Riot On An Empty Street.

Who knew that Feist was the singer in Kings of Convenience's Know How? I've always wondered to myself who the singer to that could be.

What a hectic day. Did not actually wake up, cause I stayed up all night to complete my essay. So I can't even say it's been bad from the get go because go was not got, or get is not gone, or something. I'm pretty tired tbh, but I can't sleep cause I've got a bus to catch in 2 hours! Then it's London Stansted, then Eindhoven, then shortly after Amsterdam! Wooooo! Or, weeeeee-d! Just kidding.

You know you've just done a damn law essay when you try to describe your day like that.

The Good Day/Bad Day Dichotomy - Almost late in submitting essay. No sleep. WORST CAB RIDE OF LIFE OF EVER. 28 POUNDS OKAY. I was gonna be late for my train to Portsmouth, cause the tube was gonna take at least 20mins, and I had barely 25mins left to go, plus I had to walk to the station. Fortuitously, OR SO I THOUGHT AT THE TIME, there was a cab right outside the door. 40mins later I arrived at the station, immensely depressed. And pissed off at myself for cutting it so fine. aisdjalksjheioatiqoij!!!IJADKLJDlj.

At least I managed to book a bus from my clever phone for 12 quid, so I managed to cram in lunch as well. Subway, I thought, could not possibly fail me. What do you know. The only bad meatball marinara I've ever consumed. You know life is sucks when even your MM is bad. Slept all the way to portsmouth, thank god I managed to sleep. Went shopping. SHOPPING. Truly I understand now the meaning of retail therapy. That exact moment when you slip a jumper over your head and it fits... What can I say. It was a cathartic experience. I'm not even taking the piss. Brought a megawatti smile to my face i.e. so bright I deserved for that moment to be the Philipino president. Bought 2 jumpers, cause Portsmouth Primark is Power Packs while Exeter Primark is Extremely Poor (or as I like to put it, PPPP EPEP). Still extremely pleased with my buys, I'm never dissing any female again or mocking them about shopping. I HEARTS RETAIL SHOVE OFF MISOGYNISTIC BIGOTED STUPID MEN.

Then I had dinner at a Wetherspoons pub. Seriously you can't go half an hour in any English city without encountering at least 3 of them or something. Curry club thursday, they said. Green thai curry, I replied. Bad move. Sigh. About the only thing I got out of it is this awful flatulence. Yeah. Incredibly foul smelling. Probably it's a combination of that and the crazy amounts of onions I had in my foot-long sub. Yurgh. My stomach churns and my nose breaks down at the thought of that sludge inside me now. Although probably half of it has been expelled in gaseous form by now. Was bad. I did get dessert which consisted of Belgian waffles and ice cream though, which was pretty good. Slight teaser for myself I guess! Can't wait for the authentic thing yumz. More on dat later.

Oh man I just went to the toilet, and talk about catharsis! Not even funny. I mean, that was the most... Just kidding. Of course I wouldn't discuss my shit experience. Not even how my bowels almost feel seared from having to handle such toxic waste. That would be disgusting.

So after that was the xx. Not gonna to do all caps to display my excitement cause it's all about understated cool. That's obv. I must say I expected some really weird characters to show up for the concert. Like all minimalist or fully outfitted in black or goth-chicks or something. But nope. Pretty normal crowd, nothing like that all-gay crowd for Uh Huh Her. Srsly don't think I'd ever seen a larger convention of the LGBT (guess gay isn't very PC) community than that! Mmoths opened for them, and they were alright. Not as awesome as Haim for Florence, which I just realized I've not mentioned yet. Laters. I had to leave by 22:15 though, as I had a train to catch back to London. Thank goodness at 22:10 they played Islands. Concert would not have been compleat without Islands. My big three has to be Crystalised, Islands and VCR. Pretty happy. Then here I returned, back to my cousin's place in London, awaiting my bus to take me to happier (less smelly, it's permeated the walls) places!

So that was today. I've had an eventful couple days leading up to this, which I'll try to encapsulate in a mere 25 paragraphs or so. How I even struggle with essays I cannot comprehend. So I had this Asian Dinner on thursday night. I cooked my specialty dish the sweet & spicy prawns. Just kidding, was my first time making it, since the sauce came in the care package sent from home. Which contained my boots which means I'm a warrior now, no more quailing in the face of mere ice/snow. Anyway. It seemed to be a hit! I'm not sure if people were just being nice about it but it was the first to go... Although that possibly could also be due to lousy portioning hahaha. It was a pretty good dinner overall, had to be about 20 people or so.

Saturday came and went. Yeah right. I met kinonn ho in Coventry after 4 hours on the train. Srsly exeter is the punggol of UK. When an IKEA is the best part about a city you know the city is sucks. Well, it was actually decent, but we weren't there for sightseeing were we?!?! FLORENCE + THE MACHINE WAS DA BOMBERS. I really can't describe it any further than that. It was simply amazing. I knew she was good live, but I was absolutely blown away. Best concert I've been ever. Crazy good. No, I won't even try to go on describing the indescribable.

Following day we went to Stratford-upon-Avon and that was probably the best decision we could have made. What a brilliant little place, to think we spent less than 2 hours there cause we missed our train haha. Absolutely completed my weekend, possibly and probably one of the most epic weekends of my life. Was a pleasure travelling with my liege, my captain ho. I'm pretty glad I didn't attend the concert on my own at dodgy little westpoint arena in exeter!

Then I reached London at 10-ish and decided that getting into the tube would be too ordinary an experience for such an epic weekend. Cycle hire, or Boris Bikes as I've heard it called at just 1 pound for 24hours. Was kinda worried I wouldn't be able to balance cause my shoebag is clipped on to one side of my bag. Hahahaha. Unfounded concerns, cause soon enough I was zipping down the streets of London and getting lost and stuff. Would have been cooler if my seat had been secure. Instead, it gradually got gobbled up by the chassis and I was left staring up at the handlebars. Okay, nothing so kua but it was uncomfortable. And probably incredibly stupid looking. But it was fun. I think it's something I have to do everytime I get into London, it really is that awesome!

Brendal flew into London on monday so my plan was to meet her and show her around town. I must admit I'm still quite surprised by the fact that she's backpacking around europe. And that she'd even meet me hahaha. I remember how mean I could get towards her, and all the other girls as well. I think she remembers it as well, which makes it all the more surprising that she agreed to hang out! Hahaha. Okay I don't think it was all THAT bad, or she'd not have contacted me prior to coming here. I'm really glad to have met up with her, and hopefully she had fun while I showed her the sights and sounds of London!

I'll be meeting her again in Berlin where we'll be travelling together for a couple days, along with some of her friends. It's incredible to think that 5 years after leaving BBSS we'd suddenly make plans to travel around europe together. And it's not even awkward at all, at least not that I've felt, so all's good so far! I'm just kinda incredulous about the whole affair.

And yeemin is gonna fly into Amsterdam while I'm there as well, just 2 days later in fact, so it's cheers once more to spontaneity! It's really not that hard, doesn't require months of planning or something, if you want to travel with someone. Or meet someone, for that matter. Sometimes we make everything seem so hard and onerous when it's actually not. Like my essay. Oh man. Probably the worst essay I've ever done. I had so little remaining time I totally trashed the end-notes and bibliography. Not looking forward to the result of that nonsense sigh.

Hmmm. Nothing much left to add I guess, without going way too deep and not being able to end this hopefully short-ish post, cause it's 4am and I should really be leaving by 4.15.

Yep, hope everyone's tidings are glad and cheers are goodness!

Home; Christmas.

I will be home for Christmas
(Cause home will be here)
(Wherever here may be)

And I will live life
(Cause life is for living)
(Life is for the living)

 And I will laugh
(Cause life without joy is not life at all)
(Joy is life and life is joy)

And I will love again
(But who shall I love?)
(The one the world)

So I will be home for Christmas
Living laughing loving
Cause I will be home
The home that's all around me.

But Balls.. Were Not Caught.

Thankfully this title does not refer to our bittersweet lukewarm touch rugby escapade in the Singapore Nottingham games. Lukewarm.... who am I kidding?! It was bloody freezing. Not even joking. Especially when I forgot to pack shorts, or trackpants, and my scrawny legs were exposed all day and all night to the merciless cold, cold wind. Bittersweet in the sense that we didn't win it, unfortunately. Obviously we wanted to. This was matched by a strong keening yearning desire to get out of the damn wind. Quite a conflict of interest.

We got into the semifinals without losing a single game in our group stage, an alarming result considering we faced a rather strong team of bufflords and 1 x pretty (quite) girl, ex-AC people I think. Then we lost in the semifinals in sudden death. My mind was sad but my body was happy. We immediately forfeited the 3rd/4th placing match to scurry into somewhere with blessed shelter from the cruel elements. And a hot bath. Best bath of life. I didn't expect them to give out medals for 3rd place though, cause everyone knows I live for medals. Sigh.

Was a great weekend though, deepest of gratitudes to limahkow for hosting me over the weekend, and kinonn10 for returning me some much needed ££££! Hooya friendship, clearly not about exploiting them for monetary benefit or anything like that... Probably gonna play bridge or monopoly deal at the next games cause the UK winter (who am I kidding, it's only autumn) is too much for my poor thin-skinned tropically-attuned sweat-accustomed body. If I'm even going, seeing as I was the only one from my school to go. Outcasted much. Pfft.

I did meet a couple of people as well, quite surprising considering that I almost was beginning to feel like I knew no one at all in the UK, a poor lost child stranded thousands of miles away from home in a place that rains in the morning, in the afternoon, and more than likely hails at night. This modern tragedy. I met the boys for touch rugby, a girl I'm not particularly close to despite having known her for a staggering 7 years or something, and a colleague, one of my juniors in the navy although I don't think she saw me. Although for a gathering of more than.. 500 singaporeans or thereabouts, that's like less than 2% of the population. Clearly not socially beastly.

My title instead refers to this lecture that I attended. LAND LAW. Law of Land(fills). (Out)Land(ish) Law. Or more simply and accurately as THE BANE OF HUMAN EXISTENCE. I went in almost completely ignorant of the topic to be covered. I came out completely ignorant and confused. Balls were not caught. Enlightenment was not attained. I was sadness.

I really need to start buying my textbooks, instead of merely typing in a random blog post that I should be buying them. Huh. Maybe that would help..

