uk was like a world of surrealism. fresh out of chinese hu preparatory lessons, dropped onto the plane my head spinning and my body exhausted, it all felt like a stretching dream. sometime through it started to feel really long, by the third day i was wondering why it was only the third (insufficient rest does this to you). the contrasts are endless. most days it is gloomy, grey skies casting a dull overtone to all underexposed pictures, and then some days the sun is out and the sky is a luminous blue. with skies that scream of compositions, and rustic buildings of medieval life. fulfilling all ancient fantasies of being a squire and a knight! (this is the fault of tamora pierce). then sniffling through the last of the trip.

back to singapore, exhausted, weary, can you believe the heat? a day of shopping, which unlike a good book does not leave you with a sense of fullness that lasts a week (still love it though_). church camp. laughter! jokes! leona! watching bright dots in the sky and wondering whether or not they are stars. but it blinks! trying to stay awake and realising it is far harder the older you get.

and now, a week of rest and then i'm off to uk again. no more malaysia unfortunately, i actually really did want to go. to oxford and london, i suppose to do the things you can't when you travel in a group. to walk along the streets with not much of an aim except to just simply soak it in. sister booked the flight, i've booked the hotels, mom's got the money. at this point i'm not really anticipating it all that much, but let's hope it gets better. this is a spoilt feeling to have, i know it, and i am suitably ashamed.

you know how feelings dull? feelings of conviction and pride in ourselves as the hp batch, now trailing away. not by any cause other than the eroding powers of time.

my brother got me a patrick park autograph (best brother ever). can't wait for muse, adele you'd better get the tickets! its going to be a'rockin.

if we live our life in fear, i'll wait a thousand years,
just to see you smile again
quell your prayers for love and peace
you'll wake the thought police 
we can hide the truth inside

andddd then the kicking chorus. 

and we got our andrew bird tickets, which as my sister said, should be really chill like rachael yamagata. ooh i'm getting more excited for UK by the moment. libin fooled me i thought it was going to be freezing, i checked the temperatures they're like... 10 degrees. ooooh MORE WHEN I GET BACK! (pst iris, thanks for the nice message!)

i don't know what to do. really, i don't. i relish the challenge, but at the same time i'm a wimp. hoping that going overseas will give me clarity of mind.  

i am out of words! i wrote successfully (and quite satisfyingly) the graduation speech several hours back, but after spending time turning ideas over my head and on my tongue, when i finally embark on one, i find that my word bank is dry. i am almost certain now my back is sprained (i know charis you immensely regret having even brought up the possibility to me). I postulated that it was, and my mom agreed it was a probable. It hurt on thurs, thats many many days back, and i suffered immense pain for 5 mins on sat. either i'm dying from some infectious muscular genetic disorder, or its sprained. i like to think the latter. 

i am happy how this year has turned out. happy for my grades, happy i scraped a b3 in chinese. hoping for the best in Os, truth is, if i don't get a b3 i will be quite disappointed.

i have found my solace in iron & wine lyrics. they should be bound together into a poetry book. 

my life is characterised by post-exam fervour. symptoms of which contain senseless, illogical, hasty decision making. manifestations of this include going shopping and buying six articles of clothing, all of which were not necessary (although this does not make it any less gratifying). another characteristic of this condition includes brain-dead behaviour, bordering on vapid and inductive of time-warp feelings. For instance, watching endless amounts of tv-series (chuck) and partaking in no amount of intellectual activity.

most worrying of this condition is the resultant desire to kick back and enjoy oneself thoroughly- regardless of cost. this might result in the purchase of concert tickets for the year 2010, especially since this symptom has been faithfully aligned with the imminent arrival of patrick watson and andrew bird. 

conclusively, the most far-reaching impact of this particular condition would be the drainage of resources with respect to the weight of one's purse. 

i find myself so motivated by the end that i wonder what happens when i reach it. its a listlessness that grips me and threatens normalcy. or illusions of it. or what i've come to accept it as, anyway. 

hi adele, (on the off chance you are seeing this) when you leave for overseas next year for an indefinite period of time i would really like for you to sing this to me
bob dylan
or you can opt for the duet between tyler hilton and alexa i am do also quite like that cover
cover
because,

well, if you, my love, must
think that-a-way,
I'm sure your mind is roamin'.
I'm sure your heart is not with me,
But with the country to where you're goin'.

