inaninterstellarburst..
1909070046.
.. i am back to save the
universe.
a few weeks ago, i was
lost - but am now born again, in a manner of speaking. sometimes i think back,
and wonder, how wasted it was. and how long will those pictures linger in my
head? enchantingly long, extending to the edges of my memory - these pictures
will last for a while yet.
either way, i am (most likely)
headed to america next year, january to june. specifically,
philadelphia. more specifically, the university of pennsylvania.
let us note that until now, it has not sunk in entirely. give me a moment while
i kick myself in the head. therefore, japan, los angeles, san
francisco, chicago, baltimore, boston, new york,
and europe all beckon me.
in a way, exchange is an
escape. it is hard to express and to quantify how difficult forgetting can be
sometimes - for success in one time period, t, can have little benefit on the next
time period, t+1. perhaps it is not healthy to have a mindset that classifies
things into extremes. but still, please, forgive me if i do not make an effort to
converse with you - it is for the sake of everyone's protection. in essence, the
reasons you had for doing what you had to do to me are still relevant - for now,
i have similar reasons for doing the same to you. perhaps, one of the most
difficult things to ever do, is to move someone's heart..
still, all of these things, as well as
some others, have made it patently obvious that it is time to stop believing in
the lies i have created for myself. there are things to be thankful for, and
there are things to look back on and regret, but only to an extent. after all, i
have all that i need - the rest are only embellishments. it is time
to believe..
moving, moving, life.
helpless.
1308071930.
i suppose these things
are really quite pointless, actually. some things just feel that way - a ton of
effort moves the load no more than a millimeter. maybe there is some modicum of
truth to the hard and soft theory... but persistence has its price, which is
invariably hard to pin down appropriately...
with the internship
winding down, there has been plenty of time to play in the kitchen. cooking is a welcome relief from these things that have been pinging
within my head with a vision to prove, beyond doubt, that brownian motion can be
sincerely destructive...
i am not too good at
these games, actually. unfortunately, am still easily discouraged at the first sign of
resistance. even rachel has placed her bet, with figurative odds at 1-10
or 1-1000, that the next episode will end in futility. think about it. 1-10.
1-1000. to compound the problem, just about every listening post is away.
ah, and yes. rachel
is back for good already. very good. thanks for the conversation on friday, my
dearest friend. how did the hours slip by?
in progress, but close to a critical meltdown...
心里有树.
0908072156.
this is about teck wee's play, 心里有树,
one of 4 play/playlets performed at the nafa
theatre on (i believe) the first weekend of june, by the anglican high chinese drama society.
i had forgotten to blog about it then.
心里有树 was the only play
that got me. the story, in
short, spoke about a family that has struggled largely due to the father's
inability to let go of the past. his wife had committed suicide while
suffering from post-natal depression after the birth of their second child, a
son. a tree sprouted exactly where she had fell - leading the father to treat
the tree as a surrogate wife.
the younger son is
expected to treat the tree as a mother, and finds himself tortured by this outlandish arrangement. the elder daughter is left helpless,
not knowing what more she could do after having taken on the role of mother in the family... and finding her efforts to bridge the gap between her
brother and her father very much in vain. perhaps helplessness would be a good
way to express it.
i cannot fully explain,
even to myself, why it spoke to me. perhaps the easiest and simplest explanation
would be that inside, i too, have such a tree. maybe
it all started with d, and so forth - subconsciously i have insisted on a
perfect situation. who knows what i have lost by being risk averse? still, it
has taken me this long to start believing. maybe i will.
anyway, it is national
day in singapore - 42 years of independence. i doubt i could ever leave
this island permanently - there are just too many things here i cannot bear to leave
behind. maybe for no more than 3 years, but we all know how mercurial life can
be.
我... 心里有淑. 淑惠.
myrtlestar.
2907072116.
have not posted for 1+ months. first,
rach, happy birthday. i have no idea whether you are back in singapore again
or still in melbourne preparing to move back home - i suppose i will find out
sooner or later... call me, rachis. i wonder where you are.
work has been fine - though the data has
been slow in coming. hopefully i will be able to finish the project with at
least some kind of quality, or something. since then, nothing much has happened.
had lunch with esther and went for economics orientation on the same day,
and lunch with theo and camy on the next.
before that, went to julia's 21st with the males of marketing (yijia,
geeyong, and... felix in a rare public appearance).
managed to get a copy of the latest murakami
novel (after dark) at the jurong library, though i had
hoped to borrow a
copy of dick winters' memoirs instead. however, based on rach's review, i cannot say that i am looking
forward to after dark...
actually - i should learn to ignore things
that should, or could (with reason) be ignored. this old habit of over-thinking
and over-strategising probably brings about more harm than good for now. yet how
long can i last? historically, no more than a year in the trenches, and less
than a month after.
i wish.
extendedleave.
