Desastres Naturales.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick,  to-

He looks up at the clock whose second hand is still now, time freezes for a second there as his brain scrambles to figure out what it is that has suddenly gone missing. Something so seemingly insignificant, so perfectly natural, as the sound of a second hand ticking, his mind does not know quite how to react to its abrupt absence.

He stares at the once-clock. What is it, now? A clock which cannot mark time. Something whose entire existence is now entirely invalidated. A being with no raison d'être, no reason for being. He does not know how long he stares. Ha ha.

And the once-clock stares back at him. Tick, tock. No one's making those hands start moving again, and yet life goes on.

Life does. He starts walking. Away. And he walks, and he walks, and he walks. What, or who, was waiting for him back there anyway? Nothing. Just an existential question of a clock. Ha ha. He walks on.

He remembers this recurring dream he has:

A girl, a traveller in a city on a hill. As she wanders, absolutely and utterly alone, she wonders. She stops at a break between two buildings, and gazes out at the city spread out before her. She's never felt so alive, alone in a strange new city. The possibilities seem endless. It is beautiful, stark, the utter desolation of freedom. She smiles softly to herself. She walks on.

He realizes he cannot hold on to a girl like that. He must not. That no matter how tightly she holds his hand as they walk in the park, a part of her will always long to be free. A part of her which wants to lose everything, to leave everything behind. Her family and her friends and her habits. Her work and the things she enjoys. All the things that make her, her. She cannot help it - the desolation of freedom accepts no compromise.

Ah, compromise. He remembers the man on the streets, old, decrepit. Broken.

Love fully, or not at all. If love doesn't ruin you, then why love at all? Why settle for some safe, pale imitation of love?

His eyes comes alive as he speaks the words. Maybe broken isn't so bad after all.

What a strange place. This modern world, right? Surrounded by all these people, five million of us in this tiny city-state, and you're alone. Even though each of us know how lonely we all are. We pass each other by, strangers on a train, embarrassed by the furtive eye-contact, when we're caught peeking at each other's messages, showing interest in the shows we're watching, the games we're playing. Embarrassed!

The broken man does not stop talking.

The girl on the train reading the same print of Catch-22 you never quite got around to reading yourself, listening to your favourite song just that little bit too loud so it bleeds into the otherwise quiet cabin, with a faint smile flickering about her lips as she comes to the realization that you're looking at her. Perhaps wondering, too, what might be if you would just say something. A million possiblities, and then nothing. Another day, right?

Another day, it is. It has to be! The once-clock protests in futility - time marches relentlessly on. He takes comfort in that. He walks on.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

Had We More Courage.

            And on your tongue
was the whisper of the wings

                      of the dreams
                      of the life
of the life we could
  have had

     had we loved more
          had we more courage
               had we let ourselves


we let ourselves


                           down.

At Least Icarus Flew.

______________________________

Icarus!
    Flew toward
        the indifferent sun

Ecstasy!
    Even as he fell
        toward the uncaring ground.

______________________________


So yesterday this super dubious whatsapp message was circulating around re: the moon from 10-11pm being visible in 12 different colours or something, and that formed the basis for that last post. For whatever reason, "The Jade Rabbit Feasts on Green Cheese" is now my favourite title of them all, even as I'm still wondering what that was all about. Poems (or attempted poems!) are the strangest things of all.

"Icarus" here, at least, I know why. Of course, the story of Icarus is at heart supposedly an allegory on hubris. But perhaps it is a mere tale on the dangers of getting lost in the moment, of forgetting where or even who you are. That is the origin of Icarus, after all. It is about daring to dream of escape; it is about actually trying to.

What do the actual consequences matter?

Except that they do. They really do. I feel like I'm treading on dangerous ground at times. Only sometimes I'm not sure whether I even care or not. It's so easy to lose myself in flight. And yet. A duty of care, a responsibility to be better than this. It's not just about me anymore, is it?

It's terrifying to think about all the things that could go wrong, exhilarating to think about what could go right. So God help me, I gotta navigate my way through these shoals on either side and emerge safely somehow. Well, safety perhaps isn't the right word here - there are going to be risks I have to take too. What a crazy state of delirium indeed.

Hurtling blindfolded into the great unknown, and I wouldn't have it any other way. This is the real world. This is me in God's playground. And He's holding on to me.

Alright, time for bed. Operation: BodyClock Reset begins now.

The Jade Rabbit Feasts On Green Cheese.

The moon they say will
be seen in twelve
different colours tonight

Once in a hundred
and eighty-four years
O!
Wonder!

let the moon reflect that
life is a many-splendoured thing
as Chang-e flits across her face
as the Jade Rabbit nibbles on green cheese

let the lonely moon reflect that
lonely as she is
love goes beyond distance
love goes beyond colour
love goes beyond desire
love goes beyond hope and tears and laughter and
fear and sorrow and understanding

let the lonely distant many-coloured moon tonight
reflect our light
let us teach her what it means to live
let us teach her what it means to love.

And She Looks Like The Moon.

Q: And do you think this, all this, lasts forever?

A: No, and if it does it should not. Nothing that is this beautiful should be made to last. Life without death is a tragedy; eternal art not art at all.

A: Yes, and if it doesn't it should. If even this degrades, decays, then of what use is hope? I could not bear to live in a world where all beauty eventually dies, where beauty, indeed, is contingent on transience.

I get on the train, and you are there, waiting for me. You smile as I sit down opposite you, and I remember the day we met all those years ago. The day I met the 99% perfect girl; the day I fell in love; the day everything started; the day it all started to end.

I knew as soon as I saw you: here is a girl as close to 100% as I'm ever likely to get. Should I have waited for that 100%, I will never know.

Of course we ended up disappointing each other. No surprise. How could we not, when we were so afraid of revealing what we want? (What we want what we really really want.) Somehow we made that 1% out to be so much more than it really was - it grew and it grew until there was a rift between us neither of us knew how to bridge. Was it because everything else was so perfect that we couldn't help but focus on what wasn't?

I look across at you. All I see now is the 99% I overlooked because of the 1%.

How did it happen, when did we grow up all of a sudden? Where was the line, how did we cross it? Without warning, without fanfare. What a shame! Do you remember the smell of rain, the whisper of the wind?

Your smile fades. You look out the window. Silence.

But you were always like the moon to me. As you went so did my desire ebb and flow, as I tried my hardest to keep up with you. But no matter how hard I tried I never got any closer to you; no matter how hard I try a part of you will always remain hidden from me.

We speed past the seaside. Oh! That is where we were once, on that beach, happy. You lay against my chest as you scoop up handfuls of sand and allow them to run through your fingers. Do you remember? The picnic mat beneath us, the future before us. We used to talk, once. We used to love, once.

And beneath our love, our happiness, flowed that steady undercurrent of sadness. Do you remember how sad we were? Like something that could only be seen out of the corner of your eyes. Lurking, always, at the edges of our happiness. It was not loss, no - it was the memory of loss. That every second I spent with you was another second gone, lost forever like so much sand in the wind.

Your side profile still turned towards me, I remember the day I went through your diary. Why, I will never know. And I will never forgive myself. "And love was a language he never learnt to speak. He had to pick it up and piece it together wherever he could. And slowly, but surely, he began to understand. Just the tiniest bits at first, but slowly, and surely, he began to be fluent in love. But who can say, even as he was learning to listen, learning to speak, how much had been lost between the cracks, how much love had flowed past him, incomprehensible? They say you never step in the same river twice. So too love. He could not receive the love I gave him, and it will never be the same again."

Didn't you feel like you were drowning, desperately trying to grab on to anything that felt real to you? That's what falling in love felt like to me. Or maybe it was like wandering in a desert. I'm parched, desperate for a sip of water, and I stumble upon an oasis I'm never sure is not a mirage. I gulp it all down, hungrily, filling myself to the point of bursting. Maybe cause I thought it was real; maybe cause I was afraid it wasn't. When you're at breaking point what do you care about the difference between reality and illusion anyway?

I turn to look out the window, too. There it was, the scene from the day we met. I glance back at you but of course you were gone too. What do I care about the difference between reality and illusion anyway? The train speeds on; we arrive at our next memory. I think of all the things I've said, all the things I never said. How could love have turned out to be the greatest barrier of all?

