Walking in Light

I recently discovered Haruki Murakami and he is nothing short of brilliance. He captures emotions like a woman (yes stereotyping) trapped in a man's body. I've a strong impulse to read all his books before school starts.

"I took my time, trying to find the right words. 'I always feel as if I'm struggling to become someone else. As if I'm trying to find a new place, grab hold of a new life, a new personality. I suppose it's part of growing up, yet it's also an attempt to re-invent myself. By becoming a different me, I could free myself of everything. I seriously believed I could escape myself-as long as I made the effort. But I always hit a dead end. No matter where I go, I still end up me. What's missing never changes. The scenery may change, but I'm still the same old incomplete person. The same missing elements torture me with a hunger that I can never satisfy. I think that lack itself is as close as I'll come to defining myself. For your sake, I'd like to become a new person. It may not be easy, but if I give it my all, perhaps I can manage to change."

-South of the Border, West of the Sun

Two things I'm going to attempt to change in this new year ahead:

1) Not to be late.

2) To sleep early.

Two extremely daunting tasks, that's why they're called resolutions.

"All I'm asking for"

Why are people always planning important things to do?

Because everyday is a rush against ticking hands, because we can never find enough time to do things that don’t make it up that list, because it frustrates me so, I’ve worked out my list of little self-indulgent things to do:

1. Visit Ikea to smell their Wood air, settle my food cravings, jostle with the Christmas crowd and be bowled over by their décor.

2. Sit in Starbucks for a whole afternoon reading a good book with a cup of Green Tea Frappuccino.

3. Watch some really heart-wrenching romance films like (under Meiling’s recommendation) “A Walk to Remember”, or other classics like “Forrest Gump”, “I am Sam” with Vinegar chips and girlfriends sobbing the night away.

4. Plus a few feel good movies to heal the soul. Perhaps “Mrs. Doubtfire”. Or “Love Actually”, which never bores me, no matter how many times I’ve watched it.

5. Find a new café/hangout area to visit, one for the day, one for the night. Somewhere rustic but not romanticized, quirky but not commercialized.

6. Cycle in East Coast Park on a midweek evening taking in the orange sky. Followed by a good sea-breezed dinner.

7. Go to the Sunday flea market where they lay mats and sell old junk/treasure. (Where’s that? Around Bugis/Farrer Park area? Does anyone know?)

8. Organize photos, develop album-worthy ones, and create something gorgeous. [ I know I’m not going to do it, just writing it down to feel accomplished, thinking about it sounds like too much hassle already: ) ]

9. Have a good conversation over good dessert (anything will do), a conversation so good it makes time irrelevant.

10. Roll down a hill, frolic on soft green carpeted grass, picnic with Sparkling Apple juice, big red Cherries, Ham ‘n’ Cheese sandwich toasted, wind in hair, sun on face.

11. Bake a humongous fantastically delicious cake to share with all my friends. I’m thinking of something spongy with lemon icing all over. [ Of course I need an equally fantastic friend to teach: ) ]

12. Fall asleep with drugged out fatigue, and immense satisfaction.

I guess I could come up with a thousand more items, but I feel so excited typing this, I can’t gather my thoughts now. Happy Holidays.

The art of Happiness

I haven’t been writing--I have been ambivalent about most things, haven’t had a stand to make about anything, couldn’t find the time to read, couldn’t remember how to string coherent thoughts together, couldn’t decide on how to represent myself. When I read what I’ve written, it occurs to me that there is a disjuncture between this self that writes and the self that is being projected to the world, like a key that doesn’t fit into the keyhole. I guess that happens because reflexivity often springs fourth from more negative than positive situations. So the self that is transcribed onto paper is often more contemplative and distressed than the public self.

“We all need someone to look at us. We can be divided into four categories according to the kind of look we wish to live under.
The first category longs for the look of an infinite number of anonymous eyes, in other words, for the look of the public...The second category is made up of people who have a vital need to be looked at by many known eyes...Then there is the third category, the category of who need to be constantly before the eyes of the person they love...And finally there is the fourth category, the rarest, the category of people who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present."
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera.

When I read that, I thought of Geertz’s “man as a symbolizing animal”, just as how I wrote the lines above to assure the world and myself that I am not strange/a weirdo/alienated from people.

Am I generalizing when I say that life is always a tension of sorts, that’s how it appears to me. It is not an issue of the grass being greener on the other side though, it is a matter of limits and extremes. I can never be wholly happy; I realized that in a moment today, I think I can never be. I was in the cinema this evening, watching a show, laughing and enjoying myself. During that one single transitory moment when I reached an extreme point of elation, a wave of fear washed over me. The day flashed by: dazzling lights, Christmas crowd, December cool wind air, shopping centres’ smell, and I am made to feel a strange sense of fear for being so happy. Then it struck me that this feeling is familiar, I am not new to it, and in the darkness of the cinema, I realized that these same emotions are replicated on airplane flights back home. When I am watching one of those in-flight screenings, the whole vacation plays out in my mind in seconds. And I feel that I am on cloud nine literally and figuratively, but that is immediately replaced by a combination of unfounded fear and insecurity.

I’ve always felt this way, but only today am I aware that I’ve always felt this way. I realized this fear is a response to transitory happiness, a fear of losing it when all is over, when the plane lands, when the show’s over, when the curtains are drawn and the actors do a curtsey.

underneath the same big sky,

"We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair"
2 Corinthians 4:8

Take Heart

When portraying a better side of yourself becomes a struggle and a daily battle, does it mean you have grown weary of the world or has the world abandoned you?

That’s not important. Does one have to be blessed in order to bless? Does one need to be loved in order to love? How can you help others when you can’t even help yourself?

Or—is helping others actually a desperate desire to help yourself? Psychologists ask their depressed patients to render their services to others because that seems to be the only solution for their crushed souls.

Jack Neo said this, it is not that love is not around, we just don't discover it.

That is true; it all boils down to discovery and the works of the mind.

1, 2. 1234.

It has been pouring all week. A song to cheer all hearts:

The World's President

"The promise of change over the power of the status quo"

Wow--we're in the prime of our lives and we're living in one defining moment of history!

Psalm 34:18

"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit."

Oh my goodness...

HMMMM....The things I do when I'm busy:

How do I enjoy myself?

