;if these streets could talk

2008-01-14T20:50:00.000-08:00

MOVED

I am finally off to tinker with Livejournal

2007-11-06T23:53:00.000-08:00

Rightfully, I should have moved. I mean seriously, even procrastination has limits. And I wouldn't blame the lack of technological access either. Contrarily, I have been staving off Facebook for the past month with the vigor of an addict - which I probably am. I think Facebook should be banned. Not because its remotely uninteresting but its too hazardous to one's life. It consumes so much of your time and attention, you start living on it.

I am in a pretty nonchalant mood right now. I know I feel depressed but I can''t come to terms with it. I hardly felt the presence of this year. It was quick, silent and brutal.

I don't know why I blogged. It feels rather stupid now...

will i wake to find you

2007-10-11T14:18:00.000-07:00

I am moving to LiveJournal – finally. Yes, I was deliberating hauling myself over about five months away but well you know…things get in the way (namely a particular characteristic trait called procrastination) and I wasn’t really very willing to part with a blog I have made my emotional cesspit for the past two years.

Link will be up soon, but the final post is dedicated to Kiwi as promised.

You probably forgot that yes, I do owe you a post. I can’t remember when we actually made the deal but I am guessing it was during C’Division when we were alternating between eating ourselves out of our wallets and cheering ourselves hoarse for our juniors. Besides, being dominantly slow when it comes to performing normally mundane tasks, I was in truth waiting for a photograph of yours which could go with the post. So nearly two months later (minus a photo) -

I still remember you from Secondary One. We weren’t lunch-buddy close but we had all those quaint nicknames for everyone on the team and a batch camaraderie I still consider unrivalled. Yours was Kiwi-Shake (I conveniently forgot mine of course) and it morphed into an awkward cheer of sorts,

“Kiwi Shake Kiwi Shake Kiwi Shaky Shaky Shake”

It sounds ridiculous right now – something an elementry kid would come up with in her sand pit. But then we found it stitch-inducing amusing. I suppose being in Secondary One gave us reason enough to indulge in the last vestiges of our childhood.

Secondary Two was better. I remembered you as the MEP prodigy – mind you anyone with an ability to tinker with a piano rank very high in my expectations seeing how I still remain musically illiterate. You always had a knowing smile. Death Note was a catalyst to our relationship of sorts. You did try teaching me the art of singling out Japanese people from locals – which I haven’t mastered yet. (AND NO L IS STILL BETTER LOOKING THAN LIGHT)

Secondary Three has been a whirlwind. Probe me, and I am unable to toss out any quotes from our conversations. There were far too many. The wayward accents we mimicked during training sessions, and your illustrious plans for an eating disorder clinic. I still remember a particularly disturbing MSN conversation in which we were squabbling over who was better looking – Mozart or Bach. I am assuming at that time we had temporarily lost our sanity and forgotten that the two men in question weren’t exactly visually pleasing – atleast not in the context of 20^th century. Oh and those times in which we deliberated the sexuality of a certain SSS Bowler. We have been able to dredge up the most unorthodox of topics and turn it into the most elaborate of discussion. It’s a sort of a talent really. Well, yes.

You have been a great friend, person etc. I still turn to your blog when I feel an innate urge to laugh. Oh and to those still un-introduced to the Kiwi, do not fall for the exterior she has perfected. She does look like the poster child for orthodox behavior but she’s so much more (in a good way obviously). If we ever do grow apart, you are welcome to whack me with a particularly blunt object on the head. And if I die, I am bequeathing my Rubik’s cube to you. You’re like my uh Rubik’s predecessor.

I still haven’t been able to take a full frontal picture of yours truly. But mind you, you can only elude my camera once. I would insert a nefarious laugh here but I suppose it is highly inappropriate for a dedication post to consist of any underlying threats -.-

As of know, I am battling a compulsive obsession with Facebook and frequent fits of post-exam excitements. Blogging is the last thing on my mind right now, because I realize I tend to blog when I am utterly desperate for an avenue to vent my frustrations or when something monumental occurs. Currently I am relatively happy with myself and the only major event going on in my very banal life is me getting cheap thrills out of computerized Mafia.

Perhaps after netball carnival.

- 50th post.

facebook whoring

2007-10-08T05:43:00.002-07:00

http://www.petitiononline.com/9848/petition.html

~~I replaced mugging with doing everything else. Damn me.~~

final touches

2007-09-28T05:03:00.000-07:00

SS PT leftovers;

okay official HIATUS

you're my newfound jealousy

2007-09-22T12:30:00.000-07:00

I am so predictable.

Give me a bloody chance and yes, 99% of the time I will inevitably screw up with it. It has become so characteristic I should probably become the poster child for mismanagement. I discard time, find solace in sleep and very occasionally engage in anything beneficial to myself. Contrary to popular belief, failures do not always equal to success. Most of the time, they accumulate and suffocate you till you give up trying and allow your life to meander on its own accord.

Perhaps 10 years later, when I have a future worthy of breeding in a compost heap, I will regret. I will look back on spent years and naturally the ‘what ifs’ and ‘what coulds’ would follow. The future is a frightening thing. If I am already struggling to juggle nine subjects and a nonexistent social life, I wonder how tumultuous life would become when you shuffle in the other aspects of job, family and god knows what.

Its like there is a storm raging out there for us, and here we are whining over the seemingly innocuous drizzle. Yes, life is not fair. When you came kicking and screaming into this world, looks like the nurse forget to hold up her plaque card, “WELCOME TO PROVERBIAL HELL”. It wasn’t your fault you couldn’t blink out of the white hospital walls into the chaos which navigates the world. If you had, you might have shrunk back into the womb and decried birth.

When we grow up, we are going to struggle through jobs (bitch about your boss conveniently) , bemoan taxes and put your child through the very rat race you tired yourself in. Even if you might not engage in the above, you would still face something predominantly wrecking than facile EYAs. Life’s like that. Its been structured to ensure you throw your hands up in despair atleast once and wish your existence away.

The relevation and cynicism of sorts are a byproduct of pre-EYA deliberation/mugging. All of a sudden I don’t want to grow up anymore. I want to suspend time in its tracks and live in a solitary world. We could sit in circles outside our classroom 24/7 and tell each other ghost stories. Those pretend ghosts would be our only fear, worry. Adulthood might be a tempting haven of freedom. Except even freedom doesn’t come without a price.

Steering back to lightheartedness (relatively) , it seems like Newsweek spoke too soon. Straits Times reported with statistics the increased presence of homophobia all over the world. Singapore it claims has half of its population vehemently against homosexuality. Try as hard as I could, I still cannot manage to comprehend homophobia. Perhaps someone could volunteer to explain this to me so I am enlightened on why exactly homosexuality is the epitome of sin.

You do not choose to be homosexual. It would be dandy if you could wake up one day and decide you wish to experiment with foreplay. Unfortunately emotions and hormones aren’t in our hands to twist and manipulate. Its their way of life. Why can’t you let them live it? I am sure you would enjoy it tremendously if someone were to poke their head through your door and launch themelves into a declaration on how immoral your relationship is merely because it is not in tangent with the rest of the majority. God forbid.

I don’t think Singapore making gay sex illegal is helping either. By actually propagating it as a crime, the government is only convincing people that homosexuality is indeed unprincipled. Perhaps if the government would opt for a more liberal view on the issue, it would initiate people to loosen up with regards to the matter. Honestly, enough of blowing the same trumpet of how a family is the nucleus for the society. A family does not have to parallel the rigid definition of father, mother and child. A family only needs the essential of a caring environment which can be provided by any two people who give a damn regardless of their sexuality. Last I checked, being homosexual does not come with the hindering gene of indolence.

