while you were looking away

2003-10-19T06:30:00.000-07:00

It's not uncommon for people to just get tired of all this plasticness. I'm one of those people now. Just to see where i could have been but avoided being, and all the barbed wire around this artificial greenery--doesn't make for a delicate end to the year. I'll just be another sealed paperback on the shelf with a cover that doesn't reveal anything.

2003-10-17T07:40:00.000-07:00

The little girl was reading aloud from her storybook. The woman was listening to the discussion, but she couldn't help paying more attention to the toddler's voice telling the story. She edged back away from the circle to where the little girl was sitting and peered at her book. Not one word the girl was saying was on the page. The little girl flipped the page and continued telling the story. The woman was filled with wonder. She asked the girl's mother about it. The mother said with that smile that only knowing mothers have, "she's just pretending to read."

2003-10-15T08:08:00.000-07:00

I made it! Seven essays in one day, three types of history, all in all five and a half hours of continuous writing. I'm proud of my slightly quivering thumb for surviving. What possessed them to put art history and history on the same day? By my seventh essay i wasn't even thinking. I couldn't even bear to look at my paper, so i closed my eyes while my hand ran on, all the while wishing i could vomit, collapse, anything to stop writing. I've never become so sick of writing before. I did a little calculation later on (my maths isn't that bad) and discovered that i'd been constructing and rushing out arguments for almost six straight hours, and it made me feel rather queasy. I found out today that my drawing and painting paper's tomorrow, when i'd been thinking it was on friday for weeks. And when theresa asked me if i'd done my prep work this morning i was a picture of calm as i said "i've only done one page", giving her one of my various what's-the-worry looks. Ah. I see what the worry is now. So i spent the hours after the last history essay trying to put my hand to yet more work, churning out itsy-bitsy sketches of blob-like people, but the bulk of the prep work shall be left for my two precious hours before the paper tomorrow. It's all part of the plan, i tell myself. I've decided that maths shall be ruined and that it's not worth worrying about right now. I whined about my day's torture to my parents, not without affecting the voice of some very tormented, very worn-out creature, ending off with "and i'm failing tomorrow's maths". They quickly said, "Okay okay, don't worry about it." It'll be a strange laugh, to fail ao maths because i don't have time for maths homework. I read a few pages of my workbook that my friends so despise for its untidiness and awfulness and general wrong-answer-ness, and think i've gotten it enough to do sums related to them, but other than that, i can't make myself think about it right now. My mind is popping with peculiar buzzes as i let lopsided development, cultural revolution, colonial rule and 17th parallel slip out through that generous gap somewhere in my head. It feels good.

2003-10-13T07:18:00.000-07:00

Out of danger from the wind,
Out of danger from the wave,
Out of danger from the heart
Falling, falling out of love.

It's not that the happy ones have found "the meaning of life". It's just that they believe they will. I personally believe that when you come to need other people, and when they come to need you, your life will have meant something. It's just a small way of appreciating life, but is there any other way? There are so many definitions of loneliness. Pick any one you like. I refuse to be caught up in the melancholic trend. There is no fascination with lonely thoughts for me. I've been in a memory-mood of late, reading things i'd written pre-turning-point and after. I wish i could go back to july of last year and relive everything minus the absent heart. I wish i could relive kaleidoscope, sonatina, world cup finals, fusion, founder's day, exams, everything, but put my heart into it this time. Move on from the sad things, live in the present. It'd have been so much better if i had only let go of it then.

Klutz morning: forgot to lock the door again, broke my glass cabinet door, squeezed chilli sauce on the table

2003-10-10T07:56:00.000-07:00

We're Sid and Nancy
Fred and Ginger
Clyde and Bonnie
Liz and Richard
Kurt and Courtney
Bacall and Bogie
Joltin' Joe and Ms. Monroe
Here's captain crash and the beauty queen from mars

Today's gp paper was just more proof that i am history-fied. I don't particularly want to think about it. I spent a couple of days with a song in my head that i don't know the words to. Funny then that a blank song should articulate so exactly what i feel. Songs are always more precious when you can't sing along and can't remember the tune, for some strange and wonderful reason. Which is why i refuse to listen to a song i like too often. I'm afraid the magic will fade. Now i'm wondering if i push things away with that same logic. Maybe i'm like that girl in "run baby run"-- "from the arms of the familiar and their talk of better days/ to the comfort of the strangers, slipping out before they say so long"-- the verse of which i accidentally attached to some lit essay early this year, confounding poor mr prince ("who?" he scribbled on it). I'm beginning to feel that wanderlust again, bones aching to go somewhere and do something different. Unicef notebooks today lit a certain spark in my imagination; i'm picturing vibrant children and noisy fields in a not-too-distant future. If only i could be there now. I don't think i could survive this unfunny life without a sense of humour. Laughing at my own mistakes, my weird dreams (amputated legs replaced with blue plastic ones), other people's foolishness, how ridiculous things are, how ironic some people can be, how lost-in-the-clouds i am. These are things that make both tragedies and comedies, it depends on how well i can take them. So i'll laugh at everything and feel that much better for laughing, but soon i might get impatient. Will you board the train with me when i go? I like train food.

2003-10-08T08:13:00.000-07:00

fare thee well
trading all our words for tea and sympathy
wonder why we try for things that will never be
play our hearts' lament like an unrehearsed symphony

Another one of those days where moods bounce. Started the morning wonderfully light-hearted, but was weighted with the hours until it felt like i was dragging my spirit behind me on a chain. Homemade chicken rice and productive history session after dinner has lifted me considerably; i have a list of items to take revenge on the US for now. I'll carve them on my back like in Woman Warrior and remember their faults. I'm happy that i won't have to sit in another certain painful class for some time, and even more thankful that i won't hear "alrightokay"s in lit lecture. I wish i could go carry elliot tomorrow but vietnam calls, demands that i stay home. Apparently nathanael's not dealing with the new situation all too well. He thinks the baby is his mother's and that he is his daddy's. Poor kiddo. I remember when i could carry him. And he's taken to saying "no!" to everything. All that two-year-old rage welled up within him.

I'll bet all the maulanas in this world are feeling high tonight

2003-10-04T03:01:00.000-07:00

There should be a warning sign attached to certain songs. They put the dagger right in that knot of a heart and we're never warned beforehand. Are we all puppets then who can't feel? Does the Puppetmaster fiddle with the strings that control our hearts' climbs and falls too? Or are we just supposed to ignore the screams of the soul and be glad to follow the barest of paths? There's surely something at the end of each tunnel, and that's the only thing that keeps me walking on in this wooden way. Just walk on. Don't look back. I can't not look back, not when it's walking beside me. Must we always be cruel to be kind? Can't we just be kind and kind and kind? If i were writing a book and my protagonist had my life, how clear the ending would be, how conventionally fight-against-the-tides-and-conquer, how wonderfully self-serving. But i guess i'm just letting the waves take me, wherever. I'll just trust that my destination will be a thousand times better. Meanwhile i can't take the distance. I shall divide myself into two and put the soft half to sleep until it's safe to wake it up again. You hate the very things that you love, for making you so divided. I almost wished that everything was an illusion, everything but this, but no i can't do that because i know better. What does the word mean anyway? Maybe love is an illusion too. You only feel dead if you know what it's like to feel alive. All the other things mean nothing. They think it's just a game. I have that secret smile when i'm amused by their ignorance, but most times i can only walk away and think, our wisdom didn't change the world anyway.

flashes: keeping someone's secret until it becomes one of my heaviest burdens. traitor or not, still part of some hurtful thing. is it that bad to give up on a subject you know you can conquer if given the time?. very interesting conversation last night. talking-story until it's a routine. there are too many things on my mind at one time, maybe that's why i swim through the hours

2003-10-02T05:12:00.000-07:00

I'm high from eating our "deadly little dimsums", at the same table where we last sat. The same flavours that i remember of our past exploits: those fried cuttlefish rings with all their sodium-packed crumbs, the juicy dumplings, the crispy dumplings, the flaky egg tarts, the ice water.. And they're the same. Despite looking completely different (what emerging from the mg floursack can do) and eleven times more gorgeous than they already were, and although their mtv routine has faded away, they're the same. We could just sit as a foursome and talk like we used to. It was comforting hearing ade burp, and watching jenna dart her sparkly little eyes about, and soak in their voices that i hadn't heard for so so long. And stella's leaving on saturday morning--she held my box and gleefully pointed out that all the pictures i'd pasted on it were very her. Her galliano, her jude law, her moulin rouge, her love for all things vintage and sexy. And she was more than pleased with the cup noodles i put in the box. I'm floating. I can't remember what the rest of my week has been like. Besides being embedded in that sofa with southeast asian economic changes strangling my tiny side table, and slogging away at the computer making table after table of facts i really will not have to use in the future--i can't remember it at all. There was my art presentation, a phone incident involving mr vardi, and fresh homemade bread on monday. I blame southeast asian history for taking away my memory. Or rather, for giving me little else to remember. Why can't this all be just over? Meanwhile, history woes aside, there's a romantic dinner i have to plan for two important people. They've been married 24 years, on the day both paki and bong were born. And i have to write to prossy, to let her know i still remember her, and that i look at our photo and smile too. I regret misplacing that sheet of paper she gave me. "You are my friend" in african, and a number of other common words like "monday", "tuesday", and more, if only i remembered where i'd kept it so i wouldn't lose it.

2003-09-27T23:02:00.000-07:00

the squashed cherry has one word for ashley: YES!

2003-09-26T06:34:00.000-07:00

i thought you and me could stand the test of time
like we could get away with the perfect crime
but we were just a legend in my mind

Happy birthday dharma! The sparkles in her eyes perfected everything. A whole week of giggly plotting and finger-wiggling and secret corridor conversations, down to this most perfect day. Everything went according to plan. At 1.30 we were puffing up colourful balloons in the concourse, and at 1.45 stef very casually led her to the toilet to do whatever girls love to do in groups in the toilet. Sheila delayed her a while longer with topicless conversation that had her quite befuddled. Then they came walking round the bend. All of us standing there in a row, balloons in hand, grinning expectant grins, "dharma's our superhero" stretched out like a sky message scrawled out by a plane, the birthday muffin waiting rather adorably by the vegetarian buffet, the birthday candle dripping wax on jason's hand... my ears were warm for a long time after. I knighted her with soccerclub presidency and be-ringed her with a president's signet ring, and Manda be-caped her with a gorgeous noodleman cape (with pictures of noodles, who'd have guessed?!), and it was just present after heart-melting present for the girl with the heart-catching tangles. We were all glowing with happiness and warm-chocolate fuzziness. sigh. She's a person who makes the world bounce. Why would anyone soak in alternative-poet-rocker melancholy when they can see life the Dharma way? She's a bottle of Essence of Sunshine.

By the way, laura, it is me. Is it wise to tell you so?

2003-09-24T07:48:00.000-07:00

my hopes are so high
that your kiss might kill me
so won't you kill me
so i die happy

Sinking fast into the momentum of new things, fast things, things that call themselves important. Wiggling fingers with a co-conspirator last night has put a gleeful secrecy over the rest of this week. The plot thickens, and someone will be very happy. Once again i don't remember much of the last three days, except that there seemed to be very little of us in class. And the mood bounces. From the superhero delirium of discovering noodleman, peanutman and handiman, to the blandness of sitting around in reduced numbers thinking of the amount of work ahead of us. Makes me wonder if laughter and happiness are just forms of distraction from the official order of things. But i know that isn't true. Someone said that one day we'll look back at all the little things and realise that they were the big things. There is another disturbing thought that i can't shake off: we might see eye to eye now, but our handshake won't last forever. Not with the way life is dependent on our individual efforts to fight for what we dream of. One day we won't dream of the same things anymore, because our dreams will grow from the tiny things to the world-changing things. I wish i could hold the simplicity of this year like a marble in my hand, so that we will always only differ in our choice of ice cream flavours and matters of that importance. I'd never let go. And you, i know all your voices of laughter. The laugh that says you're hiding something. The laugh that says you're lying. The laugh that says you're sad. I wish i could change the frequency you're transmitting, so that you can tell me directly what you feel. But as it is, even though you don't, i still know.

my heart is yours to fill or burst
to break or bury
or wear as jewelry
whichever you prefer

2003-09-21T04:59:00.000-07:00

(A rare nice forwarded poem.)

Never say I love you
If you don't really care
Never talk of feelings
If they aren't really there
Never hold my hand
If you mean to break my heart
Never say forever
If you ever plan to part

Never look into my eyes
If you are telling me a lie
Never say hello
If you think you'll say goodbye

Never say that I'm the one
If you dream of more than me
Never lock up my heart
If you don't have the key

I decorated the silver box with pictures that scream "stella". Maybe i shall make boxes for a few friends this Christmas. She's so naturally sexy, it's amazing. I've seen her go from pigtails to punkster spikes to chic pixie to cute ponytail to layers with bangs to long ponytail to this: gorgeous long curls.

Kind of sitting in the transit lounge again, knowing where my destination is but not sure what route i should take. I have the feeling that hundreds of life-changing decisions are in my hands now. I could mess everything up or i could let it go the right way. Being this responsible for myself is annoying.

2003-09-19T08:09:00.000-07:00

The tiniest, softest toes ever. Feet that have never walked on ground. Fresh feet, if you like. A new life so fragile you have to be strong to protect it. A face that is rippled by sudden sounds and dreams, although what newborn babies could possibly dream about, i'd like to know. A whole future still blank, page after page of lovely scented life paper. One mass of miracles, Elliot, still without a chinese name. I shall dust off those chinese handbooks and look for a nice word to go with "fly". You were born because your parents had faith, and everyone is proud of them for believing they could love you no matter how you turned out. And you are perfect.

2003-09-17T19:09:00.000-07:00

I never thought i would actually like doing history readings. But i like soviet politics somewhat--i like laughing at the bossy vanity of the leaders and i like shooting the US down for being meddlesome and self-appraising. "Gorbachev"--not a likely book to curl up with, but i do appreciate him. Has it come down to this? After fiddling with ideals of abandonment and picking apart answerless questions like "what is happiness anyway", it comes down to doing what is necessary. Right now, nothing seems more necessary than patching up my history. We are all subject to the same need for discipline no matter how we have tried to fight against it in our own feeble ways. Isn't that perfectly disgusting. Somewhere in the grassy meadows of a non-existent, impractical but quite wonderful world, i would be doing something i really want to do. But the time hasn't come for me to elope to that world, not yet. Some are already there. Stella's going there. I hope she finds it to be all she imagines and more. A place is just a place, a country is just a country, but it's what you give of yourself to the place that makes it special. She has left behind sparkling traces of herself here, such that some objects and some streets have her name written on them. Does she even realise that? Do any of those who leave realise what they do to the places they leave? To those who can't wait to leave this island and escape to their utopia, you may see nothing special here for you, but you have made this place special for the rest of us who live here. And you will continue to make this place special when we eventually live without you. Because of you, stella, inaminate everyday things are no longer just things to me. Fashion sketches, galliano, netting, out-of-bed hair, steamboat, arab street, mouths, myojo scallop and lettuce noodles, easter eggs, chinese, chains, california rolls, our black bags, shu qi, and thousands of other things that i could list-- these are all yours now and perhaps forever will be.

2003-09-14T08:48:00.000-07:00

While the beautiful footnoted papers are printing, i'm left here thinking about people, and chances. Once in a while you meet someone who has that magical ability to spark off something in your soul. Ordinary things become wrapped up with secrets, and they speak to you of a gesture, or a sound, or a touch. Little nothing objects become special because of their own secrets. A stone step can become hallowed ground. A paper sparkler can become a trophy. A song can become an anthem. But that one chance that brought the two of you together doesn't have the power to keep you together. Sometimes you just have to leave, breaking off the hastily-made ties, never thinking that you will never see that friend again. The cruel game that distance and geography plays. Why is the world so big? And you wander on in nowhere at all, disillusioned with the whole concept of meeting-makingfriends-separating. Is there any point in it? Then once you get over your disillusionment, that ache that would have flown you halfway round the world in all its power fades away. So you lean back against your post and lazily imagine what life is like on the faraway shore where you said your last goodbye, content to have made friends who live on in memories. And wait for some other chance meeting that will turn your life upside down again.

2003-09-11T21:51:00.000-07:00

I'm stuck in a capsule and i can't get out. Believe me, I want to. I want to break the plastic walls and find my feet on the ground again, but here i am rolling around in a capsule. So i move, lifeless, from one idle activity to the next, opening books and closing them, starting to write something but giving up, trying to think about matters of consequence (how i hate that i'm using these three words) and not getting anywhere at all. I need something to wake me up, but then first i'd have to want to be woken up, wouldn't i. My Day With Ashley feels like a long-ago honeydew dream now. I remember sitting in various places eating various things, and clinging helplessly to the disappearing year. And to our secondary years which will never return, not even in the form of reunions or visitations or any of those artificial attempts to recapture lost years. Are we all happier now where we are? Are we happy with where we're headed? I should be racing towards bright lights and fantastical dreams, but instead i keep looking back in time. Yesterday at sheila's place we must have been the strangest sight--- two not-very-little girls laughing on the swings, then swooning over the fairytale romances of our alter-egos. But is that what we want after all? The kiss-the-girl boat ride with dancing fish in a willowy glade; the magic carpet ride through the clouds to tiananmen square? Perhaps we thought so once upon a time. Maybe i still do. Maybe shrek is what our fairytales will be--defying every fairytale convention, but with a fairytale ending. A heightened sense of reality, a glimmer of magic in the most mundane of things. I hate being the destroyer of fairytales, because i want so much to believe in them. But how could i forget--in the real Little Mermaid, she never did become part of her prince's world. She turned into foam.