All the messages we sent each other were the perfectly preserved records of our imperfect love. Another chance for us to get things wrong again. Love: the perfect desire for the imperfect. But we confuse the imperfect object with the perfect and like two trains speeding away in the night we miss each other by inches, perfectly engineered imperfection. And we are breathless from the speed, the proximity. We want to reach out; we dare not.

In the distance, we hear the sound of two trains - a collision.

A Wild Wind Blowing Down The Corner Of My Street.

So it feels like the Northeast Monsoon is beginning to set in now - light to strong (almost 15-20kn!) winds from NE - ENE, and generally wetter conditions observed. Incidence of isolated thunderstorms should start dipping as the intermonsoon period grinds itself to an end. An end to the hot, stuffy days of intense heat and equally intense thunderstorms!

Time to prepare my alternative career as a weatherman now, to prune and preen in front of a camera day in day out, oh what a dream come true that would be! In all seriousness, though, what a relief it is to be back where you get to hear honest-to-goodness thunderclaps and see lightning rend the sky. I heard one instance of thunder in 3 years in the UK, which is not something I ever thought about until I finally heard it one day and was stunned to my very core. Fine rain, light rain, cold rain, no rain thanks be to God! Talk about uninteresting weather... We literally did talk about the uninteresting weather a lot more than was healthy perhaps sigh. I miss the place.

A little strange how just as winter is probably picking up back there shades of autumn start appearing here. Kinda glad to have this seafronting accommodation I can dubiously call "home" now to enjoy this slightly more habitable weather.

And so, life. Wild winds. Picks you up and drops you just as suddenly. Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.. When life's lemons give you AIDS or whatever, eh? When life's lemons do not give you aid, you just gotta suck it. Okay so maybe trying to think up variations on that adage is not nearly as fruitful (pun not even intended) a way to spend my time as it really should be.

The one unintended and much welcome effect of my long voyages to and from work has been the much needed time to read. Probably some of the only protected time I have to indulge in that most ancient art, and it is while I am in the midst of jostling with hundreds of people on the train. Life really does afford way too many distractions, especially in the way of the Internet. Why is it so hard to unglue oneself from the screen even when you know your time could probably be better spent any other way? Ah, an old lament to be sure.

This time on the MRT also lets me think, between pages, between books. How hard is it to find time to think these days? I go back home and I start watching stuff and waiting just for sleep to claim me. I go to work and wait just to go back home again. Which is kinda why I actually cherish days like this where I stay-in and have some sort of time, just as long as I forcefully unplug myself from my phone, from the internet.

Anyhow, here it is. The collected jumbles of thoughts and observations from the daily commute.

___________________________________

He came to a stop, suddenly confused, suddenly hearing what the man was saying.

"First rate stuff bro! Genuine one, no bluff."

Who are we? Who lies to passersby on an everyday basis in order to... what, turn a profit?

"It's just business bro."

No, he wanted no business in this world of just business.
___________________________________

He couldn't hear himself think. It was the city, all the friction of contact with all these people living in close proximity, all those silent abrasions, noisy encounters.

The seething writhing raging mass of the masses.
___________________________________

It was hard to dream with all that baggage. Baggage: the homogenized past and present of our youth.

The stifled dreams, normalized hopes. How hard is it now to imagine someone dreaming of a different future? A dream of his/her own, not merely that of the petty bourgeoisie, culturally ingrained, inherited from a generation desperate to not fail and therefore afraid to dream.

It is no dream, these not-dreams. Not-poor. Not-lacking. Not-a-failure. Not-sad. Not-childless. Not-lonely.
___________________________________

The sunset was particularly beautiful today, and we stopped, just like that, a five minute lull where we stopped thinking about work, the car, the mortgage.

We all know each day has the potential for boundless beauty, that hurtling at a speed of one thousand miles an hour about the axis of this earth and sixty-seven thousand miles an hour through space we are bound to meet something interesting along the way. But we choose to forget.

What's been buried even deeper is that people, too, are capable of great beauty. Yes, this seething writhing mass.

Maybe we never did want to bury all this knowledge, but we never had a choice, did we. Slowly we are smothered by this world, beautiful as it may be, by all the debris, the flotsam and jetsam of the various wrecks we've made of our lives. Until we die while still alive, screaming silently into our indifferent graves.

Until and unless we stop to see the sunset, to see each other, again.
___________________________________

Never so shockingly alive as when he stepped fresh off the plane, nor so desperately alone.
___________________________________

And if you, too, think these thoughts, then welcome! Welcome to being human.
___________________________________

Have a good night then, y'all.

Oh love, don't let me go
Won't you take me where the street lights glow?
I can hear rain coming like a serenade of sound
Now my feet won't touch the ground

Grad Expectations.

Well yes, I know, kinda cheesy post title (Charles De Yan, or Chuan Dickens..) but waddya know - the only reason I'm even trying to blog today is that I feel like I haven't actually used my brain for a while now. Once you're BFG (Back For Good) there's just too many ways to procrastinate, to tell yourself that okay next week I'll find some time to sit and write, to tinker about with my diary, to actually use any portion of my brain at all. But noooo, there's too much admin to be done, a myriad errands and tasks or plain lazing around thanks to the full blown fatigue of full time work. Quite apart from work (which is going decently all things considered), I have quite possibly done nothing of value at all over the 3 weeks since I've been back.

So, not that this is going to be of much worth either, but at least I have to give myself a chance to flex a wee bit of my cognitive functions.

Chronologically, I guess, was grad trip, followed by graduation. Too much really to cover, and previous posts on previous trips have borne out the fact that I am a horrible accountant i.e. my accounts of my travels have never failed to fail to inspire. Triple negatives, how's that for some random brainwork? I did cross entire continents, from the Nordic city of Oslo through Moscow, Lake Baikal, Beijing, and more, to Shanghai, a grand total of 8 time-zones crossings and a resultant seriously messed up body clock. The adherence to rail time instead of real time along the Transsiberian, the thousands of miles on the road, and much more too. Absolutely incredible stuff.

Graduation was, of course, surreal. It was odd to realize how many of the people at the ceremonies I'd have been seeing for the last time, possibly, forever. Bittersweet in the extreme. One, I guess, of the tradeoffs of studying in a foreign land. Exeter, too, unfortunately is not a place I am likely to revisit anytime soon, not least because a large majority of the people I have gotten to know there are likewise leaving it for good now. It did turn out eventually to be a massive photoshoot kind of, and I am immensely grateful to bel for gracing the occasion and graciously agreeing (tacitly) to be photographer of the day too! Wish I could attend yours come January!

Flew back via a circuitous route through Manila, a complete waste of time but not of money (the savings! why my return flight is not paid for I will never know). and went to work the very next day. Extremely rusty and almost starting from ground zero (again), it's been quite the learning process. And a good one too.

My grandma passed away last week, after almost 2 weeks of drifting in and out of consciousness having been admitted to the hospital for a fever. I guess everyone saw it coming, and my uncles/cousins even flew in from overseas to see her. It's a minor miracle she survived long enough to see all but 2 of her family/descendants.

It's a strange one. I was never close to her. Truth be told, I didn't like her all that much. All my life (or at least those that I retain sufficient memory of) she's been telling me to study hard, get a good job, and earn a ton of money. Emphasis on that final point. Which has been kind of grating at times. It's only been the last 3 years when I started visiting her at the hospital or nursing home that I interacted properly with her at all, although even till the very end I think she believed I was gonna end up as some high-flying ass-busting lawyer or something. I don't think that's gonna happen!

But no matter what she may or may not have meant to me, I realize how much losing her means to my dad. I cannot imagine what it must have felt like for him, not least because I felt nowhere near as keenly the loss. What grief I felt I felt for my dad, a man who's lost both parents, a brother and a sister, all in the last 5 years.

With this as backdrop, the first time I visited my grandma upon returning to Singapore last month I thought these thoughts, whether appropriately or not:

________________________

Hospital bed:
Hey how are you hope
You are well
Or do I?
How easy it is to pretend we love
We fake our concern our care
For the possibly loved
The potentially not
Honest deceit.

Death bed:
Eulogy
Desperately
Sieving memory
For the good stuff
But the muck comes up too
Keep a straight face look serious
Say something profound
Lie.