And I don’t think the worry about hackling people’s nerves should plague the government either. Its not like they have not done it before, what with the sensitive issues of minister pay rise and IR. People’s opinions have hardly taken precedence over the will of the government and I don’t see why it should be an exception in this case. I hardly think legalizing homosexuality would spiral Singapore into chaos and throw the ruling party out of power before you can say, ‘Gay’

I should refrain from being so bitter, really. As well as stop writing obscenely long posts. As of now, I need to badly put my blog on hiatus so that I can scrape through my EYA’s without too much of a bruise on my GPA. Its already whimpering as I speak.

2007-09-17T02:44:00.000-07:00

Its about time the world dismissed the overzealous caution it had against homosexuals. Yes, they practice an alternate lifestyle. Get over it. Alternative or not, it’s a lifestyle nevertheless and one we shouldn’t discriminate because it doesn’t parallel what’s defined as normality by the society. People fear what is different. Its an inbuilt instinct within ourselves to shy away from what we are not accustomed to. The unknown always poses questions which the answers remain shrouded in inexperience. Y

et at the end of the day homosexuality’s a form of living, perhaps different, perhaps practiced sparingly, but a person’s way of life. The choice lays in his hands and to chide his choice would be to demean ours and to leave it open for criticism. If we can sneer at homosexuals merely on the basis that they remain the minority, they have every right to shoot down our way of life. After all it is different from theirs. This is not a calling to homophobes to alter their mindsets and embrace all gays with hospice. It’s a note that at the end of the day we are all people who make different decisions. To each his own, and as fellow members of the society - as long as said decision does not threaten to wreak harm or chaos on the society - we should be able to respect each other’s decision.

At a time when homophobia is being reduced to a crass stereotype, it only seems apt to present to you a year old play written at the height of a rabid Harry/Draco slash obsession by myself and the ever witty Pavithra. Mind you, it is the brian child of our reveries, mildly blunt wit and several informal brainstorming sessions along corridors.

CAUTION: SLASH, SMUT AHEAD

Characters:
Berry as Harry
Flako as Draco
Yawn as Ron
Ho Hung as Cho Chang
Voldemort as Cold-the-dot

FLAKO: Er, right, so, you um, okay?
BERRY: HO...HO...
FLAKO: Um, hey...(watches berry cry for a while) stop crying already
BERRY: Go bother someone else.
FLAKO: Right, hey, was that an insult?
BERRY: Just leave, will you? Its not as though anyone cares about me that I need you to as well. (buries his head into his arms)
FLAKO: You mean you just realised? OK, hey, look, I'm....I'm sorry. Look, (pats Berry's shoulder)you know I didn't mean that.
(BERRY SNIFFLES)

FLAKO: Come on, something's messed up in Berry Gutter's perfect life?
BERRY: What do you mean by perfect? WHAT DO YOu know about my LIFE?How would you feel if your girlfriend cheated on you with your best friend and you've got this pyscho path running after you with his broken wand? Leave me alone will you? I need to feel depressed and cry for myself. That way I can throw myself a large pity party.
FLAKO: Let me get this, Ho cheated on you with Yawn. Kidding? I thought you two were the buddies of the millenium.
BERRY: You thought wrong then....again. (sourly)

FLAKO: (scoffs) I used to feel....jealous of you two, you know.
BERRY: (turns surprised) Really?
FLAKO: yeah, I guess....I mean I used to think, ...how it would be....if I had a friend like you....or Yawn.
BERRY: Well, you have Crab and Boil.
FLAKO: Those thugs? You wouldn't really call them friends. Not like.... you and Yawn were anyway.
BERRY: Were indeed. That loser. I FIGHT COLD THE DOT EVERY WEEK WHO YOU ARE ALL SO SCARED OF,SO WHY CAN'T I GET THE GIRLFRIEND OPTIONS I WANT. I AM SO ANGRY. AND PISSED. AND ANGSTY. AFTER ALL I AM SO (dramatic pause) EMO.
FLAKO: right,....*rolls his eyes* Act your age will you? And not your shoe size.

BERRY: CALM DOWN. YOU WANT ME TO CALM DOWN AS I SPILL MY PASSION AMD EMOTIONS AND BARE MY ANGST RIDDEN SOUl.
FLAKO: So, I am sure there are other fish out in the sea....I mean, you are THE BARRY GUTTER.(sarcastically) (rolls his eyes)
BERRY: WILL YOU GO AWAY.MY WEEKLY DUEL WITH COLD THE DOT IS SCHEDULED FOR ELEVEN O CLOCK TONIGHT AND I'D BETTER NOT MISS IT. YOU KNOW COLD THE DOT. HE WOULD MURDER ME IN MY SLEEP. HE'S EVEN ANGSTIER THAN I AM.
FLAKO: You aren't angsty. just hurt...(shrugs) healing. Sometimes, I think you are so much stronger than me. (grins arrogantly) I mean I do have a brain bigger than your air-headed one, and I DO actually know how to duel, but....I guess sometimes I just...admire you....from far. Sometimes.....I just wish....I can be strong....(looks away) like you.
BERRY: Well, ...I thought you hated me.
FLAKO: I wouldn't say hate? Jealous, maybe. You know...(smiles softly to himself) they say there's only a thin line between hate and ....

Eh, I seem to have inconveniently misplaced the ending which involves an angst ridden Berry stalking of to drown himself in the lake, Flako assuming the role of the selfless hero and saving him with the aid of CPR (gasp, ohso muggle!) just in time for Cold-The-Dot to transpire and declare a duel. Flako again who seems to be very OOC in his new façade of heroism fights him to save Berry’s life and yeah, predictable ending. They don’t get together however. The same melodrama of how society’s stereotypes are holding them kicking and screaming apart from engaging in very PG13 rated makeout scenes.

It was fun writing the script, mind you. Hilariously mindblowing but momentous. While I was at digging up carcasses of the bypassed era of my HarryPotterFanFiction fixation I also discovered a set of scenes from a story which I had read ages before:

1.
Harry sat with Ginny by the lake, watching the sun set over the lake. The giant squid poked his head out of the water and said hello before sinking down to the depths to commence his sleep for the night.

“Harry?” Ginny asked, looking up at him. Her head was resting on his lap, and she was lying down.

“YES?” he asked somewhat angstily.

“Don’t be so angsty with me,” she said gently. “I was thinking about the children we’re going to have in the future.”

“WELL,” said Harry, “I THINK WE SHOULD GIVE THEM ORIGINAL NAMES. YOU KNOW, SOMETHING SPECIAL. AND OF COURSE, WE’RE GOING TO HAVE A GIRL AND A BOY.”

“Yes,” Ginny agreed. “We should name them… Lily and James.”

“WOW, THAT IS SO ORIGINAL!” Harry said happily. “I THINK THAT’S PERFECT. WHEREVER DID YOU THINK OF THAT?”

“It just came to me,” said Ginny with a nonchalant shrug. “I know I’m smart. I’m also beautiful, popular and witty. Boy, are you lucky I forgot my twenty other boyfriends to be with you.”

Harry and Ginny snogged in the moonlight as the giant squid slept down at the bottom of the lake.

2.
“Attention!” cried Dumbledore at breakfast in the Great Hall. “Everyone, I’d like to have your attention.”

The Great Hall quieted, the murmur of sleepy breakfast talking fading to a flat silence.

“As I seem to be full of announcements these past few weeks, I would like to make another one. First, Harry Potter has successfully defeated Voldemort in their two-hundred and twenty-fifth duel last night. Let’s all congratulate him!”