2003-09-09T20:43:00.000-07:00

take a walk outside your mind
tell me how it feels to be
the one who turns the knife inside of me

Every aerosmith song sounds like a cry. After sunday the storms just disappeared. Started with monday, a halfhearted attempt to study with pakster. I turn pretty schizo when it's just the two of us in a kitchen. Out comes my scatterbrained cookshow host talk. Ha pakster, i made up for that meal last night, had my sweet revenge on the Bad Beef that Bailed On Me. Living on the Edge is nice right?! I'm truly sorry that you can't tie your hair up into a knot, i really am. i'd cut off my hair for you but i'm not brave enough. I hate hard times for its wit that tries too hard to entertain and its act-cute characters. But i do have sympathy for louisa. Marrying a fifty-year-old lecher who'd eyed her since she was a child...at least i've found one character in the book that i feel for. Am i supposed to feel sorry for what's-her-face who can't define a horse and whose father ran away? Then tuesday came and i sat down with my father to acquaint him with the sounds i live on. The poor man couldn't understand why he'd never heard any of those songs although they're from his generation. This whole father-daughter week is going on well. Seems i've forgotten to introduce myself to him, and the me he remembers still had a favourite colour and tried to practice her piano faithfully. It took me too long to discover that i don't like the piano. Not enough to sit down and practice for hours, anyway. I've come to think that it requires the right personality to be an established pianist, more than talent or interest. The kind of personality that takes to patiently working out the mechanics of scales and such, and that bothers about perfection. Maybe i tore up his dreams for me, but i know that he doesn't have that "piano" personality either, and he'll understand my logic. Chasing after other instruments was to realise my own dreams, but who'd have known he'd be even happier. Will i ever open the lid of the piano again? Maybe, not today anyway. Hey at least i can say i tried. As for colours, i've become one of those who doesn't really care. I don't care much about having a favourite anything now. Look at those kids swinging about their plastic lanterns with their squeaky electronic music, and running round in circles with their sparklers. Part of me wishes for that age of certainty again, when my lantern would be blue because it was my colour and my cousin's would be green cos that was her colour, and when there would be nothing at the back of my mind taking my attention away from the sparklers.

your love's like a thorn without a rose

2003-09-07T04:25:00.000-07:00

mogu. walnutbrownie and fudge cake. southern mail. swat. reflections on the curved windows of wheelock place. days melting into nights melting into days. looking at life from my father's eyes. spontaneous bus ride to carry a conversation further. hugging dot. sitting on the green railing wanting to fall. floorball. wondering why you lie. being tired of playing all these games. laughing and then not remembering why. reading an email from the states. plucking off fake diamonds. not liking the relief maths teacher. being scary to a number of people. (flashes of the week)

And above us clouds slip past and sift into quiet wreaths, semblances of distant dreams, arms outstretched and reluctant like those of separating lovers. Stars begging to be named wink at lonely rooftops. Bare-faced stars, wanting to befriend an even barer earth. Planets pirouette, galaxies untangle themselves, the moon rises and reigns. We could have been kings of the night sky. But in this stillness all possibility wanes to the size of a teardrop. You find yourself crying for the loss of what was never really yours. Just as we cry for unborn children, and villages lost in sandstorms, and the tearing up of life by wars. You cry for something unfamiliar, something built on the rims of your imagination, something almost in your reach.
Then you stand apart from your emotions, having put your heart up on a hook to dry, and look down at the landscape in terms of water, sand, grass and stone. You are just a chesspiece on this landscape. You don't look up at the sky, the infinite, shimmering sky that promises to tell you stories every night and take you to faraway lands, not even though it calls your name. Head down you walk in search of a place where stars are said to walk among men. Behind you, above you, around you, the sky's voice echoes like the cry of an abandoned child.

2003-09-02T08:04:00.000-07:00

We must finish pw before we sicken of our topic. Still remember how we'd be ecstatic with every new discovery, as our perception of euthanasia slowly got shredded to something revolutionary. We were on fire, babbling about it to everyone who was polite enough to listen. But going through our points for what, the millionth time, just takes the kick out of it. It's not even fascinating pretending to be lawyers ploughing through paperwork in A Few Good Men. (did i just blurt that out?) It's not even thrilling looking at my beautiful annotations. There, i had my fling with organisation and details, and i'm about done with it. Had a good time guys, now get out of my schedule already. I did learn a lot though, more than southeast asian history could ever teach me. I'm not as bitter about it as i sound, it's just been two intensive pw days and i'm aching for something else.

Meanwhile, though i'd hate to be left vulnerable, it's what i'll do. "Truth needs to be spent, until we are all empty and wasted from the giving of truth. Then it will be just me and you, and that will be all. Don't you see? Things can be that simple." If i believe in that, then it's my turn to spend truth.

2003-08-29T05:10:00.000-07:00

Just some of the presents for our teachers: a greensilk shawl for mrs pandian, presented in a gold chiffon bag; a sarong for mr prince (sheila's spark of brilliance) and beer; an act-cool sleeveless nike top with flames on the front for (who else?) LL Act Cool J; an indian lampshade for ms tan; a colonial jewelry box for mrs chia. Maybe we were a teeny bit extravagant, but looking at the presents all laid out warmed us. Mr Eric Lee and Mr Khoo can sing, ashraf's lead was insane, and mr vardi was born to be a comedian. Then we rushed back to mg to check out their retro day. I thought our aloha theme last year was good, but this year's theme was a class act. They had posters up of teachers' faces superimposed on filmstars' bods--seeing mrs ang's face instead of audrey hepburn's in that breakfast at tiffany's pose was rather traumatising though. And mr loh with an over-muscled body--someone shield my eyes. There were stars on the floor leading to the staff room, much like the hollywood walk of fame, and all the teachers had on hoop earrings, scarves and other fun gooky accessories. Some of the students just took the opportunity to dress up in anything they liked, what a pity. It struck me that they all looked so young. i didn't get to meet hot babe though. I regret running in the other direction when i saw her from far on founder's day. Our class then went for lunch, and being the clowns we are, missed the holland v bus stop. So we ended up at wheelock place, and decided to eat at nydc. Carissa, dot and i stopped to buy gelato outside first while the rest sat down. When we joined them we found the place crawling with rj people. We proceeded to join tables so we could sit as a class, and as we started to shift the table, the waitress came up to us not looking all too pleased. Still we pushed the table, and a cheese shaker fell to the floor with a marvellous crash. Oh man, the lady's face was a thunderstorm. She said, "Outside food is NOT ALLOWED! Please finish your ice cream OUTSIDE." We ran far far away and didn't bother returning. Carissa contemplated going back to pay nydc back for that cheese thing, but i wouldn't have stepped near wheelock for anything. Went to look for an eating place that welcomed all people and all food, and ate a magnificent thai papaya salad, among other things. It was a happy time we spent together, made sad only because i don't know when we'll ever sit on the steps like that again, eating and talking about our lives and for a rare moment, unattached to our new separate lives. These 8 months have changed me like no other 8 months have. "A growth spurt," in her words. The 3 of them will be scattered to the extreme points of the earth, and so turning our different ways, in our different ways will we journey on. We hadn't talked for months, but we were so close, and our separation so near, that we talked about everything. It was refreshing to talk about serious things. I realised that i can tire of laughing.

2003-08-26T06:29:00.000-07:00

Sometimes i wonder if i've turned into one of those crystal figurines rotating in a glass cabinet in some pretentious shop. Those glass cabinets with spotlights and tiny cups of water, those shops with thick navy blue carpeting and glass surfaces that let every fingerprint show up. Just a silly crystal figurine spinning to someone's fancy, thinking herself perhaps part of a real dance. Just a silly figurine watching herself cast rainbows on the velvet backdrop, not understanding anything at all. I've felt this way these few days. Every morning i allow myself to be put back into that cabinet to be spun around like a kid on a carousel. Maybe if this keeps up i might even be bored of it. I want to be the second kind of person i learned about: the kind that says "there you are", the kind that makes her carousel horse come alive and then rides off splendidly away from the glass cabinet life. The kind that watches the reflections of real rainbows. The kind that is illuminated by the sun, instead of white spotlights. There's something uncomfortable about this setup, and all i want is what those two seem to have found. Their natural halos, their warm ease, their invisible world.

I look for you where you're not. So i'll slip away with padded feet and stay away, hushed.

2003-08-22T21:33:00.000-07:00

and i'm not a lot but you can have all of me

The week ended with a trip to the maldives. We had our final local meal at secret recipe, and sang so many songs that the waitress told us to keep it down because customers had complained. Well well. Then we boarded that terribly long flight with an in-flight movie that couldn't have been anything but propaganda. Thanks to ivan's probing questions at the q&a session though, we were all woken up towards the end of the seminar. I think that if mindef can't answer accusing questions directly, they should do themselves a favour and simply not answer them. Not answering them kills them on the spot; answering them in telling roundabouts digs their own graves. Just a tip, after watching that edgy performance.

And my oldest grievance haunts me again. When do young girls start to put on pretenses and adopt fallen images? Hopeless Pest is even more hopeless than when we first saw her on the flag platform; i don't want to start on the rest. Talking with bong last sunday confirmed what i'd already known--somehow all those years in methodist schools created this artificial perception of a sweet world, and now we know better. I don't believe what i used to believe, that ignorance is bliss. It is not, and it is not, but sometimes i really wish i didn't know certain things.

When your life seems to be a carbon copy of a show, how do you make the distinction between what is serendipity and what is just strange? Between what you really feel and what your onscreen alter-ego feels? Just a background thought, as i try to make sense of the rapidly disappearing days, and my own formless heart. There has to be a line that separates what you want to do and what you can do. Bit by bit i'm drawing this line with grains of rice, and i'm not good at it. Often the line wavers towards the impossible, towards the cloaked trees and shady glades, towards the childish lists and clouded moons. Yet there is still a line.

2003-08-19T07:07:00.000-07:00

fall and cry and don't ask why
when you wish upon a starless sky

My kazaa is gone for the sake of ethics, woe to me. It brings a new meaning to the label "underground rock activists". It's been a shiny start to the week this far. We interviewed renji's dad last night, who gave us a file as thick as five pw files to look through. Renji's family is so charming that we wished we could stay longer, at least to see all of his siblings. 7 of them, and we only caught sight of a few. How can i forget the sweet little boy who asked "Dad, do you want a hug?" and then wrapped his arms around his father? And the way one of the daughters called for her mother, and the mother called back, "Yes? Which one of you is calling for me?" How can anyone not fall in love with a family like that, i'd like to know. I don't think renji knows how blessed he is to have all that.

Jo and i went through the Final Ritual, which officially puts all that behind us forever and ever and ever. It was a kind of disgusting thrill, flipping through those pages of incriminating evidence and wishing ourselves dead. Every single page was shredded to miserable bits. They won't be able to identify the pages because we disfigured their corpses so. I hope the toilet piping system doesn't choke up because of us. Fire would be the better option--faster, more dramatic, and kills off any last clue, but too bad we couldn't start a fire in school. We did save three pages that won't do any harm to our reputation though, out of some kind of pity for the past that is embarrassing but still ours.

soundtrack to this moment:
i was crying when i met you
now i'm trying to forget you
your love is sweet misery

2003-08-16T16:18:00.000-07:00

It feels like i'm the only person awake in the whole world. Mine are the only pair of eyes watching the blue light lighten into shades of gold-flecked green. Van Gogh painted green skies. Who'd have thought that skies could be green and be more beautiful than skies of blue? Gattacca taught me many things. That perfection is useless if you don't have a dream to push yourself forward. That sometimes we focus too much on our flaws. That there is no gene for self esteem.

I saw her again, this time coming out from my train carriage and going down the escalator with me. She was out of her ji uniform, and now wore work clothes. Still bare-faced, still recognisable in the middle of unfamiliar passers-by. I used to see her on my bus every morning. She must have eurasian blood somewhere not far up her family tree. She wasn't a sparkling face to watch, but she was a face i remembered. She would have been part of the kind of memory we don't even bother recollecting, but seeing her again that night continued her life story in my head. Maybe one day i'll see her again with makeup and heels, and years later, holding the hand of a child with her trace of western blood in his freckles and curls. Isn't it sad that we share the same living space with hundreds of commuters and students and other people with backdrop roles in our lives, passing each other by maybe hundreds of times without knowing it, such that they forever remain backdrops? We are always surrounded by people, but we can still be lonely. Do you even remember the person standing beside you at the bus stop yesterday? Or the person sitting next to you? It's a small symptom of impersonal city life. We are all vessels with stories and souls and quirks and things to say, if people would look. Yet each time we step out and slip into the crowd, we become just as they all are, anonymous.

2003-08-15T06:29:00.000-07:00

I'm just an ordinary same-old nothing new
I can tell you ordinary same-old nothing things
Say something funny
Or say something smart
Say something clever
I would but you know i can't

Words are funny things. The same spoken phrase can mean so much one moment, but be devastating just months later. Words are everything. Careless tongues throw them out into the open and the world bends under their weight. Careful tongues keep them inside, and the world is darkened by their absence. Words drift and bridge the endless gap between souls. Words can tear people apart just as easily. The right words can touch a room magically. But often it's not the words that ever matter, because words are just words. But it's impossible that words don't matter, because it's the lack of words that's felt most of all. I walked home in the drizzle last night drinking the free yakult i got with other stuff at cheers, and wished i could speak the language of angels. I made instant noodles and ate it alone, and stared into the computer screen blasting the music louder than was comfortable. The house was empty and welcoming and incomprehensible. And i thought about words as they traced dizzy circles in my head. What language do i understand? The silent press of my cat's warm face against mine, her steady purr. That cup of milo that's on the table waiting for me every single morning. The sparkle of waiting eyes. Words oil the globe as it spins, and unknot the reams of thought in us. Maybe too little has been said round the table, and as a result the words that were spoken stand out blindingly as they lie on the tabletop, unprotected.

2003-08-13T01:58:00.000-07:00

It's been hard to keep my eyes wide open under these hazy skies. Today we finally went to south africa, after days of saying we would. Manda made little tickets for us, with a special request for vegetarian food for dharma, and after checking to see that we all had our red passports, we left. I don't know when we'll stop playing these serious little games. I doubt we ever will. On the train this morning i was laughing till the tears came-- Charmian showed me the first notebook she kept in sec 3, and all the silly things i wrote in it. My goodness. The cheesy commercials, the anti-sonnets, the deliberately corny "inspiring" slogans, flapping mog and his ghastly friend, my series of dolls (amakeng ashley, cracked charmian, jointless julienne, samseng stella...), our britney-bashing pages, our esprit-bashing pages, and other things that i can't decipher now but would have been funny then. I was this nonsensical monster let loose when i wrote in her notebook. Like the world had no logical relevance to my life, or would that be the other way round? I've somewhat sobered up, and my doodles have compromised comic value for poignant prettiness. It's a pity. It was last year that i became a slightly different person. June and all that it brought took away my frivolous abandonment, and from then on it was the weightier things that entertained me. But the south african trip today, our couple of successful murders, and other deranged things we've done these few months have brought back that madness. I shall dust off all those notebooks, the wl-spca one included, and we shall all have a good laugh. Thanks viknes and dharma, for being my patient tamil teachers. I love tamil. It's such a useful, forceful language. The little monster can now say she's hungry, powerful, wants to kill someone, and has eaten you. I wouldn't describe myself as delirious. Everything's simply balanced nicely. This year is racing past and i want it to just stop, stand still if only for a while, and let me bask in all this without worrying about the time.

2003-08-10T06:16:00.000-07:00

One car wash for $12. Tell me you know a better way to make money. We had our CAReWASH today, part of the youth group's fund-raising project for the Christian Outreach for the Handicapped. About 60 cars split over two shifts, and i'm exhausted. I travelled to the east at 7:30 and washed cars till 12. The first car was a van, and there were a few tall 6-seaters, not to mention a mercedes with a thousand leaves stuck in the hood's vent thing, but it was fun. They really organised the operation well, with quality control crew, walkie-talkie mediators, a water-supply vehicle, and a zone for each team. Predec was in my group, and well, i'm amazed at the vaporised butterflies. Reality waters down everything, and the twists of these past months have made me such a practical person that butterflies can't really survive in me anymore. Gone too are all those pretensions of being the up-there girl who can't get her feet wet. I'd always been just pretending. Things are simplified to what they should be, and i'm grateful for that. I don't have to conform to any mould or expectation, or superimposed image. All i have to be is who i am, and everything else will flow.

So you fell off the cliff, after riding on the edge for what seemed to me like an eternity. Finally learnt you were small, finally learnt that you do care about being the object of your mother's trust, finally learnt who you truly are. Did you once think that you were strong, that you were carefree, that you were brave? But you were always just the little girl i played with under the chair when we were 4. You have a conscience. You are perfect the way you are. Don't let anyone make you want to change your values. Don't play with fire. You're not invincible, although you might sometimes think that you are. Was it all worth it? Was the thrill and fun and danger worth it? For there you are in your corner, and i hope you know that you are made to be greater than this.