________________________



NB: This is an abstraction, much of which I have just thought up just now, and has nothing to do with my grandma's hospitalization and funeral, except inasmuch as it provided the setting for me to think these thoughts. Not very good ones, mind you, completely unpolished, no cadence or anything whatsoever, just an outlet. A beginning, perhaps, to a return to form sometime soon hopefully!

Some other stuff going on too, that I am keen on thinking about, but it is 1:22am and another day of waking up at 5.20 beckons and I am pretty much already screwed sigh, but I shall at least try to mitigate some of my deadness by going to bed right now.

Or How To Die At Life.

You don't know this I think you should
Life without you is not
Life and I have learnt the art of dying and I didn't even
Try to but I did and dying is surprisingly easy once you know
How we ate in silence but you were not there and I look around every
Street corner because it feels like
You might be there
You might be waiting
but
Every corner my life does not
Start again and what did you even smell like and how
Do I know who you are any-
more if you too have been
Dying?
I wonder where you might
Be where you could
Be while I sit here staring at the door because
I know that any moment you could walk through
And I will receive you
While I sit here by the phone because I know that you will call
Surely?

_____________________________

Okay so that seems completely random, and that's not entirely wrong, but it was inspired by viewing Mr. Nobody, a pretty good show starring Jared Leto. Incidentally I finally arrived at the 30 Seconds To Mars portion of my playlist, which consist of songs added almost 2-3 years ago now! How time flies, I still remember treating Spotify with considerable wariness and doubt.

As always, completely fictional account of someone waiting for the one, however that person was lost. No actual girl problems to speak of, because even my layman A level math can tell you that no girl = no girl problem. I also kind of feel lately like I've lost my voice, and I have felt kind of marooned lately so I thought I'd just throw this out there. Nothing of any deeper significance to it, though!

Have watched a slew of good, or at least fun movies lately. With the glaring exception of American Hustle. Don't wanna flame and sorry if you liked it but what an awful show. Okay so I do wanna flame. It felt so pointless, and definitely overhyped. Mega disappoint. Watched Prisoners, which was really good, and very Zodiac-y. Not sure if it's just cause of Jake Gyllenhaal though, but it was pretty noir. So I looked up neo-noir and finally watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which was the most ridiculous fun. Somehow managing to spoof the genre while executing it very stylishly too.

Just realized it's less than 2 weeks till end of term. Meh. Singapore Day and my next trip coming up, and I haven't even uploaded my pictures from Christmas haha. Ho well. I'm gonna do that then, ciao.

Anatomy Of A Phone Call.

"Hey."
"Hey back to you. (2s) Is something wrong? It's 1 in the morning."
"No... (0.5) no! Nothing's wrong. (0.3) Umm."

Yes there is. Something's wrong with me. Something's wrong with us. But I don't know how to explain it, and that is part of the problem too.

"Oh, right. (2) Okay then. (1.5) So... (0.8) what's up?"
"Nothing much.. (1.2) Just can't seem to sleep."

I don't know. I can't sleep. I want to hear the sound of your voice, but I am afraid to tell you that too. What's happened to us?

"Oh. (1.8) So you.. (0.5) you want to talk?"
"Sorry.. (1.8) It's okay. (0.8) It's late and you have work tomorrow."

I want to talk. I want to talk to you so much. But I don't think I can anymore. What happened to the days when we used to talk for the sake of hearing each others' voices? We'd talk about anything just to keep each other on the line. Must there now be something up before we call each other? When did our first reaction to late night calls become to assume something was wrong instead of that initial heady delight of yet more time together, airtime, anytime?

"Yeah. (0.4) Sorry babe, I had a really long day today."
"Yeah. (0.1) No, don't worry about it, I'll see you tomorrow for dinner yeah?"

I don't know when we became so apologetic to each other. So polite to each other. Like we've become afraid of offending each other, but we're afraid of admitting that we're afraid too. When did a love that seemed so strong become so fragile? Why can't we discuss our fears honestly any longer, when did all this fear about us creep in? Maybe if I figure out when and why and how it's happened we can turn back the clock. Maybe tomorrow can be the distant past.

"Mmm. (0.5) Of course you will. (2.4) Good night dear."
"...(1.2) Yeah. (1.7) Good night."

And sweet dreams. I don't know what's wrong, I don't know what's happening, what's happened to us. Tomorrow is going to be incrementally worse than today and I don't think I will be able to call you again tomorrow night. How is it possible that I've never felt more lonely than when I was on the phone with you? Why can't I seem to share what's going on with me here, now, when we used to share all our hopes and dreams, and fears too? I don't know what will happen tomorrow, but I know it's not going to get any better. What happened to all the tomorrows we were going to spend, to the life we were going to take on together? What happened to the future we've forgotten?



*The numbers in brackets () are, in numbers of seconds, an attempt to capture silence as text.
______________________________


I read the other day this phrase - the sickness of long thinking - which seems to perfectly describe melancholia. Sometimes, at least, it does, I think.

A curious melancholy had settled onto me yesterday, as I woke up at 3pm and wondered what I was going to do with the remains of the day. A couple of clicks on my laptop later I stumbled upon the song White Fire by Angel Olsen, a dark, spare song which determined my mood. Which resulted in "A Tree, A Life, A Shout. Silence."

It is completely fictional, as I had not thought to point out, and it is not cause for alarm. Not something I'd expected, but looking back at it I can see how it might be concerning, so VMT Anonymous for that. I did reply in an entirely elaborate fashion, the point being, don't worry!

I have been fascinated for some time with the philosophical question of whether "If a tree falls and no one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound?" as a metaphor for a person's life without anyone else around. No one to care for, no one who cares about. A life completely alone.

So that super-short story was kind of a thought experiment, and also one in literary style. Inspired, I think, by those gripping first-person narratives like Clockwork Orange or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, also the scariest ones. Guess it was way too short to have been obvious as a story, and fiction, and I wanted that element of dark, believable, realism.

And this here story is inspired in part by my stumbling on a completely new Mogwai song called Music For A Forgotten Future, linked from Angel Olsen to Sleep Party People to Mogwai's Take Me Somewhere Nice. Serendipity.

Also one of those thoughtcatalogue articles (have I ever mentioned how irritated I am by the proliferation of those on my newsfeed, as well as their declining quality I feel) which tried to explain the difference between being alone and lonely. Loneliness is most devastating when you're not supposed to be, when it takes you unawares, when you're not even alone.

That's what this story is about, hopefully. One big disclaimer here: Never been in a relationship myself so you know this is completely 100% fictional and possibly totally bogus as well. It is purely from imagination, trying to imagine what a relationship a-ways past the initial stages of being in love could feel like, what a phone call like that would sound like.

It is about fear, insecurity, fear of insecurity. Being too afraid to open up, being guarded with the ones you love the most. The people who care the most are the last people you're willing to open up to. Of caring so much you're afraid to let the people you care for know it. About distant pasts, forgotten futures.

It is not about me.

Hope you enjoyed it.

A Tree, A Life, A Shout. Silence.

some days you wake up at three in the afternoon and you realize it doesnt matter does it not to anyone at all. you have woken up and you are wondering what to do and you come up with nothing and there is no one to tell. you think your life is a mess and there is no one to tell you that no it is not you are beautiful and your life has meaning after all. you run a hot shower and you stand in there for five minutes ten twenty thirty and you think why should i leave. it is warm and it is comfortable here and what is the point anyway. you put on some music and you lose yourself in it and you think is that what its all come to to lose yourself to lose to lose to lose lose lose. you think about all the things you have lost the things you never had the things you have given up. you think that life is not fair then you think no life is not fair but it is not not fair that life is life and that is life isnt it. you think if only i could share these thoughts with someone if only i could share my life with someone anyone i might still be saved. you think a tree has fallen in a forest and of course there is a sound but so what so what if there was so what so what is the point. what is the point.

Unique.

Tiny flickering lights in a million windows
The hopes and dreams of a million different people
But they do not hope and dream
The way I hope and dream
Surely?

What Comes With Opposable Thumbs.

Got like a million and four thousand stuff shoved away in random little drafts and notebooks all over the place, so I'll take this opportunity to clear them all out of the way. Will be pretty random, I expect, so hang on to your hats.