Actually while I was in Liverpool we went into the Oxfam shop there, with its untold treasures of thousands upon thousands of second-hand books. This one particular book caught my eye, in large part cause its title was Got Singapore. £3.49 later I was the happy possessor of said book and all was good. I got through all 270 pages of it on my torturous (the root word being tort a la Law of Torts, how sad can life get?) 5 hour long ride back to the deep south west. It's by one of the Straits Times editors apparently, a Mr Richard Lim and the book was made up of many different articles he'd written in the time he's been with the paper. I've almost never read a book about Singapore, or by a Singaporean, and I expect if I did I'd cringe (quite unfairly) at the terms used, or the character names etc. I sometimes think Singaporeans are too harsh on fellow Singaporeans.

Anyway the book covered a range of topics, and since they were pretty much all in a local context they were quite immediately relatable, so it was definitely quite easy reading. I found all the articles quite good, and being articles they were inherently easy to read anyway. Some people say the measure of a good book is in how much it makes you think afterwards. Not something I normally subscribe to cause I believe in books power to suspend thought, cause sometimes that's what you want instead of encouraging thought. But in this case, the book did make me think and I think the book is all the better for doing so.

What makes a nation? Is it an idea, its ideas, or its people? Of all people I think this question is most relevant to me, as someone who's chosen to defend his nation. I think when people try to justify signing on, and I do mean justify cause for some reason we all have to defend our choice quite vigorously, they're very defensive (or at least I usually am) and start pointing out things like scholarship, metal rice bowl, stable career, bo bian etc. No one ever really mentions the key notion of defending our nation, largely cause that's not a cool thing to say. It sounds horribly camp and more a droll cliche than anything. But surely it's crossed all our minds at one point that that's what we elected to do? No matter how much we try to gloss over the fact (and I know people who really try) that's an inescapable fact.

So the follow up question to what makes a nation is: What am I defending? A way of life or a certain group of citizens? It bears thinking about, given what's at stake. Or potentially at stake. My life, possibly, if it comes down to it, is on the line. At the very least a couple years of it is, until my bond ends. And I don't have an answer to the question yet.

Having had the privilege, or utter misfortune, to have studied a little bit of law, the concept of the social contract is one that I have had to deal with recently. It's when an individual gives up certain rights and freedoms to the state in exchange for the promise of security, or the right to safety. I hope I'm not getting it totally wrong actually haha. That means that everyone who subscribes to the state's laws i.e. curtailed their personal "rights" to do anything they want including theft murder etc. deserves to be protected by the state i.e. the armed forces.

That seems to make sense, but it seems a little bit too transactional. There's nothing in it about ideology or any sense of nationhood about it at all. Which is perhaps the key to what I'm driving at here. When I say I will defend my nation, what exactly is it I'm protecting? I'll figure it out, hopefully sooner rather than later, so we'll see how that goes haha.

Umm actually lost my train of thought there for a really long while cause I got caught up in other things to do so I've had this stuck in my drafts for at least 3 days now. Which I do all the time cause I'm horrible at finishing stuff I've done halfway e.g. ESSAYS although the problem with essays largely lies with the beginnings..

So yeah, suddenly I'm heading to Manchester tmr for The Killers and crashing and CPT HO's place till Saturday apparently. Time has got wings and they are not deep fried. Therefore they are capable of flying. Real fast.

And soon it will be the Christmas break and exciting things are in store somehow! A friend from ages ago, and I mean waaaaaaaay back, recently contacted me cause she was intending to travel around europe this winter. Quite the pleasant surprise, and all of a sudden it seems as if I might have actual plans for Christmas. We'll see how that goes though, since nothing's set in stone yet and planning to travel together is always such a tricky business. Hopefully it works out well.

And.... yeah I guess that's it. Only a few days overdue on this post especially since aforementioned lecture happened last tuesday sigh. Law of landfills indeed. Poot poot smelly smelly shit rubbish dump.

Share With Me The Sun, And Moon, And You.

Quite a happening few weeks I guess, definitely not what I had in mind when I considered myself being in the UK again from little Sunny Singapore. I miss the sun. Not even joking. Average of 99.93% cloud coverage for the past month or so, I've become whiter by 76.2% at last count, and vitamin D levels hitting an all time low soonish. Statsmaster obviously, cause stats lie 0% of the time. No idea why I'm talking about stats, maybe my Accounting and Finance friends and their z-tests and t-tests and other horrible combinations (what a pun) of tests.

I've never mentioned, I think, my favourite lectures ever. Okay maybe I have idk. Gender, Sexuality and Law, or GSL in short, took it entirely on a whim and I have been loving it. How many lectures do you go to where you make notes which include words like: Female genital mutilation, phallic focus of law, male circumcision, and definitely not least, designer vaginas? Hahaha not that I delight in writing what would in other contexts be considered wholly vulgar and inappropriate, but you must admit, any actual academic course which induces you to furiously scribble such terms into your wordpad must be worth something! It involves alot of critical discourse into gender and our inherent assumptions of what constitutes sex and gender, and is definitely by no means a frivolous module believe me!

I had my first land law tutorial today. My final question involved a guy A who conveyed a piece of land to B with a restrictive covenant attached to it who conveyed it to guy C who sold part of the property to guy D whilst giving him an easement and subsequently giving his son E part of the property without transferring any deeds and then selling it to guy P who wonders what in the world is going on? Well. It's a little bit complicated. I think I know why people don't want to study law. I managed to get through relatively unscathed though, so I'm clearly quite twisted, cause it's a convoluted problem. At first glance, at least.

Okay no more work-related stuff it's boring. I did actually play doto2 for the first time in weeks, so that's something! Or rather, that's something :( I skipped lectures for it hahahaha. I blame waywardwong and chialutchuan (a stretch I know, can't think of anything else. I'm referring to my brother btw, of course not me I'm the victim here.) for the sequence of events which led finally and sadly to my skipping lectureS (yeah multiple lectures.) You can imagine how sad I was. Almost cried, as you might probably guess from my normal studious disposition.

To be known is to be loved and to be loved is to be known. What do you think? Truly known, that is, which of course means to be truly loved and vice versa. Not the kind of "knowing" where you don't really know someone, or when you let other people "know" only the parts of yourself you want them to, or let them know. True knowledge. How can you truly know someone, or how can you know when you do? Does true love mean that despite this lack of true knowledge, or despite the belief you don't have true knowledge, you nonetheless still love? Or does it mean you know all you need to know about a person such that nothing else matters? I guess it does. Cause true love has to be the most extreme form of love, and we know that extremism defies beliefs. Or something. Just rambling a little bit.

I've got a side thought about people being too harsh on themselves, I've not thought it through so I'm just typing as I go along. Guess it stems from this quote I read somewhere about not being able to love unless we are able to love ourselves, or let ourselves be loved? Something like that at least. I don't know if it's a new age thing or a counter-culture, anti-ego kind of thing but I sure know that I do it sometimes too. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's false humility cause I don't think that's what it is, but it's a self-deprecating kind of attitude which I will not fault, I think there's nothing wrong with that at all, it's definitely more comfortable to be around than the self-aggrandizing people out there. But take it too far and you're being unnecessarily harsh on yourself, self-worth possibly unfairly low, crisis of confidence possibly results, and you're stuck in a rut you never should have been in the first place! Something like that anyways! Hope that makes sense somehow, string of random thoughts.

Umm yeah that's all I have time for today actually, not quite the big update I'd expected which you're probably quite glad of haha. I do get carried away sometimes. Most times. But I gotta run, more happening nights NOT involving drinking and getting wasted and other unhealthy lifestyle choices like that so life is goods!

Hope life is gooder for all of youse guys ;)

Subscribe On My Canal Pls.

Hahaha okay I never actually had the intention of blogging but I just saw something that made me laugh so hard I have to share it or burst and die horribly. In my capacity as a profersionarl youtube comment reader, I stumbled across this diamond in the rough and this is verbatim: "subscribe on my canal and wathc videos" WHAT. WHAT DO???? SUBSCRIBE ON MY CANAL PLS GAIS! That has insanely ridiculously insane potential for hilarity/disgustingness. Yeah buddy, loving your canal. Spent forever on your canal bro. Your canal really sucked me in... O K I think we've reached the limit here. Quite possibly the limit has been smashed already.

I just spent 10mins watching llama del rey's video for Ride. I'm quite impressed! After that disaster of a live performance (yeah I watched that too, how much of a loser am I??) on that random talkshow, I almost wrote her off, but I guess when you have H&M and memes after you, you can't be going too far wrong in this modern life.

Speaking of talkshows, I also watched Anna McKendrick on David Letterman, cause I'm that much of a loser and I have a little crush on her. I don't even know why, was it Up in the Air or 50/50 that did it? And then I watched Maude Apatow interview Rebel Wilson (from the amazingest Bridesmaid!) and then Ellen Degeneres interview Rebel Wilson...... In my defence Rebel is hilarious and Maude is cute! And I suck, apparently. Where art thous my manliest pursuits a la doto2 and not bathing? Cause one of the most characteristically mannish traits is to smell like a horse who fell into its own defecated products.

Umm, manhood crisis probably due to my not playing rugby this year. It was a conscious decision not to play this year cause... I'm afraid of the cold. Hahaha. Idk I guess I just thought I've tried rugby last year, now let's try something else. But I do miss playing rugby actually, all that brutality, and precision violence.. Or getting down and dirty with a couple of other sweaty guys, you know, just a couple, only like 30 on the pitch at one time after all.. After that badminton and tennis and w/e just seems so sedated! I did just fail horribly at badminton though, I blame my new racket and the pangsai tension in the strings, but I was just bad! Such a depressing showing..

Damien Rice's Delicate btw, new hooked-onto song. I can't decide on the guy. I like Cannonball, 9 Crimes, Blower's Daughter, and now Delicate alot. But the rest of his songs... meh. Not so fabulous to me! Quite unlike Kakkmaddafakka!! Most retarded name, most retarded videos. I love it. I think they're Norwegian, so clearly Norwegians are out of the Woods now! Worst joke. As an aside, still haven't read the book though, left my entire library at home boohoo.

Random music these few days, from Damien Rice to Husky to Daughter to Emily and the Woods to Emily Jane White, the last 3 of whom I've just stumbled upon today. Oh and listened to Dum Dum Girls, they actually sound quite like... Best Coast I think. And then cause Olde is Golde I had a bout of Alice Cooper's POISON RUNNING THROUGH MY VEINS and Kiss' I Was Made For Loving You, such classics really! And Architecture in Helsinki, which oddly enough I don't think I've ever heard before this week. Definitely not what I was expecting, so jangly and.. words fail me, or rather I fail words, cause I can't think of any other description haha.