Admist all the work I should do, an article overdue, a poem to hand in, a paper to research on, readings untouched, and everything else I could continue rambling about, I decided all those could wait while I pause to teach myself how to enjoy the moment. I realized, while talking to a child tonight, I have somehow gotten into a habit of rushing the present, developed an impatience for the right-now moment. This sounds like it could be the Abstract for a “The Problems of Modernity” book, but I’m not sure if this is a modernity problem. The irony of it all is that I am actually enjoying the moment, yet unconsciously rushing it. There is always a nagging background voice asking, “what’s the time now?”, or thinking “this conversation is getting too long”. In a slightly exaggerated and harsh manner of expression, I have quite simply forgotten how to enjoy myself. Gasp! The Horror, the horror!

I wonder if it’s my lack of concentration or inability to focus for extended periods of time (ten minutes?) that has gotten me into this mode of thinking about what is going to happen next when the present is still unfolding (for me, too slowly). Or I wonder if it’s because I am so used to the rush culture--teleporting from one place to another, transforming from one social role to the next, that I have quite gradually and definitely subconsciously forgotten what it means to savour an experience. I’m not even talking about taking time off to watch a droplet fall off a leaf, or smelling the after-rain air. I’m referring to things like appreciating a conversation without having to rush to end it off, or enjoying a person’s companionship without forming imaginary to-do lists on my mind, and the like.

To this, Giddens says,

“[In pre-modern world], no one could tell the time of day without reference to other socio-spatial markers: “when” was almost universally connected with “where” or identified by regular natural occurrences.”

“Time was still connected with space (and place) until the uniformity of time measurement by the mechanical clock was matched by uniformity in the social organization of time.”

“The ‘emptying of time’ is in large part the precondition for the ‘emptying of space’…the development of ‘empty space’ may be understood in terms of the separation of space from place.”

“The advent of modernity increasingly tears space away from place by fostering relations between “absent” others.”

“[The separation of time and space] is the prime condition of the processes of disembedding…by disembedding I mean the ‘lifting out’ of social relations from local contexts of interaction and their restructuring across indefinite spans of time-space.”

----

I think of this line “What’s so amazing about really deep thoughts” from the song "Silent All These Years" and I feel that these thoughts carry me nowhere. Probably how a Science/Computing (okay, huge generalizations, scientists of the world, be forgiving) would cast a critical eye on the Arts and Social Sciences, scoffing behind their calculators, thinking these people are perpetually engaging in their endless meaningless discussions that does nothing but go on in the space of a classroom, write papers that only one other person in the world has read, and the like…I don’t think I wish to continue. I feel so bored typing this out, you see, I am rushing this Now moment even if I’m enjoying the self-reflexivity, the writing, ah whatever. Merry Christmas (even if it's two months early).

On-air

Current earworm:



Current fav quote:

(on commodity racism and imperial advertising)

"Soap is Civilization."

They come, They go.

Do we really have to accept them?

Episode 4: Who lives around you?
"If we have workers coming in here, is it safe for old people?"

"It would be a disaster here. Thousand-over workers, can you imagine?"

"Even a 1% drop in asset value would mean a $14 million* loss." (*Devaluation of property because of the presence of foreign workers)

These are just some of the quotes by Serangoon Garden residents, an area now made famous by the foreign workers dorm saga.

This is a reflection of a bigger problem. It is not just foreign workers that Singaporeans don't feel comfortable staying next to. If you go down the list, half-way houses for drug offenders and ex-convicts are also frowned upon. But let's not stop there. How about hospitals or even funeral parlors?

Have we merely tolerated the presence of these foreign workers, rather than accept them into our society? And if this is a problem, who's going to solve it? Are the Serangoon Gardens people being elitist?

So do the Blogtv.sg

Blogtv team's thoughts...

So we knew that the discussion was going to be heated, if not outright explosive...but yes, that was kinda what we wanted in the first place. Sparks flew when we put a passionate Serangoon Gardens Resident together with an advocate for foreign workers' rights but hey, at least we tried to be balanced by throwing in a sociologist to provide an observer's point of view (or so we thought...)

Rose Tan, Serangoon Gardens Resident

She signed the petition together with 1,400 other residents to protest against the establishment of a foreign workers' dorm in Serangoon Gardens. Infrastructure is her pet peeve, or rather the lack of it in the estate is and without improvements in that area, she will go all out to prevent 1,500 workers from moving in...

Jolovan Wham, Social Worker

He's been working with foreign workers for 4 years now and yes they can speak English. Actually, make that Singlish since that is our 'national' language of sorts. He's also tried to set up a shelter for them in Little India but was rejected by the RC there because the residents were uncomfortable with the idea. To quote him "What's wrong with that since there are already so many of them in Little India?"

Dr Daniel Goh, Sociologist, NUS

He sends his students out to do projects on foreign workers and he claims that they feel 'enlightened' after that. So what does he think if a foreign workers' dorm was to be built in Serangoon Gardens? Why not? In fact, anywhere else on the island, including his backyard will do! But we're not so sure about that...especially if his neighbors in Punggol were to start complaining.

Check it out at Archives: http://www.blogtv.sg/home.php


"They are transient but the community is not transient."

What do you think?

Greater things

I learnt that there must be heart in writing and that good writing has honesty. I also found out that writers do not write in a vacuum, they are and should be grounded by people. I used to have this romantic/disillusioned idea of poets running away into a hut in the wilderness and indulging in a self-consuming form of writing. I now think that is unhealthy because we ought to be surrounded by people, people keep us saint, people remind us that we are part of a social system, people exude love.

But what a strange thing love is, the cliché goes. We can never really pinpoint love, or contain it neatly within fixed boundaries. Love is such a paradox, a double-edged sword in every way. It brings joy but also pain, it may seem eternal yet it could be fleeting, it may deceive yet it could be as real as you would allow it to be. These emotions, responsibilities, and choices that we fit into a word called love is contested at this juncture of life more so than ever. This is a period of trial and error where lovers decide if this is enough to venture to marriage and beyond, a time when singles come up with hypothetical situations and sustains on the characteristics-of-my-ideal. A moment in life’s seventy-eighty years when people struggle in their hazy situation, wanting resolutions, fearing conclusions, desiring answers, denying rejections.

These preoccupations are such priorities right now, and uncertainty makes it so. Soon, the finality of marriage would remove it all and replace such questions with a different set of anxieties, such as bringing bread and butter on the table. But right now, this indefiniteness brings about a restlessness that magnifies the less poignant things in life, it makes the unreal what-ifs real, it feeds on a hope that people hold onto that may turn to disappointment. I'm just hanging onto this:

“I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love.
With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself."
Jeremiah 31:3

And I guess the best thing that could happen admist such great preoccupations is an awareness of the greater things that could be done...