An old friend
Made new again
What machinations or monstrous mind
Can explain what one now finds?

From easy familiarity
To anonymity
Only we can unfriend
Unlove
Did this come with opposable thumbs?

The capacity to love
Hate
Two sides of a coin
Third series
Do we get to choose
Which side it lands
Which face it shows
Is it so easily flipped?

Just the twitch of ones fingers
In the blink of ones eyes
Do we fall in hate
So recklessly too?

我们的过去, 并不属于我们

I just had this random thought a long time ago that our pasts don't belong just to each of us alone, that we can't be so selfish as to think that all the time. That other people have a stake and play a part in our pasts too, and sometimes maybe we owe it to them to not covet our pasts like that. Not sure where this stemmed from but I think it was some reflection about my reticence and how I find it almost impossible to share anything about myself and my past at all.

An expert on being stubborn and full of pride. Was writing a letter to a friend when I stumbled upon this as quite the apt description of myself, if only because I wanted to warn her against being any of those.


Took for a twirl
Another girl
Told her that
She was his world
Another day
Another play
So says the art
of modern manliness.

You're eating alone
You look at your phone
It won't ring
No
It will not.

Scattered failings where doubt lurked. That when push comes to shove, you'd fold.

A mediocrity imposed on each of us. And yet within our personal, mediocre worlds, did not there spring forth decidedly unfutile acts, emotions?

A happiness contingent on others. Emotions not belonging just to me, nor my life, cause my emotions affect others too. Just the way other people affect me.

War is not war until a man on a hill says so. Fighting not-a-war.

If you could see me now.

Solitude with no purpose?
With no audience.
And end in itself.

Lost in a crowd
Looking for the meaning in art that no one knows.

Guns the great equalizer.

Foreign is to be apart.


Yep that's kinda all of my backlog. Ranging from reflections on re-acquainting myself with an old, old friend to snippets of self-doubt and ruminations on being alone (and your phone offers you no respite.) How soldiers can fight all they want but if the politicians decide that no, this does not qualify as war, then we'd be fighting nothing at all. That no one actually knows what they're looking for when they peruse the Arts, that we're all going at it blind. How so much of what we feel are our best faces, the most important people in our lives will never get to see. This straight from le Carre's Our Kind of Traitor, where one of the spies rues how his children will never appreciate fully what he does. How to be foreign is merely to be apart, and how easy it is for each of us to be foreigners in our own countries.

Ehm I shall end here actually, not quite in much of a mood to continue much further even if I could and want to elaborate on quite a lot of those few topics above. So many existential issues.. Pains of being human I guess, the price to pay for opposable thumbs. Well good night fellas!

Coffee, the colour of the past.

Hi guys. If you weren't aware, I'm just back from a 23 day holiday in sunny Spain and Portugal. Which means I have a massive backlog of thoughts/ideas/ruminations to clear. I'm supposed to be studying, however, so I'll just put down a couple of stuff on my mind. I think I'll just transfer a couple of the unfinished stories I was trying to write actually.

Some context. About a week into my trip, I was having an immense amount of fun, but I was suddenly struck by this thought: This has got to be the most unproductive trip of my life! In terms of journalling, or coming up with pretentiously deep thoughts etc. No go! I murmured under my breath, hoping beyond hope that the wings of inspiration would then and there lift my very being into the dizzying heights from whence I would never have to descend.... Which began a pretty long series of half-written stories cause I never quite felt in the right frame of mind to finish them off.

Will be random, unpolished, and possibly even senseless. But here goes.

_______________________________________

1

Life is hard, but I am harder. The world is cold and mean, so I am meaner. The world will betray you. So I am alone.

He said. Come with me. Come on a journey with me.

Why?

You are my son.

No, I know my father. He's the one who taught me everything I needed to know about life. "Life is hard. The world is a cold and mean place, and it's out to get you. Trust no one, cause everyone will betray you at some point. The world is gonna lie to you, don't listen to them, listen to me."

Where is he now?

He.. he left. He told me he was coming back for me, and then he left.

He's gone. He's never coming back.

_______________________________________

2

I know you. You are a seeker of solitude. I have known men like you. Who have given up on any chance at meaningful relationships. Some men use and abuse the women in their lives. You're all searching for something, a special something, but you don't know what it is.

Know this: most men like you never find what they're looking for. You know why? Because most of you who are searching, actually want to be found.

_______________________________________

3

Guard your heart, but don't freeze it. Living life without at least the chance, the hope! of falling in love is not much of a living at all. You'll fall in love, and it might amount to nothing, but it will not be a waste. You will hurt, you will cry, you will wish it all never happened, but you'll pull through. You will learn from it, learn to live through pain, learn to love better. Let yourself love completely, don't hold back out of fear, or be self-conscious about your love. A love that is half-hearted is doomed from the very start! Love completely, or not at all. One day, someone will love you for who you are. Someone will love you for your chipped tooth, your not-perfectly-straight hair, your small breasts. The world is going to try and tell you many things, but don't listen to it, listen to me. Don't change anything about yourself just because the world tells you to.

_______________________________________

4

What is love? Love is the feeble attempt by the English language to, in four letters, describe the indescribable. The French do it in 5 letters, the Chinese in 9 strokes,but they are all inadequate. It is impossible to describe it, only to experience it. But I will say this. Love is the single most powerful, transforming experience any one can have.

_______________________________________

5

"W-w-w-where are we?"

Silence greets this sudden question.

"Are we reaching yet?"

A few passengers glance backwards, wondering at the source of the interruptions.

"Hello.."

A couple of people close to the source exchange glances, silently querying whether any of them should answer.

Rachel received a little shrug of the shoulders from her co-passenger, so she thinks well, it's not just me then. It is kinda mean but.. I'm not even sure of the answer anyway, maybe someone who does will reply him.

She does not voice, even to herself, that she does not want to be the one to answer the man because then she'd be obliged to do so for the the rest of the journey, and she definitely didn't want that.

"W-w-where are we now?"

Natalie stared straight out the window. God, of all the people to sit next to me! I had to get a retard. Maybe I could pretend to fall asleep.. She closed her eyes but half-opened her right eye every once in a while to make sure he wasn't doing anything crazy. You never know what people like that could do to you, especially a woman alone like herself.

_______________________________________

6

In The Attic

A locked chest
Keepsakes.
A catalogue of the people
Who came into your life.
Those who stayed
Those who didn't.

A trophy, a medal.
Once were proudly placed
Polished, burnished.
Now unwelcome reminders
Of bygone days
Of halcyon days.
Of potential gone to waste.

An album
Out spills the musky scent of nostalgia
And faded photographs.
From the dusty confines of plastic sleeves
Which the years and endless rearrangements
Have frayed beyond repair.
Solemn faces arranged by height
Preserved forever from domestic violence
From hypodermic needles and bottled rage.

A family portrait
Seven smiling faces behind a facade of glass.
Betraying nothing of the frustration
Three hours, seventy dollars worth
Of re-shoots and tantrums.
A perfect representation
Of modern family.
Gleaming veneers
Rotting wood.

_______________________________________

7

We live in an odd age.
Duality of life.
Two realities: the real world and the online world.
Which is richer?
Which is more real?

Which is more permanent?
Which will stand the test of time
Which will stem the tides of time?

_______________________________________

8

A tapestry of other people's thoughts. Something I mistook for a certain sensitivity, something I thought that I, too, possessed.

A girlish demeanour, the wide-eyed wonder with which she took in the world around her. Her soft lips, slightly parted in awe at the beauty only she could perceive.

Those same lips are not the same now. Pursed in vexation. Curled in anger.

_______________________________________

9

When we are young, it is to fly. To test the limits of our endeavour, of our courage.

When we are older, it is to survive. To remain afloat in a world of shifting currents. It is to get by, to reach old age relatively intact, ah but what a dream!

When we are older still, it becomes an end in itself. To be alive. To feel alive. The rare occasion of visits from grandchildren, them so full of vitality you can only hope it rubs off.