Clapping echoed through the Great Hall.

“Five hundred and fifty thousand points to Gryffindor,” said Dumbledore as a large shower of rubies fell into the bottom half of the Gryffindor points hourglass. Groans emerged from the Slytherin table. “My second announcement is that we will be having an inter-house dueling competition right now in honour of Harry’s milestone!”

Cheering erupted through the Great Hall. The tables were immediately cleared away, and the students stood together, watching the runway-like dueling stage with anticipation.

“First up is Potter and Malfoy!” cried Dumbledore.

“No!” screamed Malfoy. “I won’t! I cannot duel anymore. I have a newfound personality and am suddenly sweet and caring. For this reason I will not retaliate or curse Harry.”

“That sounds somewhat familiar,” said Ron thoughtfully.

“Well, we have to have a Gryffindor and a Slytherin duel because that’s the way it’s always done in canon,” reminded Dumbledore. “What should we do?”

3.

“GIN?”

Harry and Ginny were sitting together in the Gryffindor common room, the hot fire crackling in front of them.

“Yes, Harry?” she asked sweetly, not bothering to tell Harry that no one calls her Gin in canon.

“WELL, GIN, WE CAN’T SEE EACH OTHER ANYMORE. SEE, ALTHOUGH I HAVE DEFEATED VOLDEMORT IN VARIOUS DUELS TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE TIMES, I MUST DESTROY HIM ONCE AND FOR ALL.”

“Harry, are you sure?” she asked.

“YES, I AM. HEY, WHY AREN’T YOU ANGRY?” Harry said angstily. “I AM VERY ANGRY AND THEREFORE EVERYONE AROUND ME SHOULD BE TOO. GOODNESS, THE WHOLE WORLD IS JUST FALLING APART AND I HAVE TO SAVE IT. FIRST I HAVE TO KILL VOLDEMORT, AND THEN I HAVE TO SAVE THE WORLD TOO?”

“No, Harry, it’s okay,” Ginny said, trying to comfort the angry Harry.

“NO, IT’S NOT OKAY!” yelled Harry. “LEAVE ME ALONE SO I CAN GO OBLITERATE DUMBLEDORE’S BELONGINGS AND THROW MYSELF A LARGE PITY PARTY.”

“Okay, fine,” said Ginny angrily. “I have ten other guys on reserve, so I’ll just go date one of them. None of them will be as good as you, though. Bye!”

4.

“RON!”

Ron jolted awake, knocking his head on a light fixture above him.

“What?” he asked groggily, rubbing his head.

“RON, YOU WERE SLEEPING. HOW COULD YOU SLEEP AT A TIME LIKE THIS?” Harry demanded angstily.

“A time like what?” asked Ron slowly, trying to register what day it was.

“TODAY IS MY LAST EVER DUEL WITH VOLDEMORT!” cried Harry. “HE SCHEDULED IT FOR TEN O’CLOCK AT NIGHT EVEN THOUGH I SPECIFICALLY ASKED HIS SECRETARY FOR THE ELEVEN A.M. SLOT! OH, I AM SO ANGRY!”

Harry kicked a large standing lamp and fumed as it crashed into an unsuspecting first-year.

“I’m sure you’ll win,” said Ron with a nonchalant shrug.

“JUST BECAUSE I’VE WON THE LAST TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE TIMES, IT DOESN’T MEAN I’LL WIN THIS ONE!” yelled Harry, his ears smoking. “I AM VERY STRESSED AND ANGSTY RIGHT NOW, SO DON’T PUSH MY BUTTONS!”

“Fine,” said Ron, turning away. “I’m too stupid to help you anyway.”

Story; Cliched Nation from mugglenetfanfiction.com.

aptly untitled

2007-09-06T09:58:00.000-07:00

Its been approximately a year or so since I gave up writing poetry after my muse was brutally stabbed and disposed of - a permanent state of writer’s block which refuses to extract itself. Even blogging, the sole source of self expression I have been dependent on is losing its luster after a month of angst heavened posts. I desperately need to write again.

I need a release. The idea might just wreak havoc on my precariously scripted schedule to face the EOYs but oh well, really. I can stack 1001 reasons the faults marring our Singaporean education system. I can sketch you a detailed report on why youths in our country from our brightest stocks are underperforming in a oppressive system which forces stoppers on creativity and subtly decries an orthodox education moulded by textbooks and teaching materials. Creativity isn’t incorporating performance tasks in our curriculum (supposedly intended to move away from pen and paper examinations) or slotting in Art Week and Drama Night. Creativity is an inbuilt instinct which should be nurtured in our everyday lives, through the actions we do and the tasks we uphold. It should come from self learning from experiences and various sources around us alike. With such an education skeleton, no doubt our art scene has been quiet until a recent revival of late.

Creativity drains aside, the holidays have left me mentally exhausted and questioning the true meaning of holidays. ~~I even checked dictionary.com to make sure the meaning hasn’t been changed recently to fit the week of educational dictatorship I have been subject to.~~ Dare I say, I miss school. Atleast the lessons provide a few hours of breathing space which these holidays have obliterated.

PS: I SOLVED THE RUBIK’S CUBE. Yeah, yeah to all those who have accomplished this feat which doesn’t seem as forebearing after you have been exposed to the scant formulas involved - I know it isn’t much seeing how half the school body can finish it inclusive of time limits, but allow ME to revel in this minute of self accomplishment…….. Okay minute over.

2007-09-01T01:50:00.000-07:00

♠

Remember when you had been my muse,
Featured in my fairytale,
And I framed your smile in a moment,
Conversations memorised frontwards, back.

So now why does it feel like I am the one in control?

The wildest thing I have done in Primary School is climb into the school bookdrop. It was an action instigated by overwhelming responsibility on our part. The library door was locked and our teacher required something from within. I suppose our frantic brains could not have theorized the existence of a key which might have settled our dilemma, but the only viable option we could see then was to crawl into the bookdrop to access the library.

To a twelve year old, it was ingenious. Our in-school adventures were limited to prefectorial duty evasions and skeetering down staircase railings with the agility of a hunched sloth. Mind you, we were convinced that we were progressively becoming pre-teen delinquents. Not that it did stop us, the thrill of doing something remotely out of boundaries held a new dimension for us - a dimension we wanted to thoroughly explore before we left the school only with half-hearted memories of shuttered giggles and placid eleven-year old gossip(him and her, her and him).

The school bookdrop was new. It opened into a cupboard which respectively opened into the library. It was a new installation and while students might have appreciated the convenience, I am sure no one thought of using it as an alternate entrance to the library. Uh, most preferred the door. Ten minutes of flailing arms and conspicuously protruding legs, we made it in.

I do want to return to those years. Wishful thinking, on my part but I want to pretend I do not have life waiting at the threshold to swallow me whole and spit me out. I want to embrace a fantasy riddled with delusions, but growing up has presented me with a whirlwind of experiences and lessons. I think forsaking my naïve fantasy is worth all that.

bloodyhell

2007-08-25T05:52:00.000-07:00

Poor Shakeena has just become the No 1 public enemy of 303 due to her overzealous monitoring of our class. Oops.

2 class bookings in three days = Class DC!

The school might just as well stick a label on our foreheads and assume we are wreaking our negative influences on the sacred school culture, god forbid.

somewhere somewhat

2007-08-21T07:39:00.000-07:00

Lathiga: Why don't they just scrape soccer?

Syah: Don't say the S word.