Parallels & Ironies

Part of an e-mail correspondence:

I said, “…So it is kind of a self-conscious sort of writing. I write with a person/people in mind and this person/people direct my thoughts, or the choice of words I use. Whenever I think of a certain audience, I morph into that person or group of people. I don't write to appeal to them though; it's just that I feel that that my writing becomes pretentious. Again, not that I write things I disagree with, but it feels like almost another person entering me, taking over me and writing on my behalf.”

He said, “…As for audience – I often have an imagined ideal reader for whom I write. An imagined someone with whom I would want to have an intimate and intelligent conversation. I have been fortunate enough to have friends, themselves writers, with whom such a conversation is possible and enriching – both in real life and in writing. Sometimes it is a specific person, but more often than not the object of my communication is a sort of spirit than flesh. Poetry for me is both conversation and meditation; some might use the word prayer. ”

When I read this reply, I didn’t give it much thought, read it once and that was it. But just as I was checking my Inbox tonight and ritually clearing my mail, I chanced upon it and read it again. It made me think about two things: writing and living. Writing is strange because I am never writing for myself; I do not write a line or two, a poem, a story, chuck it in my drawer for personal reading. It is always a pouring of emotions for others to feel ah this is real stuff I can relate to.

Ironically though, writing for others, more often than not, becomes a personal discovery (what a disgustingly overused word but can’t find another one to replace this) process. And in living life, we’re never really living for ourselves. But when we live for others, we reciprocally gain ourselves. I imagine many cynical eyebrows raised but I shan’t challenge that…

On another note, I realized that when I am too eager to challenge something, I fail to capture the bigger picture. Durkheim has won me over a little. I do believe that religion is social, that rituals function to re-affirm the beliefs that the community of believers hold, that religious force is collective effervescence acting on people. And in acknowledging all that, the flaws in his theory are almost jumping out waving to me, how he has failed to see society as being made up of people of different class, race/ethnicity, gender, rather than a homogenous entity. He has forgotten that people make sense of the world they live in differently, attach individualised meanings to the same phenomena, he has completely discredited subjectivity…Sigh, all hail Weber.

delirious

(with joy)

Life is such a treat every single day.

“This is pretty much how we find time – we beg, borrow and more often steal it from our budget of 24hours (usually losing sleep in the process).”

And I realize that when we’re doing what we like, we forget to sleep!

Because every single night, life is lived better than the day before.

Temporarily Somewhere

The inertia to write, after stopping this long, becomes so great that it collides into a fear of having lost the gift to write. The things I can talk about seem to be an airy emptiness not worth putting down into words, because I feel that I no longer have it within me to phrase something or talk about anything that someone can feel for, relate to, and know that they’re not alone in their frailty.

Even using the word “I” requires consideration, with each “I” typed, a pause follows, which side of myself do I want to reveal now, if any is revealed at all. Why does it matter if I am only writing for myself, and not for anyone else. I guess it matters when I dig deep into my emotions and invest them onto paper, knowing that someone would go through these lines of thoughts, comforted by the knowledge that they’re accompanied in their thoughts.

Writing, like everything else, is a therapy of sorts. Every single activity that we engage in is therapeutic. Drug taking, praying, smoking, jogging, they’re all therapies for different individuals coping with the world. And writing too, is a therapy that provides such a surprise because I never know which direction I am taking, what I am going to talk about, or how I sound like.

Just as I didn’t know this would end up sounding guarded and tired. Suddenly, the image of huge plastic Chinese masks with enormous happy grins, the kind with black glossy paint filling those large grins appear. And I think positivity can be blinding sometimes, especially for the weary who wants to sleep and slip into a quiet kind of solitude, before appearing all smiles again.

On Writing

If prostitution is selling your body, is writing akin to selling your soul?

Cyril Wong said, "How far in(to yourself) do you want to go?" I wonder if people can construct fake experiences and write them so well,- they become relatable. This is written for an assignment for a poetry workshop:

My White Flag



I am victorious, I declare.
The sun shines and your presence lingers,
a black shadow that grows
longer as the day extends.

Your multitude of shadows
strain and strip
my heart.

Even in the dim moonlight,
they reign on.
In this war of mind games,
I versus I,
I surrender.

"shine Your light"

“The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.”

I haven’t been writing for long because fatigue usually takes over or perhaps, I’ve found other forms of release, if writing is an engagement to release. Tonight, I sit here, refreshingly awake, and excited. This is one of the times when I wish that there exists a machine that measures out emotions and intricately matches them to identical perfect words.

“For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”

I sit here, with a heart filled with gratefulness. I don’t know how I can possibly describe this feeling, because I badly want to extract every inch that is within me, yet replication is difficult. From within comes a gratefulness for a love that is so pure and so real and so magnanimous, for an ever constant guidance that always keeps watch as I move across a clueless sky.

“No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”

I sit here, in awe. I sit here, grateful for a love that blesses all, touches all, and overflows our cups.

“And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.”

There is a Fine Fine Line

Going to the theatre always sweeps me away.

I love the energy-charged atmosphere, the smell of parquet and cushioned seats, and being in a place where dreams are lived out and fulfilled. I love that one moment when the audience cheers and shouts, “Encore”, “Encore” like our lives hung on to just one final song, and that nothing else beyond the walls of the theatre matters.

And “Seriously Hossan” was nothing short of pure magical lyrical brilliance. Both funny and deeply personal at the same time, the songs captivated the audience. It is amazing, the way a song unfolds with lyrics that put breadths on hold.

Of the many songs he sang tonight, I especially like this one by Avenue Q:



There's a fine, fine line between a lover and a friend;
There's a fine, fine line between reality and pretend;
And you never know 'til you reach the top if it was worth the uphill climb.
There's a fine, fine line between love
And a waste of time.
There's a fine, fine line between a fairy tale and a lie;
And there's a fine, fine line between "You're wonderful" and "Goodbye."
I guess if someone doesn't love you back it isn't such a crime,
But there's a fine, fine line between love
And a waste of your time.
And I don't have the time to waste on you anymore.
I don't think that you even know what you're looking for.
For my own sanity, I've got to close the door
And walk away...
Oh...
There's a fine, fine line between together and not
And there's a fine, fine line between what you wanted and what you got.
You gotta go after the things you want while you're still in your prime...
There's a fine, fine line between love
And a waste of time.

"I'll bring You more than a song"

"Every action of your life reflects what you fill your life with. If you fill your life with newspapers, you will speak news. If you watch soap operas, you will speak soap operas. But if you are filled with the Spirit and you absorb yourself in His presence, you will seek Jesus and glorify no one but Jesus."