(What it means to be alive)

_______________________________________

10

The tranquility of a park. Parents trying to capture as many memories as they possibly can of a child who's only going to grow up much too quickly. And of themselves, what remains of their youth. The dramas of every single person who's walking by. Maybe the old man on his daily routine, aching knees and aching heart, but still he persists, day after day. The woman who finally, after weeks and weeks of drudgery and household chores and wailing kids, finds some quiet time for herself, to brace her for the next few weeks of the same demanding, consuming tasks. The professional who needs his 10 minutes cause it's the only thing keeping him sane in this crazy, crazy world. No office politics, no bickering with the wife, or the increasingly outrageous demands of his children. The punk who's considered suspiciously by everybody, who's understood by nobody. But he's looking for the same things as the rest of us here, just some peace and quiet, anything soothing in a world which offers precious little in the way of comfort. Not for the drained mother, the lost punk. The stately woman with her two adorable dogs, who gives a gracious little smile to everyone she crosses paths with. Because those two dogs are the only companions she's got, and those smiles she gets in return (if they even are) the only human contact she gets, no matter how superficial they may seem. The kid sitting on a bench, plugged into his MP3, penning his thoughts into a battered old diary. We're all so different, we're all the same. We're searching and working for what seems to be vastly different things, but really isn't all that different when you think about it. Not just a park, in schools, shopping centres, the streets. If we would only realize it.

Instead of being pulled and pushed by the world, by our emotions, into frustration and simmering rage. Pulled under into endless melancholia, sapping depression. Being angry for minutes, hours, because you were jostled rather roughly when exiting the train. Cause the auntie was being brusque with you as you ordered your morning coffee. All these small, ridiculous things! Laughable things. Stuff you wouldn't record in your diary, your blog, and yet it affected your mood for one whole day! It's not worth it, it's almost never worth it. Peace comes from within, now this I am learning!

_______________________________________

11

The occupants of buses. The travelers. Those roving, restless searchers. Who've left it all behind. The lost loves, the disappointment of parents, etc. But have they really left it all behind?

Traveling is simple. You've got clear cut objectives, destinations to work your way towards. Sure, those objectives change once every few days, but for those couple of weeks, life becomes so simple again. You look to do things out of pure interest, not with any thing like responsibility, or duty guiding your hand. Carefree, in almost every way. All you're thinking about is the present, the next two days maybe. You're not weighed down.

The traveler. The weary soul. Those lonely hearts, whether by choice or by circumstance. A kid, thousands of miles from home, one of millions of transients. Doesn't enjoy life one bit, because every dollar he saves translates into that much more food for his family.

_______________________________________


Yep that's all. Okay those last 2 are kinda cheating cause they're not stories per se, just random thoughts I had instead, but I'm gonna pretend they are. I think some of these stories need more context, also I am seriously plagiarizing the works of some of the best authors I have had the fortune to come across, and I don't want to get sued so here are some accompanying explanations.

At the point where I realized that I was having an unproductive trip, I tried to explain it, if only to myself. See, it is my belief that the least productive state of mind to be in is peace. Think about it. Books, songs, movies. Most of the best ones aren't conjured up whilst in a state of happiness, in fact it's the very opposite. Turmoil breeds genius. That's putting it a bit strongly cause I'm nowhere near a genius, so maybe let's say it encourages creativity.

It just comes easier when you need an outlet, when you have to channel some of that hurt you're feeling inside. When the pain, the emotions are real to you, when it's not just an intellectual exercise.

And that's the thing. I feel like I'm in a really good place right now. Emotionally, mentally, spiritually. (Incidentally, geographically as well! #exeterboleh)

It's a good thing I have not been burdened with talent. That my writing is not so integral a part of me that I could not bear to give it up.

Tragedy, misery. The elements of a good story, but also necessary for its author? Think: Sylvia Plath. You have to draw upon your own experiences, your own emotions when you write, or not it's just technicalities. Certain words arranged certain ways.

It's not like I'm House, or Plath, that I have to give up happiness for my craft. And maybe that's a lie. Happiness doesn't take away understanding, which really is the heart of writing. An understanding of the human condition.

 This I wrote in my diary, which was when I decided heck, I'm just gonna try and write even though I wasn't feeling particularly sad. Because that's how I'd always felt, that I couldn't write unless I was down. I'm not sure about quality.. although these stories were written while on the go instead of about 18 hours in front of a computer screen.

Not sure if anyone's noticed, but the line "Don't listen to the world, listen to me" appeared twice in two separate stories. Only because it's one of the most impactful lines in a most incredible book, A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. It's so good that I endeavoured to use it in a story, which didn't work out so well, so I tried again.

Number 3 and 4 are kinda related. First I wanted to define love, or explain it, cause it's something everyone should have a shot at at least once in their lives! Pretty hard. Then I tried to do this thing where I thought about what sort of advice I'd have given my younger self (or my future son, #familyplanning #BTOhereicome) or actually even to myself right now, perhaps. Then it evolved into something for a self-conscious girl, which is straight out of Goon Squad. Basically, it's a rip-off. Also affected by brainpickings, which has introduced me to many of the writings of esteemed authors and their letters etc.

No. 5 I wrote while on the bus. There was this Chinese guy on the bus between Cordoba and Seville, who seemed to suffer from a mild form of autism or something. He was sitting across the aisle from me, and he suddenly tapped my shoulder and began to talk rather loudly. Didn't initially understand him despite it being clear he was talking to me, then I realize it was heavily accented Chinese. As well as kind of slurred speech as well, cause he didn't seem able to articulate quite clearly. He began asking me questions like how long more the bus would take, before moving on to other stuff like family etc. So I was initially quite embarrassed, cause he was really loud and it seemed clear that some of the other passengers weren't quite happy. Or that's what I told myself. Maybe it was cause he was weird and I didn't want to be associated with him, even in a bus full of strangers, people I'd never meet again the rest of my life. I'm not sure.

And he spoke Spanish as well, cause he'd been working in Spain for 7 years or something. The lady next to him stared out the window the entire trip, possibly my imagination working here but when he tried to speak to her, looked at him with a certain mixture of revulsion (maybe too strong, distaste perhaps) and fear. As if she were afraid he would suddenly act out, or do something funny. Hence the story. I started listening to my MP3 halfway through the journey too, because we'd stopped talking and I didn't really want him to disturb me any longer. What's the best thing to do? What's the right thing to do? I asked, but couldn't answer myself. So I wrote a story instead.

No. 6 I wrote while halfway through an exercise I was doing, which was to pen down the most notable and memorable places of my childhood. And of course I had to have a pretentious title for that page of my diary, which was Sepia Tones, Fading Photographs. Next page, Washed-Out Memories, The Musky Scent of Nostalgia. Coffee, the colour of the past. (I never actually got to that third page cause I got lazy.) By coffee I actually mean the way old photographs look, as if they'd been dipped in coffee. You'll never guess where I got the inspiration for this from but it's from Usborne Children's Detective's Handbook! Which I read ad nauseam as a wee young lad of.. eight I want to to say. Never knew it remained imprinted on my mind. Cause art forgers apparently dip paintings/forgeries etc into coffee to give them that aged look for added authenticity. Now you can be a forger too!

Probably my favourite out of all these, cause it's the only one with any structure at all probably. Also I was midway through reading The Orchard on Fire which is a seriously good book. Such evocative prose, it really dragged you kicking and screaming back to England in the 50s (in almost exactly the same way my last sentence didn't) and it had this line about that typical locked chest in the attic, so that was the inspiration for this one.

No. 7 isn't so much a story as random scribblings in my notebook cause I was struck by this idea while in some sort of rush. It's sort of about how I was looking forward to uploading my photos upon reaching home. Cause it's "safer" there in the sense that it will always be there. Which suddenly turned my world upside down cause that's the internet we're talking about, a virtual reality. Doesn't it seem now more permanent than paper? Newspapers burn, but online archives last forever. There's a certain permanence now which is associated with bytes of data, certainly far less temporal than mere physical, transient objects! Kind of what I was getting at.

And those people plugged into a virtual reality. Whatever label you happen to want to derogatorily mock them with, otaku, loser, nerd, MapleManiac™ (patent pending), DotaDegenerate™ etc etc. Who's to say they don't have more of a life than you? Perhaps cyberspace is the only place they are able, allowed to experience the whole range of human emotion. You might say it's an escape, but maybe it's the only reality they really care about.