2003-08-08T08:21:00.000-07:00

If not for my classmates, i wouldn't have done a lot of things this term. Running today was unexpected, and i don't regret it one bit. We were all amateurs amongst the star sprinters from the other facs, and seeing pam and huien beside me was enough to make me quake, but we did well. Just before the race started pam and huien were calmly counting their paces from their startline, while i was frantically asking ms poon where i was supposed to stand. Just like ifg rockclimbing, which saw me learning how to wear the disgusting harness minutes before i went up. Before this year i had never jumped into things i wasn't confident doing, but the enthusiastic go-for-it spirit of my class has given me oomphs of confidence. The race marked the end of our involvement in ifg, and i have no regrets. Sometimes you just have to quit thinking and say yes on impulse. If i had stopped to think carefully about doing all the unusual things i've done this term, i probably would have backed out of most of them, and missed out on a whole lot. And if our class stopped to worry about what people thought of our effervescent, most of the time too-loud behaviour, we'd have only half as much fun. Pity the live-for-the-moment philosophy doesn't work for all issues. Consequence still affects the way i make larger decisions.

We had another wonderful day, taking our time to filter out of school and talk over a lazy lunch. Borders has such impeccably pretty stationery, but i wouldn't splurge on fancy notebooks, not even with a borders voucher. We saw someone at borders, and promptly called ivan to taunt him. Does the guy never question our honesty? What if we were just bluffing, and he sprinted down to our said location to find that there was nobody there? What if he put down an important task just to rush over? Would i be evil enough to laugh at him?

This morning's meeting had a severly lessened turnout in contrast to last year's. But it was nice seeing the other people who had woken up at that unearthly hour just to be there. It was strange when people started coming to school and looked at us curiously, not quite understanding why we would be sitting in the netball court in twos and threes. Yet i feel good about having been involved in this, and it will go down as one of the "just do it"s that i don't regret. Believe in the great awakening.

2003-08-07T07:13:00.000-07:00

Today was a lovely day. What with four hours of class cut away from our day, leaving us a blissfully free afternoon to whittle away on typical 1d fun. We had our subway usuals, we perfected the muppet dance, we revisited our old friend (Manda's WaterBed), and we discovered a new wholesome activity that's better than watching a movie:making music videos. We're quite a chorale. We did a spunky version of AmazingGrace and have it on tape. Hahaha. We also realised that we're the only generation blessed with the magic of Disney movies. Not the modern computer-animated wonders like finding nemo, but the old movies. The ones that were hand-painted, the ones with the disney princesses, the ones with the fabulous songs like Kiss The Girl and Tale as Old as Time. Our children will never understand just how important the little mermaid was. Ariel was my heroine, she with her red hair and large eyes. I feel like a little girl all over again. Protective of my heroine as the times threaten to wipe her out of existence.

I must stop the bad habit of absentmindedness. It has wrecked my world time and again. Latest catastrophe: we left our precious pw file in some classroom and only discovered it was missing one week later. Ms tan's gloomy prediction that we'd get zero marks, punctuated with her smacking of her forehead, made me feel miserably guilty. After causing a hoohaa in every staff room, we finally found the thing. Thankfully. I can't imagine my life without it, this thing that's been the cause of much misery. So we vowed never to be irresponsible ditzes again. Then guess what? We left the pw classroom and happily left the file on the table. Ms tan's face was like a black cloud. Oops.

My insanely enthusiastic class has made me do things i never thought i'd do. So tomorrow, if the need exists, i will run.

2003-08-03T07:01:00.000-07:00

Some things really never change. Perhaps that's the meaning of tradition and heritage. My dad's family still has those quirky little habits that add up to charm. The same uneasiness before a function, the methodical programs when we should all just relax and eat, the taking of photos in front of the dinner table, the same jokes made about uncle jerry's size, the same tv-side conversations, the same packing of leftover food. There are so many Tans that newcomers always can't help but be overwhelmed. We're this large, somewhat Peranakan family with self-written rules for everything. Every year's event is the same as the year before, whether it's a birthday or Christmas or Chinese new year. They might as well have been the same evening repeated every time. And the house, our own piece of history written in concrete, stands the same after over 60 years. The trees my grandfather planted still bear fruit, the old-fashioned shutter windows and tiled floor are unchanged, the wide expanse of garden is bare but for the metal swing. The swing is a symbol of my childhood--Christmases spent rowdily crowded on the loveseat, all 7 of us cousins, until the new generation of toddlers took over our place as kids. All those little things that haven't let time affect them at all. It's like the house is in a world of its own where progress can't touch it, where all of our family's history is preserved in full. The pictures of my grandparents on the wall above the piano were put up when they got married, and i think they will never be removed. Change is not typical of my dad's family. It's frustrating sometimes how rigid their ways are, but it occurred to me last night that if and when change does shake the traditions of this clan, i will feel sad, if just a little. Will my generation continue meeting every Christmas and New Year? Will the potluck tradition continue? Will we even know how to cook? Or will the tradition simply evaporate because we never felt the need to preserve it in the first place? All the things they refuse to change could be erased when it's our turn to be family and organize family gatherings. And if the house goes, Katong will lose its only real artefact. They don't make houses like that anymore--small with a huge yard for trees and vegetation, except nobody farms it anymore. Neither do they come with such a low roof and a roomy garage, or a latch-gate on the porch. Impractical for fast days like these, and too ancient to be fashionably retro, but quaint in its nostalgic way. Quaint in the way it is the same from my earliest memories, and even from my father's earliest memories. Maybe it's only unchanged on the outside. Although the gatherings have become rituals of habit, at least they bring us all together, and that's still something. I might not be crazy about the rituals, but I don't want to lose that.
Happy birthday Daddy. You don't look 53 at all. You don't look a day over 42.

2003-08-01T23:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the perfect way to end the week. I learnt how to say "the little monster is hungry" and "the small flying green pig is hungry" in tamil. Very useful phrases. During art Joeun and i were making shapes out of plasticine and making each other guess what they were. Somehow i could understand her offbeat thoughts--she made a hamburger without the fillings, and i guessed instantly. Then i had dinner with pakster, which now that i think about it, lasted two greedy hours and spanned over two locations. The girl had some subconscious fixation with round white things i think. Shepherd's pie, tangyuan, then fishballs. Do you not see a disturbing pattern there? Then we all went to dramafeste. Our row had simultaneous heart attacks and respiratory difficulties when a certain gp teacher walked in with her Friend from the netherlands. We knew he lived in the netherlands, we just didn't think he really would be from the netherlands. How could we have guessed?! He was a surreal vision, a hallucination, a shock. Seated next to the lady who tutors us. There could not have been any more bizarre sight. Before we could quite recover, the lights dimmed and the show started. Arts fac completely blew away the rest of the competition. I never expected to laugh so much-- the entire play was hilarious. Seeing carissa's performance reminded me of the little plays we had in secondary school, when she acted as a fashionable filipino maid and assorted eccentrics. I can't get over her evil-dragon pose last night. And of course our superstar Manda was brilliant. Ivan smacking the sars sticker on the wall was classic. I think they all acted really well. Every single one of them. And the plot was fresh, surprising, wild. Really fantastic. I think they deserved more than second place. Med fac's Warren character gave the end of their play a disturbing twist with his chilling "humpty dumpty" song. They did really well, but argh arts definitely "brought the house down" as one of the judges said. Sadly there was only one prize. But great job guys, and Manda, Azi, and Dharma, i think we are all glad you chose dramafeste over ifg.
At least i have happy thoughts to chew on before i drown myself in Mao and his Hundred Flowers.

2003-07-29T07:48:00.000-07:00

Moon's lifted out of the water and back in the sky. After being sedated all weekend, i truly appreciate what i've always taken for granted--health. We were down for floorball today, and once again were beaten to dust by the hockey players, of whom arts fac has none. It was tragicomedy, letting ourselves be killed and pretending to have fun all the while. It takes some kind of courage to do that. Courage, mixed with a good amount of stupidity and insulated with very thick skin. I love the way 1d is in everything. The entire class is involved in dramafest too, but this time i had to say no. I'm learning to say no. Yesterday's history talk on prostitution in singapore was another comically tragic affair. He must be one of the most longwinded historians around. I should have guessed, judging from the bunch of notes he wrote on the same topic. But while i could skip the needless first few pages to get to the bits of information, i couldn't skip past the first 45 minutes of his talk, which ran drowsy circles around how he started writing history books and how he finds sources of information. I left before the main bulk of it, the poor guy. Manda's phone is lost to her forever. May it rest beyond the reach of any signal, peaceful under grains of sand. Manda must be the most ridiculous person around. I'm determined to do a few things differently this term. No longer will i do anything to upset laoshi. No longer will i use a key lock for my locker. I will be in class in spirit and not just physically. I will not let grumpy teachers ruin my mood. Rather, i shall find something funny about the whole thing and let it pass. I will rest on weekends. I will learn to collect money systematically. I will write things in my schedule book and remember to check my schedule book for reminders. I will not wheedle away precious free hours in school. But most of all, I will not stop having faith that prayer can change things. I will not be a prop, but a player. These are things i always tell myself at the start of every new leap. Somehow this time is different. All the "i will"s stem from a weekend of deep thought over my role in this fragile world. It did cross my mind that maybe we are all fleeting shadows with nowhere to run to, but i know with all my heart that isn't true. There is much to live for, and much to fight for. Brings back what chloe wrote to me some time after buggy died.

"i want to let go but i will not let go.
there are battles to fight
by day and by night
for God and the right
so I will not let go."

2003-07-26T02:09:00.000-07:00

Everything that has happened in this week seems to have crashed, and it's forgotten and dismissed by everyone, including myself. We go about our days making them as full as we can, and then something like this happens and we see how empty all our activities are. All the mindless rowdiness is hushed, all the jokes are only half as funny, all the problems we thought were the centre of our universe now are rendered insignificant next to something like this. Time is standing still. For me, for many out there. You can have everything going for you, but what does it mean at the end of the day? What sustains you? What gives you reason to live? Is it success? Is it friendship? Is it that special someone? Is it enough? When the crazy commotion of the day has waned into silence, does it still fill you in the dead of the night? I know that for all the achievements and fun, I would be empty if not for God's promises. This crazy week of adrenaline rushes has been strangled to an end, and I feel foolish for thinking it of utmost importance. Think back to wednesday, think back to floorball. Was someone cheering beside me actually crying inside? I wouldn't know, I'd never know. I've been so absorbed in my tasks that I stopped short of listening to the unspoken words, stopped short of listening even to myself. All the small things that pave the way day by day for me could one day fall away beneath my feet, and there'll be nothing to stand on. Maybe that's how she felt, just maybe. I feel like anything i say about it now will be ignorant in more than one way. I'm just watching my life slow to a stop. Just yesterday I was still high from the week's events. I went back to mg and saw all the transformed familiar faces in their new blazers, I walked up that stage and was a graduate, I bowed my head for the benediction again, I listened to the handbells as part of an audience, I stood for the school song. I smiled for cameras, I ate the reception food. Then I heard the news back at rj. One sentence can halt a day instantly. One sentence, and everything else looks like it's been done in vain. There are many things that keep me alive, and not just alive physically, but which make me want to live on. Was there nothing that could have made her want to stay?

2003-07-21T21:45:00.000-07:00

Taking a break from school because it seems I haven't had a good break in ages. We're getting psyched up about everything, and the feeling that i've accomplished the once impossible makes it worth the while. I love the way my class goes all out to have fun, even if it means looking like fools to the rest of the world. Yesterday saw us all decked out in costumes out of Tarling, with Manda as the Chinese merchant-cum-collaborator, and the rest of us as oppressed natives under colonial rule. We sweltered and stuck it out in the half-classrooms, with every last one of us falling asleep during gp. (Except jason though, i remember hearing him discuss something with miss tan.) Now i know why peranakan women grow up to be grumpy old fusses. The lace top is impractical for steamy singapore weather, completely impractical. But it was a fun day because we decided to make it fun. I'll always remember the korean visions of yesterday--first Joeun wearing the whole puffy thing over her uniform, because she really is such a character, then Dharma putting it on and looking like a darling waddly cream puff, then Dawn, who was a little present of a Takopachi. Painting in my costume proved a bit tricky though. I felt like a cookshow host--squeezing out paint at a full arms' length from myself. There'll never be another day like that again.
On saturday night i attended this talk by an amazing guy called neville tan. I have to write it down so that i never ever will forget it. He's 62 now, and looking at him you'd think he was any other elderly man. But at 16, he was on the 10 Most Wanted Criminals List in singapore. He never did say what crimes he'd committed, but they were enough to land him in jail for 15 years. He'd lived a few doors away from a church, and had even attended sunday school, but he'd always been a skeptic. He'd always mocked the name of God. The last time he was imprisoned, the judge looked at him and declared, "You are incorrigible. Nothing can change you." His inmates called him the Iron Man, for he was the hardest among them. A pastor tried converting him many times, and finally said, "If you don't believe in God, you will go to hell!" Neville just replied, "Bragger, you and your Bible can just go to hell. Even if I go to hell, at least my friends and my girlfriend are all in hell too! But if i go to heaven, you will be there. And if all the people in heaven are like you, I won't be able to stand it." Some time later, he was transferred to an isolation cell under maximum security, because he had found a piece of metal and had been sharpening it into a blade, and was going to kill his guard. In that cell, he saw no sunlight for three months. Somehow someone smuggled a few pages of a bible into his cell, and he started to read it. It was the first chapter of Luke. He read it and laughed and laughed. It was about an old barren woman who had a baby, and the following story was about the virgin Mary, who also became pregnant through the Holy Spirit. He thought, this is so stupid. How can anyone believe this kind of stupid thing? Yet one of the verses read: "for nothing is impossible with God." Then as he read he saw the name "Jesus", and it brought back whole memories of his time in Sunday School. He remembered his teacher saying, "If you ask anything in the name of Jesus and believe, it will be given to you." He was desperate--he wanted to get out of the isolation cell so much that he was willing to give it a try. He prayed, "God, in the name of Jesus, open the cell door!" He truly believed he'd found the magic words. But when he opened his eyes, nothing had happened. The door was still closed. Then he became angry at God and shouted, "I will not let you go, God! If you don't open the door, I will sit here in front of the door every day and ask you to open it!" Fourteen days later, the door was opened. As he was led out of the cell, he read the notice pinned on the outside of the cell door: "This criminal will be put under maximum security conditions until the day of his release." That would have been 3 and a half years later. Then he really believed it was because he had prayed. But when his cellmates asked him why he'd come back, given the guards had told them they'd never see him again, he lied and said he'd grabbed the guard by the throat and made him open the door. He couldn't break down his reputation as the Iron Man. He continued being hard, until he received news that his mother, the only person in the world who loved him, was dying. He wanted to go and see her, but he wasn't allowed to because he was a dangerous criminal. She died with his name on her lips although all her other children were around her. The night that she died, he saw no more reason to live. He wanted to eat a bar of soap to kill himself. As he was just about to, the hymn "the lord is my shepherd" strangely found its way into his head, and he remembered that once he had opened a bible and sang it straight out from psalms. He searched the cell and found a small gideon's new testament, that for some wonderful reason had psalms included behind it. The thing is, he searched for that psalm 3 times and couldn't find it. He became frustrated and angry, and hurled the bible against the wall, such that the cover fell off and it split open. But split open to which page? Psalm 23: the lord is my shepherd. Amazingly. He read : "even though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death..." and he realised that was exactly where he was then-- heading towards his own death, and he saw that God had pulled him out of it in the nick of time. Then he believed. That was his turning point. He had only primary 5 education at that point; he later became the very first prisoner in Changi Prison to complete his Cambridge education during his jail term. He changed completely, and now pastors a church. His parting words were, "Unbelievable? But God is the God of the impossible. If you cannot believe that an old woman can have a baby, or that a virgin can conceive, then you cannot believe that the Red Sea was parted. Then you cannot believe that someone like me can change."

2003-07-18T20:31:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy week. The good thing is now i'm sure that i have not made the wrong choice to take part in all these things. Sometimes you just have to forget about yourself and your pride for a second before you can really have fun in things you once thought were out of the question. That's all i'm saying about c. But a couple of nights ago i had serious doubts about everything i was doing. Didn't trust that there was any meaning in all that i was a part of. Thought that maybe i was deluding myself that there was a point to all this bustling about. Then i realised that becoming more involved in things wasn't the answer to having a full life. Yes, so i was not allowing myself any room for regrets, i was saying yes to everything so that i wouldn't look back and say "i wish i had.." and every day was filled with insane fun. If all of that can make a life full, then why did i feel that emptiness inside when the noise had died down? Why that coreless soul, why the hasty flight of the high happiness that was there in the afternoon? That superficial happiness that things around me gave me couldn't last. Maybe i had expected it to. Sometimes I miss the quiet sensitivity of serious conversations, the silent moments just looking out at the field, the chapel sessions at mgs. Being extraordinarily insane is fun, but i get weary of myself when the energy fizzes out. I uncannily felt the same things stef told me she felt--not knowing what the point of coming to school was anymore. I wouldn't be able to survive without the little acts of sweetness that perfume my days. The flowers yesterday, the subway sandwich, the conspiring wavy fingers, the cold bites of kitkat. Thank you for all of that. But i have to depend on something else altogether to sustain me. Because the kind of happiness that lasts and lasts comes from somewhere deep inside me. Not from receiving things, not even from giving myself to various things. Despite all i've said, i really hope wednesday goes well. C brings a whole new meaning to trust. Trusting madly that there will be hands to catch you, to break your fall, to stop you from crashing.