Centrepoint

The last week of June is here and this realization made me panic a little because it is alarming that half a year is over, just like that. There are little events documenting the turn of the year that I remember vividly: the Christmas candlelight service, filling up the Goals Card on a cab ride somewhere. I’ve come to dislike expressions such as, “It feels like yesterday”, “Time sure flies” because it makes me feel that I’ve been caught off guard once more, no matter how many weeks, months, half years I’ve been through, there is a perpetual re-surprise year after year about how time speeds by us.

As with the start and end of the year, the midpoint like Wayne suggested, marks a time of reflection. My handwriting on my Goals Card is neat and small, as though the neater it is, the higher the chances of reaching those New Year resolutions. There are some I’ve attained, most I’ve not, others I’ve become oblivious to. All of which I felt were realistic, doable and attainable when I filled the card.

With June slipping away, there leaves one and a half more months before a brand new academic year begins. I’m liking the way this vacation is rolling by, the travelling, the camp, BS, fruitful explorations, like today catching an assortment of films from morning to night and getting excited talking about them thereafter.

The funniest resolution I’ve made comes under “Leisure” which says “More time for Sports, Vacation, Hobbies, Sleep & Rest” where I’ve simply written: SLEEP EARLIER. A goal that I’ve neglected because I’ve completely forgotten that it was even made! And I sit here, the clock hands spell 5:30am, reading my notebook of sermon notes from last November all the way till now (something the hecticness of the semester would forbid), thinking that soon enough we’d be embracing a countdown to 2009 and I’d feel that “time flies” all over again.

something for everyone

Haphazard Rants, Nonrandom

I like the song “Any Other World” by Mika, especially the line “Say Goodbye to the world you thought you lived in." What speaks to me isn’t the reminder of disillusion, but the quiet revelation that in this globe we inhibit, in the same country that we share, in the created space we’ve formed for ourselves, we occupy such vastly different worlds.

But our worlds overlap, and they’re all subsets of one another’s universe.

At the Peranakan Museum today, I caught myself paying attention to the Monday afternoon crowd almost as much as I studied the artifacts. I found it slightly intriguing, because this museum visiting business is probably a break from everyone’s Monday routine. I began to subconciously categorize visitors into tourists and locals, wondering why they were here, what would their usual first day of the week routine otherwise be…Anyway, the museum is pretty good, a little too spanking new for authenticity though, but I guess its commendable effort for a start.

I think of Singapore as gradually building up to reach a certain tipping point where the arts would flourish (such an overused and tired phrase but still) and just explode. I got quite excited gathering all these brochures, looking at the different exhibitions, films, Substation Outreach programmes. There is definitely progress in the arts scene, we’re moving somewhere that’s for sure, how fast this progress is or will be continues to be a question.

Its encouraging that there is a bit more nurturing of talent, a little more space for artistic experimentation (yes, debatable as well, to me there is) and the like. I think what we need to cultivate is a culture of appreciation of the arts, which is sorely and sadly missing in this country. We need to turn a nation of shoppers and food hunters into individuals more in touch with their senses, with the subtleties of everyday living that is constantly being transformed into photographs, writings, plays, dramas. That would take a lot of time, wouldn’t it? I wonder if it would even happen. There are times when I feel that the more developed we get, the less we have in us. We might turn into pretentious lovers of the arts. In an undeveloped society (in purely economic terms), art, say the weaving of a hat from leaves, is being appreciated in every simple way that we have come to neglect.

Sociology acquaints me with the minority, the underdog. I like it that I constantly feel that I am finally being told the truth about things after twelve standardized years of education. My eyes are finally opened to the loopholes in the government, and I start seeing how little things like nationalism is constructed, etc. Then almost as naturally, with no one else to point fingers at, we “blame the gah-men."

Yet, there are so many things, sweet and unpretentious, that I love this country for. Endless complaints get to me sometimes, and I find myself thinking that people should go about getting things fixed. With that arises the accusation of not seeing things from their shoes, from their plight. I am well aware of the stickiness of social mobility, the viciousness of the poverty cycle, we all are. So what is left at the endof the day is this general sense of ambivalence, everyone seems to make sense in their own way. Put together, nothing makes sense.

Tonight, or at least right now, I am feeling that criticism comes so easily, cynicism is easy. We need to stop smirking all the time. We need some positivity and I am repeating that to myself.

Hard-boiled

Human beings are awfully fragile creatures, with raw emotions and void hearts. This is an observation and perhaps a fact. It becomes a fact when it is realized.

People are usually happy being with other people. In a group setting, there is always laughter and rarely tears. Such social dynamics naturally bring fourth the cheery self.

This is in sharp contrast with the lone self, it is almost like stepping into another pair of shoes and adopting a different persona.

When it is realized that there are few or zero others a human being can have a true conversation with, a real pouring of emotions, it is a scary thought.

This is different from a rejection of emotional dependency on others, but a sudden jolt that hits and registers the difficulty of forming a real dependency on other humans.

So afraid and frightened, human beings lean on the spiritual world.

If not, they just remain ignorant and choose not to realize.

All that I have.

Swimming

Each time I return, the landscape shakes me a little, there is no dust on the roads and streets, the buildings are neatly arranged, the trees are greener, the sky is bluer, everything a little brighter. This wake-up call makes me uncertain, it flings me back into a reality that I try to grasp everyday. The fluorescent lights and “Arrival” on the big grey signboards are grounded by an unblinking stability. They together remind me that the boundary between fiction and reality is clearly defined and after some unfinished reflection, it is time to return to a place where human beings and relationships exist beyond a couple of days, where socialization skills enter the picture again.

And the first person I meet and talk to, I feel like a blubbering baby who has lost herself and is finding the right words, the right conversation topics, the right expressions all over again. Not in a hypocritical fashion, but in a manner that makes living easier and the way it is for everyone else.

Spending five days in Bangkok shopping, binging, laughing to sleep every night left me so happy, so happy that it brings an emptiness. It feels as if parts of me have dissolved every night and a hollow shell is left after such intensive socializing with no time for quiet thought. I guess life is a constant, continuous tightrope balance between being with people, and being alone. And then, I am in China, in this almost incredible place called Zhang Jia Jie. There are only mountains, trees, water, temporary people I shall never see again, lots of time for uncontrolled thinking. When thoughts are almost spilling over, it is time to return, to re-adjust, I think of it as plunging into a deep chlorinated pool and the moment I surface, I am somewhat ready for the world again.