No. 8 and 9 were inspired by the next amazing book I was reading, A Memory of Love. Incidentally (and criminally) I took both these books from the hostel in Tarifa, Spain. And couldn't bear to leave either at any of the subsequent hostels with book exchanges I went to. THEY'RE MINE NOW. Truly gems, especially cause I wandered about Spain for the first week and a half without any storybooks at all.

When you want to love someone, you give them certain attributes they might not possess, or even claim to possess. Then you get let down and angry when they fail you. Or you see in them what you want to see in yourself, if only to corroborate the fiction of your life.

To fly, to test the limits of our endeavour, of our courage. Lifted straight out of the book. And the grandchildren bit, probably from last summer and days spent with grandma at the home.

No. 10 was written right after I'd missed a bus to Sierra Nevada, and had to wait an hour for the next one. Some hotel receptionist had given me wrong instructions so I waited at the wrong bus stop. I was incredibly pissed off. Then I went walking, stumbled upon a park, and decided to calm down. Okay I didn't really decide to do so, but I couldn't help myself. Looking at this little boy hitting up the playground bigtime. His parents with iPhones out trying to capture as much as they could, one or the other going up to the child to pose for pictures. Couldn't help thinking how it seemed so... fleeting. And that the parents were so aware of that. And so they were doing all they could to keep as much of the water as they could in their cusped hands, as long as they could.

At peace after making that observation, I began to observe my fellow parkgoers. It was noon so I wondered who the sort of people who'd go to a park at noon were.

No. 11 was just a random journal entry while I was on a bus I expect. I think I saw someone who looked so lonely, so unenjoying of life while he commuted between cities for work. Or those restless travellers. Eyes darting about, roving, searching. But what are they seeking? Some say it is beauty, some truth, meaning, peace, life. Or they are seeking not to find themselves, but to lose themselves. Cause that's the beauty of travel. It's all so simple, uncluttered. You leave the real world behind. No mortgages, exams, debts, strained friendships, broken trusts, politicking, career prospects. Et cetera. Of course, then you return home and everything smashes into you all at once, with the vengeance and fury of a crossed mafia boss.

Truly, I need to study. Hahaha shit. Oh well. One life, live it! (None of that YOLO BULLCRAP FOR ME THANKS I HATE THAT SHIT SRSLY.)

Umm yeah that's kinda it I guess. I had this idea in my head of having cards where I could write down favourite phrases from books etc (this idea came from a book actually, title of which I actually forgot...) but I've been too lazy to actually buy any cards.. And when you're horizontal on a comfortable bed with the most luxurious throw ever how could you possibly be bothered to rise to record a catchy phrase anyway?? But I have a start of sorts in my new pictorial/graphical/statistical diary. Here's what I've got so far, and good night!


"Some of them in churchyards lie, and some are lost at sea."

"Through the multi-coloured lens of candy wraps."

"No. As she walks away from you, what you feel is loss. A premonition of loss."

"Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it."

"To fly, to test the limits of our endeavour, of our courage. Otherwise what point is there in being young?"

"Chained words we could not say except on the lips of dreams."

"Auxochrome - chromophore
  She who wears the colour,
  He who sees the colour."

Thousands Of Miles And A Phone Call Away.

01
-

11
Where are you? We look around at each other, we are crying. We don't know what to do. Why aren't you here with us?

21
You are thousands of miles and a phone call away. After 10 years I finally realize I've been asking the wrong question. Why weren't we there for you? I miss you.

31
You shouldn't be, but you're still working. I'm slowly beginning to understand you. I might even be beginning to be like you.

41
You're 80. You're not tired of life, but life is a tiresome sumbitch. Mostly, you're bored.

51
Where are you? you cry. You don't know where you are. You barely know who I am. You might not understand me now, but I hope throughout the years you always have - I love you pa.

_________________



I took my tea out into the cold on Chinese New Year's eve. My plan was to 守岁 and skype home at the same time, since conveniently the time difference makes it almost perfect for that. Little did I know my family would sleep in on the first day of CNY.... so I only managed to skype them at 3-4am, finally sleeping only at 5am! Longevity like siao I tell you.

About the tea. I went into the park behind my place hoping to catch a glimpse of the moon, cause I foolishly thought it'd be a full moon, since they call it lunar new year after all.. Just realized my mistake cause new year = new moon = NO MOON. Not to mention it was overcast anyways, sigh. Everytime I go out at night like that I remember that corniest of lines I heard in qiushi so long ago: Even though we might not be standing next to each other, we are looking at the same moon. So everytime you look at the moon, think of me. Something along those lines. Impressive/gross at the same time.

It was CNY eve and I was waiting to skype home, so naturally I began thinking of my family. (BTW they just ate at a 5 star hotel without me so I am sad.) I don't know why but this memory of that one Christmas so many years ago stands out so starkly amongst all the other, better memories. I'm not even sure how real what I remember from that night was. Christmas carolers, and 3 kids so lost.

I don't even know when that was, except that it was during the lifetime of the satay business. Anywhere from p5 to sec1 I reckon. I was what, 11? It's been 10 years since, and I find myself thousands of miles away from home, looking back on all the times we've had as a family. Not gonna lie, it's been rough. But I think if we look out the windows now we'll see that it's rather pretty out, and that we're journeying on to better places. It's been quite a ride, but we're leaving the metaphorical wastelands now, like so much disturbed dust behind us. It's stung us and provoked tears and angry words, but we gritted our teeth, clenched our fists, and we have managed to move on.

This story is for my dad. It's not even a story, maybe. A non-fiction story, if you will. I've never been 31, my dad isn't 80 yet, and I can have no idea what the future holds. But it's true as of today, so I can't accurately describe it as fiction I guess. Just a reminder, possibly, of the revelations I had that night.

I'd come across this poem once, written about the poet's father, which was quite minimalistically done and quite stark and sparing, and I thought that was really powerful. So I tried to emulate that, except that I wanted to insert the passage of time in there and didn't know a better device to do so apart from numbers, almost like chapters or something. So there it is. Probably could embellish it or flesh it out or something, but I don't feel like doing so, I'm leaving it like that.

Pretty tired out. After sleeping at 5+am on new year's eve, I had to wake up at 9am for church. Returned at 3pm and almost immediately had to start cooking for the dinner last night. Kancheong like anything, and we ended up late anyways, although that didn't matter too much in the end. Setting up, finalizing the game etc, no downtime whatsoever. Then connecting, clean-up, and the assorted duties at the closing of an event. Finally arrived home at 11pm. Attempted to watch an episode of 30 Rock before sleeping. Fell asleep halfway. I think falling asleep in the middle of 30 Rock speaks volumes about the extent of shagginess or tiredness someone's experiencing.

What a night. First proper event we've hosted as a team. Can't say I wasn't disappointed, but I felt proud too. It's a mixed bag. Kinda messed up the end of the game segment cause I didn't prepare for it at all, which is pretty silly cause it's not even that hard. Really happy to see the number of volunteers turning up to cook, or help in the setting/cleaning up. I think we're helping to build a strong community here, a church where asians can feel like they belong. It's not insignificant, and I thank God for that.

Hmm yeah. Might go back to sleep now actually cause it's still only 8.30am. Or I might continue with my adventures in FFIX. Well, good-day anyway!

When Dreaming's This Hard It's Not Meant To Come True.

Treading the ground
I once used to know
People are strangers
Same as before
Streets look familiar
I remember the park
Where I buried my head
So deep in my hands
All around me was dark

This here city
Is for the lonely ones
Won't find no angels
Selling maps to the lost
This here place
Is too small for two
It took one to realize
When dreaming's this hard
It's not meant to come true

So throw me a line
Somebody out there help me
I'm on my own
I'm on my own
Throw me a line
Afraid that I have come here
To win you again
With trembling hands

Passing the days
Looking over the buildings
Time seems to stop
While the millions keep moving
Now here I am
I'm a drop in your ocean
Noise in the crowd
Pushing through your halls of reason

Ohh

So throw me a line
Somebody out there help me
I'm on my own
I'm on my own
Throw me a line
Afraid that I have come here
To win you again
With trembling hands

Hear me now make me whole
Hear me now make me whole

So throw me a line
Somebody out there help me
I'm on my own
I'm on my own
Throw me a line
Afraid that I have come here
To win you again
With trembling hands
With trembling hands

There goes the ending
It left me in the war
But I tried everything yeah
I am done with my part
-Trembling Hands, The Temper Trap


2012

Victory, conquering, staggering loss, nothing, nothing, everything.