2003-07-15T07:55:00.000-07:00

I'm tangling myself up in a flurry of new activities, trying to make this year as full as i can before it slips away. I just hope i don't lose sight of what i truly live for, or break down into amnesia. Today's oral examination was not too bad. I was trembling with jitters until it was over, especially because while we were waiting for our turns, the examiners kept pointing at either sherman or me and laughing . As if oral's not traumatic enough in itself. The vested bloke provided light entertainment though, being a very nice teacher-in-charge and altogether mysterious (does the vest keep him warm?slim?fashionable?we'll never know). During the conversation i managed to find substitute words for the ones i really wanted to say, so there weren't any dreadful gaps i couldn't fill. I think some of the things i said sounded awkward though. The lady examiner just refused to look at me although i tried to make eye contact. Women.
Steph came to rj today! She was part of the nj cheerleading team here to help cps fac with their routine. I ran to the weights room to look for her. Thank God, she's still the same Steph as the one in that photo we took in sec 2 by the railing, and the same girl who crept around school with me looking for mysteries to solve in our primary years. The last few days have been wild assortments of everything imaginable. I have to sit down and sort them out slowly before i can remember them properly. The things that stand out: climbing into school to help minli make giant hats on sunday, making sheila do her amazing dance over and over again, finding out that the rj sweater ivan simply found around school is actually mr prince's, fighting over massacred jellies, eating lots of mock meat, manda shouting in genuine horror when she looked at the board and saw mr lim's handwriting, and dharma having a c on m l. Hahaha. We figured out that the best ab workouts are done at stef's house, because we laugh till it actually hurts the next day, and still get to eat all the luxury junk food we like in the process. I'm trying to remember how strangers became necessary companions, and how mere companions became good friends, but i can't. It's almost as if it just happened, with no trace of where it first started. That's the nice thing about nice things.

This week's assignment for the curious: listen to rainbow connection by me first and the gimmes.

2003-07-11T20:18:00.000-07:00

Well now listening is out of the way at last. I've got an hour and a half to kill in school, and i'm especially grateful for the art room at times like these. No one will ever find me here, and i don't have to accept whatever the canteen or library or other crowded place has to offer. Last night was in a word, dreadful. I'd finished my painting finally, and then i decided to cover it all with a layer of varnish. Somehow i managed to use some cursed expired varnish that didn't dry transparent as it should. It left white bubbles all over my work. No choice but to paint over the entire thing painstakingly, for maybe the eighth time this week. I would have dissolved into tears if i hadn't used solid blocks of colour for most of the painting. Thank God that i had been too lazy to blend fancifully or even to mix shades of colour. I had used paint straight from the bottle, and that saved my life. And mr liew helped me finish a portion of it, all the while saying comforting things like "the colour looks brighter when it's painted over the layer of varnish, don't you think?" Sure. I worked until 8 and then cabbed home, once again not very appreciative of life's brand of sadistic humour. Carissa, thanks again for the note--it was the kind of surprise that puts rose borders around a day. After what you said, i feel like i have to live up to your description of me, and stay afloat on the little things. I wish it would rain and rain and never stop until tomorrow morning. Rain on my grades, rain on project work, rain on training, rain on everything that is anyway dampening my mood. Rain on us to remind us that rain falls on everyone. Rain to soften the sun. Rain so that little children still asleep can hear the raindrops on their windows telling them to curl up and continue sleeping. I just remembered that my last hamster was called Rainy. It ran away and i never dealt with hamsters again. I got myself a cat. Don't stop raining, just don't.

2003-07-10T07:49:00.000-07:00

I've been listening to a lot of joe cocker lately. There's something about that man's voice that can transform any cold heart into a believing one, and a happy heart into one that feels like it could be ripped apart. Today was a very long day, as my thursdays usually are. But today dragged on to the point where my skies seemed to be stretched too thin over my little globe. There was everything to hope for, and everything to look forward to and be happy about, but there was that dark little cloud hovering with a destructive grin, over my paradise. And just like that it was paradise lost. Nothing to rescue me out of my fishtank. Nothing to chain all the crazy-laughing-cheesecake-art-poetry-spexgal-juice moments into a happy chain of gold to be worn as the medal of my day. Then I realised that all those little things were only backdrops to the "happy" days i've had before. What kept me alive for those things was something else altogether. So now i know. It was something i'd only suspected. Maybe this is life's little joke on us, snatching the magic carpet from under our feet when we're high in the sky. My first sculpture was a bound angel. Today's was a man trying to fix a broken heart. His maybe, or it could be someone else's heart. I have a strange sympathy for failed heroes, triumphs that turned into tragedies, the downcast, the downtrodden. Because i always imagine that they will one day stand again, stronger and healed. My little failed cupid's victim will piece that broken heart together again, because i say so. And my fish tank will be enough paradise for me, because i will make myself interested in the circles i swim in. This is not an essay meant to encourage myself. It's just a prediction of the way things will go, how i know they will go. We are only as happy as we allow ourselves to be. Meanwhile there can be real joy in little styrofoam flakes, and idle walks around the flower-littered track, and songs. Things of little consequence, but joyous things nonetheless. I shall build a life out of little things, such as my growing book list which is waiting for me to conquer slowly, page by page. The doubts, the temporarily-forgotten emptiness, and the imagined discontentment, will unknot themselves eventually. And there are still the arms below waiting to catch me if i should fall. That's all i need to get through life. Or at least until the end of this week.

i'll never be the same without you
i loved you more than you will ever know
so maybe now you finally know

2003-07-06T08:17:00.000-07:00

Bits and pieces of the weekend are still milling around in my head, little scraps of sunshine that won't go away, not ever. I might have a problem with my short-term memory loss, but things like these will never be forgotten. Like us sitting on the floor of jac's huge bedroom looking at photos of dot's fairytale castle school in fairytale england and that little guy with the donald duck tie. (or was it some other disney character?) And watching "remember the titans" until 4 in the morning because it was too nice to miss for sleep, while dot watched mary poppins at the other side of her room. That's how big her room is. And feeling the speakers pump the bass into the floor such that we could feel it, and goofing around until jac reminded us that her mum was sleeping. And just being in the presence of people like michelle lee and dot and jane and ashley and carissa and stella and lots more--people who i know for sure that i am safe with. And earlier, laughing about horrid singaporean chinese boys with their singlets, shorts, flat hair, skinny legs, dark skin, specs and slippers. And then nearly collapsing as i realised that firstly, those adorable little baby boys who i'd die to pat the heads of will grow into monstrous embarrassments such as these, and secondly, that my own sons will be singaporean chinese boys. Oh help me. I feel like i'm willingly deceiving myself when i say now that my sons will not bear any resemblance to those at venezia that day. They will be well-mannered and sit still instead of prancing round the table and letting out vicious burps. They will be dressed nicely and not tuck in their t-shirts repeatedly throughout the course of their meal. I have a lot of feeling about this issue.
On a less class-less note, i'm reading a wonderful book that i borrowed off charmian's shelf entitled "man and boy." There was this part where the guy looked around at the things his wife left behind when she walked out on him, and he couldn't bear looking at all of it because he missed her too much. Her cds, her books, not to his taste, but things he loved because they were hers. He packed them all away into trash bags. Then he spent hours putting them all back where he took them from. Because he missed her too much to not see them anymore, and he wanted them to be there in case she decided to come back again. I've been moving from comfortable chair to comfortable chair throughout the evening, and i think i'll go back to my book-reading chair right about now.

2003-07-05T08:29:00.000-07:00

I forgot to bring the candle bear to the reunion. That was the only regret i had about yesterday. We ended up sleeping at four-thirtyish, the time that ash and jane decided they would go to newton for supper. Since i woke up this morning i've been having a hazy sort of nice day. Last night four of us were upstairs by ourselves talking about how our lives have changed since jc, and about how we started becoming friends in mg because we couldn't really blend in with the brains in class. I suddenly felt so estranged from our past, our past being only a thing of last year but a world away. All the little constant comforts that we'd just accepted as a part of our lives, like chapel, and the roomy corridors, and the general warmth that i never felt until i left the place--they all are things that we have left behind forever. Jane was saying that she shouldn't have gone to australia, and we were saying how we should have gone overseas, and i was struck by the way we were all longing for something that we didn't have. Can't we just choose one path and forget all the other untaken roads? It would make living so much easier and happier. I guess that was what Robert Frost meant in his poem. Our hearts will never be at rest if we are always thinking about the alternatives. Still i can't say i'm not the happiest i could be where i am right now. I didn't get the humans scholarship in the first term, but that gave me friends and teachers that i wouldn't have if i had been sent down the lane of my original choice. I screwed up my chinese o's, but i learned some hefty and necessary lessons in chinese class in exchange. I should say that my entire life has been orchestrated in an amazing way, with more than one miracle to get me through. I would have it no other way. We will all find the meaning behind these doubtful turns someday. Meanwhile life goes on with or without us. We were shifted out of mgs when we cleared out of our classroom, and the places of memory for us are now the places of memory for those who have replaced us. There are musicians to fill in the missing parts we left behind; there are close-knit cliques to sit in the spots around school that were once occupied by our cliques; there are eyes to admire the open field that was once our duty to admire. And just like that, we are of no importance in the place we spent four of our growing-up years in. We are no longer part of the scene, not even figures in the background that contribute to the atmosphere. Not as missed as we imagine. i hate to think of our footprints as transient, elusive things, but i've learnt that they are. We have to live as people fully merged into our surroundings before the time comes when we are once again swept away.

2003-07-03T08:29:00.000-07:00

Today was quite easily the best day i've had in weeks. I did not simply write one line for history as i'd thought i would, and i think i can stop hating the subject from now on. One more paper tomorrow but i started the celebrations today. We trooped down to town and met almost the whole arts fac on the bus, and throughout the day, a lot of acjc familiars who couldn't recognise me. Then grabbed a pint of ice cream and went to stef's house, which we have found to be a greenhouse for insanity. Each time we go there the madness is overpowering. It must be in the air, or the combination of silly people, haagen dazs and waffle crisps. We conducted a little support group session for those struggling with mental conditions. Silly people. And the rain, lovely scentless refreshing rain. I'd forgotten how nice it was to just stand still and let the rain pour down and moisten hair and skin and spirit. It was the kind of day which had no schedule. Every minute was spontaneous, unplanned, free. If only we could live every day like this, unburdened. The thing is such days are only made wonderful by long stretches of bad days. And after monday, it's back to the crumpled world of project work, undone tutorials and teachers' disappointed glances. It would be good enough to have this one day to remember, but it looks like four more days of bliss. Tomorrow's the long-awaited sleepover reunion, where i'll see jane!and dot! and see how they've grown fairer and more beautiful from the blessed air of other countries. And i'll remember to bring the bear candle so we can finally burn it and watch it's face melt down into its shoulders. HAhaha.

2003-07-01T05:30:00.000-07:00

Why do these few days feel more like holidays than test days? (And why did the last week of my holidays feel like study camp?) I made a new pair of specs and i'll collect them by this week. Yay. It's goodbye to crooked, oval, embarrassing specs that i painted with nail polish in an attempt to make them pretty. They never really saw me out of the house because i hated them so. I'm starting to seriously notice the Gilmore-Girl-ish aspects of the relationship between my mum and me. We banter, we share clothes. We stare at pretty girls, we laugh at clueless folks. We go impulse-shopping. We share inside jokes about my dad. Sometimes i think this all wouldn't really be possible if it wasn't just me in the house. I've had my share of sitting in a pool of melancholy thought just wondering what it would be like to have someone i could call my sister, or my brother. And how i want so much to mention in passing as casually as they all seem to do, "my brother does that too..." or "i have to pick up my sis..." And how that will never be something i can do. I talked to my parents quite seriously about adoption, saying how if it was something they wanted to do years ago, they should do it now, especially since i'm around to help. There are a number of ethical issues involved, as my mum told me a few days later. Firstly, adopting a baby comes with a price, around ten thousand dollars, and she doesn't feel good about paying this money to someone who's willing to sell her child for ten thousand dollars. Secondly, taking an older child out of an orphanage may not be the best thing you can do for a child who has grown up in such a world. And also she said that she doesn't want to find herself in a position where she has the power to reject a child. Everyone thinks that they will be strong enough to accept a child with any defect, until they find themselves in that situation and they're put to the test. She doesn't want to know that she is capable of rejecting a child. Since then i've stopped asking, but i haven't stopped hoping for a baby to appear at our doorstep. And happily living out my life as a single child--the life that i've felt complete in for as long as i knew the meaning of "family".

2003-06-28T04:30:00.000-07:00

Wedding bells rang today. I had a wonderful dinner. The sky was a perfect shade of blue. Enough reasons to be happy. Do you laugh when you're happy? I do. For no reason but that my heart's light. I remember taking one bite of Sheila's milky way pop-doh donut and just bursting into effervescent laughter. Of course I choked, but laughter can't be caged up. And tonight, I made myself a bowl of dessert--cookies and cream ice cream with broken pieces of chocolate fudge pop-tarts thrown on top--and the very first mouthful was happiness. I know i should be worrying about the cts and i definitely should not be sitting here writing about how happy i am, but if i don't the feeling will pass into some forgotten realm and never be acknowledged. So there. I am happy. Happy just thinking about how it'll all be over by next week, and thinking about next friday's sleepover reunion if it happens. Faces I want to see and stories I want to tell, and how we'll all drag out shining memories to have a look at again. I found a couple of cds i burnt last year, and the songs on them just brought back flashes of horrifying scenes. At Stef's house we were talking about how we burn cds according to the time of our lives associated with the songs, and these 2 cds i found were compiled during the month of my prelims last year. They're all good songs, but they make me think of myself sitting on the floor spreading smelly gooey glue on my research boards with my fingers, and they make me think of aveoli and phloems and piths. I realise i'll like a song more if its lyrics coincide with the state of my heart, or if i heard it when something magical was happening in my life. Every song I listen to carries with it a memory, or a crumb of some elusive emotion. Such is the power of music.

If i were a painter
And could paint a memory
I'd climb inside the swirling skies
To be with you (norah jones)

2003-06-26T08:03:00.000-07:00

I wish i could race past this part of my life to a more certain time. As if it'd all be easier with time. Of course I know that's not true. You only live each moment once. Years from now i'll look back and say, "those were the good times." I received the invitation back to mgs for founder's day and was reminded how ridiculously detailed miss kon is. "The school's 116th... in the ME Lau hall." There's only one secondary school hall. "by 7 a.m. in the Puan Sri Helene Tan Chin Tuan Library..." Hello? There's only one library. Those are some of the quirks i never thought i'd feel nostalgic about. Now I'm thinking about how I'll be walking on that grey tiled floor and seeing mrs grump-librarian tan with her huge specs, and hock seng digging for straws in the dustbins, and the red bowl noodles, and the handbells notice board (wonder if it's been changed at all), and the huge toilets in which paki, jane and i spent our free periods, and left paki's hair in... oh and the windy bench where we sat and scrutinised young things and watched out for Hopeless Pest, Egyptian and Small fry... mrs chan with her diva attitude, Hot Babe qian ping, precious moments-eyes mrs ang, mrs sim who hated me because i had a dreamy look in class, and all those teachers who had the power to make my life bearable or not. The view of "england" from our classroom and the two stumps in the field that i pretended were meerkats, and the white structures in the distance that i pretended were zebras...and the fabulous pink and purple sunrises that i was always early enough to catch... the laboratories where i had my brief affair with all things scientific, the public phone that was the last one i've ever used, the one which we made prank calls with, the one that we had to line up for. The locker that i shared with 11 other people... the cupboard where i hid my handphone before a spot check... the million other little things that made up the mundane and marvellous bits of my life. Here i am, out of all that, collecting new memories and storing them in a bag with a different label.

TIme, ain't nothing but time
it's a verse with no rhyme
then it all comes down to you

2003-06-23T08:51:00.000-07:00

I can't study through the night. I tried to last night, and lousy me couldn't make it. Nonetheless, I shall try to again tonight. I still wish i was taking geography. I'd never wanted geography before, not even when i was taking it last year. But i'm not made for politics, nor am i made for argumental debates about things i don't even entirely believe in. Yet this is the path i was sure i wanted, and so i'll trudge along. Maybe it'll get fun soon. Meanwhile i'll have to depend on other things to get me through this week and past the common tests. Like dark chocolate, which i discovered today. I normally go for the nutty milk chocolates that true gourmets would snub, but today i took a little nibble of my father's dark rum n raisin chocolate. I am enlightened. I understand why all you lovers of dark chocolate won't so much as look at an ordinary little chocolate easter egg.
I remember a conversation i had some years ago with a friend. We were imagining what the land of Nowhere looked like. I pictured it as a misty grey cloud of nothingness with a little sparkle in the air. But now I think it could look like anything. It could even be right here. It could be an important street with jostling crowds, it could be my room with everything i own, it could be in the cinema among all the heads turned up to the screen. You can be somewhere in person but be Nowhere in your soul.