I had this really awkward dream a couple days back. Somehow I was dreaming of my mom scolding my dad for exceeding his 150mb data allowance for his mobile plan. As if that weren't weird enough, in my dream I was busy puzzling out how my dad could have done that after uploading a mere 9 photos on instagram, and trying to explain to my mom how that was impossible. In vain, cause my dream mom then whipped out the bill showing clearly that my dad exceeded the limit, which shocked me to silence. And then I woke up. One of my most awkward dreams ever, really. Nigh on impossible too, cause my dad is barely even aware that his phone connects to the internet. Huh.

Just had steaks for dinner. With mashed potato and salad. Most brit meal I've had in the 3 weeks since I've been here, which is cool! Also in this 3 weeks.. I've gone to more lectures (22) than I did the whole of last year (probably like 15 or something meh).. I've overspent like siao (even without having bought my textbooks).. I've still not got my textbooks.. I've still not got a girlfriend.. All in all a verrah disappointing 3 weeks! Even that incredible attendance can't redeem me, although with such a stunning lecture-going streak, I might even (dare I say it!) manage to attend more than 50 lectures this term! Amazing stuff.

That onion and mushroom sauce with the steaks though, not too kind on my flatulence....! I gotta choose between 2 evils now, in deciding whether or not to open my window. Either I die of cold or.. the alternative is too wicked to even contemplate, however briefly! Will not be stunk to death!

Hm. Just thinking of the video for llama's Ride again, quite possibly because I'm listening to this random song called "I Became A Prostitute" which truly is the title of a song, not some porno flick. Well anyway, the official 10min version of the song includes this whole rambling narrative voiced I assume by Llama herself! That plus the overall tone of the video made me think about happiness. I'm sure I've had thoughts about happiness before, but why not add a couple more!

It's quite a slippery concept I guess. And by slippery I mean a good kind of slippery. It's so slippery anyone can touch it, the issue lies with actually managing to hold on to it.. I mean it's so flexible, anything could mean happiness for anyone. Something that makes you happy might not make me happy, and happily enough, the converse is true as well. It's just hard sometimes to understand that and appreciate that.

That might not be immediately apparent, but you just have to think of all the times you judge someone else. For example, when you see a group of wannabe ah-bengs or something, and you think oh my lord these guys are such losers! But they might be, and probably are, perfectly happy doing what they're doing. Who are we to impinge on their happiness with our entirely biased, totally narrow-minded views? It serves no purpose, really. You might say yeah, it's socially unacceptable etc etc but what's the use of casting a disgruntled eye on people like them and grumbling to ourselves?

Empathy doesn't apply only to those who are worse off, it applies also to those who are different, in whatever way, whether or not it is for the worse in your opinion. Maybe some people's path to happiness doesn't lead to (or require) monetary or social success, and who's to say that isn't the right path to take? Happiness means so many different things to so many different people. The root of the question probably lies in what the point of life is (happiness, success, leaving something of value behind etc etc.) but that would be going down a very long windy road from which this blog post would probably never recover from.

It's just, to each his own, whatever floats your boat or rocks your socks right? It's like, if someone listens to Justin Beiber, what can I do?? Try to convince him/her (not trying to overgeneralize here but I think a her is much more likely, just sayin') that Beiber is Bad? That's just bad, man. It's like telling someone his musical taste sucks and is terribly juvenile and disgusting. Who would ever say that to someone! Even Twilight..... I mean go ahead and like it man, just never ever consider that I would join you for late-night Twilight marathons, cause shockingly enough it's managed to spawn 3 (or is it 4) movies already... Okay enough of the Beiber Bashing and Twilight Trashing.

I was just thinking that someone else might look at me and think, oh my, how sad! that I go alone to random places and just walk around randomly for hours. Probably those bikers in the video would. What a miserable loser on foot, instead of riding around like a cool maddafakka with the wind in my hair and a llama at my back! So the fact that I might seem like a sad loser to others while enjoying myself can only mean that other people whom I think of as being sad losers just might be amazingly happy instead!

Which is kinda the point I was trying to make all this while I guess. Maybe that girl you kinda feel sad for, who always seems to have her arms around another guy, maybe that's happiness to her. And it's easy to fling snarky words and phrases like slut, or low self-esteem or daddy issues (this phrase always cracks me up) around but who's to say they're not having a good time? Or that 40 year old who plays Maplestory all the time and spends money on it AND IS MARRIED IN GAME. Cause it's only too easy to mock people like that. Which certainly makes me wonder, is that it? Are we instinctively mean, or is that a social aberration because... I don't know, the mean kids stole all our toys? Haha whatever.

 Maybe feeling sad for other people makes us feel good about ourselves. That we even have the capacity to feel sad for them, that we are in such enlightened and elevated circumstances that we can? I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's about the why. It's perfectly fine feeling sad for others, for example the undernourished or abused etc. But if the reason you do so is to feel good about yourself then something is wrong, no?

Umm so yeah. Characteristically long-winded yet somehow unable to articulate what exactly it is I'm trying to say! Sigh I'm done for now haha.

To Ease Our Burden Of Carefulness.

It was
One of those things you can only keep
To yourself.
Never sharing with another
Phone calls in the middle of the night
If only to reassure
The other that they were not
Alone.
How fragile and
Self-conscious she seemed
With too-much make
Up on her face.
How vulnerable she looked while asleep
As if she needed protection from the world.
She was good to me. Perhaps even good for me.
I can only hope that I too, was good for her.



Umm okay so that was one of the randomer things I came up with recently. Actually it's just a string of thoughts that I had for unknown reasons and I wasn't gonna put it up but then I thought whatever, what's a blog for if not to record down random thoughts and the like? I'm a big fan of recording and keeping random shit for posterity. That's why I own a whole shelful of weird'n'useless stuff to remember my travels by. And magnets. Heck yeah magnets.

You know how I thought I was being all stronk and manly by doing sports almost everyday? Well today I got my just desserts i.e. I crashed and burned horribly. I slept at about 1am last night and only fully awoke at around 5.30pm today. I did conveniently wake up for lunch at 12 but I promptly fell back asleep after, for you know, just a casual 5 hours more. It's disgusting. It's bad and I feel bad. And strangely good at the same time! Sleeping in doesn't have to make sense for it to feel good. Wooo!

So on saturday I decided I absolutely couldn't afford to waste the beautiful opportunity that the surprisingly sunny sun presented so on the spur of the moment I went off to play tennis. I'd already decided to play badminton later that afternoon so I thought, cool, I can be SportyMcDorky! 2 hours of tennis and 2 hours of badminton later, I was butthurt. No kidding. Could feel the aches in my ass with every step I took, sort of like a Police song gone wrong.

My strong masochistic streak is evident in the fact that I'd decided that on Sunday I'd have a kickabout to de-rust my football (sry the word soccer is banned here) AND play badminton again. Yeh buddy, plan was nice but body was bad. Hence the collapsed-in-a-sweaty-smelly-heap that I eventually became. Just kidding, obviously I took a bath and smelt of roses by the time of my faux-death.

Before that I went for church though, for the first time ever since being here. And the first time I've been in a Methodist church in, idk, something like 10 years? I've always thought Methodists were really solemn and sombre and depressing people, and I was glad to find that I've been mistaken all this while. Certainly their methods of worship are to say the least not quite as energetic as what I've become used to, but the people themselves were (at the risk of seeming like I only have one set of phrases in my vocabulary) to say the least, extremely warm. Possibly it's the fact that it's a rather small community church, something like 150-odd strong. But such nice people!

By the time me and my friend were seated, before the service had even started, we'd been approached by more than 3 people and invited to lunch! Not to mention after the service, where we had our photos taken and I had free tea over which I had a small delightful chat with an old lady. In literal form the whole depiction might seem rather creepy but in fact it was anything but. While I was slightly overwhelmed by the warmth and hospitality, it was a shock in the most pleasant sense possible.

I must say that I was quite taken (usage of the word absolutely nothing to do with Liam Neeson) with this warm homely Methodist church, and I would not be loathe to attend it again. I think that God's message to you can appear any number of ways, through any medium, it just takes some seeing instead of mere looking. Cause it's only too easy to look but not see. So yeah, I'm quite comfortable with attending a Methodist church despite not being Methodist myself.

Don't quite understand the need for all this labeling and denominations, though. One of the questions I've been most frequently asked after saying that I'm a Christian is: What kind of Christian are you? Which is rather awkward, really, cause I never have any idea what to answer. So I'll say, I'm not sure.. And they rattle off - Presbyterian, Protestant, Methodist etc etc?? And I'd be just as clueless. I think I'm charismatic, I'd say, referring not at all to my own inflated opinion of myself. But the question always stumps me. How do you say, I'm the kind of Christian who believes in God and trusts God, what else do you want? That sounds kinda aggressive though. Huh. Well whatever, I don't see it as anything of importance anw. The question, that is, not the fact that I might sound aggressive.

Huh. Don't you worry that with my newfound (well not exactly, more like newlyfound again) spirituality I'm gonna get all zealous and... how shall I put it... aggressively and blatantly Christian. Which I can't say is wrong, definitely not, but when I say I have a quiet faith in God I do mean quiet. So yeah. I'm all for multiculturalism and stuff and I'm aware the discussion of religion does make people uncomfortable sometimes.

So on to secular topics, which are equally and possibly even more fascinating, chiefly cause it involves my cooking. Not to mention the subsequent, quite amazing impressive fact that I survived said cooking. The wonders of life. Oh and girl issues, apparently. Hahahaha. How to phrase that without sounding like a sec2 kid struggling with the twin issues of girls and girls. While trying his darnedest to not squeak every other sentence. Curse you puberty!

My voice thankfully has been broken for a long time now, in case anyone has any lingering doubts. Girls however..... So I decided to cook tonight. Supposed to cook for 4 ended up cooking enough for 7. Honestly proportions are not my strong suit. Maybe I should learn to use a damn measuring cup instead of agar-ing everytime I prepare rice. But I would hate to wash the additional measuring cup, which certainly reeks of laziness, but I insist that sometime in the next 10 years I will master the art of rice agaration, if not quite agar-making. Speaking of which, I have made agar-agar a couple of times though that's quite a while back now, which bears no relevance whatsoever to my current story of course, but is pleasant to reminisce about nonetheless, not to mention the construction of quite possibly the longest sentence I've ever had the pleasure (or the misfortune) to construct.

First broccoli I've ever cooked, cause I've always been too lazy to go to all the effort of whipping out a pot and boiling them (same with potatoes and carrots) and of course the dreaded washing of pot. Unfortunately our spinach had run out, which certainly begs the question: Is there a sailor of certain fame who devours spinach so??? I'm referring to me, duh, not some Popeye guy of dubious celebrity. Okay I've just had to google a synonym for fame cause I couldn't cough one up myself. So. Bad. Sigh. Need to work my brain muskels more apparently. I'm all brawn and no brain! I'm a.... himbo omg.