Like walking through a tunnel searching for light and then it hits you and you feel nothing.

Like wanting the sea and getting a river.

Its been a strange one kids.

Im neither happy or sad its over but I am ready to move on.

Slowly.

Patiently.

If there is one thing I'd like for the next year other then fireworks, love and pure creation it would be a little more self acceptance/love/forgiveness.

I've been carrying and nurturing the same wounds for so many years now and all the sudden I am a scarred woman laughing whilst crying, not fully realizing how much lighter things actually are.

Its almost like I miss my darkest days or maybe I haven't found the right things to replace the dark with yet.

I still want more,

more,

more,

of whatever I can get my hands on.

Or maybe its just me getting older. One year at a time.

Happy new year lovers.

May all our dreams come true so we can create new ones.

-Lykke Li


Hello all. I'm not sure at all what this blog post is going to be so don't hold your breath in anticipation of anything wonderful.. I might or might not talk about my trip, or the past couple of weeks, or just random thoughts in my head, or maybe from my journal. I am absolutely and wonderfully hooked onto this amazing song, Trembling Hands by The Temper Trap. Definitely my newest favouritest song. There's such a... I don't know how to put it, forlorn, yet wistful feel to it? It captures the desperation of the lonely, and that video.. Absolutely entranced.

The lyrics remind me of home too, for better or worse. I'm always afraid of going back home to a strange land of strangers. I guess everyone who goes overseas has that fear. It might ease up over time but deep down each of us retains some sense of it. Clearly everyone is getting along fine, without you? Surely that must mean they are moving on, without you? Yes, it does. But do not be too selfish to realize that you, too, are moving on from them. We are all moving on from something, in one way or another, and if we're lucky we might even be moving towards something.

Yeah, I actually shamelessly ripped that idea off of thoughtcatalogue, and I can tell you, brainpickings.org just might be even better than that, possibly cause it's a more hipster version of it. And everyone knows I am a hipster to beat all hipsters, cause I was hipster before most hipsters had hips. Anw I've been poring over the posts there, most of which are delightful, super quotable nuggets which would look amazing on tumblr I reckon, but I don't tumble. Shame.


No one’s fated or doomed to love anyone.
The accidents happen, we’re not heroines,
they happen in our lives like car crashes,
books that change us, neighborhoods
we move into and come to love.
Tristan and Isolde is scarcely the story,
women at least should know the difference
between love and death. No poison cup,
no penance. Merely a notion that the tape-recorder
should have caught some ghost of us: that tape-recorder
not merely played but should have listened to us,
and could instruct those after us:
this we were, this is how we tried to love,
and these are the forces we had ranged within us
within us and against us, against us and within us.
-Adrienne Rich

Just kidding, I'm gonna post this stuff anw cause they're too good not to share. Even to the 7 people or so who read this blog. Which, incidentally, I just found out about recently from an unknown source. I actually have more readers than I've always thought, which I guess is slightly awkward, but doesn't matter I guess? To be perfectly honest I've always been slightly ashamed of my blog, or the fact that I even have one. I really enjoy having one, don't get me wrong, but the fact that people might be reading it... My newfound self-acceptance or my attempts at ridding myself of self-consciousness, however, means that I don't care anymore. I probably would have a short time ago, but I guess I'm different now. Not to say that I don't feel self-conscious, I'm not sure that's ever going to be possible, but I've decided to try and ignore that now.

And to decide to continue blogging, of course. Because.

this we were, this is how we tried to love, 
and these are the forces we had ranged within us
within us and against us, against us and within us.

Again from brainpickings comes this:

Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss.

Certainly this reeks somewhat of a self-centredness in the way it sets us keepers apart from "others", or normal people, because normality of course is poison. Keeping a notebook reminds me, allows me to remember what it was to be me.

And so we do. But our notebooks give us away, for however dutifully we record what we see around us, the common denominator of all we see is always, transparently, shamelessly, the implacable “I.”

It's a pretty, perhaps damningly so, accurate description of the motives behind a notebook. And yet we cannot help it, because that's probably what compulsion means anyway.

I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.

That was surprisingly eerily close to what I'd been thinking before even stumbling upon this brilliant website, probably a product of my travels sometime. Which was that this blog reminds me of who I was, who I used to be. I can tell you that of some of my older posts, I am 100% embarrassed because that's exactly what I was, embarrassing.. On occasion I read through some of my older posts and I cringe inwardly, nay 'tis a lie! outwardly because it's just so bad. It's the kind of shame that goes way deep and I'll never admit in real life.. Thank god for anonymity of the internet, which is silly cause it's the source of my shame anyway. Huh.

I'm going to randomly shove in some of the drafts I'd typed out on my phone. I only got my notebook in Rotterdam, which means that for the first 1.5weeks of my trip I had only my trusty (and now shattered) phone with which to record down thoughts, and incidentally, another story. Here goes the story.


If We Could Only Hate.

Why? I have to know.

I guess.. I was never truly happy. I know I was meant to be happy, I thought I loved you, and that you loved me.

I did love you. (I do, still.)

And then one day it just hit me - I didn't love you. I couldn't. I was in love with an idea, the ideal man who seemed to have it all.

But I never could match up to the man inside of your head.

No.

What was I supposed to do? What can I do? You're trying to say I never had a chance. Then why did you even try?

I.. I was in love. Just not with you. With the idea of you. I'm sorry.

No. No. You can't do this. At least give me something to regret. Give me something to blame myself over. Something to point to and say I should not have done that, that I have only myself to blame. That I at least had a chance. Come on. Please.

I can't. I'm so sorry. You're a good man.. just not perfect, not the way I imagined you to be in my head.

What do you mean? Was I supposed to be perfect? Was I not allowed to do anything wrong at all? I mean, come on! You never told me I had to be perfect. At least tell me what you expected of me before I got into this!

Would it have changed anything? Would you have walked away if I'd told you this in the beginning?

No. I don't know. What does it matter? Don't you dare turn this on me.

(silence)

Well. You've certainly taken me on a damn ride then haven't you?

What do you want me to say? Yes. No. I don't know. I'm sorry. I know you're bitter. You must hate me.

No. No I don't. If only I could. If only it were that easy. Goodbye Emily.

________________________________


This started off in my head as a dialogue between 2 people. Guess it's not much of a story at all, just a possible conversation maybe. I don't know why this was in my mind as I took the bus to Portsmouth to watch the xx. Which incidentally, was amazing. Emily only because I don't actually know an Emily personally, and it seemed nicer to end on a name rather than just with a Goodbye. Meh, make of it what you will, I guess.

I guess I'll talk a bit about some of these stories. Just as a recording of why I wrote what I did, I guess. The beauty one I wrote in response to a string of thoughts I had, which was this.

Friendship is like a thread held between 2 people. And it takes effort from both sides to hold on. They're all different though, and can afford different amounts of tension and slack. Some are extremely loose but require the efforts of just one person to take up the slack. Sometimes the burden is too much for that one person and he gives up. Sometimes one party, or both, are so needy that the rope becomes too taut. It seems to go along fine, it's nice and firm but the slightest bit of tension and it goes. It's hard to pick up the pieces.

Others are stronger, layered over by their pasts, shared experiences, common interests, plain compatibility of characters. Others have just one tenuous connection, possibly even something as base as desperation, or a craving for companionship. And some are doomed to failure. The rope at breaking point. And are the more beautiful for it. The beauty of the fleeting, the transient, the ephemeral.

I'd been reflecting on a series of friendships that I'd had, and which for whatever reason now, no longer do. Also on the friendships that I am and always will be grateful for, those that have managed to last, those that have gone the distance. I guess.. I'll always have my regrets, or at least rue the friendships I've let slip away, some for such puerile reasons that I almost cannot believe what I've done. Well. That's done now, I guess. Except for that which might still yet be salvaged. Hope, as ever, springs forth.

It almost feels like I should go through my diary somewhat chronologically, cause I guess everything sort of builds up to the next entry. Nevermind, I guess the contents of a diary has meaning only to its writer, the topics inside close only to his own heart.