1306070643.
somehow, something just clicked in my head
this morning, but am not sure what it is. perhaps, the burden of unfulfilled
mysteries and the promise i innocently had once, but who really knows? thanks,
wd, because i know how screwed up i am inside, and how much of the
past lives within me, and how much actually does remain hidden, even to myself.
am beginning to continuously think that the
future must be reconsidered (oh, who am i kidding, i do that all the
time) - the very same one that i cannot say, with confidence, that i might
actually own - which does make this whole conversation rather pointedly
pointless. been looking for some form of decisiveness to enter that empty space
between my ears, yet... to no avail. it must have been late last night when i
began to storm past that critical point, melting down into these disjointed
fragments of glass, each piece reflecting a different segment of who i might
actually be. trust your eyes, or what you feel?
'at zero meridian as you consume the
longitudes.'
paths have been opening and closing, but
sadly, the latter has been far more prevalent. kind of tired, actually. maybe
this is what the holidays are to me; a bastard form of kryptonite to my attempts
at impersonating superman.
and with that, the finality of this entry. i
have been somewhat convinced by my own demons and angels that an extended leave,
a sabbatical, a hibernation is exactly what a quack would order. i may not be
around msn much, because: 1. i am hiding offline; 2. i am absolutely not online;
3. i am online, but not really online - some sort of existentialistic
cul-de-sac. if you need me, try msn-ing me; if not, call or sms. i promise i
will get back to you, at the very latest, within 3 days, or maybe... a week. i
could have emailed this entry, but that would be a wee bit too public for my
tastes. besides, who ever reads this?
am i very far now? probably.
extricatedisengage.
3105072331.
if my mood were a financial product, it
would probably have negative convexity. think about it, for a bond, convexity
denotes that prices will rise faster than they fall. for my mood, it would fall
faster instead.
have to ensure that this holiday will not be
wasted. have to ensure that i do not lose sight of the bigger picture. have to
give up on all the selfish things - even if all that i want is that. time to
live like a monk. work comes first. throw everything else away. chase the dreams
that will enable the rest of life to fall into place... am beginning to be
adversely affected by the truth, the truth that nothing seems to move in this
place. perhaps hoping for more is pointless. but i suppose mountains are
supposed to be hard to move.
time to get moving.
i know what it means to me, but, to you?
alldownhill.
2505071945.
another term is over. how
is life these days?
waiting for another result. wanting to make things better. losing focus on where
i will i am heading to. still seeking a path to the holy grail of my own design.
killing time. the wind blows cold across my path. thought i knew my destination,
but perhaps i should be reconsidering what i had once treated as fact and
instead think of it as fiction. on second thought, perhaps everything should be
considered as fiction - then, it would become believable. the twists, the
internal struggle, the inevitable meltdown. sir, can i please have some more?
guess not. do not wish to expect too much, but the expectations i end up
having...
still, this is what you came for. basically
fiction is the main thread in this fabric of life. finished term 3a, hope it
will turn out well. idleness invites fiction. fiction destroys. tired of perhaps
everything, and yet, still waiting for something good to happen.
heteroskedasticity says i'm statistically insignificant.
despisedenydestroy.
2305072351.
'you know you have seen it all before - the
stark white landscapes and the nights that are filled with the darkness of a
jealous kind. it whispers to your soul, urging you to rage against what you hold
dear. i know this, and i still do. but in the end how can i understand? this uncertainty tortures me - what you see on the surface will never show
the intensity of what i feel inside. i wonder if every little thing matters, i
ponder about how things would look like to her - and constantly worry about how
i could make it all better.
i paused, waiting for him to continue, but
nothing else could be said. i let the silence permeate, quietly. he had a
relationship with his own personal sins that could be fully explained, if you
had the patience and the time - unfortunately, we both knew that it would be
pointless and without an end. i let the pause grow, uncomfortably. unable to withstand the
expansion of empty aural space, he
continued.
all i want is for things to fall into the
right places, for all of this uncertainty to turn into blocks of stone, for the
darkness to turn into day. nodding, i continued to listen, for that was the
least i could do to deny him his misery.'
she means a lot to me.
hardnoisesinthisplace.