Okay I know I'm leaving everyone hanging but to be honest the story isn't very exciting at all, I ended up producing a mince-beef + onion + mushroom + broccoli + sambal fried rice. The end! Or almost the end, cause it turned out to be very nice indeed, although possibly only to my palate cause only I could taste the blood sweat and tears that I put into it. Not that I'd ever bleed into my food, that's disgusting.

Oh yeah I think I've also taken ill over the past few days, although only very slightly, despite the best efforts of all this malicious rain. Almost negligible however, except for bouts of sneezing every now and then. It's a good excuse to stay in and read all day. Speaking of which, I've become quite addicted to this webcomic called Questionable Content. Which I only found out cause I'm a total loser i.e. full-time youtube comment reader, and I read about it in the comments of a Wilco song. Dorkyness overload.

Tried and tested formula of a yes-no-maybeso relationship between 1 x boy and 1 x girl, a la Bones and HIMYM and Mentalist and pretty much any other successful TV series out there, cause there's nothing quite like the tease is there! But yeah, I've done gone and read 424 strips of Questionable Content in the past 2 days, neglecting even my Terry Pratchett and Robert Jordan. I is adikt.

And someone might wanna try listening to Husky, this band which hails from Melbourne Australia, I'm really enjoying their album Forever So so far.

Well that's it, end of little update on status of life.

For What Is Love If Not Absolute?

Hello all. I had a very hapz day today. It was also a very miserable day. Allow me to elaborate. First I woke up too early for my 9am lecture, which sounds quite impossible actually. How is it even possible to wake up too early for a 9am lecture sigh. And I woke up due to hunger. HOW SAD IS THAT?! Felt so pathetic upon waking up. I also had a rather disturbing dream, although that might have been yesterday when I was taking a nap instead. Sigh one can only wish that some memories stay buried instead of coming to the surface every so often, dredging up a host of other equally unsettling memories too. HOWELL.

Anyway so I went for the lecture, despite my vehement insistence that 9am lectures are inherently wrong, but only because my tennis buddy jio-ed me to play tennis after. The sacrifices one makes in the pursuit of a healthy lifestyle. I think I played a little bit noober than I did the last time I played, which was unfortunate. No idea why my skillz seem so unstable, but I guess for a recreational sport it's not too much of an issue, so nothing to whine about.

After that we went into town to have lunch with some girls. I can't even begin to explain how seldom I find myself in such a setting, here in the UK at least. I've been mildly anti-social, to put it mildly. This seems to have changed in the last 2 weeks though, what with my partaying and tennis playing with strangers and all! I even met one of the pretty malaysian girls I'd been hearing about hahaha. By met I unfortunately just mean met though, I doubt she remembers me haha!

Anw it seems like I might not be such a recluse this year after all. I think one year of rather harsh (maybe a better word is extreme, or maybe aggressive) solitude is enough for me. I think I'm enjoying the company of others alot more than I did last year, which is perhaps the whole point of all that aggressive solitude. Definitely though I don't regret last year at all. I think it helped me figure out alot about who I am, possibly even who I want to be.

Have I ever mentioned one of the phrases that I came up with, although this one probably isn't very original at all, pretty sure I've seen it somewhere before. Anyway it's this. The only way to find yourself is to lose yourself. Or, you can only find yourself if you're lost. Or any number of variations on that, but it's sth I found meaningful after finding myself lost in almost every city that I traveled to. Especially whenever I decide to travel without maps. Oh possibly it's an adaptation of the one that goes: The only way to truly discover a city is to get lost in it. As ridiculous as it sounds, traveling alone just might be the only way you get the freedom to get lost, cause I doubt most people really like that at all. There's alot to be said for traveling with a friend(s) though, I'm not trying to say always travel alone!

Speaking of getting lost and traveling alone and continuing the story of my miserably hapz day, I decided to go to Torquay after all, even though it was raining feline mongrels. I left at 3.30pm and arrived at 5pm. I attempted to walk to Brixham (The Gem of Torbay.) but failed after 2 hours. I thought I took a wrong turn and was lost when in fact I hadn't taken a wrong turn and wasn't lost. Such sadness. Thinking I was lost when I wasn't, some crisis of self-confidence right there. Or it's cause I failed horribly at reading bloody google maps. Hahaha super cui. And it was raining that whole time. In fact, it's been raining non-stop since about 1.30pm, from Exeter to Torquay to Brixham back to Exeter again all the way up till now. FREAKING MISERABLE ENGLISH WEATHER. DO NOT LIKE.

So yeah, after 2 hours spent in the rain I caved in to common sense (with the added pressure of soaked socks frigid feet and chilled chuans) and decided to catch the bus. By catching the bus I mean wait miserably at the thankfully sheltered bus stop while trying not to freeze to death, instead of any macho pursuit which the term might suggest. 2.60 pounds though!! So ex sigh. At least it brought me rather rapidly to the pretty town of Brixham. I think it might be a really nice place in the day time, unfortunately I only arrived at half 7. It was rather striking nonetheless! Definitely worth the trip. Had myself scallops and mussels for dinner too, as promised! Had so much mussels I almost had shells coming out my nose, which doesn't make any sense at all cause I'm not dumb enough to eat shells. Really.

Of course the rain wouldn't be nice and subside while I was having my fabulous meal. So I had to make my way back to the bus station in the rain. Then I missed my bus stop for the Torquay train station, which resulted in a 20mins trek in the direction I had come, all in the rain of course. Probably barely missed a train too, cause the next one was in 40mins or so.

Well I then voluntarily left the station to walk off that 40mins, so I can't really blame the rain this time. I took the time to stare at the bay and the lights and the pretty reflections and to think. I never really think while I'm busy traveling, it's just hard to fit in any sort of contemplation while being caught up with the sights and sounds around you. So I got to think. And to talk. More on that later.

I finally caught the train back, and upon leaving the station promptly stepped into a massive puddle that only a pure blind fool idiot could step into. As if my shoes/socks weren't wet enough, or maybe they'd begun to dry out a little bit, but noooo I had to step into 5cm of water or something. Finally arrived back home, was challenged to a game of Speed, the card game, and lost!! Thus ended my happeningly miserable day.

Which is not the point of this post at all. In that 40mins of waiting for my train, I had myself some time with my God. I say that in the sense that it is a very personal thing to me, not that I have some sort of god which only I know of. I am not and never have been the most evangelical of christians. In fact, I rather shy away from any such acts because I find pushing your faith onto others a very uncomfortable thing to do. Not that it is wrong to do so, do not misunderstand me, it's just that I can't and don't do it.

I think over the summer I have managed somehow to get over a very prolonged dry season in my faith. Which is probably why I'm typing all this out. I thank God for my friends who asked me along to their church, which would be tong siang and amanda. It was in that service that I felt this urge to go back to my home church, missing as I did the services in the Rock auditorium. And so I did go back, much to my own benefit.

I had this talk with siang about my faith, in which I said that while I might not go to church very often, nor did I pray all that much, I always had that faith in my God. And that has always been true. It is my faith that no matter what happens, no matter what I do, no matter how much I mess up my life, or even the lives of others, my God will be there for me. I do not doubt that.

You might ask, but why? Why do you have this faith? That's almost an impossible question to answer. Because faith, well, it's faith. How can anyone explain why they have faith? Faith is the belief in things unseen, in a promise yet to be fulfilled. It's hard to answer the question. I can only take a look at my life and wonder, how would it have turned out without a God who's always there for me? If I were to be honest, everything that I've got is unearned, unmerited and undeserved. I almost never give a second thought to the "important" things in life like studying and the like, and yet I find myself here, in Exeter, in the UK, studying a degree that I want to study. How does that even make sense? Some people might say, oh, it's cause you're smart, or stuff like that, but I don't think that's explanation enough. No, when I look at where I am and what I'm doing now, I just see how incredible it all is, and how it can't be natural. Which leaves the supernatural, which is how I might explain my faith.

Faith. My faith is in my God's love. In His ever-present all-encompassing love, his omni-love if you will. God, to me, is love. And love is of God. And can only be of God. It is a divine expression, a divine emotion. Which is what I wanted to write about today. I think that what I believe is at odds with many other, maybe even most other people's beliefs. Even that of other Christians. I think that we all believe in the same God, but what we believe of Him is inherently different from each other. Everyone has their own personal experience and view of God, depending maybe on the way they were brought up, own beliefs, and so on. By which I mean to say who knows whose is the most accurate? But here is mine. Probably not a commonly held belief, so please do not flame me or anything pls. I just wanted to put it out there, maybe it strikes a chord with someone, or at least it brings God into contemplation. Any god, in fact, the god of your own beliefs, if you're not christian yourself.

I don't understand Hell. What is the point of eternal suffering? I don't think I will ever be given a satisfactory answer, because I would refuse them anyway. I understand punishment, but only to a certain extent. I don't think it would ever make sense or serve any purpose for someone to be tortured and to suffer for all of eternity. Because, why? No one punishes a child all his life no matter the mistakes he has made. As a deterrent, maybe? Looking at it from a post-Rapture, post-Apocalyptic point of view, this doesn't seem to make sense to me. So you've got those people in heaven, depending on who you're talking to this might mean lots of people or not (for those who believe that only does who have not sinned, or have not sinned too much get to enter) and those people who go to hell. This raises the question as well of, how much sin? Clearly if this is set at an arbitrary number it would be a rather ridiculous system, so there has to be other ways of qualifying people. All christians, maybe. Or only those who have confessed their sins. Or something else. As I have mentioned, it depends on who you talk to.

Putting aside that, you have those people in hell, who are to suffer for eternity. For whose sake to they suffer for eternity? Do they serve as a deterrent to the people in heaven? That can't be true, unless one is allowed to fall from heaven. Which can't be right, can it? Cause salvation is forever, and heaven is for eternity. So it's not for deterrent's sake. What then? Since I don't believe in eternal suffering for eternal suffering's sake, I don't see any reason why people in hell should suffer for eternity. It just doesn't make sense to me. I mean, it might and probably does make sense to someone else, which is why I'm sure most people would disagree with me.

Going back to the topic of love. I believe that love is divine, and is of God, and can only be of God. So what happens when you love someone who is not a believer? How can it be that a God who loves you would condemn a person you love to hell? I can't believe in that. I can't believe that a God whose love is all-powerful would condemn someone I love to hell. It doesn't hold water with me. If you view God as the Father, I can't imagine that any father would condemn his child's loved ones for any length of time, much less eternity. What more the divine Father? Even if that love is not by a believer, say someone who grew up somewhere entirely isolated. Never heard of God. Yet he/she is likely to have been loved, or to have loved. And love comes from God, doesn't it? (At least in my opinion, possibly you could answer no to that.) How can people who experience something that is of God be condemned for eternity to hell? I don't think I can believe that.