you're threading on fine ice. when i'm with you i feel the same, the need to hold my breath and let it out in little puffs. gentle, you're volatile. it makes my heart constrict. i don't like this perpetual tiptoeing, walking around on rocks and hoping that it doesn't cut our feet. its inevitable, i'm stuck in limbo between hoping it hits now and hits hard or take the evasive approach. i'll pray for you, however that may help.

i realised today how i quite despise favouritism. whether or not on the receiving end or watching it occur, its not meritocratic. and i don't like how it gives authority to others and not to some. abuse it, use it, wait till its gone. makes you wonder whether or not the opportunities and the grades and the scores are really true hmm? (i know what i think)

i've come up with my study playlist. a lot of patrick watson, a lot of matt pond, an assortment of snow patrol, much of glen hansard, it almost makes me enjoy this. hah, funny! 

talking about superficiality and wondering if we're being hypocrites; standing in a maze of words and lyrics and starving for inspiration. is it creativity or a desperate attempt at it? its hard to tell. fiddling around with all the little things but never really finding out what we're called for. caught up in the tide while the underflow threatens to drag us down, we need to buck up and start now. at the end of the day we're only as good as we show ourselves to be, not the fancy illusions in our mind. scared of what the dark will bring. 

now that i've left behind what's been number one, it is about realigning my perspectives and not feeling disappointed with working with number two. it has always been number two, you reminded me that, and now with this vacuum it still isn't ascending. little moments captured make it worthwhile, but forgettable. you've got to give it a chance. selfishness stands in the way. now that number one is gone there's nothing to keep me grounded. pin my feet to the ground and remember what is what. difficult to live in a constant state of backward looking. 
 
feeling superior is nothing if it's only in the head. 

man is not an island. 

 While I hid in the radiant light of Athos's island, thousands suffocated in darkness. While I hid in the luxury of a room, thousands were stuffed into baking stoves, sewers, garbage bins. In the crawlspaces of double ceilngs, in stables, pigsties, chicken coops. A boy my age hid in a crate; after ten months he was blind and mute, his limbs atrophied. A woman stood in a closet for a year and a half, never sitting down, blood bursting her veins. While I was living with Athos on Zakynthos, learning Greek and English, learning geology, geography and poetry, Jews were filling the corners and cracks of Europe, every available space. They buried themselves in strange graves, any space that would fit their bodies, absorbing more room than was alloted to them in the world. I didn't know that while I was on Zakynthos, a Jew could be purchased for a quart of brandy, perhaps four pounds of sugar, cigarettes. I didn't know that in Athens, they were being rounded up in "Freedom Square." That the sisters of the Vilna convent were dressing men as nuns in order to provide ammunition to the underground. In Warsaw, a nurse hid children under her skirt, passing through the ghetto gates, until one evening - a gentle twilight descending on those typhus-infected, lice-infected streets - the nurse was caught, the child thrown into the air and shot like a tin can, the nurse given the "Nazi pill": one bullet in the throat. While Athos taught me about anabatic and katabatic winds, Artic smoke, and the Spectre of the Brocken, I didn't know that Jews were being hanged from their thumbs in public squares. I didn't know that when there were too many for the ovens, corpses were burned in open pits, flames ladled with human fat. I didn't know that while I listened to the stories of explorers in the clean places of the world (snow-covered, salt-stung) and slept in a clean place, men were untangling limbs, the flesh of friends and neighbours, wives and daughters, coming off in their hands. 

 you get out of it as much as you put in, and really, at the end its up to you what you want to make of this wonderful opportunity. you can make it something you're glad to leave, or something you cry because you're leaving. and now, at the end of our day, we'll look back at all these memories and be glad it made us stronger. at the end we know there's always everyone else to form a circle with and hug. and sing. to the juniors, lets just say i'm really proud. apprehensive, a little, sure, (it will be interesting to see how everything turns out), but very very proud. 

strongest memories: (for best or for worse)
1) PSLC- tears bring you together.
2) December camp '07- there can be miracles, together. 
3) December camp '08- for our batch, really teaching us that physical pain is not necessarily the way to strengthen you. this has really shaped us as a batch, i think. 
4) investiture '09- because we proved. and we were us. 
5) August camp '09- this reinforces that physical is not necessarily the best way to strengthen you- there are other ways. if you can open your eyes and widen your perspectives. and that at the end, the sum of our worth is our juniors: and that makes me proud. 

