You Could Be Teflon.

How is it that the stupid sticky notes, don't stick at all?! I'd have thought the whole point of the silly thing was so that it'd stick on top of all the pages/windows you've got opened or something. At least it should have that option! Teflon-notes, that's what they are.

Anyway I made a (not so)sticky-note upon waking up this morning, cause I wanted to write down what I'd dreamt about. "weird dream where i was trying to grow long hair but my head looked too small so i abandoned it." How very terrifying! I am in the midst of not-cutting-my-hair cause I want to see whether it is at all possible that my hair be flat, instead of all spiky all the time. Which means I'm gonna have to go through a phase of not-long-not-short hair in which I'm going to look perfectly awful. Hahahaha. In my dream my hair remained stubbornly spiky, so I ended up looking like, idk, the sun or something.

I finished The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake today. Which is the same day I started on it. Which probably tells you all you need to know about the book, considering I had 4 hours of lecture today and reached home at about 4pm. Which also means I will have to purchase more books now HAHA. Portends something awful now, don't it dear wallet!

In a rare bit of curiosity and interest surrounding my blog, Anon asked me how I chose my books. Unfortunately I don't really have a straight answer to that, so I replied with something that was probably wayyyyy too long. Sorry bout that. I'm just not that good at explaining myself perhaps. Still, I like knowing that someone actually reads this, and even responds to it! Not very often I get that, no, le sigh.

BTW did you know the origins of le sigh! Apparently it's from Pepe le Pew, which if you don't recognize, is the Loony Tunes' French skunk lover! zomgz so long time ago.

Maybe you just let it all slide. Insults, compliments, the world. You could be so impervious to it all. But please don't let yourself be Teflon. Then nothing sticks. People get tired of trying so hard, only to slip away, again. Let people hold on to you, sometimes. We're not all bad. Stop fighting so hard to be free, cause absolute freedom is to be found only in absolute loneliness, and we weren't made for that.

It's been getting colder (quite stating the obvious here, I'm such a waste of time and space) and I might have to whip out my coolio leather jacket soon! My hoodie isn't quite powerful enough to stave off the wind, lessons learnt on the extent of what £6 (how annoying that the keyboard doesn't have the sign for pounds) gives you. I'm gonna buy a beanie too, the reasons for that are twofold (a) to keep my poor head warm, and my ears (b) to hide the shockingly ugly (see also: ji chou) hair that I'm gonna sprout in a couple of weeks!

Oh dang I'd wanted to put Love is a Laserquest as the title for my next post, but I went and forgot about it until after I'd thought up this new one. So up it goes on the side there, Theeeeeeee... ARCTIC MONKEYS! I really like the lyrics and the understatement of the song.

"I've tried to ask you this in some daydreams that I've had,
But you're always busy being make-believe"

"When I'm pipe and slippers and rocking chair
Singing dreadful songs about summer"

I like how that describes being old. And I shall proceed with getting old, unfortunately though only for 6 and a ½ hours since I've gotta wake up at 7.30am in the morning. Le sigh!

Prose Over Hoes.

That was the slogan of the Literature Society or something HAHA. If only I were a literature student, then I could proudly put PROSE OVER HOES as my personal motto or something. The History one was "Good On Dates" or something, pretty cute. I decided I'd try rugby actually, but not with the main team. Like with the Engineers Rugby instead, how cool is that! I'd like to muck about with engineers for a change, instead of hobnobbing with lawyers all the time. I'll be going for my first session later, so I'll let you guys know how that goes, if I'm even in any state to be typing. Maybe crushed and annhilated and destroid or sth, so all the best to me!

No one's gonna believe this but I baked scones yesterday! Three thumbs (if you've got 3, 2 is fine as well) up to me yeh?! I'm gonna end up as MASTERCHEF one day no worries. ANW it turned out quite nicely! We had it with clotted cream or sth, jam, and tea. How stupendously British! The ideal Sunday Tea. Bakers are sexy aren't they! Hahaha I sure hope so.

Anw first day of school and thankfully, it turned out quite nicely as well! Finally met my fellow Singaporeans and Malaysians again. Finished my first assignment as well!!!!!!!!!!! What a shocker, I know! I spent like an hour or so in the library trawling through the catalogues and stuff doing my library exercise. A more Glorious Beginning to my student life you couldn't ask for! I really am going to dig in deep and work hard, I think (hope.)

I also cleaned up The Utter Mess (AKA my room) so it looks quite decent now hehe. I have about 4000 packets of instant coffee as well, I discovered. My mom must think I'm some coffee maniac or something, I think I have enough caffeine here to power a kindergarten or two mebbe.