How can people who love be left to die to sin? Cause grace stems from love, or love from grace, and it is very opposite of sin. Where the covenant/doctrine of sin condemns, grace/love redeems, and forgives.

The God I believe in is one who loves too much, too completely, for anyone to be condemned to hell for all of eternity. It's not that I don't believe in hell, I haven't given it all that much thought cause it's a decidedly unpleasant subject. But if pressed I'd say that it does exist, I'm no Bible scholar but I presume there's mention of it in the bible. But I just can't bring myself to accept the notion of hell as a punishment for eternity. Does that mean that I believe that everyone goes to heaven? I don't know, I guess I do believe that it will happen eventually. Maybe repentance retains its power in hell too? I don't know, I can't know. But if the price has already been paid, why not accept more souls, even those which have been condemned?

I don't know. I'm not the most dedicated of christians, or the most zealous, or the most learned, or anything. I just have my faith, that is all. And this is what I have my faith in. By all means disagree or even disapprove, I'm not looking for anything at all. It's probably enough if you start thinking on it, hopefully I've raised some points that maybe make some sense to you. I hope you don't just toss it all aside, although I concede that you might find it utter rubbish. It's definitely not a common thing for me to openly discuss my faith cause I always maintain that it's a personal thing for me, so expect this to be a one-off haha. Especially cause this is one of my most deeply, possibly secretly, held beliefs. Of course if anyone ever wants to discuss faith I'd be more than happy to, cause I think there's never any harm in that, and it's probably beneficial for all involved! Just.. take it easy and try not to get angry, cause I can imagine that some people might get angry over this, cause I've probably blasphemed by disbelieving the holding power of hell or something. I just hope I've made my points clear enough that they incite thoughts not anger!

Anyway, that's all for today, I've rather exhausted myself typing cause I'm generally quite uncomfortable with sharing my thoughts like that, instead of all the superficial rubbish of other posts. For example, my newest musical crush is the band Portugal, The Man - which is probably one of the more awkward band names I've seen cause who the heck has a comma in their name?! Listened to Sleep Forever on repeat cause it's so good. And my old musical crush, dropdeadkxy recently just covered Alt-J!!! Always so exciting when someone seems to have a somewhat similar musical taste to you zomg.

Well this is all, for reals.

"and she loved beyond looks, which is what every little girl should be taught in the first place."

I've got myself a new musical crush! I have to say that just the name alone raised my expectations already, cause Coeur de Pirate sounds brilliant! Heart of a pirate, or pirate heart, or something. And she does steal hearts, I can tell you. Must be all that french.. Doesn't seem like a very easy language to sing with all that throatiness, so respect beaucoup, or however you say that in french!

I've had quite a happening week I guess, or at least it's considered so by my standards. Said standards being abominably low, given that oftentimes the highlight of my week happens to be grocery shopping. Or a missed lecture. Huh. Anyways, in this past week I played squash, badminton, and tennis (twice even, cool yea!) and went out partaying partaying (yeah!) (even though it wasn't friday friday yeah!) Oh I also cooked at last. And did alot of washing up unfortunately. That's the price to pay when you're too lazy to cook and let your flatmates do all the cooking instead. Hello wrinkly fingermans!

I was badder at squash than expectation, so I was quite sad. I thought after training with this legendary coach this summer I could come and get no.1 seed in UK. Alas it was not to be! Played like burden lost like burden. UK full of burdenators (like terminator but worse, cause they target me):

At least I got to play badminton for about 3 hours sunday night and was destruction personified, if destruction was a handsome/cute guy wielding rackets. Okay maybe I wasn't. I went alone so I didn't have a partner. Er, story of my life really. Anyhow, I had to find a random partner like some sad guy going for prom night. Fortunately I met a Chinese and Vietnamese girl, along with an Indian man who seemed rather nice. I have friends at long last it seems!!! I'm not as pathetic as that sounds, I hope. They weren't that profersioner though, despite that incredible chinese pedigree, but at least I had fun playing with them/playing them! And the vietnamese girl is quite cute too! Yeeeeeeahhhhhh! Hehehe. I think something about 3 he's is inherently perverse. And anything more than 3 is probably the indication of a disturbed mind, no? Yeah. I think Hehe is the limit. For a normal person, that is! Which I'm not, obviously. I'm a pervert.

Then I played tennis and made a fool of myself. This was with a couple of other singaporeans as well, and by a couple I mean 10. Tennis has never agreed with me and it decided to humiliate me publicly this time. Probably cause I couldn't bring myself to watch Roger Federer v Andy Murray in the Olympics in its entirety. It gets kinda trying after the 39th service ace in a row, though. So. I was brought low by my first attempt at tennis since the glory days of JC and free racket borrowing and free courts. And getting destroyed by yewtong everytime he served. Depressing memories.. Not! I wonder how many girls would drool at the thought of watching yewtong play tennis. Probably his entire fanclub, all 2.25 million of them (source: Singapore Census 2012, female population of sgp.)

Down but not out, I decided to train hard, cause Venus Williams is my idol. Who doesn't wanna look like a manbeast while being a woman??? Just kidding. Nothing but respect for sportspeople (can't determine whether to use sportsman/sportswoman. jk.) whatever their sport or gender! Okay who else thought that "jk" meant joke? Apparently it means just kidding...... I think. I is confused. Well, to make up for the cheap jokes at their expense, I must say, the Williams sisters are incredible though, they've been at the top of tennis scene for ages, it's almost ridiculous. Ever since I picked up a newspaper and flipped to the sports section, probably. Probably longer than that even, cause I'm actually really young. The heart and soul of a 12 year old, which is why I don't have a girlfriend yet. Awkward to have one before my soul hits puberty... Infallible argument really!

Oh yeah, I was gonna say, I decided to play tennis again the very next day, with my new tennis buddy(ies). I think I was drastically improved, and it's substantiated by numbers so it's definitely true. ∞% better cause that's what you get when you divide by zero, which is exactly the level I was at that first time. At least I managed to return a reasonable amount of balls and serve over the net, which is pretty respectable I daresay. I didn't exactly give my friend a run for his money but he might have brisk-walked a little I think. Success! I even enjoyed myself a fair bit, and I think I just might continue playing tennis at a recreational level cause I heard chicks in tennis wear skirts.. Hehehehehe.

I only hope it doesn't totally ruin my badminton strokes though, since that was the consequence when I failed to dabble in tennis in JC. I kinda want to join the badminton team, or at least their trainings cause apparently squad trials are over. It's always better and more worth the $ to attend formal trainings instead of merely messing about on the courts. I also want to be at least relatively proficient at at least one sport again. It's depressing to think that in a couple of years I'm likely to be this tubby manchild sitting on couches guzzling beers watching tvs whose only activity remotely resembling sports is likely the Nintendo WVII (the 7th ed of wii). And that my 3 years of badminton in school, 2 years of rugby, -0.7years in tennis, will not only go down the drain but be transformed into NEWater.. I wanna be able to say with confidence, Wotcher mate, you're bloody right I do sports! Brilliant ey? How's the weather? And other very British bits of conversation, I'm afraid.

I did go out last night too, for this international society party. Wasn't too keen initially cause I've blown my budget the way the old man blew his balloons in Up. Not least because of THE KILLERS AND FLORENCE + THE MACHINE OWEYQASHJLFHPEUWPOUQJWOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But that's a story for another day. A slice of good fortune meant that I managed to borrow a VIP card so I didn't have to pay for entry. A slice of bad fortune meant that I only had 1 quid on me so I couldn't even buy myself a drink when I wanted to. So I spent a grand total of 0.00 last night, which did wonders (well, nothing at least) for my wallet but spelt disaster for one of my lectures today. Eyelids felt like saggy manboobs. Sigh. Worst feeling ever.

On a whim I decided to travel tmr after my lecture. I actually wanted to go to Clevedon but I took a most unfortuitous nap and when I woke up the tickets were double the price!!! Shameless rip-offs srsly, these train operators. Sadly I decided to scrap my plans for Clevedon, but I was feeling disgruntled and quite shortchanged so I looked up anywhere nearby which wouldn't cost much to go. Result: Torquay, here I come! Apparently bezt mussels in the vicinity, which is rather fitting. Cause I'm, you know, kinda musselled. As shameless as train operators apparently. Anyway, apparently it's part of the English Riviera, which I've never heard of in my life so I imagine it must be some shameless self-advertisement instead of anything in fact, but I reckon anywhere that has the nerves to call itself that must have some sort of substance cause there's no smoke without an arsonist (propagandist in this case) and all. Looking forward to windswept beaches and windswept me and being very cold! Umm. Maybe I should stay at home and doto instead..

Speaking of which, it's been almost a week since I've last dotoded! Which is quite impressive! To think that it didn't take any life-changing epiphanies or a strong resolute mind to effect this change. Just sheer boredom. Of playing alone and losing. Every. Single. Game. I might be a loser, but I sure hate losing!!!!! It was either stop playing or smash my laptop to bits. Well not really. But it was that I tired of being let down again and again.. In doto as in love and life.... Hahahaha quite a stretch to connect doto to life there! Sad stuff right there.

Well, yeah. Got my first books since arriving too, 3 random ones and a Preston and Child novel and a Terry Pratchett one. Have my hopes. The Hundred-Year Old Man, apparently an International Bestseller! The Lighthouse, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize! The Leaky Establishment, because it has an introduction by Terry Pratchett! Umm. Obviously my pursestrings are running wild like freaking earpieces in pockets.

My new love, Heart of Pirate (she's called Beatrice Martin actually), is the source of this quote "and she loved beyond looks, which is what every little girl should be taught in the first place." which I thought was such a gem of a sentence. Loving beyond looks, widely advocated but hardly experienced? I guess we all could learn from the example of Belle! Go Disney princesses.

On this note shall I take my leave, cause I'm a pretentious twat.

Give Me Hope Give Me Loneliness.

Ho! Settled down pretty well now I guess. Life is and will be gut!

I had really little time when I set out that last post, which was unfortunate cause I wanted to detail what has to have been one of the betterest days my whole summer. This despite not sleeping that previous night. Which is kinda awkward, but also to be expected cause I'm bad that way.

I decided that after 4 months of harrying me, yes, the bloodbank was going to get to feed on me after all. Week after week of immensely sad pleading, Dear O donor, we are running short of YOUR blood this week, etc etc. So I decided, yes! I shall go! And go I did. Goodest choice.