2003-06-22T07:20:00.000-07:00

While sitting in the car to the airport today i saw a rainbow stretched across the sky from cloud to cloud, a visible imprint of God's promise. We picked my dad up and had dinner there. As we ate i witnessed a startling sunset over the landing field. With skies like that, i couldn't really be very angry with loud troublesome Singaporeans, nor the smug man in the horrible green shirt who stole my chicken baked rice and left me waiting for my food for almost an hour. My mum kept me entertained with fragments of my feisty past, which include a three-year-old me demanding everyone watch me as i walked down the aisle of an exhibition centre as a bride. I must tell Bong more about this, because she suffered my three-year-old nonsense. My dad said that the real me is "hiding behind a demure front". That's something to think about. I realise that when i'm with people i'm most comfortable with, i'm at my brightest. And then when i enter a room of strangers, i can turn that light off. It's almost subconscious, this switching on of personalities. Whether it's a good thing, i can't really be bothered to know.
Yesterday was the interact camp for kids--not disabled, but normal healthy kids--and i helped out at the art club workshop. Yang han taught them how to draw human faces. It was rather amusing that the faces each of the children drew somewhat reflected them. Big-eyed little girls drew big-eyed faces; spaced-out kids drew faces with blank expressions; monstrous little rascals drew faces with horns and fangs. I was terrified by a particular bully who shouted at everyone and was desperately bossy. Never had i met a little girl quite so scary. I'm glad i'm not her daughter or her maid. Imagine what a terror she'll grow up to be. I can already see her screaming at her three sons as they run about the market. And yes, the face she drew was a monumental horror, all slashed and disfigured.
I'm starting to panic about the common tests now. Just the other day this nightmarish thought crossed my mind: is it too late to change history for geography? I'd already gotten the hang of geography. But of course it's too late, and too catastrophic a change. I couldn't leave my class.
When everything seems fine, it's easy to be happy. So i'm happy. I think. The happiest day was three saturdays ago, the 7th of june. It was the day i felt high and ready for anything. i want that feeling back.

Catch my heart--
It is of one wish
That i have carefully threaded in your absence--
The wish to spend the rest of my days
Walking down misty avenues
With cloaked trees on either side,
And parks where bright children
play and laugh and where
couples sit in glowing circles,
heaven found in each other's eyes;
And down this avenue will be
the coffeehouse where we have
our scones and quiet conversations
about everything,
So that while walking i can imagine
Our seat by the window waiting for us.
But first, to start:
Catch my heart.

2003-06-19T06:59:00.000-07:00

So I spent a week here. Was it everything the dreamer in me had expected? Well, is there anything that is ever up to our expectations. But I learnt many things on this trip, about the culture, about the people, about myself. I've been the quiet observer these days, sheltered in my own independence. I could live this way, not exactly alone, but more independent than i thought i could be. Sitting in all those interviews showed me more about japan than i could ever learn by walking on the streets. The thing i've noticed about the japanese is that they have a culture of hiding their real intentions. To be polite, to be accepted, they seldom say what they truly feel. They will guess what you want to hear, and respond in the way that will please you. Nobody can live that way without going insane. This country has the highest number of patients with mental illnesses, and the highest suicide rate. It is a country with sparkling spotless streets and impeccably beautiful cakes and packaging, but that is all that is. Packaging. The people are groomed to what seems like perfection, but inside they are empty from the constant suppressing of their emotions and the masquerade that goes on and on. And they have a history which teaches that suicide can be heroic. Kamikaze samurais who killed themselves because they failed to protect their emperor are remembered as warriors who died noble deaths. Influenced by their religion and culture, they live believing that there is no room for second chances, that a failure is the end, and that if they find no more meaning in life, at least they can end their life in a noble way. I promised i wouldn't see the sadness in happy things, but are things really happy anyway?
I've also learnt about the fragility of human relationships. I believe even more now that we end up holding the hands of those who happen to be beside us. We might have soulmates all over the world but the people who we grow to need the most are those who are right beside us when we need friends. It's the way our hearts are made, to cling to the nearest lifebuoy, and it helps us survive in this harsh world where people are pulled apart.
It is a wonderful thing, when the person you want to speak to the most is the person you see everyday. Not distant in any sense of the word, not missed.

if i can stop one heart from breaking, i shall not have lived in vain. -emily dickenson

2003-06-17T17:05:00.000-07:00

I was reminded yesterday what a disturbed place I'm in. We had breakfast with the interviews, and they were talking about the youths in Japan. The suicide rate has always been very high, with shocking statistics showing one jump in front of a train every ?? minutes. But the latest trend stirs me in a way too dark for me to handle. Young people now go online to meet people who like themselves find no meaning in life. They plan to meet, set a date and time, and then they die together. Finding a friend just to die with. My friends give me reason to live.

2003-06-16T04:54:00.000-07:00

News from home: my aunt walked in my house to find a dead bird in front of the tv. y-u-c-k. There were apparently a few feathers scattered around, but the bird was intact and whole, thank God. My cats are sweet creatures. How could they--? How did the bird get in? A bird? And what kind of bird? I'm glad i wasn't there to discover it. Good grief.
Today was the first day of the interviews, and i followed my mum around and took photos of people talking. It's interesting that the interviews never worry about the camera. If i was being interviewed and my every gesture was followed by a flash, i'd freeze up. All that work and walking from place to place has taken up a lot of study time. The common tests are always always on the back of my mind, annoyingly enough. When i get annoyed i just look out at the misty avenues and tiny tots with their thick glossy hair and i can't stay annoyed. I used to look at kids and feel sad because i imagined the way their innocence could be warped as the years changed them. But i've changed--now i see all the pure happiness and innocence they possess, and how it can be preserved. It's a much brighter way to look at things. I've always been too melancholic for my own good--I've always seen the philosophical tragedy in things, always seen the element of sad poetry in superficially happy scenes. But where's the hope in that? Where's the joy that is God-given? Things will always have two sides to them, because people are complex and life is complex. But i don't have to have two sides to my emotion. I don't have to mix the sad with the happy. I can be happy, simply happy without worrying about the future, and i'm just learning that.

"For it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast. " Eph 2:8-9

2003-06-15T06:48:00.000-07:00

It's a cool day, with feathery rain and the kind of air that leaves your cheeks and hands tingling.
Father's Day dinner was eaten in tonight. We bought back fried stuff and made egg soup. My dad's leaving for hongkong tomorrow, and i wish he didn't have to. Why hongkong of all places, and why now? But that's what he has to do.
I went down to the Kawagoe Baptist Church this morning. I would have walked all the way from the station but it was raining. All the while the songs that were the soundtrack to my memories kept on playing in my head. "My favourite thing that drives me wild/ is when a city girl walks a country mile/ for the boy she loves, God bless the child"... and "you know i'd walk a thousand miles if i could just see you tonight"... too bad i wasn't actually walking this time. I passed by all the places that held so much meaning to me. The bridge i cycled on to and from the family mart, the vending machine that told me i had to make a left turn, the grape vines that poor little city me saw for the first time, the park where i made a little boy smile with my present of a book. And then the house. They were holding a puppetshow, and so the neighbourhood kids filled the room. The Kawata kids have grown-- Sayuri looks more like sixteen than thirteen, and the rest are all taller. But dear dear Naoto's still a bashful ball of a boy, a miniature Pastor Kawata. Still has those cheeks that I can cup in my hands, still has that tummy, still plays hide-and-seek under the table. He's the one i missed the most, he with his shy smile and sweet eyes. I saw sa-chan and naoko too, but they seemed somewhat unprepared to meet us. There was little we could say to one another, not because of dissimilar interests, but because of the length of time that has elapsed, that has made our excitement wane. Chiro came too, and his hair that i'd suspected contained minute creatures now is flatter, and cleaner. But I didn't see wings. I had imagined the scene of our reunion quite differently. I would arrive and they'd all be there. I'd see wings walking on stilts again. I'd visit the room i'd inhabited, I'd play table tennis with them, I'd do all those things that I'd missed so achingly. But if there's one thing to be learnt from today, it's that special moments can never be recreated. You can bring the right people together, you can make all the right things happen, you can do the same activities that you did together before. The moment you remember and all the magic it had can never be brought back. Sometimes it's right that we end things when we have to end them, that we leave places, that we cut strings, even if we don't see how it could be right. That way the magic is captured in the frame of our memories, enhanced each time we replay them, such that our memories seem more beautiful than they were. The chapter to that glittering part of your life can be closed, even if life goes on. I'm not sad, maybe just a little disappointed. But at least i was calm even on my way there today. Not bursting with expectant hope, not still in that feverish dream. I'd actually expected all of this. You know what i wish? I wish that we had albums of real memories, so that instead of just looking at photographs, we could actually enter that memory and relive the moment. Because time waits for no-one. Our lives are rushed along and we ourselves are twisted in different directions. We are like planets each spinning on an axis, never still. The times we spent together were times when our paths crossed in orbit.

2003-06-14T07:10:00.000-07:00

I can't quite begin to describe today's food adventure. I'll just say that lunch was a celebration of Japanese food, and people on holiday usually eat much more. All in all it was the sort of day that had me beaming like a firefly for the simple reason that i was happy every second of the day. How often do we get days like that? I picked up a little something for Father's Day, got acquainted with the brainteasing train system again, and visited our dear friend Keiko. We'd stayed in her house in 1999, and soon knew her as the Most Interesting person on earth. She with her excited voice and childlike enthusiasm about everything, she with her culinary creativity and genuine hospitality, she with her multicoloured hair that we rectified when she visited us in Singapore...there is no one like her. She made us japanese pizza tonight, right before our eyes, and yaki udon too, with grapefruit jelly for dessert, and was going to serve us cake when we insisted that we had to stop. It's amazing how we communicate with her. My mum and her have the most elaborate conversations about all kinds of deep issues with a vocabulary of not more than 30 english words. Talking to Japanese always improves one's charade skills. You have to act out things that you don't have the words for, like "vomit", and for me and the Kawatas last year, "cow" and "gargle". Don't even try to imagine. I realise that I've never stayed in a hotel here. We've always stayed in houses, always lived within a neighbourhood. Always bought breakfasts
from supermarkets and boiled our own water. One thing i discovered about this house today: it has a library of national geographic magazines dating all the way back to 1987. I will immerse myself in beautiful photography over the next few days. I found a treasure of a poem today in a Nat Geog from 1994, set against a photo of an aged couple. Entitled "To You." One portion of it:

Whoever you are now, I place my hand upon
you, that you be my poem,
I whisper with my lips close to your ear,
I have loved many women and men, but I love
none better than you....
(Walt Whitman)

2003-06-13T06:57:00.000-07:00

It's the first night in a foreign land, and I'm wrapped up in all the thrills and feelings that come attached with first nights. I'm staying in the house of an American missionary family away for the summer, getting a feel of the way their family has turned this house into into a home. Strange how every American family puts pictures on the walls of their children in the studio smiling not at the camera but at something off-centre. And there's a computer here. As always, walking to the house from the station is a puzzle of u-turns and landmarks, but by tomorrow evening it should be a breeze. I have yet to see a Japanese kid who isn't so adorable that I'm tempted to kidnap him or her. How can someone so innocent and sweet be a figure of horror? Sunday is the day I return to the Kawatas and lose myself in their world. Their world which made me want to abandon city life entirely and live on honeydew melons and red bean rice. I think a part of me hasn't quite registered with my surroundings. Maybe it's the dimness of night, maybe it's the cloud in my head after a day of travel, maybe it's the memory of things back home that need to be done. There's a wild mix of emotions right now, mostly the kind of joy that feels like it could be everlasting. And the overpowering, almost but not quite frightening feeling that I'm on the threshold of something wonderful. My life has turned around since last year. I have confidence, I have peace. Exactly a year ago, I was slipping down a narrow road and letting myself fall, feeding myself to the wolves. I let myself fall; God didn't. It's a queer sort of happiness, thinking about where and what I was one year ago and how far I've come. And how one year ago, I was searching for something that wasn't meant to be searched for. One year later, I found it, or rather it found me. Things definitely aren't perfect now, but I have perfect peace. That's what happiness is about, isn't it.

"I love you all the way to the moon."
"I love you to the moon....and back."
(Guess How Much I Love You)

2003-06-11T07:45:00.000-07:00

Things fall apart. They do. Everything's left in loose knots and untied ends, and I just have to leave it this way until I come back. It feels quite nice to just leave and forget that all these messy bits exist. Escapism. Sometimes all I need is an hour's worth of escapism. Right now a week of it sounds just right. And when I'm all alone there I will build up my confidence again and make myself strong. So that when I return I can be the girl who knows what she's doing, not some flake who's balancing plates on her elbows and pretending to be comfortable with that. And I will actually prove to myself more than anyone else, that my existence will leave a mark. I will take part in the projects of the Art club (and attend meetings for a start), I will read Tarling before i sleep every night (oh shudders), i will even do sums once in a while. Anything, just to get myself out of this runaway train and onto safe ground. And in the meanwhile, I'll escape to a place where all that is of consequence is having to walk miles and miles. Being a child there would be a fun thing. Not having to take a bath, not having to eat proper meals, running all over the neighbourhood anytime, no homework to grapple with.

2003-06-09T06:59:00.000-07:00

By the time these four days are over, I'll be there. I'll be in the place my heart was for months. It's almost surreal when I think about it. Have you ever wanted something so bad that it tore you into pieces just accepting that you couldn't ever have it? And when you've finally moved on, it comes back and gives itself to you, in such perfect timing that none but the Father could plan. Sometimes when you want something too fiercely, you're probably not in the right state to receive it. Because then all you can judge with is that intense yearning that eats into your consciousness and tints your vision. Only when you are free from yourself, with open hands and an open heart, can God pour His blessings upon you.

This time I'll be going with a different mission. The pictures I took for my mum's interviews in Thailand turned out so nicely that she's letting me do the shoots for this one. It's most satisfying seeing the end results in print, beside an article, the faces to the stories. This is one of the perks of being her daughter, among the many others of course. Tomorrow morning will see me trying out that slr. I intend to capture a moment for each of the golden moments that weren't recorded on the last trip. Like eating ice cream on the steps. Walking alone in golden rice fields. Three rosy-cheeked children in a basket on a bicycle. Wings on stilts. Tiny angelic tots swinging baseball bats in a leaf-covered field. Flowers of the purest blue and pumpkins and corn and beans. Children walking to school carrying the same square red bags, wearing brightly-coloured caps. Sweet things like these.

2003-06-03T05:22:00.000-07:00

I hit rock-bottom today. I just have no more energy to keep up with myself. There's too much that is expected of me, that stretches me in every direction, and all I want to do is cut away all those strings and burn them. It would so liberating to just not care, and to give my time to the things that are of real importance. Is there any lasting meaning in all these things anyway? Every entry seems to have repeated content nowadays. When will I finally find my footing between head and heart, between responsibilities to school and responsibilities to my friends and to myself, between stability and something else? Or will I never find my footing? Are we not meant to? I just need an hour a day to do what I really want to do. Mention Project Work and be subjected to my wrath. PW has been the source of most of my grief ever since it entered my life. Tomorrow will be another 6:30 morning. How many of you know what the school looks like at 6:30? I'm sick and tired of it all and I'd love to believe that I can give up on silly unnecessary things such as this and things will still be alright. But then there's that disgusting logic that tells me that I shouldn't give up the temporary discomfort for the long-term regret. Ugh. Regrets. Another word that I detest, along with Credit Cards, euthanasia, gp, and perceived threat. I turn into a long-clawed mean green monster everytime we have project work meetings, and I'm awfully sorry for that. The effects stay with me and swirl around in my head. It's been a horrible busy busy day, and I realise that I'm constantly rushing from place to place. Somebody save me. Well, some of you did provide remedies, like stef, who presented me with The Dragonfly Pillow (i love dragonflies) first thing in the morning, and others who may not even have been conscious that they made my day better, I thank you all. I was so pleased with my full schedule when school first started, I really was. What a fool. I want to sit idly and have talks that for once are not about project work and are not interrupted by the rushing out of homework, especially gp, and I want to have free hours that are genuinely free, and I don't want any teacher to disturb me during those hours. And I want to come to school at 6:30 purely because I want to see the sunrise and spend my morning in perfect quiet, and not because of something else. I want a life that is only as busy as I make it. I want to be able to make someone's afternoon sweeter. I wanted to go down to aimei's place today and wish her happy birthday. I want to be there for the people who need me and not my proposal. I needed to say all that. It will all pass, and I will be lightheaded and floaty again tomorrow. And ready to go on in this tortured way. Except that I won't let that happen, not anymore. I won't sacrifice my sanity for something that I won't remember years from now, or even next week. Then why am I going to school at 6:30 tomorrow? Because I'm hoping it's the last time, because i'm hoping that when it's really completed and handed up, that I can go about the rest of the week not worrying a hair about it. And then after my 6:30 meeting tomorrow, i'll live life as it should be lived. i should promise myself that much at least.

Cassie, you are my new heroine.