China has tweaked my worldview. I have always abhorred that country because everything is so, Chinese, for the lack of a better word. When I was younger, I went to Beijing, Shanghai, various other states and cities, and each time I begged that we never went back again. I ignorantly hated everything about the country and the people, the spitting, the stinking doorless toilets, the endless emperors and empresses tourist sites we visited. But this trip left me feeling that the pair of sunglasses I have been wearing all along has been (finally) taken off, and my tinted view of the place is removed, because I am afterall Chinese receiving an education so westernized that it teaches me to distant away from everything considered cheena, ching chong, whatever. I don’t know what exactly has changed my impression, perhaps an accumulation of everything. I have witnessed a culture so rich and yet diverse, it makes me clear about the Singapore identity, it is the state of having no identity.

There was one night when I immersed myself with the locals when I went to watch a performance in a theatre filled with thousands of other Chinese nationals. And I enjoyed myself tremendously, a nationalistic air filled the theatre, it made me so excited, I was eager to return and spend countless afternoons curled up reading up on the Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao, the art of tea drinking, the tombs, everything. Also for the first time, I saw the beauty behind the Chinese language. Each time my tour guide spoke, it feels like poetry gliding from his mouth, I was so inspired to be like him, I bought a book, my first non-academic Mandarin book.

But I guess what moved me more than anything else, was all the nights I spent watching the news on the earthquake before falling asleep. The unity and strength of the country in the face of this disaster has drawn a certain level of respect in me.

I think about what Sen Min said, he tries not to watch the news on the earthquake too much, because it affects him and yet, there is nothing much he can do about it. I can completely identify with him, so I hang onto words. Words have a certain effect on me that is quite irreplaceable. When I read and I feel the same emotions the author has about something, when words reach into my heart and transform me, I am amazed by the power words have. Sometimes, I copy a quote and stare at it, I read the same verse and I hang onto it for maybe a week, maybe longer, it helps me get past. I don’t know, some people say it is for the weak, and I think maybe they are right. But I am just glad I am hanging onto something, in plunging in and out of the pool, going between places, in all internal conflicts, there are these words that bring comfort.

bittersweet

My first time watching this video, and after one year too...Really cracked me up. I'm just gonna leave this here so that I can watch it over and over again.

Someone help me out, what's the title of this song?

Psalm 32:8

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you and watch over you.

Happy Ending

(Photographs from Charles)

I wrote this poem last year shortly after returning.

I felt silly reading it this morning because it seems that everyone else has long moved on but here I am, feeling that a part of me remains there. Every once in a while, I find myself lapsing into this reminiscent mood, and I ask myself to snap out of it because truly I have no idea what I miss. Everything, and quite possibly, nothing too.

My memory is contained in fragmented sounds, smells and visuals. Father Abraham tune, the air that smells of hot sun, brown clouds of sand trailing the tuktuk, laughter, fragrance of Beef noodles soup, two students standing outside a classroom peering in, shy smiles on their faces, Peter's voice, the smell of freshly laundered clothes, orange sun setting and us caving into a drowsiness before dinner.

I wonder how they are, I can’t remember their names now. Joy. This is the one name I remember after one year because it is the only English name. I guess I could always return, but I'm not sure if want that too. I'm afraid that playing it out again will not match up to how I remember it to be.


Of Knowledge

I know your country is poor.
I do not know the shade of your skin colour.
I have packed sanitary wipes.
I guess poor means dirty.
I slept on the plane,
I must recharge to bring cheer to you.
I guess poor means sad.

This is how you look like, there are so many of you.
In long skirts, long pants and long sleeves,
Are you hot?
It is blazing in you country.
Yet, you bring out your rope of rubber bands,
jump and laugh,
you have examinations tomorrow.

We taught you
past, present and future tense.
You giggled and looked curiously at us,
strange formations at our lips,
unfamiliar sounds and
alien faces.


You taught me about the present when I looked less obscure.
I have a digital camera,
we took a photograph together.
The present is now,
The future is later.
In the same clothes you wear everyday,
you carry a beautiful smile.
I have a big wardrobe at home,
I hate that my shoes are not colour coordinated.
I smile when needed, what is it like to smile
unconsciously,
the way you do.

We held hands and
laughed a lot
when words become sounds that mean nothing.
We like weaving thread around pencils,
running in pools that form after the rain,
I am surprised I am having fun
without my laptop and wireless network.

I look at the candid shot of us in laughter.
My friends and I from our developed country
are to help you and your friends in your less developed country.
I guess you are poor,
I am right.
But all my other guesses were wild and wrong.
In your little hut with no furniture,
you have everything we long for
and need.

Running in circles,
chasing the start point,
not knowing where it is,
or how to get there.
You knew all that already
because the present triumphs the future.
You understood that.

Romulus my father

The story tells of Raimond growing up with his father amidst the beautiful natural landscape of rural Australia, and how Romulus teaches Raimond the meaning of a compassionate, decent and moral life. At the same time, the family struggles with the depression of Christina, and her increasing neglect of the family. Romulus, My Father is a celebration of the unbreakable bond between father and son, and the depth of love for family, against a background of coping as new immigrants in a foreign land.

This is one of those films I wish would never end.

fear is the heart of love

"I Will Follow You Into The Dark"
by Death Cab For Cutie



Love of mine some day you will die
But I'll be close behind
I'll follow you into the dark

No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white
Just our hands clasped so tight
Waiting for the hint of a spark
If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the NOs on their vacancy signs

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark

In Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule
I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black
And I held my tongue as she told me
"Son fear is the heart of love"
So I never went back

If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the NOs on their vacancy signs

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark

You and me have seen everything to see
From Bangkok to Calgary
And the soles of your shoes are all worn down
The time for sleep is now
It's nothing to cry about
Cause we'll hold each other soon
The blackest of rooms

If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the NOs on their vacancy signs

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark
Then I'll follow you into the dark

Fri night/Sat morning city

I wonder whether people think about where they are going, not where to go tomorrow, or later, but where are we going, doing the things we are doing? I found this quote somewhere by Douglas Adams: “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”


Not only needed, but love too. Doing Sociology makes me feel this way, doesn't matter that nobody buys our "we can do many things" answer. Like what Alvin said, they think we're going to end up being Social Workers because...I have no idea why. Maybe because the prefix sounds the same?

Sometimes, the night feels comforting, like tonight. It was windy, the kind of wind that sends hair whipping faces, Josh Groban crooned on the radio, and we wined down the windows. Snapped photographs of this night Singapore landscape, ubiquitous HDB flats that remind me of Twelve Story scenes, not in a depressing way, but in a picturesque way. Cars drive faster in this early hour, people are more laid back, snuggled up on carpets and cushions over early morning conversations and the air smells of fruity shisha, a little smoky and that is good too-in this slight haziness, everyone is less uptight, doesn’t quite feel like Singapore.

school days

Orange evening light settling on white-washed walls, slowly dissolves, waits for transition before the sky paints of a darker seven o’ clock colour within minutes.