I also was in possession of 2 free tickets to a Shaw theatre of my choice. Obviously this meant movie time, cause you just don't say no to free stuff. Matter of principle. Alas, calamity struck! Who could guess at the series of unfortunate events that led to my going to watch the movie alone i.e. the 20 years of singlererness. It's quite sad to have 2 free tickets and be unable to use them both at the same time :'( Oke cry time over.

I decided to watch Moonrise Kingdom. It was close, between that and Ruby Sparks, but I decided Edward Norton was a better bet. Clearly I have grown up to be an amazing choice maker, cause Moonrise Kingdom is my b0mb!!!! I like it so much I watched it again on my flight over. Ya bomb! Maybe not to everyone taste, although I sure as heck hope that such an awesome movie has universal appeal. By Wes Anderson, director also of Fantastic Mr Fox, and just about as quirky. I guess I came to expect some of the more ridiculous elements in the movie. But what a standout! Especially Suzy. Huge mancrush on her I must say.. <3 p="p">
 Thought the soundtrack was really well done too. Ho well, everything about it actually. New favourite movie no joking.

Speaking of huge mancrushes, I have this massive musical crush on this youtuber as well! Massive hearts all round. She's singaporean to boot, so nothing but + points really! Some fella on facebook shared a video of her singing Beach House and I thought: KOOL, BEACH HOUSE COVERER! So I clicked, not bad. Suddenly, I saw Norway was covered too. Maybe not many people know about Norway (the song) but they should. So I clicked, and love bl0om3d.

Of course, I went on and listened to almost every other cover she'd made, in a totally non-stalkerish sense. It was only a couple of hours after all... Perfectly normal. Beach House, Best Coast, Grizzly Bear, Grimes, idk man.. What do! Also learnt of Art Imperial's Cult Of Love, whose music video is.... impossible. Must watch In the Mood for Love again. And again again.

Also I started listening to James Levy and the Blood Red Roses, whose song Give Me Happiness graciously provided the title for the day. Quite an odd pairing, almost never hear a voice like that guys, but good nonethless.

So yeah. Norway new favourite song too. Can't decide whether I like the actual one by Beach House more or the cover, which can only mean that the cover is darned gut. So yeah. Massive fanboy moments the extent of my romantic endeavours right now hahaah. Or rather, boohuhu. Oh yeah, the youtuber who's the current object of my affections goes by the name talktothewall or dropdeadkxy, cause I'm a belieber in Singaporean talent! Go sgp.


Life is sucks cause I am suck. I had these grand schemes to attend Oktoberfest but I too lazy. Too lazy to research the costs of tickets and other very important stuff like that. I bad. Maybe if tickets are cheap I can still go this weekend? Kind of a long shot though, and I doubt I'm very accurate... So it seems unlikely. This weekend I'll either be going to Sheffield or Cornwall though, so hopefully that soothes a little bit of the pain.

First week of lectures prettaye gut too I guess, especially with regards to my attendance! All but one lecture attended, and that too merely a matter of principle. 9am lectures are fiendish and should be met with open defiance, not compliance and conformity!!!! DOWNS WIT EDUCATORING!!! D3A+H 2 ALL!!!!

Fortunately I took this module called Sexuality, Gender and the Law, which just sounds cheeky and perhaps (only perhaps) slightly (only slightly) perverse as well. But edukation is srs bzns k. Nary a frivolous subject. Still, doesn't alter the fact that the lectures have been fun, and given by a rather funny chap as well, so these have become my new favourite lectures. Hopefully the rest of the academic year continues in similar vein, and I don't end up being bad like last year.

I also managed to do up my room, after dallying for almost a week. 2 lazy 2 take stuff out from my bags. Quite pleased with the end result, although I do miss my posters from last year. Hopefully this means I manage to obtain some new ones this year. More mega hope is that the white tac I used to stick the wallpaper on the walls does not leave oil stains or rip out the paint when I remove them at the end of the year. Big bad no no there, probably gotta cough up 100 pounds or more if that happens, so pls no.

On a sidenote, you know that theory about infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters given infinite time, and that one of them would produce the compleat workſ of ſhakeſpeare? Obviously true, because infinity as a concept has no boundaries, but this theory is observable too irl. Personal experience tells me so. So I travel and take about 412098 photos each time. By the Grace of God and all that is good in this world, I somehow manage to take some good shots! Some rather stunning ones too, even if I say so myself. By some trick of light and fate, I've managed to take a rather good amount of decent photos. This occurrence is rare as heck so I had to make myself an album of them, and even printed them out.

These I have now stuck onto the walls of my room in a bid to inspire myself by myself. Something reeks of an ego here. Anyway. Before I set sail last year for the Great Beyonds of Sattahip, Qingdao and Manado, I was also urged to bring along some photos of my loved ones/ people who mean something to me. These I'd kept at home since, and when I packed to come over I decided to bring them. These too now adorn the sides of my room. I am pretty happy with the outcome! I shall even attach photos here cause you know, I'm pretty hip and modern and the advent of new media and all.

Huh. Okay I guess that's it for now, gonna go hopefully play some badminton to get fit hopefully so I won't fail my IPPT next year hopefully so I can get another $200 hopefully. Auf Weidersehn! (German cause I like to beat myself over the head with my badness)

Oh wait I forgot to include the most betterest part of that day actually. What the. Okay so after the movie I went to donate blood, where I was fawned over. Day is good when you have multiple people telling you, Your veins are very good! in the hopes that you will decide to do the platelet donation instead of the full blooded one. I think I might even do it, even though it lasts 1-2hours and you don't even get a better meal coupon out of it... You're allowed to do it once a month instead of once every 3 months the way the normal one requires. More bloods = more lives saved = more hero. I like being a hero. That's why every few hours I get onto doto 2 and pick myself a new hero. Life affirming stuff.

Anyway. After that I went to the twins place for my farewell steamboat apparently. It's always good to be able to connect again with people you've known almost half your lives now. How do you even count the worth of 9 years of friendship? You just can't. We had the most enjoyable couple of hours, despite the sad absence of a couple of people.

I think it's a wonder how little everyone has changed over the years. Or maybe that's not true, maybe everyone has changed, but for the few hours that we get together again, we become who we were again all those years ago. Who knows. I certainly don't feel like I'm the same person I was 9 years ago, but since I'm looking at everyone else and wondering how little they've changed, could it be that everyone thinks I've not changed either? Random thoughts, these, and of no import whatsoever.

I thought I was being real clever cause I guessed that they were gonna give me a going-away gift/card/thingy. Smart alecks always get what they deserve though! In this case, an almost 4 months early birthday celebration haha. The craziest idea, and definitely unexpected. Madness! I must say I was quite touched. There I was wondering that I was likely gonna spend my 21st birthday alone again, hopefully in some strange foreign land, and that it was gonna be entirely unremarkable. It was a rather gladdening yet saddening prospect. Instead, I get a 3 months and 10 days early birthday celebration, which is just about as unique as it gets.

A happy day.

I Love You But You Don't Know What You're Talking About.

All I want is to insert a quote from my new favourite movie into my title. Moonrise Kingdom, in case you were wondering. I'm partial to Wes Anderson's ways I guess, after Fantastic Mr Fox. But Suzy, oh Suzy! What a charming film, so glad I decided to watch it with one of my free tickets.

I've just packed my bags and I'm just about good to go. Just gotta shove this laptop into my bag and select up to 2 books to bring, if I can fit them into my bag. Not that bad, only took me 1-2 hours to pack. Biggest item has got to be the bolster. Half my check in comprises of my bolster hehe. I was just thinking what the heck, since I've got nth to bring why not bring along the ultimate in comfort.

And it's time to leave now. While maybe not all of us are going to leave for someplace else, don't be sad if you get to stay wherever you are surrounded by all of your friends and family, cause life always is a journey for us all. Bon voyage friends!

Lives Put On Hold.

I kind of ended of my previous post with the intention of immediately launching into another one, but I didn't do that for reasons unknown. It's been a rather eventful few weeks. Or rather, few months ever since I've been back here. Maybe chronological is the best way to do this, so here goes!

I was supposed to go to Uganda and Kenya after my exams ended for a volunteering project at a school in South Uganda (I think, anyways away from where Kony is supposed to be operating) which was to last 2 weeks, before hitting the national parks there and the ones in Kenya for another 2 weeks for a grand total of a month in Africa. Unfortunately things didn't work out that way.

So what happened was that my auntie, who'd been battling cancer, learnt of my plans and declared that I was not to go, as she had concerns over my safety etc. Naturally my initial response was to bristle and get all annoyed, thinking how silly it was that I should cancel my plans based on an Internet campaign and the worries of a fearful aunt. I almost decided there and then that I would carry on regardless, possibly out of pure angst. Well, I didn't. I guess I realized that the right thing to do was to go back home after my exams then, or at least that that was what my parents really wanted, in spite of their never saying so out loud. I know they were glad I decided to come back early, so was my aunt, so I guess that makes it a right decision.

So I was back in Singapore. I visited my aunt a couple of times, by then she had been given about a month or two left to live. Then my grandma was admitted to the hospital for a skin infection, amongst other age-related complications. By then I'd started work already, with a stay-in rate of almost 1 night every 2 days, so I was pretty whacked. I tried to visit my grandma and my aunt on most of my days off, i.e. weekends or after work on a weekday which was pretty tiring. I'd end work, visit my grandma at alexandra hospital, and sleep almost immediately upon reaching home.

I think it made my parents happy to know that I was visiting my grandma regularly, especially since my siblings barely did for their own reasons. I think my grandma was happy to see me, not least because I usually bought food for her. I tried to give her something to look forward to by asking her what she wanted me to buy for her on my next visits, which usually made her smile and made her think. I try to make her think by asking her lots of questions, asking her about her routine, about events from a couple of days back, the contents of her meals etc. I worry that she'll start going senile soon.

Thankfully the staff at the hospital were amazing. Most of the nurses there would try to chat with my grandma and all, which was pretty amazing I think. I mean, they've gotta have tens of patients to take care of and with what I would guess is a pretty rapid turnover rate (patients admitting and discharging) they don't get much out of making friends anyway. I think they were just generally nice, which was brilliant. Some of them would even chat with me which was great, given that it's hard to sustain a prolonged conversation with a woman who's nearing 90 and hard of hearing.

For this to be a truthful record, I must confess that my trips there were made much more pleasant by the presence of some particularly noteworthy staff there. There was the rather pretty/cute nurse who would joke with me, whose name of course I never found out, despite the rather obvious name tags. I guess it's rather unseemly to be looking at a woman's chest like that, silly place to put name tags really. And there was the probable student physiologist, probable because she seemed too young to be an actual practicing one, but of course I never managed to ask her about that. Huh. Why I fail. But yeah, that was that, so I can't say that visiting my grandma was merely the onerous fulfilling of an obligation, it was occasionally rather enjoyable as well!