The next one was What They Took From Her. This was unplanned, not one of the many little fragments of possible stories I find in my head from time to time. I'm not sure where it came from. I think.. I think it just might be from Mystic River. At least, that seems to be its origins. I think it could refer to anything, really. Not necessarily an abduction or any sexual abuse, but it is based on Dave I guess. But it could be life that's taken away from her, or a string of lost loves, or constant disappointment. I don't know.

Then there's Beautiful Pressure which admittedly is rather unfinished, but I just can't bring myself to continue any longer, idk why though. Just think I've done all I can with that. It stems from the idea that beautiful people are different from those who are not. I've actually had this idea in my head for a really long time. The way people notice those who are beautiful, all the time. The almost unfair expectations foisted upon them. How they can never be inadequate. How being aware of your own beauty makes you self-conscious, and dare I say it, makes you unbeautiful too. I guess anyone else who's been singled out in anyway too. The pressures of scrutiny, maybe. Idk, it's just stuff that's been floating around my head for a while now so I tried to write this. Probably kind of forced it out, to be honest, just because I had some free time on a train or something (I forget) and there was this story I'd always wanted to write. Meh.

Hmm. Kinda forgot what I wanted to say actually, which isn't an issue today, I think. I think today all I needed was to unload whatever, not something I've been able to do for a while now. Why? Because of essays, which are over now. Traditional post-essay YESSAHBOMB in order here. But I feel kinda lost too. How shall I put it, hmm.

I guess it started on the 2nd of Jan. I'd taken my flight to Bristol and the bus to Temple Meads, where I had little over an hour before I was due to board my train back to Exeter. As soon as I got off the bus and decided that I'd walk around town for a bit instead of waiting at the station, I was struck by this colossal sense of loss. I felt completely lost, and it was bewildering. Something changed. And I have my suspicions.

I'm really tired. It's all adding up. Maybe it culminates here, maybe it doesn't, but I can feel it now. Like a rush of something that threatens to swamp everything it touches, except it's been dammed up, except it's been dammed up too long now. Maybe it's the videos and the songs like Trembling Hands. Maybe it's a movie like Blue Valentine. Maybe it's having someone to talk to, really talk to, for the first time in years. Maybe.

Maybe it's realizing that no man was made to walk this world alone. That everyone needs someone to share their joys and their despairs with. The smallest accomplishments. The little things that made your day. Anything, and everything. Or it's the cumulative melancholy of one and a half years abroad, of too much time spent alone, of too much time left alone. The despair of waking up days on end feeling confused and aimless and above all, so, so lost and having no one to turn to. Maybe it's that.

I don't know what it is. In any case, I don't think I've felt that way in a long while. I asked myself, okay, where shall we go now? And came up absolutely blank. It kind of shocked me, which you might or might not have been able to tell by now.

But I think I know now what I want. What I actually want, instead of the wants that have almost become obligatory. Things like good grades, or success, or money, stuff like that. To be perfectly honest, I don't want that. These are to me things which fall under the nice-to-have category. Probably means I'm a terrible student, cause I do know countless other people who'd kill (in fact they're dying) for good grades. I'm just not a good student at all.. Which would probably disappoint my parents, or my relatives, but well that's that. If I actually do well it'll be for them, not for myself I don't think. But finally, maybe the first time in a long while, I actually want again.

Might not be any specific something, or even a someone, it's just the feeling of wanting something. Who ever heard of someone wanting to want something? I think that was me. It probably characterized my 2012, a year in which I felt so lost so often. By no means my best year (if ever there was such a thing), but it wasn't my worst either. It had its ups and downs just like any other, distinguished only by that sense of loss which I never could quite elucidate, not in my thoughts nor my words nor my actions.

But this is the new year, and I do feel something different. Maybe there was something in the air that night/the stars so bright. Going against the grain, for once, of all my favourite new year songs by U2 and Death Cab for Cutie.

I usually try, I don't know if you notice, not to share too much here, at least not anything that affects me too much. I write words and stuff but I always shy away from saying what it is exactly I feel. Normally it's cause I'm afraid it'd be read. By persons known or unknown. But that doesn't matter all that much now, I think. I reckon the only people who do read this are close enough friends that I've ever told them about it, or if they're random(ish) people who've taken all this time to read this far then hey, hello. Thanks, and maybe I'll know you one day.

Otherwise this is just another url, destined to an existence of near complete anonymity, a drop in the ocean if you will. In the vastness of cyberspace, just another tree falling in a lonely forest. But it does make a sound.

Well now. Blue Valentine, if anyone is interested, is a really good movie and incredibly well-acted. Of course it helps that I have a massive man-crush on Ryan Gosling, but Michelle Williams was amazing too. Not an easy show to stomach, mind you, and definitely not what I'd been expecting. I heard ukelele and Ryan Gosling singing a song and thought, it must be fun! And while that scene was brilliant, the whole movie was... pretty depressing. It was almost painful to watch. But really good nonetheless, especially if you want to check out Ryan Gosling's range as an actor. Way too many Ryan Gosling's in one paragraph for a hetero young man, I'm afraid, so I shall desist.

Guess that should be all for today. Not exactly what I had in mind when I started off, but not what I didn't have in mind either, if that makes any sense at all. I might watch Ides of March, or Spirited Away. I did watch Howl's Moving castle sometime back in December which I might not have mentioned, and it was so good. Somehow the town scenes just remind me so much of Final Fantasy, probably FF9, and for a good 2 weeks I had that peaceful town in mind. Truly a masterpiece.

Yep. Good bye now.

Beautiful Pressure.

No, he never felt like he belonged to the Crowd at all, although no one had a say in that of course. It was a naturally pre-determined thing, you were either in it or you were not.

And yet he could not help but look at other members of the Crowd and feel like he was somehow different. They were all cool, and effortlessly so. They never made any gaffes, or if they did they were suitably and hilariously goofy, never embarrassing, and never anything to be ashamed about.

He could not help but feel like he on the other hand was doing too many things which were unpleasantly embarrassing, like that time he played football (which he was not terribly good at) and missed 3 easy shots at goal. He was sure everyone was looking at him and laughing at him. And they laughed particularly loudly at him too, compared to the other guys who made mistakes.

He never saw other members of the Crowd get into situations like that. They almost always were good at the sports they played, and would never be seen playing something they couldn't. How did they manage that?

He always felt like people were looking at him, that when they were they did so with great expectation, that when he failed they laughed their vengeful mocking laughs. One of the Crowd failing so miserably. He could never be merely mediocre at anything, for that would be considered failure in their eyes.

He felt their eyes on him always. And the pressure. The pressure to be brilliant, to be beautiful, to be wittier, and stronger, in every way superior to the others. Cause that's what it meant to be part of the Crowd. You could not be worse than the rest, you could not even be just the same as the rest of them. You were superior and you were supposed to look down on them, past your perfect nose, and twist your perfect lips with a sneer as they try to be like you. Oh no, you were nothing like the rest of them.

What They Took From Her.

She was the best of us but they changed that
they took her away from us they took her away
they took away her smiles the happy ones the sad ones
they took away her joy her life her trust in life
they took away the wind in her hair the bounce in her step
they took away her hopes her dreams her childish fears
(and replaced them with grown up ones)

and now she
cannot give and cannot take
only hurt and maybe hate

cannot love and cannot trust
a stranger to the rest of us

cannot dream she cannot dream!
no respite in worlds unseen

and now
she cannot cry not even cry!
it hurts too much to even try

and now
she rots and now she rusts
the girl who was the best of us.

And Beauty.

The beauty of the ephemeral. Beauty in all its forms. In the permanence of mountains. And in the constant motion of its surfaces, the flurry of snow or the rustling of grass. In the busker playing outside a train station, the musician in a public square, a master in the concert hall. In an early morning greeting between friends. Strangers. Between long lost lovers and family and friends. In the skies above. In the innocence of children. Of grown men and women. In the sunrise and sunset and twilight and the glow of the moon. In fireworks which come alive for brief seconds before being spent forevermore. In the calm waters of a clear lake, the reflections on its surface. In the girls with their painted faces and their lacquered nails. In the flight of birds as they move in tandem with each other, a perfectly executed dance of bone and muscle and feathers. In the flight of planes carrying the hopes and dreams of a hundred passengers, going forth to live their lives or leave their lives, the only lives they've ever known.

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.

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.