3004070016.
grades have all been released. decent this
term, but i lost my claim to the minimum grade level. else, good. in fact,
better than i had hoped for after the first few grade releases, but that does
not diminish the fact that i think this term has been below expectations.
i hardly know you any more - i suppose there
are no words left to be said.
been thinking about what jen said to
me about life. it is not that i do not understand - considering the fact that i
had known and accepted that it was true. but hearing her tell me what she
thought about the situation at hand, it just felt worse, probably because it felt like a confirmation, an
ultimatum - that even with time, i might not be able to change the outcome, like
forthcoming doom.
perhaps i am living in denial then - but it
does feel like there is a degree of asymmetric information somewhere, someplace,
that i cannot assume away...
will it ever make a difference?
possiblymaybe.
0204070409.
doing my best not to get carried away by
work, by life, by choices, and by myself. learning to look at the bigger
picture, and not be overly focused on just one aspect of the canvas. let us just
hope that it will not end up wrong. anyway. it was week 13, and things are
finally coming to some form of an end. i suppose monday's presentation was fine,
with much thanks to james and daniel, and as for tuesday, at
least it was not a farce - not that we really care. friday cat was pretty crappy...
had a good time on wednesday night with most of the
ma group - jen, geeyong, esther and clarabelle - at
aston's. the sausages were spectactular - except for the beef one. erk. sprung a surprise on
esther
after aston's at parkway.
not sure if she expected us to do that, but at least it went well, no? so, happy
21st, esther.
still, though,
it is rather simple to get caught up in the undertow of the things that could go
wrong, but there is nothing else to be done but wish for the right things to
happen in every part of life. that was entirely fluff. either way, doubts still encircle me.
after all, every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.
weekend was packed with first sarah's
21st on saturday night - pretty ulu location, near seletar. waited in orchard
for daphne, but her earlier party overshot, and yet she got there before i
did. pretty uneventful, actually. nice to see jules again... aston's
next time okay?
then last night, at chuikhim's
21st. as birthday party protocol dictate, anyone but the birthday girl
can and will probably get drunk and high. no names, to protect the (not so) innocent. spoke at
length with meiyan, bitching together, and well, life is what it is... we
just need to soldier on. come on, sister.
i cannot get carried away. dulce et decorum est.
stareucalyptusandcloves.
1803072147.
i suppose a couple of weeks is plenty of
time for change. either way, got back my fiim midterm. fortunately, i now owe
daniel and james lunch. but other than that, it really does seem like
everyone is going into that time critical mode of rushing things...
wish i could talk to jen more often,
actually. ever since project k came back from cambodia, things
have not been the same. i suppose that it was the fact that december and january
were times of significant change for me - and i did become a cynical, unfriendly
person. that friendship has suffered - to a point where i think it will take a
lot to make it like it was before, but (i hope) we will try. even now it just
does not feel right - yet i know it is mostly my fault. sorry.
on another note, i have been thinking about
academia once more, especially throughout this term where it just feels like i have been
given a severe wake up call. if i cannot even excel in my classes, how can i be
expected to teach? then again, perhaps, like prof jeremy says: 'when i
got my bachelor's, i thought i knew the world. when i got my masters, i wasn't
so sure. the day i got my phd, holy cow! i didn't know a lot of things!' yet, i
still find myself applying for internships which have little in common with what
i really want to do...
perhaps my dreams clash in such a way
that there cannot be a perfect ending - which leaves me in limbo, halfway on the
cliff and halfway over the canyon. family, career, friends. maybe i am
oversimplifying things and ignoring the far more complex interactions between
career and family. yet i still keep looking; find now, fit later? i have the
pieces in front of me - but are they the right ones?
oh, and thanks rach, for calling.
let's have fun when you get back, for once.
could it be you, myrtlestar?
thehungerforanalternative.
0603070228.
now. it has been long. what is new
then? have watched more movies in the past 3 weeks compared to the past 4 years.
but only little children broke my heart, maybe because it felt like me -
wishing and hoping that i could throw all my responsibilities, my inhibitions,
my conscience, all for something that could possibly be wrong. maybe, rach,
that was all it needed then - but i just could not, and now we are simply
content with being the bestest friends that could ever exist. remember to call,
alright?
apologies in advance to the total number of
'regular' readers (all of whom, i believe, can be =sum(range) within 2 hands), for i
think this post will be verily random and not in any proper order, especially
since it has been almost a month since i last committed anything to html.
the most striking scene in little children,
for me, was when kate winslet's character spoke about resisting fate:
'it's not the cheating. it's the hunger, the hunger for an alternative and the
refusal to accept a life of unhappiness.' so very true. unfortunately, we also
put ourselves into positions of unhappiness in pursuit of that very objective.