2003-05-31T02:30:00.000-07:00

I'm in dreadful need of a few frozen grapes. Something cold and sweet down my throat. What can I say about the last few days? I've been swimming against the tide, pushing back dark madness and struggling to stay afloat in all this chaos. Each day is a jumble of emotions. I'll be crushed by a teacher's scathing comment, which makes me believe more and more that i'm headed towards failure, and then around lunchtime I'll be all positivity and bounce again, up and down between these two extremes. It's not natural. It's tiring. I've been feeling that I'm just not made for all of this, that perhaps I'd be better off and happier out of school completely. But last night i had to scold myself for thinking that way. Running away from the problem never helps. I'm only as strong as I believe myself to be, and I have to believe that I can climb this wall, maybe even break it down if I have to. Maybe I've been giving too little of myself to my tasks, maybe I need to try harder. Whatever it is, something has to change. Have I been not taking school seriously enough? Everytime I feel like I'm about to crumble, I quickly cement my cracks with glue. I won't last in this way. Maybe I have to rebuild myself, take things back to the start and rethink the whole structure of my world.
Or perhaps I've been giving in to my impulses too often nowadays. Before this year I had a tavern of regrets. Most of our regrets come about because we said no to our impulses, because we ignored that little quivering voice in our heart that called us to follow it. When was it--a couple of months ago?--I decided that I wasn't going to let myself have any more regrets. I wasn't going to let myself wonder forevermore what would've happened if I'd taken the other road. So I listened when it told me to skip a week of Chinese class, I listened when it told me to abandon other things for an evening dedicated to myself, I listened whenever it spoke to me. Last night I forfeited my m4m ticket to have dinner with friends i desperately wanted to talk to again--on a whim--and although I don't regret that at all, there are other consequences that lurk around. And so I've been living free of regrets, because i did everything with my heart as master over my head. But I'm living out the snap-back, and I'm wondering if this is the biggest regret of all.
It was strange cheering for raffles at the rugby match yesterday. What I remember most about the game was when my friend from ac pulled his hamstring or something in the last few minutes of the game, and was on the floor for quite a while, taking up play time. He suddenly was the centre of attention, the subject of hatred of every raffles spectator, and i felt so awful for him. He was injured, for goodness' sake. The noise of the crowd, and he right in the centre as if under a spotlight, reminded me of a scene out of the Gladiator. But still I was sad when raffles lost. They came so close to it, and put up such a fight that they couldn't give ac the thrill of a complete thrash.

swing swing from the tangles of my heart

2003-05-27T06:08:00.000-07:00

Today was an exhausting mix of wonderful and wearisome. I learnt the joy of being rewarded for deciding to face the music, we made two old ladies (and ourselves in the process) very happy, i tasted about six different cakes from secret recipe, we bounced back to school as a 5-headed monster, we learnt that our favourite word "schmuck" is not as innocent as we thought, we brought saucy sweetness from vienna to mr prince, i revelled in the wonders of impressionism and monet and degas and chubby little ballerinas. But now i have about as much energy as a deflated balloon. Be it the heat of the skies or the unearthly cold of lt2 and ts9, i somehow managed to get a temperature of 37.7. I was almost sent out of class, but a few temperature checks later I was a few degrees down. I'm longing to fling myself upon a heap of fluffy cushions in the middle of an insect-free forest and fall asleep, and drift far away from here. When all the insane joys have flitted their way through my memory, what do i remember about today? Today was the day i made up my mind. There was always this thing interrupting my thoughts, preventing me from being completely happy. Now I know the full picture, and I may feel like a fool to have held on to naive admiration for something that was false, but at least I can forget about it from now on.

i know romance is not in fashion
and my heart is on the line
if you would be so kind
to help me kill some time
then something good just might come crashing
from the stars that light the sky

2003-05-26T08:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday would have been the most amazing day if it had happened at this time last year. Predecessor played next to me, showing me his fantastic fantastic lead guitar skills all over again. But if it had all happened last year, I wouldn't have made it through as well as I did yesterday. By some wonder the girl who froze and secretly felt inadequate has left me, and in place is someone who's sure of herself, and who has gained from experience and time. It did occur to me that he was listening to every single note i played and maybe judging me, but it suddenly didn't bother me anymore. What I remember most of all is him turning to me after the last breathless song and saying, "you're mad."
I can't believe I forgot Steph's birthday. I marked the date in my diary, and reminded myself everyday to get her something, or at least call her up on Saturday. Then Saturday flew by, and I never did. The thing about drifting apart from a friend is that gradually your lives are unknotted from their comfortable weave, no longer joined by a mystic twine. First the little everyday things go. Things like your favourite song. The colour of your bag. The places you go when you celebrate. Once long ago, all these things were synchronised and memorised with someone else's. You couldn't look at something without remembering something else about that person. When you've drifted apart, you lose that ability. Out of touch. Then a gap sifts in and pushes you further apart, and you lose contact with the important things in the friendship. The long conversations in which problems were dissected but never solved, the forging of ideals, the discovery of dreams, the promises to go out and do something life-changing together.
About the life-changing second again. I haven't lost my fascination with that concept. That one insignificant moment can alter your landscape forever. If everything hangs on life-changing seconds, how many things have i let slip through my fingers by simply letting the moment pass? Pause to think for just a second longer and the chance is gone forever, snuffed out, vanished. We are such irresponsible and fickle creatures--how can we handle the weight of these irreversible decisions?
But I told myself I would never fall back into the habit of looking behind me. What is over is over, what is wasted is wasted. I promise i will never write about the thousand things that I regret again.

2003-05-23T08:02:00.000-07:00

These couple of days I have been feeling like I'm merely acting as a student of this school. Like I'm just doing all the things that will make me instantly look like I study here. I don't know how long more I can keep up with this pretense. Not that I don't try. But I must be doing something wrong. How can a person go through all the motions and remain as unchanged as an enzyme? I suppose it's better this way, than if I was successful academically but hitting dead ends in all other areas of my life. I talked to some friends about it, and now I'm following Manda's prescription for productivity. Dharma and I assessed our inability to study through the night, and we think it all boils down to our personalities. We use up all our energy laughing at things that are both funny and unfunny, such that by the end of the day we just flop over and fizz out. My personal peak is at lunchtime, and then from there it sort of goes downhill. Following Manda's advised schedule, I finished my readings on the Korean War within an hour, and now I'm supposed to let myself rest. Tomorrow I'll wake up at 8 and slave away.
I wonder how Cindy and Sandy are now. It's been so long since I last saw them. Kids shoot up. Maybe they're my height now. I used to waver between an urge to hug them close to me and sheer annoyance at the things they did. But I did love them, in my own way. Since I started jc they haven't been over for saturday dinners. My mum was saying that perhaps it's a good thing, that those evenings with us might have worsened things, might have caused them to resent the incompletion and imperfection of their own home. And their mother. Maybe she's the one who needs to be reached out to. I look at their lives, framed in that apartment visible from my room window, and wonder at the vastly different worlds we live in. I was meant to meet them, dragged almost, against my will. They've entered my life and they can never be removed from my life, no matter how many other responsibilities come my way. It's almost like God pushed them to me and said, "You help them." There is nothing in me that two little girls could love, but somehow they clung onto me, clung onto my family, clung onto this seemingly desirable idea of a perfect home, and in turn made me enter their world. There will be no instant solution to what they have or don't have. Just maybe they will someday find happiness within the natural cell that is their family. Then mother will love child, and husband will love wife, and child will love parents, and it will be normal. They're just a walk away from my doorstep, but worlds apart.

2003-05-19T07:21:00.000-07:00

Enough of trying to fight the weather. I shall list the things I love about these unescapable sunny days.
1. The sunsets. Today's was magnificent, in orange, pink and gold streaks that made everybody's face glow in a way that was almost surreal.
2. Cold drinks and ice cream never tasted so good.
3. You tan without even trying.
4. The summer editions of magazines are out, featuring beautiful people lying on beautiful beaches.
Okay, I can't get much further than that. But the 2.4 run today was a dose of "happy" for me as it always is. All the blood that rushes to my head when I stop running makes me a little louder than usual. Our class invented the "wall" cheer, our "motherhood" sign, and "yam-wall"--don't ask what the wall means, it bewilders me too. And we celebrated with kitkat, lovely chunky chilled kitkat. And volleyball training was actually fun today. I lost all sarcasm and disdain for training, and on my way home, concluded that there's no better time to pig out than when you're training regularly. When else could you be excused for it? Hence the kitkat, hence the large dinner after eight tonight. If there was ice cream in my fridge i can assure you i would eat it now. Art-wise, my styrofoam sculpture is coming along, and I can almost see the figure I'm trying to carve out. Sometimes, on days like today, I can't help but walk around with a smile. Let people think you're crazy once in while by doing something completely flighty and insane. Like walking around linked waist to waist with five friends, or yelling out songs on the track, or peeling oranges for the fruit stall auntie. You'll be forgiven because you're young, and you're only young once. Or you could wait till you're sixty, when you'll also be forgiven for your actions because you're old.

Observation i made while watching a bird fly by on sunday : without their wings, birds look like tubular sachets.

2003-05-17T07:32:00.000-07:00

Summer has arrived in all its burnt glory. At two pm today I looked up and saw three lonely cottonball clouds perched on the rims of the sky. The sky itself seemed to drip over the trees and over the buildings in an overflow of blue. And I spent five hours training under this sky. I feel alright though, if not a little tortured by the sun. Why couldn't the sky have been this clear on the last night of camp when we sat on the jacob's ladder and star-gazed? All my star-gazing memories involve cloudy skies. My morning was spent at hcjc supporting the softball teams (had no idea victor was so pro, given the things he's capable of during pw). There I met dearly-missed people, like stella and jan. Seeing stella reminded me of our day in hk when we combed the streets and ate chickeneggcakes. On that night we walked along the hongkong bay to look at Christmas lights, and my fingers were freezing, but we ate ice cream anyway when we heard the bells of the ice cream truck. Stella and her fashion innovations, stella and her bjork, stella and her dramatic love story... I could tell her things and know for sure that my words would stay with her and never be spread. This year we missed the Temasek graduation fashion show. I would have put down everything else to go to it, but somehow I just didn't know when it happened. She was just as alarmed when I told her it was over. It was something we always looked forward to.

"But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back beneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the colour of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat..."
The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time.
"Please--tame me!" he said.

2003-05-15T07:13:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I think I'm so caught up in the joys of my life that I assume everyone's in the same pink haze. But I forget. I forget that just because the world looks pretty from my window's view, it doesn't mean the whole world's beautiful. Everywhere people are crumbling to shards, and there I am skipping on, oblivious and idiotic. But i see where she is now, and i want to patch up the crack in her globe that seems to be deepening. I just don't know the way. I feel like she's in a place where sound and sense have been sucked out, and there aren't even the echoes to guide me to her. I just hope she's alright out there, and that she will come back soon.

2003-05-14T06:49:00.000-07:00

If we have something to live for, everything is worth doing, and everything is a joy. Then there are the moments when everything is meaningless. And I'll just feel like I'm running madly on a treadmill for no one, to no destination. My burnt weekends mean nothing to the teacher who marks my essay. My turning up for every single lesson won't even be noticed. So sometimes I wonder why I care about these things at all. Why I even bother wanting to make a good impression on anybody. Why I push myself to reach places that may not exist. Then I try not caring at all, and always am surprised that not caring doesn't make me feel better. If anything there's that spurt of insane liberation, but the responsibilities don't fly away. But once in a while I just have to allow myself to let go and live for myself, even if it's in spurts. Then the little things, like a long talk with a friend, or Mac's ice cream cone, or a good song, or my cat's loving furry face, will make the even littler things bearable. That's the only way to maintain balance on this crazy swinging tightrope.

song-blasting-through-the-speakers: rainbow connection, me first and the gimmes

2003-05-12T07:25:00.000-07:00

I feel positively de-toxed. I had three glasses of fruit juice today, all different combinations. Dharma, Manda and I get ourselves drunk on our own concoctions. All that sucrose will someday inspire me to dance on the tables, which sounds very very dangerous. We now have a growing list of hits, namely the Aloha (pineapple+watermelon), the Loveboat (peach+watermelon--thanks to you, you know who you are), Sweetpeas (peach+honeydew) and my favourite, the Valentine (peach+red apple). Don't ask about the girly names. The peachy ones were discovered today. Sadly they haven't all been successes. We also have Cabbage Juice, a blend of red apple and watermelon, which Aimei said "stinks up her mouth". And my failure, Celery Juice, which is blander than celery actually, a sad marriage of green apple and honeydew. Others that deserve at least a mention: watermelon+honeydew, for its pretty colour more than anything; and green apple+watermelon. I bet the auntie loves us man. Maybe she'll give us a discount card someday. Haha. This is a very happy entry, is it not? I blue-slipped and allowed myself to waste the rest of the day away doing lovely useless things. Like taking a nap. I remember being disgusted with sleep in general when I was a toddler. To me sleep was just a waste of time, time that could be used for doing all kinds of toddler stuff. My cold symptoms seem to have disappeared, although at this time I actually wouldn't mind a cold. No, I take that back. Today I suddenly imagined what it'd be like if I actually had Sars, and I realised that probably the whole school would be quarantined. Especially in danger would be those enthusiastic wine-tasters who sipped my juices.

Would you choose the sun or the moon? --thought of the day, as I remember those 5 silent seconds being warmer than the hours of conversation.

2003-05-07T08:02:00.000-07:00

The day started out really badly. But after having lunch with my insane class, all the little injustices of this world melted down into what they are, mere little injustices. Things like being given a warning for a shirt that was actually tucked in, and having to rethink the whole messy project from square one by Monday -- they're not worth my vexation. But for an moment there, it really felt like May was getting back at me for having a wonderful April. There was this one conversation at our class table about April being the worst month of the year, with a reference to Sylvia Plath, I think. And I was still floating, the only person there who loved her April. Let May be like that too. That's all I ask, one month at a time. Today I can start counting down: about 20 days to Dragonfly town. And I'll be the "favourite thing" in Aerosmith's song, the "girl who walks a country mile", on that long road with golden rice fields on either side and flowers of the truest blue. Walking towards the churchhouse that is really a church and a house, with the children running everywhere, gargling in their beautiful language words that I will somehow understand.

2003-05-05T06:23:00.000-07:00

Sunday evenings are always lovely now. They have a kind of routine that no other day can give me. Every Sunday I'll maybe nap a bit, wake up to watch Gilmore Girls, then have dinner, and these Sundays tomato salad's been on the menu. Some constancy in life is a good thing. Yesterday's episode featured this failed protestor. He was ostracised by the smalltownsfolk and thought odd simply because he moped around with a backpack. The day of his big protest came and the whole town gathered to watch. He climbed to the top of the church steeple and let down a paper banner. But then it was let down the wrong way, the blank side. And when he tried to turn it over, it tore and crumpled in one failed heap on the ground. So he decided to shout out his message. But it came out all muffled. He repeated his message, but nobody could make out what he was saying. At last he came down, picked up his torn banner and walked sadly away.
How many of us are like that, driven by a message we want to share with the world, but somehow unable to get it across?

2003-05-03T01:34:00.000-07:00

Taking a break from cutting tiny bottles. I'm doing this perspective thing for art and have to create the illusion of depth in a shallow box. I hate my tiny scissors! It hurts to use it. Taking a break from angsty guitars too--Bic Runga's "Sway" is lulling me away. It's another sleepy stormy day, but I'm feeling fine. Someone noted that my entries waver in mood frequently--top of the world one moment and rock bottom the next. I shall try to walk in a straight line. It isn't really up to us, is it, how we feel. But the world is always sparkling with kindred spirits and people who want to love you, it's just that sometimes we neglect to notice them. And when we don't see them the world naturally becomes darker. I can make each day glorious by no longer focusing on the shreds of misery that flap at the edges. And opening myself to other people. One memory from yesterday : as we ran round the track we were singing our lungs out, not really caring who heard us, not caring that we sounded out of breath. I carry moments like that in a paperbag and take them everywhere with me. Thousands of little moments and words people said. I'm floating.

Sometimes
When you and I collide
I fall into an ocean of you
Pull me out in time
Don't let me drown

2003-05-01T07:39:00.000-07:00

Either I'm coming down with something, or I was just stuck in last night's dream and hadn't woken up properly. I was incredibly sleepy. I couldn't do any homework. Everything kept swimming in bizarre circles and became merged with things people said, funny or otherwise. And i kept reliving the same old scenes again, as if by reliving them I could discover something new that I hadn;t noticed before. So I basically caught up on a lot of the sleep that was denied me during Donne classes and "alright okay" lectures. i woke up to be taken out to dinner, and then it really felt like i'd actually slept.
You know I have this tendency to confuse reality with dreams? Sometimes I don't know if something that I remember happened or was simply dreamt. It's an annoying little quirk of mine. But it's the little things that fall to this fate, like a snatch of something i said or heard, not events. Don't think I'm a freak.

2003-04-30T07:51:00.000-07:00

Today was one of those days when everything was hilarious. From bursting into the lt full of j2s, to over-using the "really really really meh" thing during project work, to trying to impress mr bachelor with our written-out agenda, to just laughing at victor in general, to spinning sheila's eyeball on the canteen table (oh hahaha)...I felt like my abs would contract and die. And volleyball was somehow cancelled, so I had a surprise free afternoon! Pakster and I went to holland v and ate at provence and were sinking into dreamy laziness, when who should come along but Bong! And Ade, and Jenna, and a number of other related mgs familiars! I was tempted to skip school and visit mg with ade and jenna today, but as it turned out, we were just meant to meet. :) Seeing them again made me so happy and nostalgic I wanted to cry. For one, they're no longer art classmates or even students, but they're somewhat all grown up. Jenna's a teacher at a preschool, and Ade's working. They applied for Design at Temasek Poly, the place I aspired to when I was sec 2 and had no idea where I wanted my life to be headed. I still don't know where I'm headed. We would attend the annual fashion/graduation show and get all dressed up and psyched over the goodie bags and pre-show finger food. And I would imagine myself up on stage walking to the applause of the audience and my models, for one night a designer with a catwalk show, for one night a Stella McCartney or a Julien McDonald, a star in my own right. And now, that is the reality of their future. They will have all that, and I'll still be in the audience applauding their show, imagining. But jc's just something* i have to do. I can't explain it, and I'll admit I don't understand why, but for now I'm convinced it's something I just need to do. What Bong said about that photo I took with ade and jenna is so so so true now. It's like a flash of something almost unreal, from a past so distant it might have been imagined. They don't even look the same anymore. Still all I'll remember of them are their mtv-moments, their fruity lip glosses, the four of us sitting in the canteen eating instant noodles and agreeing that it was the best food ever, us ordering "deadly little dimsums", us lazing around in the library while hundreds of students stressed themselves out over physics papers, us just being us. No amount of time can ever make that change.