Okay I'm just gonna sit around staring into space (or fondly turning over in my mind's eye the sight of my golden scones emerging from the oven) while waiting for my parents on skype. The whole point of this post was, really, to inspire the lot of you. Someone like me... From "Yan can cook?!?!?!!" to "Yan can cook!!" Hehe. So obviously pleased with meself. I'm sure this wasn't at all inspirational haha! Anyhoo,

Cheerios!

The History Of Sadness (or Loss.)

There are three main arcs to the History. The starting points of each of these arcs are:

The Discovery of Love.
The Discovery of Better. (Good was not good enough.)
The First Act of Violence. (Perhaps also the Discovery of Difference.)

By no means are these arcs exclusive to each other. If anything they are impossibly entwined. And with them the fortunes of the human race as well.

There is no man alive who can chronicle the History in its entirety. Nor anything which could contain it. Not man with his mighty pen. Nor computers and their proud terrabytes. They are not enough. But littered throughout the History are many events which bear looking into. They include -


First encounter between man and woman. (Some reports indicate Neanderthals. Others purport their names were Adam and Eve.)

First illness and subsequent death.

War. Of particular note: The Great War (1914-1918) and the Second World War (1939-1945)

Departures at an airport. (Unique entry. Ongoing.)




__________________________________________


This has been lurking around the back of my mind ever since I watched Beginners. I only wish I had the artistic ability to draw them out like Ewan McGregor does, then I could do many more scenes. I was really struggling with what I'd include, some I wanted to but couldn't think of how to aptly phrase. And I thought if there were too many entries it'd be boring as well, although truth be told I'd hit a mental block about a week ago (I typed most of this on my phone, the trusty HTC Snap, on my flight to London which is also why it's a little bit short) and even typing it out I couldn't think of anything else to add. The airport bit is a tribute to Love Actually actually, which is why it doesn't really fit in so nicely.

I didn't use any commas cause I was hoping to achieve a curt, emotionless effect. Not quite as easy a task as I'd expected, I had to be quite miserly with my words, and had to phrase them in an odd fashion sometimes.

I'm quite curious what any of you would have included in the History, actually. And you could probably make one of yourself, and fill in the events. Exam results perhaps. Heartbreak. And then make one on Happiness as well. Birthday. First love letter received (HAHA. If you could only remember the contents.) I'm pretty sure the Happiness one would be so much longer than the Sadness one, in which case all of us should be pretty darn happy now yeah? Cause there's no real reason not to be, not when so many happy things have happened to us. (If your sadness list is longer than your happiness one, I'm so very sorry I put you through such a painful exercise, so very sorry.)

Okay then, that's it for the night then, one thing off my mind at least! Yeyz.

Exoskeletons.

Wear your skeleton on the inside out, and keep your insect heart secret.

I really liked this line from the book St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised By Wolves, which was sort of a neurotic series of short stories, all very well-written and equally inexplicable. I think the most interesting part of the stories were the endings. Brilliant. Now that I think about it, probably closest thing I've read would be Tim Burton's Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy, which was bafflingly good as well.

I've been a slob (what's new right.) these few days! I've been watching Monk, almost done with season 1 now, watching the X-men all the way from the First One till First Class, and reading one of the 2 new books I bought from WHSmith or sth. It's a thriller, like the sort of paperbacks you'd bring on a holiday, easy reading. The other one is The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake which I'd been seeing around for a bit, and finally bought yeahhhhhh.

That's not to say I've not been doing a bit of sightseeing, heading out one night with my flatmates and newest friends for a walk down to the river, passing the cathedral and other stuff along the way. I'll probably still need quite some time before I get fully familiarized with the place, but I'm not complaining. Quite the pleasant place to get lost in, if ever you were to choose one. I've met a fair bit of Singaporeans/Malaysians on my course, although I've only seen them that one day at the registration. I think if I wanted to, I could have quite a fair bit of friends in these parts.

However I think I've become very accustomed, and perhaps even comfortable being alone. I might even be good at it, how about that? Maybe people, they each have their own expectations of you, and god knows I've never given up a chance to disappoint.

There's this heatwave that just struck, which I totally wasted today. I was totally gonna get into my berms and stride into town (BERMS > JEANS 4EVA) but I came back home to skype/oovoo. First with my brother and sister, then with some of my colleagues, one of whom might not be a colleague very soon-ish. Anyways now it's 8pm here and adios heatwave. Hopefully tmr will be just as sunny eh? Never thought I'd be hoping for sun, funny.

I bought myself my pillow(s!) and duvet already. I went for the double set instead of a single. Best decision ever. The duvet is like so epically shiok, wrapped up as I am like the meat in a Banditto Pockett. The pillows though are a huge disappointment. Huge. >:C They're so bad I'm gonna get myself a new and better and fluffy and springy one. Extravagance! you say. I say to you: Nay, necessity!