 i don't know what to say to you. sorry? stop it? or lets just get over this mess? it just made me so tired the entire day. 

i know i did say my next post would be a happy one but this calls for serious intervention: how does someone open a bag to take a wallet? not knowing whether or not there is a wallet there; how does one open it to check? and then, upon relishing the claim, open the wallet to realise that it belongs to an actual person, with things in it that are important to her (concert tickets, notes, prayer cards) and bear to keep it? what kind of conscience does that take? 

as my mom says, there are all kinds of people in this world. 

this has been a terribly rough few days for me. here's to hoping someone picked up the wallet and is just planning to return it tomorrow. or here's to hoping the bag-opener, wallet-taker sees this, or hears of it from someone. and gets guilty. because then, at least, i would know her conscience was intact and that would be a relief. i am terrifyingly annoyed, miserable, depressed and rendered lethargic. 

disappointment squeezes your heart tight in its fist. does not let go. anger eats you. consumes you. you're overwhelmed and your senses are numbed. there is nothing to say but fragments. the threads will form, in a natural process. you'll get over it. being selfish is a lot easier. everyone says it, don't hope too high you'll come crashing down. 

i have been too tired recently. i survive on a dose of coffee daily. i no longer form coherent links. and my blog has becoming a ranting ground. which is not good. my next post will be happy, and it will be soon. 

being a clown in a fairground; happiness is like a knife that splices you open and then smothers you in salt. proceeds to dip you in wine, stain you with alcohol until you're a little too over-reliant and riding on the wave of your impulses. hold on tight to your emotions, squeeze your self-control, lest it slip out of your fingers. don't say the first thing that comes to mind, bite back your words, hold your tongue. 

and you, i had more faith in! i suppose i wished too much, in retrospect its always been the other way round, and friends aren't quite friends unless you're having fun to share. maybe you'll find sense in these cryptic messages i send out, if you even read the signs. i'll get over it, maybe in five minutes, maybe tomorrow. you won't know it happened, and all there is to document our brief friction is this miserable post just another entry. 

it is a bane to have doctors or medical staff for parents. it means no doctors. it means a self-presumed knowledge and superiority over diseases or infections of any kind, and it means looking down on the power of a flu. add that with your singaporean parent- if you have a flu and an exam, an exam always comes first. regardless of temperature, condition, or confidence. 

it means self-medication, whipping out random medicines and bottles of dubious colours, and then presuming they've had it down pat.

it also means a huge unwillingness to bring you to see a medical professional, and if anything, when they do, its too late. 

a video about finding the perfect pillow, how to go about doing it, how to make it a great big tug-o-war and then a pillow fight, and how to look satanic in the process. its all pretty good stuff. (i am aware that at this juncture i am supposed to be doing things like studying instead of really random other things like this)



I do also have a burgeoning need to learn how to make tiramisu because of my intense cravings for it that are mad and sad and all words that rhyme rolled up in one big assonance of fat. 

 we must have made a funny sight- my mom, my dad, me and my sister, just walking along the dark streets each individually listening to our own music devices, like a bunch of tech-geeks in their own world. it was so much fun, seeing my parents holding hands, dancing with my sister to our own tunes, and receiving weird stares from the random path-sharers. and then tuning our ipods to the same song at the same time dancing to miles benjamin anthony robinson, snow patrol and the likes, singing out of key and feeling warm and fuzzy. 

favourite moment, when my dad tapped my mom's shoulder and then crossed his hands and determinedly looked ahead with this purposeful and obvious 'nothing's going on' face. and my mom, smiling and laughing, refusing to acknowledge the tap. or earlier in the day, when my dad complained about giving me and my mom a lift to ion and said 'some more there's no money!' and my mom said 'okay, i kiss you' and she kissed her fingers and pressed it to his cheek. 

that was after the funniest family steamboat ever, talking about facebook and st. thomas and what we'd bring there (that! and that! no no that's gross not that) and colleges. reminds me of how surprised i was listening to two people whisper priorities to each other and finding out family was not on their top few. nothing replaces family, or detracts from it. not even a brother overseas, or temporal lapses in our communication. 

its good to be back.