We had a mildly productive conversation during PE today - in which we effectively shut out the teacher and his diatribes on the impeccable skill of our school softballers and the importance of batting...well something along the lines - about soccer (or rather the absurdity of it) . Well the topic was the PE teacher's fault seeing how he has a particularly bad habit of making random associations between our short attention spans and EPL . Yeah, just because we are not listening to him, he assumes we were discussing EPL.

I am not getting Maths either. Its not wholly her fault - having an OCD for cleanliness which surpasses the capacity to teach is entirely understandable - but I actually want to be able to grasp her concepts without having to bang my head on the table multiple times just to make sure I am not in a macabre nightmare, and yes, she, who thinks relating her past heroic endeavours and anecdotes takes precendence over teaching, is very much real.

~~I am this close to self expiration.~~

this is the finish line

2007-08-15T00:40:00.000-07:00

I suffer an apocalyptic childhood. I cease to term it a childhood (or teenagehood if you are wishing to be technical) because the definition of such a period constitutes happiness and memories of rhetoric laughter and unscheduled fun. It does not include strings of exams or sleep deprivation...definitely not frequent episodes of wallowing in self pity.

Tons of works to do and time seems to be in incooperative factor. It has a mind of its own, and a pace it seeks to satisfy itself. I am tired of lots of things, and my years of pseudo-emo seems to have translated into a very real scenario of massive depression - except I have too many things in my mind to offer authentic angst a corner to crawl into.

I don't think I want to go RJC. It is not a catharsis of any sort. The few weeks have been a catalyst to an alternative I have been mulling over. I don't know, honestly. The permanency feels hollow, its an education system wrung into your senses there is almost nothing to look forward to. More exams, maybe but otherwise I am afraid to plough into the future for what waits to greet me is only a replication of wretchedness.

On other matters, the blog will be on hiatus until I retrieve myself from proverbial hell. Then, I would refurbish these slobbery chunks of emoness and stop inflicting my emotional irrationalities on the world.

twenty seconds to comply

2007-08-06T10:04:00.000-07:00

My life is progressing at the rate of a derailed freight train. I am inevitably nearing breakdown…somewhat. I don’t know really. My perpetual hissy fits thrown in the confines of my room usually put a damper on the escalating frustration, but strangely the last time I threw myself an emotional tantrum was two weeks ago. I had seen it coming with the exodus of Mathematics worksheets I have been bleeding my brains over. I proceeded to fling my Mathematics workbook at the door – perhaps hoping to symbolise the abdication of the subject from my life – and swear at half the world for not being inclined towards number and reason. Then again, there is a reason why I am impulsive to the core. My brain does not begin to function until the decision has been finalised, and I am stirred into a mental rant on the spectrum of my self-stupidity.

I am not looking forward to the long weekend. For one, I will not be engaging in any nation loving activities of sorts, nor accompanying my family to the National Day Parade. Sure the floats, ships and parachutes are interesting, but I can think of things more thrilling than slouching in the heat of Marina Bay for half a day in a momentary surge of interest towards the nation. Thirty years later, I would rather relate to my grandchildren about that time when I temporarily loaned my sanity and got myself a tattoo or flew myself to Las Vegas and got hitched in a dingy marriage booth to a gay club stripper than about that day when I watched the National Day Parade in 2007. Oh really, I do NOT get the appeal of the parade. Someone enlighten me.

Not that I would be doing any of the above of course >< Instead I would be trying to revise Biology and Social Studies for the slew of tests the school has scheduled for us immediately after the holidays. In my world of wishful thinking, I actually used to believe the administration had a semblance of a heart within all the layers of monotony.

Oh well.

bouts of unexplained insanity

2007-07-30T09:43:00.000-07:00

"Attention zoo patrons! Clamu the Giant Oyster is on an emotional rampage! Please scream and run around in circles."

- Spongebob Square Pants

potters inc

2007-07-21T09:05:00.000-07:00

Caution: Spoilers ahead

Even after shamelessly finishing Deathly Hallows in one sitting - in which all bodily movements were reduced to stagnation - you can't help wondering what is so special about Harry Potter? I could fragment a story about a snot nosed castaway (with meagre fire making talents) who uncovered his royal ancenstry twenty seven feet below a grunting holly tree and the publishers would still haul me out by the collar.

Deathly Hallows was morbidly fascinating. I still withold the impeccable desire to flood JK Rowling's email with hate mail and infallible viruses for finishing off Snape. I convince myself its because cluttering her inbox would be insignificant, to say impaling her. (Note: All indications to potential violence are merely signs to the writer's temporary lapse of sanity. The writer wishes no physical harm on even a hair on JK Rowling's head let alone her head. Her defunct morbidity finds sufficient pleasure in imagining it) But we all know that my technological limitations render me incapable of even sourcing for her email address - I am hopeless with search engines.

WHY IS SNAPE NOT ALIVE?

No, I am not happy that Harry's alive and corpulating. I am sure he's a very admirable hero beneath all the layers of suffocating angst. Yet, I still prefer brooding Snape. Ron, too was brilliantly sarcastic throughout the book even if sometimes the sarcasm felt repeated.

Beyond everything I appreciate JK Rowling's ability to flesh out her characters. Her heroes aren't smooth edged, epitomes of courage. She scrubs their flaws out and exposes them to their vulnerabilities throughout the series. Heroes are heroes not because they achieve but because even when tossed down they have the courage and will to get up and fight.

The final book feels like the culmination, a finale to an era which had embraced everyone. .And yes, even beyond all my naive years of anxious imagination, and frantic desperation I still believe beyond this corporeal world of rigidity there lays a realm of surrealism. Maybe that's what makes Harry Potter special - the promise of a magic so incarnate you yearn for it to be true.

vertical dilemma

2007-07-19T02:50:00.000-07:00

I am shrinking, I swear

hey there delilah!

2007-07-09T04:10:00.000-07:00

These are one of the days when I am astounded at my own mental deficiency. Not that I haven't been deluding myself with Thomas Friedman and Richard Feynman, but there are some days when I seem to have excavated LOGIC from my vocabulary and plunged into a state of compulsive verbal diahrrea.

Oh, and Live Earth was such a flop I had to refrain myself from stabbing Al Gore's printed picture with a pair of blunt scissors and snorting, "I told you so,". But really I shouldn't be speaking. I must have been a loyal contributor to the clearing of the Amazon forest with the copious amounts of paper I frivolously doodle my very inane, abrupt thoughts on. The rainforest is being spent on my expressions of tortured souls in the form of battered stick men and quotes I fabricate when triggered on excessive caffeine and too much The Fray. Tsk.

I should really become more eco-friendly. Save The Earth. Not that it makes a difference anyway. If global warming isn't going to broil holes into our ozone, terrorism is going to annihilate the continents.

;&this one's for you

2007-07-04T08:22:00.000-07:00

Hey there Delilah
What's it like in New York City?
I'm a thousand miles away
But girl tonight you look so pretty
Yes you do
Times Square can't shine as bright as you
I swear it's true

Hey there Delilah
Don't you worry about the distance
I'm right there if you get lonely
Give this song another listen
Close your eyes
Listen to my voice it's my disguise
I'm by your side

Hey there Delilah
I know times are getting hard
But just believe me girl
Someday I'll pay the bills with this guitar
We'll have it good
We'll have the life we knew we would
My word is good

Hey there Delilah
I've got so much left to say
If every simple song I wrote to you
Would take your breath away
I'd write it all
Even more in love with me you'd fall
We'd have it all

A thousand miles seems pretty far
But they've got planes and trains and cars
I'd walk to you if I had no other way
Our friends would all make fun of us
and we'll just laugh along because we know
That none of them have felt this way
Delilah I can promise you
That by the time we get through
The world will never ever be the same
And you're to blame

Hey there Delilah
You be good and don't you miss me
Two more years and you'll be done with school
And I'll be making history like I do
You'll know it's all because of you
We can do whatever we want to
Hey there Delilah here's to you
This ones for you

- Plain White Ts

&behind closed doors

2007-07-01T23:43:00.000-07:00

bowling > multi faceted sadism

;to be fickle

2007-06-29T12:18:00.000-07:00

I seem to have a general aversion towards permanency. After churning out 26 posts of post-humorous (inclusive of copious amounts of swearing, bouts of inexplainable insipidity and a gradual ascension of the psychosis I display of today) monologues I feel compelled to uproot myself and resurrect somewhere else.