I have no idea why people can't pronounce my name right. It's just 5 letters! I sometimes wonder myself how to pronounce my name and what exactly the right way is, damn loser. I guess however the damn I want it to be pronounced eh? But I'm not gonna get some english name cause that would be so conformist, HAHA. I want to be a contortionist, not a conformist. Then again, a contortionist sounds like a euphemism for masochism srsly, I squirm everytime I imagine some guy warping his limbs to try and fit into some jar or something.

Yeah I think an english name would be sort of a change foisted upon me, which I'm not so keen to take up. I won't let my life be run like that, a form of peer pressure I guess. And I won't let my life be run by anything else too. And that's a long list including alcohol, drugs, fags, (colloquial for cigarettes, not the literal meaning) regret, fear, pride, lust, envy/jealousy, anger. (Looking quite a bit like the se7en deadly sins here.) I'm still working on that last one, much to my consternation. I thought I'd be able to work it out of my system by now, but that was just foolish pride wasn't it?

Hopefully one day in the distant future (hopefully not impossibly distant however) I'll be able to tell my kids: You know, your Pa was once an angry young man! instead of y'know, them being terrified to even approach me cause I was just so fearsome and in such a rage all the time. Silly.

And of course I wouldn't want my life to be run by.... an iPhone. Tsk. I promised myself never to get an iPhone and that's something I'm never gonna waver about. Srsly. I think it's something personal, haha! I think I told a few people already of how terrified I am of a world where everything is automated, and I think Apple is the trailblazer on our abject path down to that world of no return.

I wouldn't want to live in a world like that. I'd pack my stuff and hopefully get my brother to come along with me (I'm pretty sure he's with me on this) and set off to an unmolested island which was shielded from twitter and whatsapp and whatnot but miraculously would also have some sheep and various other animals appropriate for subsistence farming and living. Maybe a few heads of ox as well so we wouldn't have to do all the hard labour. And we'd bring along our wives as well, cause obviously if it were just the 2 of us nobody would cook and wash up or plant flowers and stuff, and we'd do nothing else but DotA in our free time. Or get into ridiculous fights which I'd win on account of the fact that I'm older. HAHA.

I have to do a story on The Technology Un-Revolution one day, it's been in my head for ages. It's like I had one where nobody could fall in love anymore because their hearts were removed, then I saw a book called Delirium released recently where love was a disease and they had a cure for it. Which in some weird way makes me quite hesitant to write about it. I think I'm gonna try anyways and probably make a hash of it, but that's alright I guess. I don't think I'm ever gonna come up with any brilliant stuff anyhow. It's sort of an outlet, I guess, for words and expressions that have no other. Or images in my mind that I never seem to be able to put the right words to. So they probably turn out quite rubbish (I think rubbish is my newest favourite adjective, although clearly not if I were to try and flatter some pretty girl or sth) with maybe a few which are half-decent.

I've been having this sense, for a while now, that horrifyingly, I might be over my hill. By that I mean, that I may already have peaked, I just don't know it yet. That life from now on is just going to be this long downhill slope, and I can't do anything to arrest its trajectory. I think I first thought about it when reading Dance, Dance, Dance (Haruki Murakami), which is probably the best book I could have hoped to bring with me to MSTD haha. Nothing like fiction to escape the misery of life, eh? And he mentioned something about people who peaked while in school or stuff like that (it's been quite a while.) I dunno man. I think I've become stupider, or sth HAHA. I think I was smarter back in secondary school, and perhaps at my athletic best as well. Not that it'll be a very fair comparison now, I've been disgustingly glued to chairs/beds/stuff that doesn't involve any muscular effort. But yeah. Perhaps I'm never going to scale the heights I've scaled, and am, depressingly, on a decline now.

But it's right silly to be thinking of rubbish like that, eh? I've still yet to find the love of my life/travelled the world/ et cetera. Hehe wishful thinking never did anyone any harm now did it!

And now... I am wishfully thinking I'll be able to complete something I'd been thinking about. See ya in a bit.

Comic Sans.

After 20 or more hours spent travelling or in transit, I've finally arrived at what shall be my home for the next few months/years! Haven't slept on a bed since waking up on sunday morning back in singapore, so I'm quite eager to hit the sack soon! Except that I'm greeted with bed sans pillow and sans blanket. Nightmarish much?! First things on my to-buy-list.