and this is the point where i go - i have no
idea what else to say. perhaps i could mention about the amount of work left
(mount everest and marianas trench like depths and heights), the rollercoaster
that has finally come to a stop (finally dropped the cake), or perhaps how
unfulfilled i feel at times, and maybe how likely it is that this term will be a
terrible one (very likely). but that all does not make much sense, does it?
either way, i have not had much time for anything else. no time to read.
regretting the movies i have watched. wondering if i ever could make it as
whatever i want to be. knowing that it is probably time to keep moving on.
so maybe that is why, in little children,
they all gave up in the end; that they found their paths, and futures, as
determined by fate, to be... enough. maybe not a necessary condition, but
sufficient. meiyan wondered why they gave up, and that was the best i
could come up with - that they lived the dream, but in the end, reality came
back, biting and screaming. all of which reminds me of that philosophy theory
that reality will attempt to reclaim itself. like if you traveled back in time,
hoping to change the past such that your friend (for example) would not die in
an accident. and if you succeeded, reality would create another accident to
remedy the shock of having itself altered.
and there you go, weiling. this blog
is entirely a living, breathing example of a hidden dragon blog - it says
something but says it in such obscure ways, that maybe it does not really say
anything at all.
thor, we will miss jacking you for
another 5 months. justiny, blog less... and do your studying in hk.
well. i suppose time does really heal
things. or at least plasters the cracks enough to make you feel new. i know
brother bean and brother beer think i am being anal when i say i wish
to avoid all possibilities, and eliminate all risk - but remember this: some
dance to remember, some dance to forget. i know i would like to say i could take
it, but i do not think i can, so i avoid it. find out early and get away quickly
if you can.
either way, my life is like a 3 legged
stool. take one leg away and it just collapses. lost one recently, found something
to take it's place. and the clockwork moves on. i just wonder: have i been lying
to myself all the while?
'what power would hell have, if those
imprisoned here were not able to dream of heaven?'
the sandman - preludes and noctures / neil gaiman
myrtle stars make me wonder.
betweenthelines.
1002070104.
the questions... do not make sense to me,
because i should, after all, understand what the hell i am thinking about. i
have subsisted throughout my life on being able and ever-willing to read between
the lines. but it has not always been the right thing - and perhaps more often
than i would like to admit - has led to the wrong outcome. so allow me to
reserve judgment this time...
still, that's all that can be said, really.
there is no point wishing for all the things in the world when you cannot even
have happiness. maybe that's wrong, because happiness does come from having
things. whatever things they might be, of course. okay, i know, this diary/blog
never makes sense either.
either way. i just have to let everything
reset and allow the waters behind the levees to break. life, goes on.
maybe it's just not meant to be.
f-snap-break-ing..
0702070102.
first things first. theo, you fool,
happy birthday. the rest must still think that saturday was the day. show her
your love, people. it's today, for goodness' sake.
i am on the verge of snapping. was close to
it on monday night wondering what the ... the direct democracy model meant and
how it was derived. and in less than 12 hours we will be at the stage where the
first ma midterm begins. i suppose.
spencer is still my favourite
trombonist (if you were a saxophonist, sean, you would have coltrane to
deal with, so do not complain). i suppose i did not expect anyone to - but he
remembered. so i did get assaulted at theo's house last saturday - the operatic
rendition of the song with dexter's soprano antics did not help my ears
one bit. check thor's for a youtube link. and the rest, i suppose. but
most of all, thanks to spence and teckwee. let's finally have the
durians next time, and bitch more.
this term, though... things seem so packed -
that i am constantly on the verge of snapping at people, at things, at notes, at
models, at homework, at readings. why? i cannot say i know why - because i
honestly have no idea. there is this impending sense of doom, and the fact that
life now revolves around less things, people, and all the other elements,
dictates that an upset in one item is far more likely to cause the rest to be
screwed up as well. but i have begun to move on. after all, she did not
remember when. but i remember. even with things that barely started, at first
sight of trouble, let us just kill it off at its infancy. forget delusion - this
is being utterly pragmatic - because it just feels safer.
and the days pass by, with a growing
stillness of heart.
perhaps it is just the fact that i feel like
i have no energy, time, and thus, the compulsion to be nice to everyone as much
as i can anymore. feels like it is
about time to be a little more selfish, to limit my runaway fiscal policy with
some kind of selective restraint - for my closest friends. without them, perhaps i would already have jumped, snapped, or just simply disappeared
into nowhere. it would not
be right for me to list who they are - but simply know that i know who you all are.
in the past, i have been guilty of giving it all up just for one spark of light.
it will not happen again. thanks to you all, people.
starting to not give a fuck.
meloncalllick.
2601072257.