I suppose change is supposed to reflect development, except the progress of my URLs from comprehension into absurdist is a blatant proclamationof how naming things isn't one of my fortes. Maybe its just OCD - the whole sense of settling down nevertheless in a nanobyte infested alternate universe feels so conclusive. The idea of relapsing onto a bench and never getting up when there are still paths left to take.

Oh well. I will be hauling myself out of here soon with my vagrant tendencies. Soon. Except 'soon' in my mental vocabulary is a fluctuating sense of time dependent on the variables of work load, parent observation and stage of laziness.

;vive la france

2007-06-25T08:41:00.000-07:00

;France07
(First Batch Of Photos)

;just maybe

2007-06-20T11:03:00.000-07:00

"Is this the first time RI meets RGS ?" -Dr M.C

Just like a star across my sky,
just like an angel off the page,
you have appeared to my life,
feel like I'll never be the same,
just like a song in my heart,
just like oil on my hands,
Honor to love you

You've got this look i can't describe,
you make me feel I'm alive,
when everything else is au fait,
without a doubt you're on my side,
heaven has been away too long,
can't find the words to write this song of your love,

I wonder why it is,
I don't argue like this,
with anyone but you,
I wonder why it is,
I wont let my guard down,
for anyone but you we do it all the time,
blowing out my mind,

PS; And if I had to draft a transcript of all the activities that took place today, it would be so something like paragraphs of : !!!! !!!!!! !!!!. Simply because everyone is so crazy, that they define a whole new adjective on their own, one that without a doubt transcens traditional linguistic boundaries.

;ruin my heart

2007-06-18T10:38:00.000-07:00

No France post yet. Frankly I don’t think I can ever convey into words how alive the trip felt. It was amazing. The kind of amazing, when you are teetering off a cliff, with everything vast beyond you and you know even if you might fall you couldn’t give a damn.

Unrivalled ludicrousness from all the time I scrap together when I am in the lab. It doesn’t make sense but I suppose when you spend a minimum of eight hours each day watching gels run at the speed of Bangkok traffic, your sense of logic is susceptible to denaturation.

14 June 2006

“If I die does God read my wish list out?,”
“If you die, I would know my wish list got read”

8 hours in the lab.

15 June 2006

I went to my mother’s clinic today. Well, strayed more likely and had a valuable conversation with the receptionist.

Receptionist: Do you have an appointment?
Me: Oh you mean I need one?
Receptionist: Well, if not you have to kind of wait for all the patients to finish first
Me: Wait? What if something happens while I am waiting?
Receptionist: No, no delivery
Me: Are you kidding? My water bag might burst.
Receptionist: What? No, I don’t think you are in the delivery stage yet, um take a seat?
Me: But my textbook said I give birth in 9 weeks and I used the pregnancy kit like two months ago
Receptionist: There’s still a long way ….
Me: What if I deliver prematurely? You mean this is patie....

Oh well somewhere in the middle of my diatribe someone must have informed my mother about the half-sensed teenage mishap with a self proclaimed gestation period of nine weeks, who is succumbing to hysterics about her unborn baby. She spoilt my fun by sending her nurse to tell everyone that I was her daughter, and yes I am a little out of sorts. Thanks mum for acknowledging our association.

She did give me money to get dinner so I would haul myself away. Now we all know, all extortions and bribery are never voluntary, but had once been encouraged. In the future, if I turn out to be a conniving sneak who has disposed of honesty and integrity in my wastebin, you know who to unceremoniously heap the blame on.

18 June 2007

I spent 11 hours at the lab today. Then, I sat outside the hospital bench like a homeless vagrant and drank Starbucks Mocha from 7-11 and ate gummy bears; and people stared. They must have tsked under the breath on the blasphemy of runaway, binge eating disorder teenagers who busk outside hospitals and nurture their stomach into potential cesspits for gelatine and caffeine. Or maybe, they have an imagination less hyperactive then mine and perhaps those stares were a fragment of my demented illusion which hikes itself up to ‘Overprotective’ mode whenever I sit outside inappropriate public spots. I waited for my mother for 10 minutes and deliberated whether my body might collapse from diabetes considering how gummy bears have been included in my daily meal consumption for the past week. Five minutes later, I bought myself another bag. Because…heck.

Gee. Maybe I should consolidate these and aspire to mature into the Second Anne Frank. We seem to have endured similar states of ineavasible haplessness under absolute tyranny.- Anne in the Second World War and Nazi Invasion, and myself in NUS's Invasion (of my school holidays).

I can foresee my death from excessive inhalation of Hydrochloride.

he/she

2007-06-15T08:22:00.001-07:00

Now that it's all said and done,
I can't believe you were the one
To build me up and tear me down,
Like an old abandoned house.
What you said when you left
Just left me cold and out of breath.
I fell too far, was in way too deep.
Guess I let you get the best of me.

You made me fall in love with France!

I would update except I have glycerine leaking out of my eyes, I spent my day watching proteins collapse over one another in a gel slab too thin for my finger to pinch (because my compulsive OCD is a three year old child with no tolerance for patience) and I am such a photo-sloth. Uh, my camera was submerged in the dishwasher after my sister mistook it for her pet Iguana - which she frequently thrusts with her plates in the warped sense of equity she feels precedence over logic and animal rights - and scrubbed it clean while singing (or rather abusing her decibels) "MY IGUANA IS A DISH. MY IGUANA IS A DISH". So, all my photos were washed down the sink.

Right...the truth? My photoshop has screwed up in all its temperamental glory. I have permanently shifted myself to my second home - the NUS lab where I engage in hushed up intimacy with my newfound social spectrum; odd variants of proteins and peptides. I am too occupied fraternising with the brotherhood of biomarkers to consolidate anything. Updates and uploads as soon as I scramble my dysfunctional organisation back to order.

PS; I am missing France soso much

;just because

2007-05-30T11:42:00.000-07:00

1. Science Mentorship Programme
2. France; 1 more day (Have not shopped nor packed)
3. Class photos - apparantly my editing skills are obscenely slow
4. Misc Things all impending at various stages of completion

I am deliberating a temporary migration to the corridors of the research centre seeing how a vast majority of what is presumed to be my holidays observing proteins run and the reminder cultivating a fit over the France trip I am utterly unprepared for. Perhaps realisation is fraught in a time warp.

Anyhow, I am afraid the class photos will only be uploaded after I am back from France. My technological illiteracy becomes overhyped when introduced to the fascinations of photoshop and I have yet to process all my photos to eliminate the stark blunders my haphazard photography skills present.

Well, off to France!

;a kind of love, some say

2007-05-23T01:55:00.000-07:00

I've been watching your world from afar,
I've been trying to be where you are,
And I've been secretly falling apart,
I'll see.

To me, you're strange and you're beautiful,
You'd be so perfect with me but you just can't see,
You turn every head but you don't see me.