2003-04-29T07:04:00.000-07:00

Did I ever say ignorance was bliss? It is. If life could be likened to politics, we do not live in a democratic world. Whatever the idealists think. Information is withheld from us by the people we trust the most--precious information that could change our opinions of them for the better or for the worse, information that could shape our decisions and ripple our lives endlessly. As it is we are half-blind. Will we be better off knowing everything? Probably not. But we'd make fewer mistakes, maybe get hurt less. Who knows. We are always fighting against the Unknown, giving our imaginations the loose rein, growing insane in the process. But we were made to live with the Unknown and make life-changing decisions based on scraps of real information and lies. It's never fair, and it always comes with a blistering ache. It makes me wonder why we torture ourselves so, over and over and over again, willingly spending our days wasting away and wandering in listlessness, wondering about things.

art history is magical.

2003-04-28T07:45:00.000-07:00

To all the broken-hearted: the moment will pass. One day you will look back and be amazed at how far you've come.
Somehow I feel lost again. I've chosen all my battles and now i wonder if I will have the strength to see them through. Like last year in the months just before the O's, when I was crumbling under Art and Beethoven and piano and biology, when i felt stupid, when I felt like a stranger to my very own life. When I wondered if I was the biggest fool of all. Now things bear stirring semblance to that. Everything is melting down into a pool of doubt. Still I must not forget that God led me through everything that seemed destined to break apart, and that He will surely carry me through, if I trust Him.
I'm not suffocated by stress;I'm not diligent enough to be. I just feel like I'm learning to fly, and that it is too difficult for me. Far far too difficult.

i set myself up for
the greatest fall of all time
(by matchbook romance)

2003-04-26T08:27:00.000-07:00

When you can be deaf to all the whispers that threaten to engulf your sanity, you know you're happy. Right now I'm still playing dumb, and therefore I still am happy. There is one thing that lifts me up sky-high. I don't dare to float too long, but I don't want to come back down.
You people who visit this blog: i know there are some of you who click on my guestbook. How about actually leaving something in it?

song-in-my-head: my hero. foo fighters.

2003-04-25T06:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Theresa was talking about her three younger siblings. "When you feel like your day is crap, they just make you feel damn good," were her words. Then there was this unspeakable ache within me. Sometime between the last miscarriage and my o-levels, I'd given up ever hoping for a little brother or sister to fuss over. One day it struck me that this is it: it'll just be me, forever. There won't be the sister to go shopping with when we're in our twenties, there won't be the uncle or auntie that my kids will adore, there won't be anyone to sit with me at my parents' funerals. People always ask me the same questions. "Aren't you lonely? Aren't you bored?" And I never can answer them, because I have nothing to compare my life with. And I'd talked myself into believing I wasn't missing out on anything, that this single-ness was precious, that my family was complete. I believed in this fully. Until yesterday.

2003-04-24T07:35:00.000-07:00

How many times can you embarrass yourself in a day?
Yesterday was the ultimate experience. I was on the top deck of the no 7 bus towards Orchard, happily wondering where to spend the 4 hours before the band concert, when all of a sudden my friend got up and decided to alight. So in a bit of a shock we all got up and left. Three minutes after we got off I realised I'd left my file on the bus! (My file's become something precious to me--first time I've kept a ring file with notes sorted out by subject and filed in through real punched holes. Plus my Sars declaration form was in there.) We grabbed the first taxi we saw and were like "Follow the bus!!" We chased the bus down chains of traffic and lines of buses that weren't right, and finally caught up with it when it stopped at a bus stop. Our taxi halted right in front of the bus and we, still in the taxi, turned and banged the rear window and yelled at the bus driver to wait. Poor little me scurried out to board the bus and faced the driver, who was giving me this weary look. "Uncle, can I..can I..." I hadn't even finished, but he sighed and rolled his eyes. Rolled his big, magnificent eyes at me. I got my file and was out of there. So we ended up taking the taxi all the way to the Esplanade since it was a short distance away. Ugh. Taxis charge $2 extra now and they issue receipts so they can contact you if anything Sars-related happens. At least that's what the terms were in the yellow taxis. Be warned.
Somehow although we arrived hours early, we ended up being late for the concert. To cut it short, we were hungry fifteen minutes before it started and were conned into buying chicken wings from this lady who promised they'd be ready instantly. At 7:30 she presented them to us, but we were already grabbing our stuff and running to the concert hall. At which there was an insane queue of people filling in more Sars declaration forms. So we stood there in the lobby of the heralded Esplanade and ate chicken wings, already not caring about looking unglam. When we finally got to the hall, we were rushed in just as the doors closed behind us. Amazingly enough we found ourselves on the wrong side of the hall. The dear usher told us we'd have to walk all the way to the other side, which meant crossing about thirty seated people. I didn't look up at anyone at all as I crossed, oh no. So there we were, just short of being cursed and stoned. Then after the first song was over, we realised we were in the wrong seats, so we shifted again. By then I must have been numb to all sorts of embarrassment.
The band played really well. Their Riverdance song was wonderful, especially the part where the drums took over the tap-dancing rhythm. When they'd finished that Charmian said, "Imagine doing that with your feet." We couldn't stop laughing throughout the whole thing because of some enthusiastic percussionist and an RI guy who danced to the last song. Four mgs girls in the guises of rjc and acjc students. Nutheads all.

2003-04-22T07:27:00.000-07:00

I must have been smiling the whole day. I realise I can't write about specific things anymore because the viewership of this blog has gone up. But this I will say: I must have been smiling the whole day. Little things can't bother me anymore (like being obviously avoided early in the morning), and I wish they never will again. It feels like a new chapter has started and it's up to me to write the story. Amazingly, all this had been written before i was even born, and I'm just living out His plan. You just make it surprising.
Tomorrow's the band concert at the Esplanade! I think I'm more excited about the venue and the time than I am about the performance. I've decided to skip volleyball tomorrow so I don't have to go there sweaty. I need to take some time off and rearrange my schedule. My world can't be made out of school alone, can it? So tomorrow afternoon's entirely free of any teacher's control.

2003-04-20T07:27:00.000-07:00

Today was Easter baptism service--15 ns guys and 7 ladies--Predec one of them to my surprise. And Dr Ong Teck Chin (principal of acs i if you don't know) baptised half the guys, one of whom was his son! You know who Dr Ong looks like? He's a photocopy of Simon from American Idol--The Simon who makes the show worth watching--haha I almost burst out laughing right there. And I whispered it to my parents and they started laughing. I seem to have a knack for linking people's faces to objects or celebrities' faces. I can't get over it. Simon. Woohoo.
The service ate into worship time for sunday school so I'll just play next week. After church I tripped down to meet Bong and had another of those snack-lunches. 6 chicken balls, a sugar twist donut, pad thai and auntie anne's lemonade. Doesn't sound like much but after that we were moving around like sacks of rice. She had to get a present for her little sis' birthday, so we went up to the toy department. We must have spent half an hour choosing between a Sylvanian baby rabbit and a Sylvanian baby bear. I adored those Sylvanian creatures and their expensive houses when I was little. They're still endlesslly fascinating. Tiny cupcakes on tiny shelves with tiny ladles, tiny books, tiny toothbrushes, tiny pianos...and adorable furry faces. I cracked myself up staring at this baby mole rat. It looked so sheepish with its flat nose and ear-less head. I fell quite in love. I now know the meaning of "ugly but adorable".

song-in-my-head: paranoid android-radiohead

2003-04-19T06:08:00.000-07:00

I had training today, and I feel slightly burnt although I'm not that much darker. Then I had a talk with aimei about stuff*--the stuff that the most interesting conversations are made of. I feel more liberated than I've felt in ages. What I remember most about class time in sec 4 was me writing in my notebook which no one read, writing pages about wings in undecipherable pencil scratchings. And keeping very silent once in a while, lost in storms of thought. This year I've learnt to let go of secrecy, which was never mine to begin with. When you keep things to yourself, it feels somewhat like you're dying out in the ocean and nobody knows you're there. So thank you confidantes, for listening.
I saw her smile today. There's the saying old that a picture paints a thousand words. I saw her and believed it. Her story was told in the very line of her smile. Up to today I had never looked at this whole thing from anybody else's perspective but my own. Today I was forced to step behind that smile of hers and re-read the entire script, this time with her role written in. And after I did that I realised it was she, not I, who was the protagonist. This is her story. It is the story of a girl who hoped, who loved, who cried, who hated, who was lifted up again, who is loved, who now smiles. Julius Caesar wasn't the protagonist of Julius Caesar. Neither am I the leading lady here. I realised that in this mess, I am the one who was hurt the least, and she probably the most. And I would never want to take away her smile, not for answers to my useless questions. This is their story, and I was only passing through. Knowing that has given me all the closure I need.

2003-04-18T08:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter! Good Friday service worship was a bit long--I stopped singing in the last half an hour or so. Maybe I was tired or something, but I just couldn't connect with the sermon or the songs. Are Singaporeans really afraid of Sars? Church seemed rather empty. And I saw Predecessor across the sanctuary today. It's been months, and Predec is the same Predec of my awkward jumbling sec one year. But today there was just one muted blue butterfly circling me instead of the swarms that used to haunt me. I didn't even think about where they'd gone. After the service I was roped in to bass for Sunday's worship, and so I stayed back to practice with the band. (Ooh. I just realised something. When I played today I didn't even notice the connection with Predec. It has freed me.) Practice was really good. When a song gets its groove on every musician can feel it, and the room was rocking with it today. All the trepidation of playing for sunday school has slipped away. It's like my eyes are focused straight ahead of me, and nothing on the sidewalks-- not the whispers, not the corridor drama-- can make me lose my faith. I've reached a point where my self esteem is safe from anybody's arrows, and I wouldn't give this up for anything. I just wish I had this confidence years earlier.
My new timetable leaves me with no free afternoon at all! Not that I ever had one, but I still must complain. Now I'm trying to fix up a time to meet Bong to exchange funny stories, but I can't even find one day to meet her!! Yet there are plenty of things to get revved up about. Symphonic band concert at the esplanade on wednesday night, vball training tomorrow, worship session on Sunday, enlarged art class, and other things that keep me bubbling over. I have yet to see Victor's eye-candy--heard she's pretty hot stuff, haha. I'll pop my head in just before the econs lecture starts on monday.

I see you so many times a day that I can almost predict when you will come round the corner. Already there are unspoken conversations buried underground. I don't want history to repeat its painful performance, but this isn't much better either. I spoke too little, and now perhaps I speak too much.

song-in-my-head: wouldn't change a thing-Lifehouse

2003-04-17T07:23:00.000-07:00

Everything shimmers with possibility and life. That's what the world looks like when you run alongside the things that move on. I'd been obsessed with looking back and imagining what I could have made different, making myself the heroine in another place and time. But I've learnt that we can never ever peek into the unknown dimension of our past--the untaken road--no matter how many times we look behind us. I lost too many moments and broke too many promises, promises I'd made to myself a long time ago. Looking back is not worth it. But now I feel somewhat like an adventurer on a new globe. It feels like a chaotic storm has passed and washed everything away, and I can start all over again. The hellos, the getting-to-know-yous, the efforts to do something memorable--all that is mine once more. And I'm living with a sense of liberation that comes only with experience. It's all about taking the first step. The first step is always the hardest, and that step is within me, taken at the very second I decide I want to do something. So I'm spreading myself over God, my studies, volleyball, Art club, family, possibly photography, and of course my necessary distractions, and feeling wonderful about it. It's to easy to fall out of love with life, but the wind is spinning me in the right direction, and I can think of a hundred things I'm looking forward to right now.

2003-04-12T08:15:00.000-07:00

I know too little about the things I care about the most. You are devastatingly wonderful. I'm missing my life's greatest moments by waiting for that "life-changing moment". I find the solutions to my situations only when everything's over and my genius won't make a difference. I love pure chocolate cake. I wrap myself up in layers and layers. (Things i've discovered this week.)

song-in-my-head: Crazy -Aerosmith

2003-04-11T07:54:00.000-07:00

Mr Rollason speaks like Ross from Friends! I don't mean the accent, but his facial expressions, the way his head tilts forward and his gestures--I watched him for a while and went "Ahaha, it's Ross!" I should buck up on SEA history. After that one morning when I memorised those maps and bewildering linguistic territories, I must confess all that information leaked out after the test. The wonder of my head. There must be winding tunnels in there; little things get lost and are never found again. Like the details of my day. What else did I do today? I painted my section of the screen after deciding on chillies over electric guitars. I bought myself an exercise book for Maths, so everything I do for Maths can't get lost/thrown away/too messy. And I watched the Recruit. I don't particularly feel like doing a movie review right now, but I'll give it 3.5 to 4 stars out of 5. Points go to its plot which was intriguingly complex, and also to Colin Farrell, who is someone nice to see on the big screen. It will keep you guessing till the end. I just did a review for it didn't I.

I've been asked why I'm so stoned today. I wish I had an answer for all of you, but I'm wondering too. I puzzle myself all the time. And I love to eat, but these days it seems all I can bear are those chicken toast sandwiches from the drink store. And I'm getting weary of those too. I'd take another Amazing Blue Pill tonight, but they've run out. Do you ever have one of those days when you know what's going on around you but can't be bothered to tell anyone that you know? When you decide on a whim that you'll play dumb, while you really know much more than you let on? I think my life is made up of days like that. It's an odd way to live, but it's worked for me.

I ran up the door and opened the stairs,
I said my pyjamas and put on my prayers,
I turned off the bed and tumbled into the light
All because you kissed me goodnight.
(shown to me by Charmian)

2003-04-10T07:19:00.000-07:00

I was around only half the time today. The other half of the day I was lost between January and lunch break. And there were questions in my mind--questions like who that girl was, if she'd ever wanted to hurt me, if she had been hurt, if I still existed in their world--tormenting and unrelenting questions. Questions I didn't care about, but which I desperately wanted the answers to. I just want the closure that this episode never had. I don't want anything more but that. That which should be given, for all our sakes. Some kind of ending to tell me how I'd disappeared and when. Just that, and I won't have the thousand questions burning and unasked on my lips anymore. And yet I know it was all up to me to continue or end the story, and I ruptured it. I will possibly never know what went on, and that is strangely unbearable for someone who so badly wanted it to end. I just want to be told that I am no easily forgotten thing.

2003-04-09T06:35:00.000-07:00

Back to school! Anything's more interesting than stoning at home--even stoning in school is more attractive by far. Today was like a huge tub of buttery popcorn: light and addictive. For the largest part of the day we were obsessing over the new uniform and discussing creative alterations to the blouse (the prize goes to the press-studs sewn onto the shirt and skirt) and making a huge girly fuss over one another's new looks. I personally have no tears for my forsaken mgs uniform. Fondly called my floursack, or by others as the puff, that uniform will not be mourned or missed by me. Cheerios!
And of course there was our very own David Blaine in the canteen today--the only magician I have met that I did not think silly or childish. I still get the shivers when I think about his tricks. I once had a fling with magic, maybe when I was nine? which only went as far as a box of tricks from the toy store, and kept me entertained for about a week. i think I just don't have the patience to perfect a card trick. Patience can be a talent.
During the holidays I imagined myself running into the art room and painting the rest of my section of the screen mural. Today, however, when Teresa and I went to look at the mural and maybe complete it, it came to me quite simply :"But I don't want to dirty my new uniform!" It seems I always spoil my own plans.
Rah-rah-rah. What a day. Nothing much really happened, but already I feel better. Seeing all those faces was the biggest mood-lifter I could ask for.

2003-04-06T07:20:00.000-07:00

Why do i sound so annoyingly depressed in every single entry? (am i depressed?) I took this quizilla quiz "what colour do you see the world in?" and guess what--I see the world in grey. That's terrible. I'd like to see the world in bright colours. Today my family had lunch at the botanical gardens, and I was consciously admiring all the greens and yellows around me, hoping hoping that if i did I'd become a person who doesn't see the world in greys. I think I just need school again to lift me up, to excite me, to make something happen in my life. Lunch did make me a brighter person--food always manages to make me happier. I had a huge hamburger with gorgeous melted cheese and mushrooms, with a side of salad and chunky crispy golden fries. Although I said my secret ambition is to be a biochemist and work in life sciences, i think being a food critic would be a lot more satisfying. Why life sciences? Well check me out, the girl who famously took one science in a triple science class. I adored chemistry, I had passion for it, i even did chem tys in my free time--call it mad love. Or unrequitted love. It didn't love me back

2003-04-05T01:19:00.000-08:00

I sorted through my archives and tossed out things I never want the world to see. I said I wouldn't, but I did. And I'm sorry, sidekick, I don't know if you'll ever see that exposed underside of me again. Something tells me I should open up more. I would have erased those entries about Actor anyway--i couldn't bear to read any of it. If my writings were chucked in a lost-and-found box waiting for me to claim them, i'd pretend they weren't mine.