Nine o’ clock morning light falling on construction work on campus, months and years spent doing a blueprint, transformed into reality at that very moment, soil digging, cranes, huge blocks; every tilt of an angle makes a difference.

Smelling the noon time sun in its prowess, familiar LT9 whiff, soaring hearts in the brilliance of an ever-inspiring lecture, discovering, hoping that others could listen to passion speak.

Somewhere else in a Physics lecture, man stands in front and admits to be Einstein’s biggest fan, wild gestures and eyes twinkling a little, demonstrates his theories, amazed by them all over again, and again.

Musty book pages smell trails first and air condition air hit next, call number spotted, shelves of the same topic surrounds, tiny self amongst boundless books, writing a term paper, uncovering the tip of the tip of an iceberg.

Vastness, the world, and the self, both of the same magnitude of vastness.

Imagined community

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Wayward

Studying can get a little depressing sometimes. We are so very aware of various social problems, we know the characteristics of capitalism, problems of modernity, we spend so much time reading stacks of Why-Capitalism-Is-Evil, but we’re not going to do anything about it. Individually, we are all supporters of it, in every aspect of our lives, from shopping right down to going to university in hope of good grades, so that we can soon be part of this amazing group, called the Workforce. And even though we are well aware that Meritocracy is really a fallacy that the government propagates, we believe in it still, we want to be at the peak of the bell curve, everything. This makes me wonder what we do with this acquired knowledge. We know it, yet we ignore it. But I guess, again, this is a true reflection of social reality, that an individual, entrapped in a web of social forces, cannot change the world, and we need an entire class to forsake our cushy lifestyles for something greater. Well, so I say it is difficult not to like Marx… He is such an optimist!

nuggets of truth

The issue is not so much focusing on the right things but rather, not becoming distracted by the wrong things.

There are a thousand and one things we can give ourselves to, but there is going to be one thing above all others that we must devote our highest attention to.

We cannot do everything.

We are not called to do everything.

We should not attempt to do everything.

Stepping out with you,

Other Things

I'm up so late all the time, plouging through some really intriguing sites and feeling quite overwhelmed. There are so many places I want to check out, so many films I want to watch (S'pore Film Fest!) and these are just other things, beside the more important things like getting started on papers.

Other Things by Alvin Pang

To buy a potted plant is to admit both faithlessness and need. To water the plant, perhaps daily, perhaps once in a while when you remember and the leaves start to droop, is as close to love as it gets.

Other things mean other things.

To light a lamp is to hide darkness in the same closet as sleep, along with silence, desire, and yesterday’s obsessions. To read a book is to marry two solitudes, the way a conversation erases and erects, words prepare for wordlessness, a cloud for its own absence, and snow undresses for spring.

The bedroom is where you left it, although the creases and humps on the sheets no longer share your outline and worldview. In that way, they are like the children you never had time for.

A cooking pot asks the difficult questions: what will burn and for how long and to what end.

TV comes from the devil who comes from god who comes and goes as he pleases. To hide the remote control in someone’s house is clearly a sin, but to take the wrong umbrella home is merely human.

The phone is too white to be taunting you. The door you shut stays shut. The night is reason enough for tomorrow, whatever you believe.

Remember, the car keys will be there after the dance. Walls hold peace as much as distance. A kettle is not reason enough for tears.

The correct answer to a mirror is always, yes.

Running

I appreciate the public transport system, bus journeys, train rides, walks to the station, it is a time off from the world, by being in the world. A gap in the day to perch on the fence and people-watch, like a silent observer looking at everyone and everything, without even realizing that introspection is going on. A time of inner silence, immersed in a noisy world, just watching, and listening, and listening and watching.

While surfing around, I found this brilliant article, which I thoroughly enjoyed, by Howard Becker. It is beautifully written, there’s a poetic charm to it, and it captures the essence of Sociology.

http://home.earthlink.net/~hsbecker/articles/observe.html

“We saw things close up as well as from a distance.”

“This gave us a lot of material on differing ways of life to think about.”

“It wasn't undertaken because I was a sociologist and had a reason to be there observing.”

It makes me feel that passion is so powerful and so attractive, more attractive than being attractive.

Zai Jian Wo De Ai Ren

Tonight is slow and easy, against the backdrop of Teresa Teng’s songs. Someone, I can't remember who, sent it to me when we returned last year. This is how I have come to associate her songs with: Mornings of Kaya toasts, after heavy Life Journey nights, Milo, markers on the table, textbooks, colourful friendship band thread everywhere, long rectangular table, that two black-and-white paintings and the red walls, the red walls.

‘I am very fond of sunsets. Let’s go this moment and look at a sunset.’

‘But we shall have to wait…’

‘Wait for what?’

‘Wait until it’s time for the sun to set.’

At first you seemed very taken aback. Then you laughed at yourself and said:

‘I still keep thinking I’m at home!’

Just so. For as everyone knows, when it is noon in the United States the sun is setting over France. If you could get to France in a twinkling, you could watch a sunset right now. Unfortunately France is rather too far away. But on your tiny planet, little prince, you had only to move your chair a few steps. You could watch nightfall whenever you liked.

‘One day,’ you said, ‘I watched the sunset forty-three times!’

And a little later you added:

‘You know, when one is that sad, one can get to love the sunset.’

‘Were you that sad, then, on the day of the forty-three sunsets?’

But the prince made no answer. -The Little Prince

Suddenly I See

When you are happy, everything becomes brighter and bigger. They do become, they don't just appear.

I feel at ease with the world, I wanted to write that down last night but I was so tired, I fell asleep after a Kit Kat. I'm seeing it, finally, and this feeling of liberation is sweet.

It is good that our thoughts are always in line with our mood. Colourful images of kite-flying, bountiful bubbles, laughter. The air smells sunny today. I am filled with a sense of limitless boundaries, that one can do possibly anything at all. You know those rooms with a sea of colourful plastic balls, the ikea one, I always thought wouldn't it be great if it could be filled with the things we love, a sea of ice cream scoops, a sea of longans, anything. If I could, I would do a thousand cartwheels around the house right now.

Cyril Wong has a collection of poems titled "Tilting our plates to catch the light". I guess that's what it possibly boils down to, a constant and continuous adjustment and re-adjustment, till we see that life is a strange, beautiful magic.

The heart never lies

These nights I fall asleep with my computer on, table lamp on, blanket uncovered, and wake up in the early morning hours, full of energy, sitting up, thinking very hard what I was doing before I slip into these accidental naps.