I'll put a spell on you,
You'll fall asleep and I'll put a spell on you.
And when I wake you, I'll be the first thing you see,
And you'll realise that you love me.
- Strange and Beautiful, Aqualung

PS; 8 more days to France

/where's the damned stop button

2007-05-19T09:55:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I need to shut all this noise out, because the world is getting too loud for me

To Whom It May Concern,

Why don't you leave me alone? Even if you have this huge grudge on me, the obsessive sort which possesses you with an unsatiable urge to put me through a paper cutter, and feed the strips into the trash bin, was it really necessary to hold me up in an aimless online conversation to explain precisely what you supposedly think of me? I wouldn't have minded, except your grammar is appalling enough to have me desperate for fictionpress therapy. Your fractured english must have tumbled five floors.

Frankly, I can comprehend anger, even when the reasoning leaves me grasping for possibilities as to why you might be potentially teetering off your rocker. This is 2007 and romance can be found auctioned on eBay. Do you listen to what you are saying when you whine to me about how I am mauling a priority of your life? I'd made it very clear that my life is infinitely more important to me than you, especially since to you I'm just a convenient punching bag for your overdosed rants, and I find it incredibly amusing that you seem to assume that every minute of my day belongs to you.

By all external appearances, you certainly don't meet the criteria regarding level of sanity for girls I am open to being acquaintances with. If we have met eitherwise - when I had my senses trapped in my back pocket - you must have been insignificant ~~for the only bitch I have seen in months is my neighbour's dog.~~ I didn't mean to be rude by falling asleep the other day over our conversation; its just that you are so interesting it dazzles me and I close my eyes in response to the giddiness. My puny brain cannot handle the awesomeness. I guess it must be sort of like when you run too many applications on a computer and it hangs, because I often feel like hanging myself whenever you talk to me yourself in my presence.

Sweetheart, could you go shopping for a life? I sort of demand you get one before I look one up on Classified for you. Thanks!

I'm sorry.

Love,
K

PS; Thanks for weathering all that for me, Madeeva. Even if I look hard, will I get a friend like you?

;♠ we will find each other there

2007-05-13T08:06:00.003-07:00

Dear Mother,

I can understand declining birth rates, right now. And if I were part of the government intellegentsia I would have realised a few extra bucks and the household moniker of Baby Bonus isn‘t going to do much to acclerate a few thousand births. Being a mother isn‘t the nine months of labour (in which the stereotype of weak women becomes subject to debate), or even the high maintenance of a child. It’s a mental predicament, a life time entity which sometimes tests a woman’s patience, tries her tears, unleashes her anger, and very occasionally fetches a smile. I can sympathise with all those women, really. All whom would rather be living high profile lives in the crème of all careers to working out a migraine over her daughter’s PSLE score. The turmoil of motherhood worth tens of years isn’t half worth the sparse minutes of pride the mother has been yearning for each while.

I have never truly appreciated how you have always been there. The times you clear my table for me before it succumbs to look like it has been raped by a few dozen harrumphing godzillas or to an inorganic cesspit. The times I have done the most appall able things and all you wanted to know was my state of mind. The times you stood up for me, and I never did for you. I never did thank you, and neither did you ask.

You should have abandoned me mother. Really. Severed all ties with this species you call a daughter. (I am being self degrading to myself in this statement, but it is mother’s day, it is your day, and I suppose the temporary sacrifice of my ego is the least I could do) I don’t know why you stay. I don’t know why all those mothers who are shut out brutally stay. Is it a patience cultivated by motherhood?

So what is it about motherhood? What is it about the sharing of a few molecular similarities which creates a bond of such permanency which no words, actions or events can weather? I don’t know all that, but all I know is that you care. It has taken me a helluva long time to realise that. Even then, such a realisation becomes veiled by anger at times.

Thank you for tolerating me all these years. I might never have made you felt wanted or even loved, but without you, you should know I wouldn’t be half the person I am today. I did spend time thinking about what I should give you for a mother’s day present. Firstly, I was financially incapable of even buying you a hairpin. Even so I would have either gotten you a penmanship book (hopefully it would create as much change in your handwriting as you have in my life) or a cook book, so the next time the last viable option before starvation requires your cooking skills we all don’t have to leave the ambulance and fire brigade on speed dial. The last option was a sappy letter of course - not only would it speak a thousand words (literally) but it also sympathises with the dire financial state I am in. ~~(This is a hint to please increase my pocket money?)~~

So, mother, you might never read this. But if you do, this is all I can attribute to you for Mother‘s Day (other than the flowers I plucked off the street for you for which you have to remember I risked being potentially mauled by all those condominum security guards).

You are one of a kind mother. And even if sometimes I suspect you love your garden more than you love us, I still love you.

From,
K.

/you're a little off center

2007-05-01T02:26:00.001-07:00

This year has been one teeming with hikes: the GST hike, ministrial pay hikes, temperature hike. I shall attribute my abrupt string of self-centred epidemics to the punctured ozone layer. Having said that, I do not claim to be in any way pro-environment. My daily paper consumption must have cleared half the Amazon and I use water like the Pacific's mine. To excarbate my environmentally suicidal habits, I do not even try to avoid walking on grass patches.

Anyhow, as adapted from http://samaryn.com:

In 2011, the General Elections will be held and the ruling party will again claim the people’s mandate. In a similar vein to MM Lee Kuan Yew’s scare-mongering tactics, this is a possible scenario of the immediate years after 2011:

1. Hikes for GST, transport and healthcare manifest yet again. Cascade effect causes daily necessities and food to rise in cost again; CPI increases but statistics will be massaged.

2. Prolonged, strenuous debates on welfare and workfare benefits eventually see another grand $30 increase, maybe double or triple that even. Income gap continues to widen and the Gini coefficient continues to rise.

3. The Newspaper Printing Presses Act is amended a few years before GE 2011 to include measures on new media. Mainstream media, especially the stable of SPH newspapers, improve in the subtlety or blatancy of their pro-establishment reportage. Counter-insurgency measures become more sophisticated.

4. Retirement villages are promoted; those situated in nearby Johor and Bintan are especially lauded and recommended by ministers for financial cost reasons. In the oldest precincts, one-room flats and two-room flats are slated for demolition to make way for new HDB flats. In some precincts nearer to town, the old three/four-storey flats that are converted into boutique hotels, like those in Tiong Bahru.

5. Residents, and not HDB, bear the increasing cost of IUP and LUP for their housing estate. Other burdens of the State begin to be transferred to the citizens as the population’s age pyramid bulges towards the old age bracket.

6. Ministerial salaries are due for review 6 years after 2007’s increase. The benchmark will not vary much from the previous review and ministers are expected to receive at least half a million more in annual salary. First world countries elsewhere begin to adopt Singapore’s best practice.

7. GLCs continue to have a stronghold on the economy and acquire significant stakes in regional countries’ assets. Ruling party members and affiliates continue to be rotated amongst the different ministries and GLCs.

8. The PMETs of the generation born in the 70s and 80s continue to leave the country in large droves. Emigrants join their families and friends already settled in Australia, USA and Canada. Australia records a new high of 60,000+ emigrants from Singapore in 2015, compared to the 50,000 in 2007. Some emigrants seek new lives in nearby ASEAN countries and China. Overseas undergraduates and graduates especially, sink new roots in the country of their choice. The exodus begins to surpass the influx as more citizens make their decision to leave.

