very last seat left in the house. All the way at the corner in the front row, which meant I had to crane my neck. But nonetheless. There was only one seat left and I got it. Awesome much! I wonder whether it'd have been filled otherwise, I'm inclined to think that it wouldn't have.
Let The Bullets Fly is an awesome show. The best of the 3 I've watched this week. Yet another show that did not take itself too seriously (that makes all 3 of them, actually. Comedies, or at least, comedic) and it was absolutely smashing! I enjoyed it thoroughly and loved every minute of it. I thought Andy Lau was in it but apparently its his lookalike. Uncanny likeness though. The cast was quite awesome, especially Carina Lau! 281 thumbs up.
And I had ThaiExpress after that. And after that tau huey from the most awesome Rochor Beancurd. The crowd there is quite staggering. I finally managed to buy my hot tau huey and scooted off to the steps in front of SOTA to consume that bowl of heavenly goodness. Then I boarded the train home.
So that has been my week thus far, and it has been hapz! And my money has been flowing through my fingers like water. It is quite alarming. Oh oh and I also wanted to buy a refurbished iPod Touch 32gb from the apple store but it's all sold out!!! Damnit. I was so ready to splurge on myself and I couldn't. It would have been the expensivest item I ever bought too. My record still stands at 100+ dollars for my mp3. Haha!
Okay so I will end here. My next few posts probably will just be little passages and bits and pieces of what I've written while sailing. There's stuff from my diary while backpacking way back in march last year and from some of the writings done while in OCS that I might like to include too. Some of them seem pretty decent. But it really is different when I'm actually penning stuff down by hand into my diaries/journals/wtv compared to when I'm typing it out. And some of the stuff I wrote I'd never post here. Haha.
Oh oh let me share my to-do list that I thought up one fine day while sailing! Exactly as I wrote it.
To-Do-List (An Impractical One :)
Defence of the Ancients! (More affectionately known as DotA)(Or unaffectionately known as that lame/stupid game that ALL guys play, eyeroll.)
But restrict myself to only 2 games of it! Ya right -.-
Sleep for 20hours in one glorious day!
But only if I have enough time to spare to luxuriate in block leave.
Layout all my tacky stuff!
Might have to get a rack or sth, so exciting.
Fo0dz!
One day of foodhunting is in order! I'll make a checklist and not adhere to it.
Movies!
Operative letter is "s". One is not enough. /\/\/\/\! (Mega-Movie-Marathon!)
Rugby + Rock climbing (+ Badminton?)
'Nuff said. Wanna make some crunching tackles.
Pirate.
Muzik.
On a more practical note, also to upload photos. Let me not start on the practical list, it'll be never-ending @@
Haha okay that's the last of it. Well. I did something insanely foolish but it hasn't turned out so bad (yet) I think! I don't know what I was thinking though! Goodness. Garn! Haha.
Alrighty then goodnight or morning (depending on your nocturnality) and all the best for whatever! (:
NOTE: What a silly idea to blog about my week. This post is, I believe, insanely long. Sigh. It's 6:06 now. I'm such an idoit.
So on wednesday after arriving back here, I had dinner at home before heading out to watch Morning Glory. I was initially thinking of watching Sucker Punch but random comments on facebook convinced me otherwise. Morning Glory was awesome! I was so glad nobody was sitting beside me cause I was laughing so hard. I don't think I've ever watched Diane Keaton but she was pretty good! Some great dialogue and lines there.
Then I spent thursday uploading photos. Yes, that was basically all I did for the day. I will forevermore be amazed by people who dilligently upload photos within hours or days of their being taken. My photos were stored in my camera for more than a year! I think I spend so much time cause I'm thinking of my captions actually.
I will deviate here for a moment. During sailing I actually kept a diary of sorts, I did not document what I did everyday, but I did pen down many of my thoughts, so it was sort of like an offline blog. Which actually makes absolutely no sense, you know. Cause a blog is an online diary. You know what I mean. It's just that modern words and ways of thinking have taken over our lives, sigh. Okay that was another digression. So this is what I had to say.