It rained today, the whole of the day, and I found out that the sky is white when it pours. White as a sheet of paper, with no clouds in sight at all, so white that you can’t quite see where the droplets come from, they just start in mid-air and fall everywhere.

I am getting an overload of information from everywhere, I don’t even know what to call it, information is an inaccurate word for whatever it should be called. I spoke to a woman for my paper who told me flatly that Easter and Christmas aren’t found in the bible, that Jesus wasn’t born on the twenty-fifth of December. I am struggling with criticisms of the church, half-truths which puts me up in defense against strong convictions that makes me weary and confused at the end of the day. I am seeking and desiring God, all the time wanting encounters of sorts. The first few times when I went to church, each service was a dialogue with God because the message, week after week, was something I needed to know right then.

My hand was held but somewhere in between, I think I have lost touch and my hand was against air. Last week, after bible study, I asked how do you know when it is God speaking to you and when it is your own intuition, or how do you know certain signs are from Him, when is it not just a matter of personal judgment or misinterpretations. And after talking for a while, perhaps to comfort, the friend I spoke to said, “You are a form of encouragement for me too, the way you seek Him”. But I am discouraged; I want Him to be real, more real, as real as real can be. And I am waiting, thinking maybe it is all a matter of time, or a test of patience. I noted this down in my handphone while watching Jack Neo’s Ah Long movie: Before God entrusts you, you will be tested on your endurance. And this note keeps popping out, before God entrusts you, before God entrusts you.

When do I know it is God speaking to me and when it is not floaty thoughts? I constantly ask this question, mostly to myself. And I found the answer to this question. Yet the answer is ambiguous, I just know when I know, there is no better way to put it. On Monday night, I went shopping for a gift for a friend going overseas. I intended to get him a book, but settled on a CD instead. And I purchased this book called “Listening to God” because the title sounded interesting. I don’t know if it is a good book, if the author is renown, I don’t know who the Shakespeares or John Donnes are. As I read the first few pages today, I smiled and I know this is it, this is when He is speaking to me, this book is written for me, specific advice on every insecurity, and specific answers to questions.

It’s starting to drizzle again, and the air smells of primary school days, early mornings waiting for the school bus to roll in, in this same cool air.

Tender Moments

I feel guilty being online now because there is so much untouched work, papers to write, readings to be done and I am unable to suppress the urge to translate this week into words.

I learnt about “Critical Moments” last semester, it defines that one transitionary point in your life where a particular incident hits you and changes your course of life forever. If I could construct my own list of concepts, the first on my list would be “Tender Moments”. It is that solitary moment when you seek shelter from the rest of the world, where there is no need to talk, there is just you and your weightless thoughts that can venture as far as they can possibly go. It is that moment when you reflect, sitting or standing, in your room, in a place away from people, in your own personal boundary. It is also that moment that gels all of humans’ hearts together. No matter how you present yourself to the world, chatty, giggly, grumpy, or angsty, everyone shares this same moment of quiet thinking, where for that single moment, we all become the same, when we lose the need to argue or the need to pretend, or the need to be somebody, and find ourselves in quiet reflection.

So I sit here, cross-legged, fan blowing my toes cold, with a hot cup of green tea beside me. Doing field research in this quaint little charming place in Singapore has been tiring but immensely satisfying, I did not expect it to be as such, -like an exploratory journey, venturing along streets talking to random people, perfect strangers, finding out a bit more about this and a little about that. Relatives and friends always ask me, “And what can you do?” I am always taken aback because to me there are infinite possibilities and “can” should be replaced by “would”. I am beginning to see Sociology less as an academic discipline, less as a gateway to bright career prospects but more as a way of thinking that changes my vision of the world. I am sure C Wright Mills would be jumping with joy if he reads this and I truly feel that once equipped with the sociological imagination, one starts observing things that were left unnoticed previously, picks up certain nuances, looks at the world in an entirely different manner. It saddens me to think that when I graduate and have no papers to write, I might stop doing stuff like this.

I am terrible at making decisions and it seems like a plague that stays with me because I am always finding myself having to make some kind of choice and being unable to come to any form of conclusion. I don’t know when I made up my mind, I have been praying for a word from God, a sign, a revelation, something. Maybe it was after last night, or watching the video again this morning, somewhere in between I have subconsciously decided. But in full consciousness, I know it wouldn’t be easy and tonight I experienced the first waves of that. This feeling is strangely familiar, it reminds me of the time when I started going to church and the difficulties I experienced in so doing, but it is also the time when I feel that I am closest to God. Last two weeks, I felt that my spiritual life was stagnating, like I have lost that connection somehow. Ironically, at this point when I know I am not relying on my own strength, I think I have found that connection again. Tonight, standing and facing the wind, I prayed for peace, and peace only.

well I'd be a pod

If I was a flower growing wild and free
All I'd want is you to be my sweet honey bee.
And if I was a tree growing tall and greeen
All I'd want is you to shade me and be my leaves

If I was a flower growing wild and free
All I'd want is you to be my sweet honey bee.
And if I was a tree growing tall and greeen
All I'd want is you to shade me and be my leaves

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

If you were a river in the mountains tall,
The rumble of your water would be my call.
If you were the winter, I know I'd be the snow
Just as long as you were with me, let the cold winds blow

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

If you were a wink, I'd be a nod
If you were a seed, well I'd be a pod.
If you were the floor, I'd wanna be the rug
And if you were a kiss, I know I'd be a hug

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

If you were the wood, I'd be the fire.
If you were the love, I'd be the desire.
If you were a castle, I'd be your moat,
And if you were an ocean, I'd learn to float.

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

JUNO

I was lamenting the other day how it now takes so much more to move an audience, to touch people. The more we are exposed to movies/films/books/art, the higher the standard we set, the greater the expectation, the more it takes to evoke some sort of emotion. Not that we become desensitized, there just is a greater hunger for something more, it is like eating durians, once you've tried D24 durians, the sweetness will leave you hungering for XO durians, and you'll no longer settle for those fifty cents ones.

And just when I felt that I was no longer able to find my XO durian in movies, I watched this show today which left me gushing, laughing, crying and gushing. Juno is not just a comedy about teenage preganancy, it is about love, about life, about living, about familial relations, about responsibilities, about choices, about coping and dealing. I hate speaking about it in such airy-fairy ambiguous concepts, everyone should go catch it. Natural yet witty, funny yet endearing, I cannot remember the last movie I watched that I felt so much for.

I am not bothering to be more objective or critical because this show is PURE ABSOLUTE BRILLIANCE. I love the part when she says, "I need to know it is possible that two people can stay happy together forever."

For a day

I wish I've more time to think and write. The months are flying by so quickly, one-sixth of the year has gone by and it seemed like yesterday that new goals for the new year were drawn.