'the sad truth is that certain types of
things can't go backward. once they start going forward, no matter what you do,
they can't go back the way they were. if even one little thing goes awry, then
that's how it will stay forever.
- south of the border, west of the sun / haruki murakami
and that's all it can ever be. i know i have
lost that chance, lost that window of opportunity. yes, i can be a terrible
person - i know that. i know i can classify people into slots with the merest of
contact - but i also think that the ones that pass my initial tests are
it. have not ever found any real reason not to believe that. yet, on the
contrary, i cannot believe in any other part of me. and the world can darken so
quickly, in less time than it takes to blink, and capture the passing beauty and
life it contains.
but of course, this is melancholy speaking.
after all, a fall from grace never is nice. i know this all doesn't make much
sense, so stop looking for the missing part of the puzzle. let things happen. if
anything comes around it comes around. alea jacta est.
anyhow, teck wee and i plan to start
writing a whole series of short stories, inspired by the wtf-ness of murakami's
latest collection of shorts, blind willow, sleeping woman. this is just a
note in history to remind me (maybe us) that we actually agreed to do something.
anyway. happy birthday, lingo. it's
six days late, but better than never. thanks for an ever willing ear, whenever
wd himself has not taken them to some lalaland.
darkens around me...
thedayfliesoffwithoutme.
2501072113.
'the planes bound for all points everywhere
etch lines on my office window. trom the top floor
london recedes in all directions, and beyond:
the world with its teeming hearts.
i am still, you move, i am a point of reference on a map;
i am at zero meridian as you consume the longitudes.
the pact we made to read our farewells exactly
at two in the afternoon with you in the air
holds me like a heavy winter coat.
your unopened letter is in my pocket, beating.'
- the day flies off without me / john stammers.
don't feel the same, really... without you.
thelewded.
1301070057.
there was once where life seemed simple
enough. assuming x to be one variable of life, and y, the other, the utility of
life could be expressed as...
u(y,x) = 1000y9
+ 10x3
now, i suppose, is time to reduce (and if
possible, remove) the magnitude of effect that y has on life utility. mainly because
y has ceased to have a positive expected value... and x no
longer has the capability to diminish and counteract the negative effect of it all.
yet it has never been easy. why do i stay
deluded still? whatever possessed me to think that the value of y would stay
positive? or have i simply never been really able to honestly see through the
screens i set by myself, repeatedly thinking the best out of every situation
when it would have been obvious that the world had ceased to be what it had been
months ago? and conversely now, the worst? and whatever possessed me to think
that i was worthy of having, and maintaining a positive y value?
a luxury good; but an essential good? i
thought yes.
broken. that's what i am. broken by this
incessant stream of questions, of thoughts, of wishes, of dreams torn asunder by
my inability, insensitivity, stupidity, and plain innocence. broken by the
repeated highs and lows, the rollercoaster ride of circumstance. broken by the
pained what ifs, the optimistic could haves, and the unknown should haves. you
probably will not understand how i feel, but the importance i place on the ideal
outcome - coupled with how it has been wrecked - and what could have been -
leaves me with more than a tinge of regret. in fact, it consumes me with nary a
warning, emptied without a proper defence.
why are you still so special to me?
it'snot.
0801071200.
'i keep going round and round on the same
old circuit
a wire travels underground to a vacant lot
where something i can't see interrupts the current
and shrinks the picture down to a tiny dot
and from behind the screen it can look so perfect
but it's not...
so here i'm sitting in my car at the same old stop light
i keep waiting for a change but i don't know what
so red turns into green turning into yellow
but i'm just frozen here in the same old spot
and all i have to do is to press the pedal
but i'm not
but i'm not...'
it's not / aimee mann
looking for grace, and not finding any.
fallfromgrace.
0501071727.
'for the thing i greatly feared has come upon me.
and what i dreaded has happened to me, i am not at ease, nor am i quiet; i have no rest,
for trouble comes.'
job 3:25/26
i am lost - will you speak to me then?
thisintergreat.
2812062314.
what more can be said? another year over,
another period closer to freedom of mind. seriously thinking about the future
again. but as countless people have said before, i do that much too often.
had a long talk with rach a few
nights back. yes, she is back in singapore. no, she has not completed her
degree. yes, she is on holiday. it really is nice to have a very best friend
around to talk to - just pick up the phone and dial. though the truth is, we
both know that things are not very possible in any way. save for a nearly
impossible change that should never happen. talking about everything under the
sun should be much more like this... thanks, rach. thanks for listening,
especially when it feels like no one else really does.
the problem is, of course, no closer to
being solved.
you broke me. it's all in my head.