Some people see the world in pictures. I see it in words. Well, I don't know how to better put it. When I take a photo, I think in terms of captions. That is about the best I can explain it. For someone who claims to see the world in words I prove to be remarkably unadept (actually inept) at articulating just how I feel. Haha. My photos mean about as much to me as the caption I attach to it. I don't know if you getting my drift. Sometimes I look at something and think of a caption, before I actually take the photo. Of course, there are times when the beauty of a scene speaks for itself and I snap it.
On a sider-note I think the photos I have of Malaysia look fantastic! Of course, they were enhanced (just slightly a little bit) by photoshop by my sister, so I don't know exactly what happened to them. And the MSTD ones look pretty decent too, although nowhere near as fantastic. I think I have some flair! Oh shut up. Unfortunately due to it's long incubation, I forgot quite a few of the captions that I intended for the photos. Ohwell. Occupational hazard of a procrastinator.
Moving on. Then on friday I decided to watch Mary & Max. Sounds terribly delightful, and there's the voice of Philip Seymour Hoffman (I think, well the guy from Doubt anyway.) To my utter surprise, it was all sold out by the time I reached Cineleisure!!! It's a clay animation (I think) for goodness sake, who'd have expected it to be sold out?! I took it in my stride and went to visit my mother at work.
It's always a tad embarrassing to do that, to be honest. Dear mother always takes the opportunity to proudly display me to all her colleagues, and y'know as the shy boy I am... And then all of them remark that: oh, the (younger) brother is taller than him right? which although I am quite inured to by now, is still embarrassing to have out loud! Sigh. Genetics sure has dealt me a bad hand.
And I spent an hour scuttling between taka and wisma for this Project Blood something shop to look for a man-bag/purse/pouch. Which sounds terribly gay, I know, but I assure you what I'm looking for is nothing of the sort. All I want is something to put my book(s) in, and a pen if need be, and my wallet/handphone/mp3/keys/tissue paper/umbrella (optional) as well. Something without a sling or whatnot, maybe a sort of man-clutch. Urgh. Probably it's something like a laptop holder, I think? I can't be the only guy who wants sth like this, can I? Ridiculous that's it's not something readily available at a store near me.
Then I went to kino to hunt for Norwegian Wood (not a very exciting hunt, the book is everywhere now, but I'm looking for the Vintage cover and not the "Now a major motion picture" one. I never buy those if I can.) but I was disappointed. So I headed to that excellent Borders at Wheelock and did not find it either. I did, however, get A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami (a most brilliant author, I may elaborate in future posts!) and The Little Prince.
I remember being quite disappointed at not finding it during the Popular book fair last year, especially since its blown up cover was on one of the pavillions there. I really must thank jiamin for introducing her favourite book to me (at the tender age of 18!) As well as The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and one of Neil Gaiman's short stories as well.
After the inspired purchase of the books, I headed back to Cine to watch Sucker Punch (Digital). Okay, I've never watched a digital show, nor have I watched Sucker Punch Non-Digital, so I'm not too certain what it does? HAHA. I'm quite sure I paid extra for it by the way. I think I see the digital parts sometimes, but how am I to know whether they're supposed to be there anyway?! How was I to know / They never told me / Can't believe that I'm the fool again..
Anyway I'm 70% sure the show was meant to be camp. There were too many awesomely ridiculous/exaggerated scenes for it to be taken seriously. Millions of cliched/corny lines and scenes in there, and there's no way that would have slipped past the director of Watchmen (& 300 for that matter, except that I haven't watched it yet :O) I must say, though, that Jena Malone was absolutely cracking! And Abbie Cornish, but Rocket was really the scene-stealer.
It was the 10pm show and I had to cab back after that. (Don't get me started on my ill-discipline when it comes to taking cabs nowadays! I'm totally splurging.) At least I took the MRT all the way to kranji (last train) before hopping onto the cab because the stupid MRT just cannot go one more stop. ONE.
Also on the topic of friday, which I somehow forgot, was visiting annabel and amanda at NTU. Thanks a bunch for hosting me, you guys were such gracious hosts. Haha. My primary mission was to get a printer (not such an easy task, the thing is gargantuan. Story for another day.) and bugger off, but thanks to my hosts I had quite a pleasant afternoon.