I guess I've changed in that regard as well. From the changing of my travel plans to my visiting my grandma in the hospital. I don't think I would have done the same had these scenarios happened last year. I would have put my back up and my foot down and insist on going to Uganda. I would probably have paid my grandma one visit at the hospital after constant nagging by my parents to do so. What's changed since then, and why? I was wondering myself, and wonder is the right word here. After skyping with my parents to inform them that yes, I would cancel my trip and head straight home after my papers, I kind of sat there in a daze. I wondered at what I had just done. I wondered that I had just scrapped a whole month worth of planned activities/traveling, opting instead to go back home early. I wondered that one whole month of my near future was altered just like that, one that I had been greatly anticipating too. I don't think words quite do justice here to the enormity of what I felt then, that I had in a few minutes, a few spoken sentences, radically changed my life (in the immediate sense).

In hindsight, I guess that it did change my life, or at least it was the culmination of the changes in my life.

 Anyhow, moving on now. Because I've just kept this in my drafts for more than a month. I guess I never really change after all! All this procrastination, although in my defence I must say that work was excruciatingly taxing and I never had any energy to do anything.

The one observation I wanted to record here was that of all those people's lives being put on hold. In the old folk's home, where all its residents are merely there waiting for the inevitable. All those people visiting them, especially those I saw who were there every single day, it's like pressing the pause button in their lives while they wait out what they dread, not living their own lives even. In the hospital, in the old folk's home, wherever it was. And I felt pretty sad.

Worn Out Places / Worn Out Faces.

Yo. Hmmm. It's not that I haven't had anything to say for so long. On the contrary, I've had loads on my mind but just never found the time to properly put said thoughts into coherent words and paragraphs. Unrecorded thoughts quickly turn into unremembered thoughts, and unremembered thoughts might as well not have been thought at all. Well, I guess that's not strictly true either. The memory of a thought often (probably not always, I'm not sure) lingers on, but what usually happens is that when you stumble upon similar thoughts again all you get is this vague frustrating sensation that yes, you've thought this thought before. Anyhow, my point here is that it is oftentimes a good practice to record your thoughts, that's about it.

Well. So much for concise thoughts. I never have those, I wonder if they're just a myth. I never fail to beat around the bush and on occasion, even get beaten by bushes. Huh.

Where do I even begin hmmmmmm. Well guess what, I typed all this about... 5 days ago or something. And now I have more new things to talk about, and not enough time to do so cause it's DIMSUMTIME IN JUST A FEW MORE HOURS WOOOOO!!

Anyways. I went to church for the first time in maybe.. well idk but possibly close to 2 years or so? Yep. I'm glad I went and I am thankful for my friends of thousands of years (i.e. the Twins and Amanda) for asking me along.



End of post here - cut short by frantic last minute packing for HK trip which I had put off like an idiot. And more pressing developments in life which would be more cogent in a new post, not one that I began 2 weeks ago. Ta.

The Beginning Of Forever/The End Of Yesterday.

Buon giorno. It's been a pretty wild month/2months, so much so that I find it quite impossible to describe in its entirety here. So there won't be an über long post like the one after my french trip, so don't worry aha. Hm. In fact I'm not sure what I wanna talk about here, except that I'm feeling kinda sickly (maybe just fatigued) and am in no mood to do anything else save the excretion of whatever random thoughts I've got jumbled up in my head. So.

Went to Rome with another 3 guys, bittersweet is kinda a gay expression to describe a trip with guys, so I'll go with lukewarm. I guess there are good things and bad to traveling with others, as there are with so many other things (perhaps everything) in life. But still, I think I'd gotten too used to traveling on my own. Some of the things they did, the way they acted towards the locals etc really grated on me. And then you're not as absorbed into the culture of wherever it is you are because there's always these familiar elements (your friends) holding you back. It wasn't all bad though, far from it in fact. Just the mere matter of companionship, having people to discuss the (entirely foreign) menu with, messing around and talking cock etc, was a fun enough experience. Having other people book flights/hotels and craft the itinerary for me was pretty novel as well, and made for a really lazy holiday for me where I pretty much bummed along with the rest.

Couldn't leave it at that so I traveled the rest of Italy on my own, covering Naples, which included Pompeii, Sorrento and Amalfi. Florence, incl. San Gimignano and other bits of the Tuscan countryside. Cinque Terre and Venice. All amazing places, and I can't imagine having not gone to any of those places. That's the immense advantage of not planning anything out in advance. Sure, it usually turns out to cost more than it would have if you pre-book everything, but you miss out on the awesomeness of spontaneity. I had my flight to Rome with the other guys and my flight back from Venice, the rest was pretty piecemeal, random decisions built upon other random decisions.

I didn't know about Sorrento or Amalfi until I was in Naples, so that was a plus. I'd only heard of Cinque Terre from the hostel guy in Naples, which was how I decided to proceed there from Florence. I think that was my favourite place in Italy btw. So if anyone decides to travel Italy, pls try to remember Cinque Terre! Oh and I did meet a girl there too... What's the point of traveling if you don't meet girls srsly? Oke whatever. Of course nothing did develop with said girl, possibly because my handwriting was/is so bad that she will never be able to decipher my email address. Huh.


Okay I was typing that halfway when I stopped for unknown reasons. That was almost a week ago maybe. Now I don't want to continue anymore. So I'll go on about life as it is now, instead of reminiscing aboot an awesome holiday I have, because that makes life now that much more depressing. Huh.

So I've just started work and within a day of reporting I had a Sunday duty. Lifesux believe me. I guess I'll have to work extra hard to regain all the knowledge I've lost over the past 9months, and re-navalize myself. Meh. It's actually not that bad, even fun to some extent, so I don't really mind all that much. Truly shite hours though, and sooooo tiring. Sigh.

On the MRT on thursday night I saw ads for the Singapore Arts Festival which opened on Friday. That's become my latest haunt. I've been there twice since, and have enjoyed a couple of performances, all for free! Friday I was treated to some slapstick comedic action and a dance performance which was brilliant. It was quite well done, and by a local troupe to boot if I'm not wrong, it was quite remarkable. The juxtaposition of the masculine/feminine, the sensuality, well lots of other stuff that I've not seen much cause I've never really watched a dance performance. Certainly a good experience, that.

Today I ate at the festival cafe where the waiters broke into dance halfway through my ice cream. That was fun. Then I looked at kids playing (non-paedophically believe me.) Then curiosity got the better of me and I approached a booth called An Umbrella For 2, or sth like that. It's this thing where they foist an umbrella onto you with headphones, and you're supposed to walk down this route while listening to the MP3 tracks they have prepared. Since it was For 2, I paired up with this random English lady for the more-than-an-hour-long walk. The concept was pretty good, and the overall experience was quite nice, so I'd say it was a successful piece of interactive "art" or whatever its supposed to be labelled as. I must say I felt pretty retarded carrying the umbrella indoors, down escalators, through Citylink etc. I don't think I've garnered so many odd looks and weird stares in a long time, if ever. Only added to the fun though, although getting lost detracted a little bit from it aha.

My new English friend and I then went to watch the main performance (also free ofc) together. It involved horses and a French woman. Well, also a french man, but the first part sufficed to capture my attention. It was pretty cool as well. I don't think I've ever seen showhorses or any performance involving horses, so I was well amazed at how obedient they were. Utterly enjoyable, and there was an unexpectedly delightful bit where they had a sort of fountain show with the figure of a horse galloping, which doesn't really sound so awesome typed out, but was pretty darn awesome.

Almost all the theatre tickets were sold out, to my utter dismay. The moment I saw The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was showing in the Esplanade I picked up the book and started reading it. Truly diligent. Too bad all the tickets were sold out though, as were Lear Dreaming and some dance/film compilation thing. Never knew Singaporeans were so hungry for the arts, a newbie mistake at the first ever festival I've been aware of. The book has been awesome so far though, so that's a big (Y).

Not so many (Y)s in my life now, at least not that I'm aware of. Within days of coming back to Singapore I'm feeling like a drone already, coming back home in the night (if at all) and performing perfunctory gestures like a bath, small chat with the parents, getting ready for the next day, and not much else before collapsing into bed to recharge my spent batteries. Huh. That's why I wanted to blog today, so that I don't just do the bare minimum upon reaching home, or I'll embark on a cycle that never ends. I can't even muster the energy to ask people out for dinner/supper, which is why I've been hitting the arts festival on my own and eating out alone as well. I had Kungfu Paradise at JCUBE today though, and that was none too shabby for all their ridiculous dish names.

It's times like these though, that I kinda wish I had something to look forward to. Something to snap me out of my tiredness, to break the monotony. It's like I finish work and start wandering around Singapore aimlessly, making random decisions on when and what to eat for dinner, what to do and when to go home. At least there's the arts festival for the moment, but that's ending on the 2nd of June. I might feel kinda lost after it ends haha.

It's not that I feel lost, that I don't. I have objectives to work towards and a number of goals I intend to achieve, but these are all professional ones, entirely work related. They are career-goals, not ones that give me any particular pleasure. Perhaps the word here is duty, that I have a duty to achieve this goals. My friend was just telling me about extrinsic and intrinsic motivations or sth like that, which possibly might apply here. Okay this is me trying to be clever again haha.

I guess what I want is something to look forward to at the end of the day, something beyond the basic things like rest (although I do crave this like a madsman.) or a piping hot dinner. It doesn't have to be anything extravagant even, I guess sometimes even something as small and seemingly insignificant as a message will do. Sometimes I wonder, just what exactly am I working for? Why do I wake up at 5.30am and even consider staying-in, when that's almost counter-intuitive? Meh. I guess it's up to me to sort my life out instead of whining aha. It's just abit of a drag to work without knowing what I'm working for. I could say I'm working for myself and my career, which while perfectly valid, I find to be wholly inadequate. Oh well.

Okay suddenly brain won't work. Need sleep anyways. Goodnight then!

We're Not Human At All.