/and the world slides from my side

2007-04-28T08:31:00.000-07:00

The whole issue about stability being synonymous with the growth of a country ? At this point, rather than enlisting Singapore as a stable country, it would be more suited to compare it to a computer with the government as the central power. Errors are erased and fallbacks are eliminated. Stability on the population front can mean that the government is given the liberty to perform without having to face any internal conflicts. Their work is made easier for them on several levels. Even in the odd situation when an turmoil rises, ministers and members of parliament alike are bolstered by the wholesome support of the PAP. The rise and falls of one political party, political upheavals - unheard of in Singapore. Its hard to argue that Singapore is not stable when the singular party ruling throughout the years is enough to flaunt the country’s stagnant political front. This 'stability' would be applaudable had it been cultured by working with the people on similar interests on an indifferent vision. Unfortunately rather than partake in the tediousness of this collaboration, the government has opted for another way.

The government has over the years practiced a way of suppressing the public voices into little influence. Opinions are either to be made over public avenues and such opinions are either slammed or ignored. Very rarely has any public opinion been accepted and been able to inflict change on a present government policy or has it been able to improve or prevent the implementation of a not so perfect policy. Is the government’s pride marring it from being able to provide a better governance for the people? Does it feel that its achievements have made it immune to committing any errors?

“First the Government having made a major policy decision, throws it open for public discussion, allowing, even encouraging the people to voice their views freely through the permitted channels such as the forum pages of the newspapers and the face to face feedback sessions with their Members of Parliament.

The people according respond, often with much spirit and candour.

The Government next waits for the noise to reach a certain level, then steps in to say, with business-like briskness: “Enough,. Let’s get back to work:, Following which, the media duly wraps up the debate, and the people withdraw and return once more to the concerns of their busy lives,”

- Straits Times, 26/8/06 PAP & The People: A Return of Disaffection by Catherine Lim

It seems the government is rarely willing to accept public criticism. While the avenues for this feedback is readily made available, whether the government is accepting the feedback with a open view or the mindset that its policy is flawless is in suspicion. So in nation decision making where is the part of the people then? The policies made for these people are finalized in the confined walls of the parliament house and the minds of these ministers. How efficient are these policies then, when some of these ministers with high paid salaries and comforts have never been put through the daily struggles of a middle class family or a breadwinner making a monthly income less than $700. These well to do (whom some might accuse of being politically elite) ministers are unable to create policies which will benefit these people simply because they are unaware of what these people need and go through. The policies then concocted are made and perfected not by the observation of the real problem but by a pramatic analysis of the issue. The government has to realise its dealing with people whom can neither be analysed nor handled. Now with the ignorance of feedback and criticism from the public, the policies remain highly imperfect and filled with loopholes - loopholes which the government refuses to recognise.

Working with itself and only itself has made this government's work easier on several levels. Firstly, it is not compelled to please all parties.A collaboration with the people with require the need to craft policies which the people are wholly satisfactory with. Disagreements on the policies will make governance a greater struggle for ministers. Now with the suppression of public voices the government finds no need to adapt itself to suit the needs of the people. Instead it encourages, or rather compels its citizens to recognise the capacity and vulnerability of Singapore and shift their expectations henceforth.

While the government has its work cut out, the disadvantages persist. In countries such as liberal America, the parliment is forced to rethink its policies in several situations when public protests begin in the form of strikes or lambasts from news publishers. Policies go through several levels where they are modified and improved till the public or atleast the majority is happy with them. In Singapore, these modifications are processed in the parliment level only. Feedback from the public towards improvements on these government decisions are either unheeded or debated thoroughly until the issue is made forgotten. Issues laid quietly to rest include those related to the levy of foreign maids, the exclusion of single unmarried mothers from ownership of government subsidised flats, and the most recent issue of ministrial pay rise.

A system of governance which crushes political dissent is bad for Singapore. By adopting a more open approach to public and press criticism and feeback, not only can flaws in the government policies be rectified to be more effective and suitable, but the ministers would also be sharpened by the experience of managing and curbing public dissent. This experience would prove valuable as it is necessary to strengthen ’vulnerable’ Singapore’s leaders to meet global issues and competitiors in the international playing field.

“The people’s need to be heard must neither be intimidated nor seduced by material rewards. Instead of crushing it, the Government should engage it, for only through engagement and debate can our national and political convictions be strengthened, and strong leaders created. These conditions have in the past created a Singapore visionary and fighter- Mr Lee Kuan Yew. The alternative to this is a system which churns out copies of uncreative and unimaginative leaders who cannot cope with the stiff competition Singapore faces from more robust competitors in the globalized world. Singaporeans become too dependent on the Government deciding and thinking for us, and so used to our comfort zone that any major challenges will be viewed with alarm and helplessness. We will be highly vulnerable to the predations of international competitors.”

- Catherine Lim, January 12 2006 adapted from www. little speck.com/SpecialReport/special rpt - catherine - 060120.htm

However, now with the participation of the public becoming gradually severed in major government decisions and the fracture between the ruler and the ruled increasing with the government’s failure to listen any more, it remains to be seen whether Singapore is a country made up of only the select parliament or the population of 4 million this parliament is reluctant to acknowledge.

And similarly to the computer deleted information never gets lost and while the government can currently squirm its way through the loopholes its well practiced process of managing public dissent, these functional flaws it is committing will one day inflict a stronger blow on the country as a whole.

On the other hand, a quote from PM Lee: "On top of that, he (a minister) goes out and deals with constituency issues and hugs babies from time to time. It's all part of the job" as part of his arguement on justifying the ministrial pay rise. And here we were thinking how ministers mingled among the public and 'hugged babies' as part of their concern and participation in the lives of Singaporeans. And turns out its all part of the job (which he is being paid more than a million annually for) where their little display of care (whether sincere or otherwise) instills a surge of pride in the common Singaporean at how ground to earth his minister is. Political campaign perhaps?

So remember, naive Singaporean every time your friendly minster hugs your baby he is being paid a near hundred thousand dollars a month to do it.

Disclaimer; The final quote was NOT intended to instill monetary value on the sincere social work of a minister but instead chiefly to highlight the negative interpretation one might assume the Prime Minster's word to be. Its also a plea to the minster to put less pragmatism to the job of the minster which might result in it sounding crude and insincere

/of numbers and numerical whims

2007-04-25T08:05:00.000-07:00

I can't do Maths.

whywhywhy

Someone should comfort me and tell me that impotency in Mathematics is a natural phenomenon which everyone meanders through and me being pathetically incapable in stringing two equations together is not deviating from normality.

/hear the wren sing and the falling cease

2007-04-23T06:30:00.000-07:00

Daddy

But the pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two---
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through

-Sylvia Plath

Industrial Revolution is making my eyes spin in my head like sugar. Of mills, factories, limbs snapped like twigs and children and their futures choked in fog and death like plague. Literature was the therapy, however chosing Path was the irony.

/of a masterpiece in self-effacy

2007-04-12T09:02:00.000-07:00

I have been too busy to blog, or rather alternating between variant states of health
issues which have been attacking me with a vigour which shatters my bruised immune system to the ground. My immunity, as I have come to realise is merely sufficient to wheeze its way through a handful of commmon flu bugs before slambam. My dependency on pills has resulted in the dedication of a wholesome cabinet in my room to the life-sustaining of K. whose physical state is of such deploration I would have sublimed into unviable matter if not for the supplements my mother shoves down my throat every odd hour.

I would blog about school or atleast about the exceptional teachers I have been willed with except for I realise I do not have the patience to fabricate drama to churn out sufficient blog content. Because it is boring. Its not a flaw per se and some students find it a synonym of common association which they might appreciate (after all it supplies them with a reason to prolong their sleep time); for me though its an acquired taste I have yet to acquire. Like mushrooms. But don't take this comparison too seriously, because in all seriousness, I have no intention of degrading any teacher to the level of fungi, even if the lessons you hold tend towards the stale and mouldy.