Nothing much new has happened around here. I made a pencilcase yesterday--a burst of productivity from me--from various shiny scraps of cloth i'd collected for my fashion project. When I think about that project I get shudders. And yet it's there on that coveted wall, along with the works of our seniors that we'd so often stared at with reverence. I thought I'd revisit to see my artwork on the wall, just for thrills, but strangely there isn't even a thrill thinking of it up there. Just a few months, and all my fantasies change themselves into goals more complicated, more unattainable. I hate that about life.
And i've been reflecting on the first term of jc and all its misadventures, and i don't regret a single thing. Although i might have kicked and protested when they came at me one after another. They all made me wiser, made me more aware, and I'm thankful for that. One thing I'll have to come to terms with is that I'll never ever know what would have happened had I walked down all those untaken paths. And that therefore i should stop thinking about them.

2003-04-03T06:00:00.000-08:00

I'm listening to Everlong by the Foo Fighters over and over again, letting the tune wrench my heart as many times as it wishes to. I've become soft in that way. So yes, I've learnt the events in my dear friend's life, and I'm equally proud of her as I hate him now. For a slither of a moment I could almost sympathise with him, him the Monster, but now I regret anything I ever said to his defense. Funny, but the last couple of days I felt that i could almost believe in romance again. Today everything crumbles to shards. Somebody teach me to have faith again.
There is so much more that weighs me down, so much that is unspeakable, and i cannot process it. One throbbing dark thought that filled my day: I seek and squirm to be in a place that I am not, and have no right to be. People hurt us, but we never learn from these hurts, and instead go on to hurt others in a cruel tangling cycle.
I'm all caught up in a cloud, and Everlong is playing for the sixth time.

2003-04-01T19:42:00.000-08:00

I've decided to enjoy this break we've been given. I painted my room a gentle teal, the colour of the ocean in the most tempting tropical holiday brochures. It brings out the purples and pinks in a rather wonderful way. And I'm changing all the photos in the frames on my wall. They've been the same photos for so long that I don't look like the me there at all anymore, and nobody looks at them because everyone already knows what's there. And i've gotten rid of all the dust taking refuge under my bed and behind cupboards and every other place. I'm living in my dream room. The only things it lacks are a phone and this computer. I realise there's nothing to talk about anymore except what I've been repeating time after time. Nothing new has happened, nothing new to stir up some new emotion in me. But there are things I wonder about and hope for still. Now my main hope--and prayer-- is that Daddy won't get sars, and that we won't get sars, and that school will open on Monday. Nothing's predictable anymore. SYF's postponed, and so is everything else. Man makes ambitious plans and is confident they will all come to be, but God is still sovereign over time itself. All I want is some normalcy.

2003-03-30T23:17:00.000-08:00

I'm playing the piano again. I stopped because it represented twelve years of hopes crushed to dust. For months my fingers still moved subconsciously as if playing that dreaded Mozart piece, drumming out its rhythm on tabletops, handrails, anything they rested on. But now I've uncovered the keyboard again, touched its trembling white keys, and reopened my books to the pages marked furiously with pencil scribbles. It might have been the Pianist that reminded me how beautiful Chopin's works are, or it might have been insane boredom that left me with nothing else to do. Whatever it was, I'm playing again. When I was made to play and practice, I never felt its pleasure in quite the same way. I might have forgotten the songs I played thousands of times and long ago, but my fingers hadn't forgotten them, hadn't forgotten their way round those scrambling notes. They led the way, bringing me back to afternoons in the frigid MEP room when I played for a silent class and a frowning teacher. And tense minutes in examination rooms where failure was written down before I had even played the last notes. And yet as i revisited these melodies they seemed to comfort me. They seemed to stand in front of the disappointments and say "they don't matter at all." And i thought of japan, and i thought of that afternoon's talk, and i thought of my distinction for higher music, and I suddenly felt, for the first time, that it was not a mistake that I learnt the piano after all. The heartbreak is over, and what I am left with is a young love for music, the same love that captured me when i first believed in Chopin.

"Are you pro-war or anti-war? It doesn't matter. The Bible says that wars will happen. Are you anti-war? Wars are necessary. Is this war necessary? We don't know. Are you pro-peace? Jesus said, 'I have come not to bring peace on earth, but a sword...'. He is the Prince of Peace. And He tells us that until He comes again, there will not be peace on this earth. There will be times of peace, in some areas, for some time. But there will never be world peace."

2003-03-26T18:01:00.000-08:00

School is closed till 6th of April! This is one holiday I don't particularly want. Firstly, because of the SARS thing a lot of people aren't allowed out of the house, and that leaves me quite alone. And I'd been looking forward so much to being with my classmates again during the March hols. This is rather the anti-climax. But yesterday we met our new classmates--4 of them, none of them not an anomaly of sorts in our class. I don't blame them for being closed and slightly hostile to us. We were behaving needlessly exclusive, openly mourning our friends and insulting the wretched pae system. Not the warmest of welcomes.
I realise that I haven't written about Actor in a while. Not just in this blog, but even in my thoughts. I've come to a desert where all I see of the landscape is my own stupidity. In timidity's days jewel's song ran itself weary in my head, telling me i was standing still while the world flew me by, that i was basically a fool who didn't know it, who was still believing in a withered fairytale. And i thought that was bad. Now i feel like i've been dancing drunkedly in a room full of people and they've been staring silently all the while. I should listen when people warn, i should believe the red flashing lights. I just wash everything over with white paint and tell myself it's always been this white. I wish i could erase everything i've ever written about Actor. Wipe it out of this world forever. And i could, I actually could. But i think i'll just keep it there to remind myself how stupid i can get.

And my heart's breaking because of my own insecurities and my own fear of the falling sky. I know i'd written about my regrets and how i wished i had said things i wanted to say. I wrote about that because i thought that part of my life was over, and that i'd never see the chance to say them again. We're idealists when we regret. We imagine ourselves correcting the past and making everything perfect again. Well guess what. It's not over. I have another chance to make things different for myself. And faced with the scene again, I find myself shrinking back instead.

2003-03-25T01:37:00.000-08:00

I finally finished that gp essay i've been dawdling over. Skipped school today. Didn't feel like rolling in soap and forcing myself to cheer with good spirit. 4 new people in my og whom I have yet to meet, but I figured I can always meet them some other time. Not that I didn't like orientation, but i wasn't one of those who cried when it ended.
Yesterday must have been the worst day of school. There were but five faithful souls sitting in class, made lonely by the five who took blue slips. Our dearly departed came back to us in the middle of the day, and when they did it was like the sun shone again upon our dismal world. But when it was time to go back to class i faltered, realising they couldn't come to class with us. At night i received the news that victor and renji's appeals came through, and that they'll be back, for sure. I can't tell you how relieved i was. Just one day without the complete class was awfulawfulawful. But then roy's teacher called him and told him his appeal was rejected. What do you say to comfort someone in this situation? I found no words. This has shaken everybody in no small way. And while we're still figuring out where to step in this soft sand, we have to be resilient ourselves and remember to work. Sometimes I feel like i'm alone in the dark. I feel it more and more. It's not a pleasant feeling. The warm rush of school has passed, and i'm not sure i like the place i find myself in now. Thank God for spiritual companions, because with them i might walk alone, but i'm not lonely.

2003-03-23T04:44:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow. New faces. Missing faces. There's plenty of reason to feel antsy about tomorrow. Yet i can't allow myself to soak in the aftermath of the JAE massacre. I must make sense of the shifting world before it grows above me. What will my world be like without Victor's sincere but crappy speeches, Roy's action-ness, Minli's effervescence, Sumaya's calm companionship...? I'm hopeless at picking up pieces and moving on. I've never been able to just snap my fingers and go. I'm excited about the new people coming in, but they can't come in if people don't leave at the same time, and that swings things out of control, out of balance.

I'm once again a notebook girl, whose hiding place is in the pages she scribbles in. It brings back a large part of the me that grew in mgs. One thing i'm looking forward to tomorrow is running to the art room after chinese. I already know what is going to be on my section of the mural screen. And there's possibly someone new coming in to rj and to art, and i can't wait for that. The other thing I can't miss about tomorrow is weightroom training for volleyball. The other time ashley smsed me asking me what i was up to, and I replied, "training in the weights room", which spurred on screams from her. The shock of me, doing weights? I didn't tell her they're just small weights to improve spikes. I figured it'd be more fun this way.

2003-03-21T21:09:00.000-08:00

Argh! I'd just written a very long account when it all disappeared somehow.
patience, patience. Just because my blog is no longer private, it doesn't mean I'll allow my posts to slip into annoying ambiguity like Some People's blogs. So relax.

I checked the JAE and am happy to say that now I am officially in RJC. But this time checking the posting results lacked the nervous-scaredouttamywits-delirious-ness of the PAE. I'd have liked to be high-strung--it adds to the fun--but after these weeks of seeing strange emotions walk in on me, the calmness is somewhat refreshing. I don't know who couldn't make it back though. I can't imagine what Monday will bring. We'll come to school like stranded survivors and as we walk around, realise there are missing faces. I'd feel something even if someone I didn't know left. Every single person made this place what it was for me, whether they played major roles or background roles. At this very moment, RJ is probably flooded with appeals. I can only pray that..pray for what I don't know.

There's a bbq tonight for the sec 3s and 4s from sss, and my mother wanted me to accompany her. But i really don't feel like standing in chickenwingsmoke and eating off plastic plates while balancing serviettes and a papercup in the other hand. At least not tonight. Also, I have an unconceivable amount of homework to do. I put it off with the crazy half-notion that perhaps I won't come back. By my very presence here in blogger writing rubbish, you will know that I am obviously quite dead where time-management is concerned. But first I must relate last night's Food Adventure! My sunday school class ate at First Thai, a non air-conditioned Thai restaurant, and ate pineapple rice, Thai fried rice, fried chicken (which was divided into tiny cutlets and was much too fatty but still was delightful with Thai chilli sauce), fish fried to such crispiness that i ate the tail, tom yam soup (way way way too spicy) and otah cups. But the real treat came after dinner. We went to Out of the Pan's at Raffles City and sat conspicuously by the fountain--points won for ambience. The ice cream waffles were amazingly light and crispy, and drizzled with orange butter, vanilla ice cream, maple syrup and strawberries in raspberry sauce. Sharon's Asian C--?-- dessert was magnificent--creamy vanilla, strawberry sherbet, pineapple parfait and lemongrass ginger ice cream, which was surprisingly lovely. I had honey fig ice cream, the name of which is already droolworthy. Jess had chocolate ice cream mounted on a sliver of frozen cream. It would be much fun to be a food critic, methinks.

2003-03-21T00:27:00.000-08:00

Hey charmian. yes now you're a member of this exclusive world. Don't judge the little girl for her thoughts. She's just trying them out for size.

2003-03-20T18:36:00.000-08:00

I just came back from Bintan! It was really something to be treated like royalty..travelling everywhere with what seemed to be the king of Bintan island, being treated to fruit juice and goreng pisang by the bosses of ClubMed and Nirwana Gardens, being the first ones escorted onto the ferry home. And the mangrove swamp baot ride! I really felt that for one day, I was a princess being taken on a tour of this man's playground, his SimResort in a sense.
I love the beaches of Bintan. The waves are rough and chaotic, but it's a peaceful kind of noise, the kind that quietens you inside and is altogether calm. And just sitting there letting my voice get swallowed up by the sea's chaos, I resolved a few important issues that have been bugging me these days.
On a less happy note, I read jo's blog and now i really wonder how and why we've drifted so far apart. It was unintentional, but now I realise we seldom get to talk, and I don't tell her stuff and she doesn't tell me stuff..we're still friends but it's hardly the same now that we're in different classes. And i wish i could reverse things and somehow make things the way they were before, but I know i can't. We're estuaries meandering our ways into different sectors of the earth.

2003-03-15T06:54:00.000-08:00

Why is it we can never say the things we really want to say? If only we had the strength to do everything we don't dare to do. Then I wouldn't be sitting here looking at my regrets like they were broken toys in my hands.

2003-03-14T07:22:00.000-08:00

I've found the perfect word to describe myself. I've become passive. Maybe it's because everything that happens to me comes at breakneck speed and there's no time to even think about what just happened.

Today was the last day of school in RJ for some people. Photos were taken, goodbyes hurriedly said in the canteen. It was awful. And in the rush of things i never got to say things to them that i wanted to. The only comfort is i don't have to go anywhere, don't have to uproot myself and pack up my things, don't have to look at everything and everyone that i'm leaving behind. I can be passive; i can take as long as i need to heal. I'm thinking of japan and how leaving was the hardest thing i ever had to do.It's easier to stand still and watch someone walk away from you than to turn and walk away.

I've found a haven in school--the art room. My project is beautifying the ramble-and-shack balcony, something i take with delight. I never clean my room but i clean the art room like a madwoman. Presently there are five trashbags filled with junk that nobody will miss. Now when i have a free block i just go there and hide in coldplay or whatever's playing on the stereo, safe between boxes of cloth and markers. i'm painting a wooden screen to section off the storage area of the balcony. i won't step into the library again unless I absolutely have to check a book out. The art room is where I recreate myself . And as i work, i feel like i'm patching up my life from the rags that my schedule leaves me with. I'm building a world that is concrete and controllable, unlike the shapeless riot of emotions that is my universe.

2003-03-11T06:31:00.000-08:00

I took this amazing little blue pill last night for my headache, and woke up this morning brimming with energy! There wasn't one moment today that i felt i could drop off in class. Today was a rainbow day. Some days you call sunshiney days and others are just stormy ones, but today was a true rainbow day. It was wonderful cos I was awake and alive enough to soak it all in.
I feel bad that i'm neglecting my diary, as if my diary had feelings that i've hurt. And i feel limited and shallow, always blogging about the same things over and over again. But i have to. I'm distracted. And tonight i listened to "creep", THE heart-breaking song. It was eerily close to my heart. It chilled me like it never had before.

2003-03-10T05:53:00.000-08:00

i've been listless and tired for gdness knows how long now. gone is that chirpy vibe i used to possess. i'm back to being that dreamy little girl that laoshis scold for not paying attention (though i do pay attn! i have a dreamy look.)
And sumaya might be dropping ao maths, which would leave 2 of us sad beings for class. Which would leave 1 of me if michael doesn't come on some days. Which sucks.
Sometimes i wonder if there's any point in my taking subjects that won't matter. I have a vision of what i want to do with my life. Not a concrete vision, but shadows of thought. There's so much that speaks to me, that demands my heart's commitment. All i have to do is choose. I have a passion for music;never will i forget all those songs i wrote like a madman not wasting any minute. And i have a passion for jewelry and fashion. Everything that accentuates the natural poetry of a woman, I love. But above all, I have a passion for God. Which is why i'm holding back, waiting to see what he has in plan for my life.
If i had to explain why i'm still taking ao maths then...i suppose it's because i just might as well take it. I believe in maximising myself. i don't believe in fighting against things for no reason.
Another thing:I've always had this fantasy that I was like the girl in Tal Bachman's "SHe's so high"...but these days I;m learning the truth.

2003-03-08T07:02:00.000-08:00

well. had a rather eventful day.
last nite was ashley's birthday party. they brought in a chef and a waiter to serve a ?-course meal in her dining room...with candles and wine and all. i went for worship prac and arrived in time for a sumptuous dessert. ash is a special friend.. you seldom meet people who you can click with instantly, but that was how it was with her in sec 3 when i sat beside her. there was just something about her, an enigmatic force that attracted people to her. it was the kind of charisma that made everyone want to be her best friend. yet as i got to know her, i struggled with the glossy, somewhat superficial chemistry we had. we partook of the glamorous life and did famous things, but i always wondered if the friendship was deep. as a result i drifted away, and the me that she once knew became a cold stranger. then i went to japan. i always refer to the japan trip as a turning point in my life. it was the time when i grew close to God again. things became clear to me, and i knew i was being stupid by snubbing her. she never brought up the time we drifted apart, and then i truly loved her for everything she was. without her in jc, i don't have to deal with the philosophy of our friendship, and perhaps that's a good thing. now when i think of her i remember all the wonderful things we did together and the sunshine she brought into my life. for someone whose friendship i doubted so much, she values me beyond what i knew. sitting at the table last night with the 6 other people she invited to her party, i felt a warming glow of honour.

2003-03-06T04:28:00.000-08:00

I had one of those days when everything made me smile. I had an early dismissal, lunch and lots of laughs with my enlarged class, no pestering from the j2s, a rocking URA meeting with charm first thing in the morning, a successful shopping trip, and met someone i think is a nice match for charm.
But then something happened when i got home, and i cried.
If not for my love for God, i wouldn't have cried. The decision would have been brainless. Skip the worship practice and go for ash's bday party. But then there's this overwhelming tug at my heart that tells me i have to put God above all else. So i have to forgo the party, not just because of my responsibility to the class, but also because it would please God. It's a small thing but it's more difficult than i thought it would be. i really feel sad.We are all fragile things, so easily torn down. But if i can't make this decision for God now, how can i think i'm capable of making bigger decisions for God in the future? There are things i want to do for God, big things, but i guess all these plans have always laid in the recess fo my heart called the "distant future". God has given me this small thing to be responsible for, and if i can't handle it, He won't give me the larger responsibilities. The time to make the decision for God is now, and i know it. God knows that this birthday party means a lot to me. He's asking if i'm willing to make this sacrifice for Him. I can't say no. In perspective, this is a small sacrifice. I might face bigger tests in future: forgoing lovers, careers, money, other objects my heart covets, and then how would i fare?
God has given me peace in my heart.
He has given me so much more.
The least i can do is make this sacrifice.