"Smoke ham and scrambled eggs, Mathea." I heard Epsilon put the platter on the night table before he sat down on the chair by the bedside. I opened my eyes. There was a balloon hanging from the ceiling. "I bought it on Karl Jorhan Street," Epsilon said. "Oh," I said. He was wearing his suit and he sat with his elbows on his knees, hands folded. "Aren't you going to ask?" he said. I didn't know what he meant. Then he said, "You always want to bet on everything. How long do you think it'll stay on the ceiling?" "Epsilon, I'm too tired," I said. There was a breeze coming in from the window. I was cold and pulled the cover up to my chin. "I think it'll last a week," he said. "Or, no, I'm going to say two. What do you think?" "I don't know," I said. "More or less?" he insisted. It felt like I was going to have to contend with that balloon forever. I sighed: "More." "So if I win," said Epsilon, "then you have to have dinner with me in a nice restaurant, and afterward we'll go to the theater." I closed my eyes. "I couldn't." "But that's what I want," Epsilon said. "What do you want if you win?" I didn't answer. "You can think about it," Epsilon said. I turned over on my side, so he wouldn't know that I was crying again. Behind me I heard him spread the napkin on his lap and pick up the silverware.

Neither of us mentioned the balloon again, even though it hovered right over our heads like a speech bubble in a cartoon and I imagined it was full of incomprehensible signs. The day before I was due to win the bet, I finally decided what I wanted. I didn't know how I was going to manage, but I got up and took a knitting needle out of my pine box. The air left the balloon like a sigh of relief. When Epsilon came home from work, I was ready to go out. I'd pinned my hair up with a clip and pinched my cheeks. He stared at me bewildered as I stood in the hall with my shoes on, all ready to go. My coat had gotten so big on me. "You won," I said. A deep sob came from Epsilon's throat, he'd probably held it in for far too long.

I smoothed the wrinkles from his forehead with my fingers. "You look beautiful," he said. "Thank you," I said and glanced down. He kissed my head. I caressed his shoe with the tip of mine. "Did you get new laces?" I asked. "No," Epsilon said. "Oh," I said. And then we began to laugh.



Hello again. I've sort of been in a kinda extended slump for a while now, hopefully I've snapped out of it now. I've been doing pretty much nothing, which actually isn't that uncommon for me, but it's been a more meaningless than usual nothingness somehow. As unlikely as that may sound. In the last 2 weeks I've read my remaining books, and in the past 2 days I've watched lots and lots of movies. Sounds terribly slothful, maybe, but it's more than I've done the past 2 weeks.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower was pretty good, although I was initially a little annoyed cause I kept trying to think of what I was like when I was 15, so I was like, come on! half the time. It got much better after I got over myself, aha. Some nice turns of phrases (double plural here just seems weird srsly.)

I probably liked The Faster I Walk, The Smaller I Am better. Those passages in italics above are from the book. The entire book was so understated, and offbeat, I don't know. "A gloomy feel-good novel about the irreparable loneliness of being human. A tragicomedy of rare quality." I love the jacket of the book too. And Perks' as well. When I first picked up the book I kept thinking wow, what an amazing cover! Terribly superficial, I know, but like, whatever... The only fault of The Fault In Our Stars I can think of is probably its jacket, definitely not featuring in my best dressed books of all time.

So I hadn't been watching any movies at all. I decided I had to rectify that, so I did. Somehow, almost all the movies I've watched recently have been British films. It started with The Inbetweeners Movie, which took some warming up to, but paid off I guess. Sex jokes aplenty, as you'd expect from a movie about 4 young lads off on a holiday, but it goes beyond that and delivers some really good lines.

Death At A Funeral came next. Some OTT fun, I recoiled in horror when I saw there was a Hollywood remake starring Chris Rock or something. There's something charming in an eccentric Brit family which I highly doubt survives a transatlantic conversion..

After that came Submarine. I really enjoyed that. Quite possibly one of the best running styles ever captured on camera? So much awkward earnestness, truly golden stuff. And the entire soundtrack was by Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys, you really don't get much more awesome than that do you! Awesome movie, I'd definitely recommend it if you're in for some lighthearted comedic awesomeness. One of the best romances in recent memory haha.

So that was part one of my British-working-class-period movies. After that came This Is England, a title I stumbled across on the message boards of Submarine or something, which is kinda dorky I guess. Aha. No regrets, however! Of the slew of movies I've just watched (slew is my favourite word for describing movies like that, I struggle to think up a substitute.) this was probably the best of the lot.

It was powerful. Dark and disturbing. Frightening, even. Mostly cause of how believable it all seemed. First 5 mins I was pretty skeptical (the super thick incomprehensible accent didn't help either, sheesh.) 30mins in, or whenever it was Combo appeared, and I was enthralled. The most incredible performance by Stephen Graham, wow. By no means the pleasantest of movie watching experiences, this is an example of how a movie need not be pleasant to be brilliant. I was mindblown for a short while after that before starting on..

Harry Brown. Unfortunately this wasn't quite as good as I'd hoped it to be. Perhaps still reeling a little from This Is England. The one redeeming feature of the film was Emily Mortimer. After watching Hugo I developed this little crush on her. Hahaha. She is cute though! And there was Michael Caine of Batman fame, but his character was a little uneven I think. Kind of a meh-movie for me, especially in the wake of something as sterling as This Is England.

Since I was on revenge flicks, I moved on to director Shane Meadows' (who did This Is England) Dead Man's Shoes. Really strong stuff. This guy clearly knows what he's doing. Starring Paddy Considine (who, coincidentally, appears also in Submarine. The small world of British cinema eh?) as 1x Scary Person. Probably one of the scariest things about the movie for me was how much I wanted the victims' suffering to be prolonged. I guess with vigilante type films the moral ambiguity plays a rather large part, but I was aware and subsequently disturbed by what I was thinking. Hmm. The super 8 footages were painful, brilliantly so. And again, it all seemed so grounded and maybe a little plausible. Gritty Britty stuff.

Next title in Shane Meadows/Paddy Considine's catalogue I was interested in was A Room For Romeo Brass. Paddy Considine again as Scary Person. Way scarier, in a totally different way, this time. This guy can bloody act man. Another realistic portrait of middle class Britain, and yet more vulnerable, exploitable victims. Which can be found in all 4 of these films. Which makes for slightly depressing watching, cause you can only imagine how likely it is that these people get exploited/abused/victimized in real life. It really makes you wonder how the world got to be such a messed up place. Although that might just be the wrong question to ask, cause who's to say it's ever been better? Maybe it's always been this messed up, or something. Oh wells.

Next I watched Sexy Beast, which sounds terribly naughty, no doubt, but it's not. Even after watching, the film, I'm not entirely sure who or what it's referring to. I might have missed something..... It wasn't nearly as good as I expected it to be, given its ratings, so maybe I did miss something. Well. Ben Kingsley was splendid, yes, but still? I guess I didn't really enjoy the movie. It was a miss for me. Meh.

The last one on my list (finally, I know.) is Ghost World. Steve Buscemi of Reservoir Dogs fame (nay, awesomeness) and a cute girl called Thora Birch. Oh and Scarlett Johansson, but meh. I'm not that big a fan of hers really, but more pertinently, she didn't have that much to do in the movie anyways. Although maybe that's just me being blindsided by how young she looked. I mean, srsly?! She looked like she was 14 or something. All in all a pretty good movie, I guess, definitely enjoyable. The social misfits/outcasts were great, but every one else was pretty much one-dimensional. There was a scene with T.J Thyne (Hodgins from Bones!) which was brilliant though. Probably worth it to watch just for Enid's counter-cultural dress sense, haha.

Quite the lot of movies hey? Not too shabby. I'm thinking I'll watch Boy A next, a film I first saw in Lifestyle or something a few years ago. It starred a then unknown Andrew Garfield, and I was totally intrigued by the synopsis. Almost watched it last year or two years ago with my sister, but the accent defeated us. Hahaha. Pathetix. Now, armed with firsthand knowledge and experience of the British accent, I shall try to watch it again. Just in case though, I've downloaded the subtitles. Haha. Give me a Scouser accent, or some Irish brogue, a Welsh accent, Cockney, a Northern accent, idk, whatever, and I'd probably be stumped. I have no idea how they understand each other, srsly. Awful stuff, mate.

Well, somehow I've not mentioned Chinawoman or Sleep Party People here. I guess I've only been into them in the past 2 weeks, but it feels like longer than that. I heard I'm Not Human At All and I was blown away. The weirdest sounds ever. And thus refreshingly good. If someone tried to describe it to me I'd probably be like meh, I don't know man, doesn't sound like my thing. I mean, rabbit masks, really cool and all, but that voice? Meh. What do you know, it works, somehow. Amazing Danish sounds! First Mew, now this.. And if you watch the live x sessions, really keep your eye on the drummer.. The way those rabbit ears bounce up and down when he(/she?) gets excited, now that's solid gold.

And Chinawoman's Lovers Are Strangers. Dat musik video.. That's just one sad video man.. I think I pretty much like all of her songs, probably Left You At The Farm stands out for its rather inexplicable title. Party Girl, Russian Ballerina, all good stuffs brother! Something so Russian in the music, don't you think. Apparently her music originates from the Russian nightclubs of Toronto or something.

I somehow did not notice Mew had a new album till recently. What a title.. No More Stories / Are Told Today / I'm Sorry / They Washed Away / No More Stories / The World Is Grey / I'm Tired / Let's Wash Away. That's kickass. And if you give New Terrain a listen.. You'll be reminded of the time you listened to Stairway To Heaven backwards in the hopes of gleaning a satanic message. Hahaha. Or maybe that was just me, bloody hell. Except that this was done on purpose. Reversing the song gives you a new one, Nervous. If I recall, both lyrics stand in counterpoint to one another, which is just cleverness upon cleverness, but I'm not sure.

Oh yeah there's Lykke Li as well, with that catchy Dance Dance Dance (or dans dans dans as she sings it) and that great little video. And I Follow Rivers of course. And I forgot to mention Skeletons, another off-beat british comedy, which was pretty good as well. Unfortunately I've run out of unread books. Hmm. Need to restock soon. Or maybe I'll just re-read some stuff. Terry Pratchett always comic gold of course, so no problem there I guess. Need to save money that's why, sigh.

Okay. I'll end here. I'll probably churn out one more post before I go scurrying off to London, at long bloody last! It's incredible (can you use the word 'incredulous' here? sounds kinda odd, to me.) to think that I've been here 6 odd months without entering the capital of England for any substantial amount of time. Downright pathetic. Paris, and Geneva and whatnot, and I haven't even been to London. Sheesh kebabs!

P.S. I think it is timely now to mention that I have somehow gotten myself a brand new online name to brandish at fellow losers, I mean, gamers who are dastardly enough to cross paths with me. Witness the rise of KILLERKAHN98!!!! Have no fear, KILLERKAHN98 is here! (You know you want to try it. Just speed yourself through that whole kahn98 bit.) Quite a mouthful, I know, but more than worth it, I assure you! Hehehe!

KiLl3RkAhN9eIgHt signing off. CIaozzz.