On the other hand, Chemistry SPA was an absolute nightmare. I must have obliterated every possible lab safety existant and I would methodically list my impotency with labwor except that I don't have a decade or two to spare. The bunsen burner was jabbed frequently, my gas pipe reeked and my chemistry knowledge (or rather the appalling lack of it) was the excarbation of the whole affair. I didn't even try to bubble calcium hydroxide because with my coordination of a drunken primate I would have imploded my test tube. Then again, I have screwed up so much it is logically unquantifiable to have done any worse.

/set the fire to the third bar

2007-03-28T06:23:00.000-07:00

I feel like I am watching everything from space
And in a minute I hear my name and I wake
I think the finish line's a good place we could start
Take a deep breath, take in all that you could want
- The Finish Line, Snow Patrol

Eschewing off a database of inspirational quotes lately (as a resort of pushing myself into thriving through these implode of performance tasks and SAs with the survival odds of a polar bear in the eddies of Sahara), Snow Patrol has become the latest whimsical earworm.

On other matters, blogging seems painfully tedious - or atleast to the flubbering fingers of mine after hours of tapping away at The Calculator in an effective bid to plough my way through the mathematics performance task. Very soon, before I potentially forsake my sanity to the evil minions of Mathematic proponents, I ought to deviate myself to worthier causes such as saturating myself with more Snow Patrol and the ~~borderline~~ angstiness it oozes with.

Oh well.

/we sang like caged birds

2007-03-11T06:10:00.000-07:00

I am in a good mind to ship all my whining and angst slobbered posts to LiveJournal. Yet, since everyone has been leaving dibs on my averseness to permanantly settling down at an URL, I shall refrain from exercising my nomad nature. So I shall have to settle with amusing myself with a different blogskin. Hopefully the change will reverse my reputation as a self-pitying soul. I am happy. I am so frigging happy I am like this viral clump of contagiousness itching to infect everyone with the inspiration to smile and sniff yellow flowers. Yeah.

Congress Class Discussion was ordinary. I am afraid to reveal the class did not conduct an upheaval against relief teachers, or in the context of history, no Class Revolution occured. No paradigm shift from the unqualified hands of teachers who are unfalteringly devoted to their handouts. I am afraid we are all fated to wallow in self-sought misery and watch our education spiral into the pits of irrerversible tribulation.

On other matters, Titoudao was a refreshing embarkation of the March holidays. Pam Ooi was full of the energy she had been applauded to be, moving from lighthearted humor to undiluted sadness. It seems its not Singapore's art scene which is lacking as it is claimed to be, but the audience required to sustain it. Anyhow, if you do wish to chalk up some culture points over the holidays I would suggest watching this play rather than indulging in purportless movies supported by a flimsy wisp of a plot. Now that the Oscar season has concluded, Hollywood has found momentary satiation with churning out half-hearted romances and adorable kiddy animations.

So well, Happy Holidays.

/pretending we are existing

2007-02-26T09:34:00.001-08:00

He said why put a new address on the same old lonliness
When breathing just passes the time
Until we all just get old and die
Now talking's just a waste of breath
And living's just a waste of death
And why put a new address on the same old lonliness
- Fall Out Boys

Blogging is therapeutic. Atleast at 1.30am when I need a frappe, an outlet to shove my frustration down and the porousness of a sponge so I would be able to absorb Mathematical Greek to saturation within two seemingly ephemeral days.

/she makes me feel all fly

2007-01-28T00:36:00.000-08:00

Blogging feels so unfamiliar. I have to say I am doing this out of obligation; or perhaps the nagging remorse that I am fermenting Internet bandwith space with a long stagnant blog. The only motivation which fuels my chivalrous prevention of bandwith decay is the need to um...whine incessantly about how my life is a burgeoning cesspool of emotional trauma, incompetent teachers and cryptic Mathematics. Damned Greek, I tell you.

Oh well. My only consolation amidst all this misshapen aspects of my life is my advantageous position in the class seating - inconspicuously at the back where I can exercise my rights to nod off during monotonous lessons or finish the exponentially snowballing pile of homework. It feels so good to procrastinate especially when you get the unfathomable rush of satisfaction when you barrell through all the accumulated work and complete it in the fraction of time it would have taken you, were you an orthodox homework do-er.

I really don't want to blog. Can you tell? I am painfully excavating words from the doldrums and stringing them into long, probably grammatically erroneous sentences while wishing I could be doing something which would perhaps invigorate me a little more - such as a frappe pursuit?

This might be my last post; like the culmination of all the verbal jargon I have been regurgitating to the world wide web. Perhaps I should address dedications to all the poor souls who have had to plough their way through anecdotes which piece together my rather purportless life. Knowing my fickleness and temperamental decision making, I might jolly well resign to shifting to another site some day - when I have been attacked by the inspiration to torment everyone with the mundanity of my life again.

But for now.

/all the green paper squares below

2006-10-25T08:39:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah, so the exams are over.

Now that the whole episode of sedating myself with geographical and literary jargon is temporarily over, I have been decidedly very bored.As in, lets-count-the-bumps-in-the-ceiling-for-fun bored. Where you feel you would rather crack open the foredoomed atlas with undiscriminable lines and scales, than practice the laws of a couch potato, which is 1) do nothing2) do nothing and 3) do absolutely nothing,but if you feel up to some hard work, start on the television.Oh boy, don't get too tired though.

On a Fine Morning

Whence comes Solace?--Not from seeing
What is doing, suffering, being,
Not from noting Life's conditions,
Nor from heeding Time's monitions;
But in cleaving to the Dream,
And in gazing at the gleam
Whereby gray things golden seem.

Thus do I this heyday, holding
Shadows but as lights unfolding,
As no specious show this moment
With its irised embowment;
But as nothing other than
Part of a benignant plan;
Proof that earth was made for man.

Thomas Hardy

My laptop's overheated. Oh sheesh. Really.

/defying stars, everything, sheesh.

2006-10-08T03:29:00.000-07:00

I seem to have become a leaking tap with boundless capacity. Or in the most, a sap. The Victorian equivalents to spineless, jelly backboned women (ah, not ALL women) who are reduced to tears and flutters. Reading Fictionpress, has made me feel like bawling out my eyes and indulging in a crying marathon of some sort. I have been blasting (the irony) Symphony 92.4 to the sheer amusement of my mother who had long determined her daughter's indiscreet exposure to classical pieces and the likes of Mozart would be inhibited to the occasional strains from the Neighbour's. (who coincidentally happens to practise tuning her radio to the forementioned radio station every Sunday)

My life has collapsed on itself to become a tragedy with its own script. Perhaps I should ditch revision, or the presumed bouts of studying I have been undertaking with copious intervals of languishing with no purpose (my new hobby) and deploring over the odds for The School to be nuclear-ravished on 16/10. Close to none, but to hope is to be a step closer to victory said an annoynomous, dead person.

Oh, and better, I do not know why I am feeling quite bitter these days. It must be the weather. The haze isn't anything novel, its not like forest fires are the October trend and everyone is left anticipating when the aftermath avalaunches into a massive world crisis of air pollution - industries haven't been releasing air purifiers all these while into the atmosphere either. Merely another global issue to be clustered with the likes of predecessant global warming and ozone layer issues.

I don't actually have a problem with climate change - the difference of air pollution will mean that the planet will change, but it has been for the past 6 billion years and the world is still here. It doesn't even make much of a difference to me that human beings might be wiped out - so what? Perhaps cockroaches will take our place.

Sheesh, really.