I managed to watch almost 5 movies on my flight here, and that was while I was trying my darnedest to cram in some sleep intermittently too. The Lost Bladesman, Don't Go Breaking My Heart, Something Borrowed, Last Night, and X-Men. I thought Something Borrowed was absolute rubbish though. Somehow all the characters end up unlikeable because they're pretty much all morons for the most part.

Okay I really am quite tired. I slept throughout my flight to KL (merely an hour though) and maybe 2 hours tops during my mega 14 hour flight to London, which wasn't very wise at all. I'll update you guys with more (and more interesting as well) stuff another time, grouses about a lack of bedstuffs and a lack of sleep and a rubbish movie probably don't make for very good reading. Okay taim to heet the sak.

New Horizon Ephemeral Style.

Hullo. Must say that I'm quite surprised (and touched) at all that's gone on these past few days. Been really hectic and all, but without a doubt it's been worth it. I think it didn't strike me how much I was leaving behind (apart from dota ofc, sorry bout that swoonz and ym!) until sometime.. now. But yeah, I love all you guys you all know that right? Hahaha.

My knees hurt. And I have a bruise (source: unknown) on my left arm as well. I srsly was a burden today I think, I was quite annoyed with myself really! Sorry guy and girls! Never imagined myself to be so pathetic on sand HAHA. But a very fun day nonetheless, with magically (for real) lomantic time walking to sentosa as well eh?

I think I shan't be banging on for much longer actually, I'm going to start archiving all the books I have at home soon, so that I won't ever re-buy any books I already have. I'm also going to finish Bleak House within the next few hours! Less than a hundred pages to reach the end, so go me!

Anyhow, I hope the.. well, vibes, I've been getting these past few days don't mean anything at all. I would hate to disappoint anyone, especially those who don't deserve to be disappointed. I think, the product of an over-imaginative mind. Hmm well I sure hope so. But it's not been unpleasant, although that perhaps is the danger. Oh well, that's that.

Okay archiving time, Librarian Chuan has werk to do. I'll see you guys soon (in the blink of a star) so take care of yourselves in the meantime!

PEACE OUT-

P.S Decided to put that list up on my sidebar, in place of that old shelfari widget I scrapped such a long time ago!

You Wanted To Be Tragically Happy.

Hello almost exactly a month since my last post cause I haven't really got much to say. And because my brother has been hogging the comp, which is a wonder since he's supposed to be in the middle of his prelims. It's quite impressive how much time he spends on the comp instead of hitting the books, although I'm not morally capable of telling him off HAHA. I lost my moral high ground with the advent of DotA. But fret not, airvybody, for I will be leaving the game forevermore very soon, which is not quite as bold a proclamation as if I promise to quit now, but I need a bit more time to get over it!!

Speaking of hitting the books, I just bought Eragon and A Visit From The Goon Squad today. And The Imperfectionists, a Sandman graphic novel, and St Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves (or sth like that) all from Littered With Books. I had business in the area so I couldn't help but make visits to that most delightful of bookstores. Although I must add that finding it proved to be tougher than I thought and between my multiple visits to the shop, I must have covered almost the whole Tanjong Pagar by now (since I kept taking different routes.) I also had Keen on Crepes one day, which was quite decent.

I also watched Love In Space today. I wanted and didn't want to watch it actually. I thought I'd watch it online, but the MRT stopped its service at Yishun and since I'd already had to get off the train, I thought I'd watch a movie. Have also watched Easy A, The Kids Are All Right, Four Lions, Beginners, Crazy Stupid Love, Zombieland, Shaun of the Dead, Whip It!, Tropic Thunder, Casino, Wu Xia, and probably a few more as well. Pretty decent haul, eh? And I also started watching Monk with my brother (I think we were tired of dota one night), but that traitor went and watched episode 7 and onwards without me. So I guess it's to each his own now!

So my Australia trip went well. I was totally under-budget, spending 900 AUD in total, even after buying a watch for 200 AUD! I guess when you've got friends and relatives everywhere (esp those uncles and aunties and cousins who pay for your meals) money is of no import eh? Anyways my most heartfelt thanks to those who took the time and effort to entertain me and show me places or even to lodge me, be it for half a day or for days on end, all of you were absolutely brilliant.

I'm going to JB tomorrow with my parents and surprisingly (perhaps obscenely) my brother as well. Did I mention he's in the middle of his prelims?! Say what you may about there only being paper 1s left, the very fact you're having prelims means you should be studying your arse off for A levels no? I think we're going for massage and karaoke or sth, I really don't know, but this is the first time I'm traveling with both my parents at the same time in ages! I'll try to be a good boy tmr.

Sometimes inactivity is the greatest wrong of all. Sometimes all we can do is look back and think: I should have done something.

Anyhow, the hour is getting late now, and I should be going, going, gone.