And before that I was at JP's Harris where I bought 3 books. Ignorance by Milan Kundera, and 2 other books that randomly caught my eye (they were 3 for the price of 2 actually haha.) How Late It Was, How Late by James Kelman which incidentally, is the Booker Prize winner of '94, which I had absolutely no idea about. And The Right Attitude To Rain by Alexander McCall Smith which looked delightful, but I have just, at this very moment, discovered that it is part of a series. Which dismays me because I cannot begin on a book without having read its prequels. Sigh! I now have to buy another 2 books at least. And Norwegian Wood. And all of Murakami actually. And all of Milan Kundera. Garn!
So that was friday. I bet you thought I'd never end, or that I'd remember it was only friday! So, Saturday, which was today. At 6:40 I made the snap decision to watch Let The Bullets Fly, which was 7:45 at Plaza Sing. Within 2mins I was out of the house and within an hour, at the box office. I quite like being able to get dressed within a minute and not have to dither about, and agonize alot, and muck about with make-up and all. Haha! I'm kidding, of course.
So let me share with you why it was awesome I went to watch the movie alone. I got the very last seat left in the house. All the way at the corner in the front row, which meant I had to crane my neck. But nonetheless. There was only one seat left and I got it. Awesome much! I wonder whether it'd have been filled otherwise, I'm inclined to think that it wouldn't have.
Let The Bullets Fly is an awesome show. The best of the 3 I've watched this week. Yet another show that did not take itself too seriously (that makes all 3 of them, actually. Comedies, or at least, comedic) and it was absolutely smashing! I enjoyed it thoroughly and loved every minute of it. I thought Andy Lau was in it but apparently its his lookalike. Uncanny likeness though. The cast was quite awesome, especially Carina Lau! 281 thumbs up.
And I had ThaiExpress after that. And after that tau huey from the most awesome Rochor Beancurd. The crowd there is quite staggering. I finally managed to buy my hot tau huey and scooted off to the steps in front of SOTA to consume that bowl of heavenly goodness. Then I boarded the train home.
So that has been my week thus far, and it has been hapz! And my money has been flowing through my fingers like water. It is quite alarming. Oh oh and I also wanted to buy a refurbished iPod Touch 32gb from the apple store but it's all sold out!!! Damnit. I was so ready to splurge on myself and I couldn't. It would have been the expensivest item I ever bought too. My record still stands at 100+ dollars for my mp3. Haha!
Okay so I will end here. My next few posts probably will just be little passages and bits and pieces of what I've written while sailing. There's stuff from my diary while backpacking way back in march last year and from some of the writings done while in OCS that I might like to include too. Some of them seem pretty decent. But it really is different when I'm actually penning stuff down by hand into my diaries/journals/wtv compared to when I'm typing it out. And some of the stuff I wrote I'd never post here. Haha.
Oh oh let me share my to-do list that I thought up one fine day while sailing! Exactly as I wrote it.
To-Do-List (An Impractical One :)
Defence of the Ancients! (More affectionately known as DotA)(Or unaffectionately known as that lame/stupid game that ALL guys play, eyeroll.)
But restrict myself to only 2 games of it! Ya right -.-
Sleep for 20hours in one glorious day!
But only if I have enough time to spare to luxuriate in block leave.
Layout all my tacky stuff!
Might have to get a rack or sth, so exciting.
Fo0dz!
One day of foodhunting is in order! I'll make a checklist and not adhere to it.
Movies!
Operative letter is "s". One is not enough. /\/\/\/\! (Mega-Movie-Marathon!)
Rugby + Rock climbing (+ Badminton?)
'Nuff said. Wanna make some crunching tackles.
Pirate.
Muzik.
On a more practical note, also to upload photos. Let me not start on the practical list, it'll be never-ending @@
Haha okay that's the last of it. Well. I did something insanely foolish but it hasn't turned out so bad (yet) I think! I don't know what I was thinking though! Goodness. Garn! Haha.
Alrighty then goodnight or morning (depending on your nocturnality) and all the best for whatever! (:
NOTE: What a silly idea to blog about my week. This post is, I believe, insanely long. Sigh. It's 6:06 now. I'm such an idoit.
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