During Deviance lecture today, Dr Gana fused the need to have a date on VALENTINE'S DAY with Durkheim's thoughts on Suicide!



At the train station just now, there was a guy with a huge bouquet of roses passing the gantry, there was another teenager, who was mildly embarrassed when his eyes met mine, with a stuffed toy flower protruding out of his paper bag. At a gift shop which was just about to close,a man rushed in, asking if they sold ribbons. "Yes, that kind! Heng ah..." A bunch of my single friends are going to town tomorrow to celebrate. It is quite amazing, there is an energy of anticipation hanging in the air, everyone is a little excited, I think, the singles and the couples alike, over a day that is purely purely a social construct. Okay, here's to a great day of overflowing LOVE, it only happens once a year! :D

what time is it?

I just finished an article and I realized that I don’t really enjoy doing assigned writings because it is constrained with a fixed topic and there is always the deadline, it feels like work… During Social Thought and Theory lecture this afternoon, we learnt about what Marx has to say about work, “my work is an alienation of my life, for I work, in order to live, in order to obtain for myself the means of life. My work is not my life.” I hope we don’t graduate to become Marxes but even that depends on class, social position (cringing), but idealistically, I would like to believe, it depends only on mindsets (very disappointing coming from a Sociology major).

I’m learning a lot about time and space in a science module and although I’m grasping 0.01% of the science, I am very fascinated by some of the ideas, how time is not the same for everyone and a person observing a moving other are experiencing two different sets of timings. I cannot explain why so or do those crazy calculations which the prof flashes but I only know that time depends on who measures it. Amazing.

Walking on Water

Sometime ago, maybe a year ago or maybe two, I read a friend’s blog. She was a young Christian then and she posted biblical verses, she spoke of how God is her everything, and as I scrolled up and down, I remembered thinking these thoughts: how malleable her mind is, how she has allowed herself be drawn into a current of emotions, how mentally weak she was such that she needed an illusion to hold on dearly to.

Now, a year or maybe two later, there are times when a verse speaks to me, or when I see how God is working His way in my life, little happenings which I would regard as pure coincidences in the past that I want to document here in this virtual space but I am always hesitant. There is a fear that people reading this would come to think of me as a changed person, suddenly spiritual, having such a “malleable mind”, and such uneasiness turns into inhibitions.

In fact, I sense many changes in my life, subtle but significant, how I go to sleep in prayer and wake up seeking Him, how He has become such a constant presence; it is like having someone there I can communicate with all the time. It is amazingly frightening, when I think about it sometimes, how my perception on things has changed within such a short span of time.

And I am writing this now, well aware that there would be another someone like me, reading this, having those same thoughts I had then. But still, I want to document moments like now, when I listen to this song and “where would I be without You here in my life” resonates with me. As I witness the transformation within myself, moving from a skeptic to a believer, I realize that my fear of writing such “spiritual stuff” comes not so much from being weary of the judgments of others, but from a fear that I would not be able to prove God’s greatness and that my writing can do little to convince others. I sigh as I type this line, because there really is a limit to these words, these black alphabets on this white screen and I truly feel that it is only through personal experience that can one feel His tangible presence. All we need is an opening of the heart.

Above your vision

I have been observing the landscape, the people, the sights here in our country more attentively ever since exchange results were released and there is two weeks to make a choice. Almost everything inevitably turns into a comparison, from the orange-blue shuttle buses here; I wonder what colours they use there, to the red cloths drapped in shopping centres, they don’t celebrate Chinese New Year there, and Singaporeans sitting down stirring black coffee in transparent kopitiam cups, they probably drink Starbucks and that’s it.

I had dinner at a hawker centre tonight and I was looking at the ceiling, which was a blackish-brown from accumulated dirt. I never gave any attention to ceilings until a few years back because it is unnatural to be staring up all the time. But I remember one night at a Chinese wedding dinner, I was bored to death because weddings in hotels have become rituals, photographs outside, couple parades inside, same speech all the time, same thank yous and tired yam sengs always. I was also starving because six of the eight or ten course dinner was always seafood, it has become some sort of tradition, the food, the setting, the place, the same soy sauce smell. I remembered thinking if you closed your eyes and forgot about the people, or the couple, all weddings would be the same. In my absolute boredom, I began studying the interiors of the hotel, the whiteness of the pillars, the intricate carvings, the ceilings that stretched so high and are so clean, I wondered how they managed to clean it, who supports the very tall ladder, who climbs up, what cleaning equipments they used. And tonight, when I saw that the ceilings were dirty, I thought that is how it ought to be, more personal, more natural, less perfect.

Silent all these years

Some days I am idealistically unrealistic, some nights I am cynical as can be, tonight I am glad that it rained in the day and there is this cool air that hangs all over.

I’ve been telling everyone (with wild enthusiasm) to read Joshua Harris’s Boy Meets Girl because it seems to me that if you are able to choose the right partner and follow his very high standards on courtship, then it’d end on a “and so they live happily ever after” note (on a less cynical night).

And I’ve also been telling everyone about the jug-big rocks-pebbles-sand-water story (I’m sorry if you don’t know because I’m too lazy to type it) and asking them what the big rocks in their lives are. People usually have a difficult time ranking what their rock ought to be, or their pebble, and so on. And if they had only one big rock, what would that be? They usually agree that well surely we can have a few big rocks in the jug, right?

Also, interestingly, I just heard this one, the jug represents religion (because we all need something to contain us) and the jug’s shadow represents family, ever present, but always taken for granted.

Other things today, I saw an old abandoned sofa along the road on my way home.

Other thoughts today, I hate it that time is always triumphant (like a big fat Cheshire cat grinning) because it catches one off guard no matter how many years of our lives we have been through, we still go oh my time flies. We ought to have gotten used to it by now, two decades, and the time span of a year never changes, but time is always faster than we remembered it to be.

More thoughts today, I think insecurity moulds a person to be guarded and contentment moulds one to be open. Is the open person the abandoned sofa along the road cold and wet in the rain for all to stare at? Is the guarded person the one within the house safe from the coldness but having nobody to admire the shine of her leather? (But who cares really-my favourite line from Silent All These Years is “What’s so amazing about really deep thoughts”)

I hope I don't get sued posting this online, Good Night.

(Maybe a guarded person is one who has left out all the additions, all the extra brackets in life.)

DON'T GO TO UNIVERSITY

UNLESS THE SUBJECT OF LEARNING IS CLOSE TO YOUR HEART.

In the midst of ploughing through a thousand modules looking for a suitable breadth/GEM, I came across this: ).