LETTER TEMPLATES

Inspired by the movie “Julie & Julia” in which Julie tries a new recipe daily, as well as a short story in Murakami’s “The Elephant Vanishes” where a group of people get together to write letters, I’m embarking on a project titled, "Letter Templates".


The mark of a good writer for me is when the reader feels a complete sense of identification with the writer despite being complete strangers in entirely different circumstances.

So “Letter Templates” traces a series of letters addressed to a multitude of varied individuals: the clinic receptionist, the gardener, the school girl, the brother, the distant grandmother, the deranged professor and others. Each letter is penned from a different character. It is in these fictitious letters where I hope the power of words is reflected and the reader thinks to himself/herself: I get goosebumps knowing how closely aligned my thoughts and emotions are with the writer.

Letter Template on "Ending It All"

Dear John,


I never explained because I didn’t know how I could start. I always felt that we were going about in two different languages and getting through was an impossible feat. When pride gets in the way, a thousand reasons surface, every one of which makes unquestionable sense. Also, I was always made suddenly inarticulate in your presence-- my vocabulary downsized to monosyllabic responses. Initially I was left hanging on the line and the confusion compelled me to take hold of the situation. When I took a plunge, I was prepared for the silence that entailed but reality was still more difficult to manage than expectations. I wasn’t complaining though. With what I had requested, I was getting exactly what I had intended for. So the meaningful conversations and personal sharing gave way to noisy banter. It grew even quieter with all that noise. I’m not sure if there was a better way that things could have unfolded.

Everything was swept under the carpet and there was nothing much left to be said. But I guess a part of me was always waiting for something to happen. A reconciliation, a thrashing out session, a meal—I wasn’t sure what exactly either. With all that silence, I could only try to guess your thoughts. I was convinced that I was only remembering the good stuff and blurring out the bad. Still I hung around.

And then one day, it suddenly ‘clicked’ within me. I don’t know why or how because it was just an ordinary cloudless day, one of those days which seem like a continuation of the day before. At that one moment, I realized that despite all our similarities, we are actually worlds apart. But that wasn’t it—what hit me was that I would never really be happy with you. I was simply desiring for something that was difficult to reach and that was your allure, which became my challenge.
 
I’m finally letting the past go and I wonder why it took this long. Now everything seems comparatively straightforward.

Love,
Mary

Straight Ahead

-Pst Phil Pringle

Memory's a funny thing.

Festive seasons are like birthday parties for me. They keep us very busy and in business, we are kept a little lonely as well.

When I turned today, a person I had previously dated was two arm lengths away. I was caught by surprise. My first instinct was to turn back around before he caught sight of me to avoid the awkward moments of eye contact. It was scorching hot. I continued looking in his direction when I realized he was absorbed in a conversation which gave clearance for staring. So, two arm lengths away with throngs of people separating the both of us, I observed him in his new haircut. He looked better than I had remembered him to be. Someone who had shared a piece of history with me was now a stranger, like a black distant figure fading into a tunnel. I cannot remember what I had liked him for. Strangely, all I remember are the minute forgettable details: places, dates, timings, food, bus stops, playgrounds, movies, tile designs, the concert we wanted to go for but never did, random details that don’t deserve attention. Everything but the person himself. Is this how memory works for all? Or for all the things that didn't eventually work out?

It’s gonna be a new year soon and I guess new beginnings are enough reason for cheer.

Good As Gold

Daydreamers' dreams never see the day.

this is for my soul sister

I’ve been thinking about this during the exam period so much such that it feels as if I’ve ended my exams in anticipation to write this. I’m not good at springing surprises, and this is the closest to a surprise that I can come up with. I remember returning from Langkawi- sunbaked and tired, to a heartfelt Facebook wall post and I ran through the message over and over, highlighting the parts I liked while smiling sheepishly at the computer screen. This is a note of appreciation disguised as a belated birthday greeting:

I can’t remember how we gave each other the affectionate soul-sister label but it birthed out of a frivolous incident and was given meaning through the weeks and months after. For all the details that I’ve forgotten, the memories that stay close to my heart make up for it. The most vivid ones are the long conversations we’ve had. I read somewhere that solitude doesn’t come from being alone but from meaningless interaction and it is no wonder I have never felt empty when I’m with you. Thank you for the nights you rang me up when I needed it, for being my constant helpline, for those precious sleepover sessions-- for giving me so much more than I’ve given you. You told me before that life is not in the big prizes won, but life is a constant struggle to move from today to tomorrow. And this sisterhood we share is a gift prized more than any other achievement, tiny or huge. Happy twenty-second MK. And for all the tomorrows to come, I hope for you to be as happy as happy can be. : )

"life is a highway and i'm gonna ride it"

Continuous days of studying have given me time to think, to stand in front of the mirror having conversations with my reflection, to walk around the house entering make-believe scenarios and entertaining all the thoughts a wandering mind would lead to. What I really want to do is to travel around in a caravan, wearing colour-striped socks and cartoon-print pajamas licking hot chocolate off my lips while listening to fellow travel mates tell stories, singing songs at the top of our voices with wind slapping on our faces, stopping the caravan along the road, sitting on wet grass to stargaze and waking up to fry hotcakes for one another.

I’ve been thinking about my future and I realized that much as words are important to me, I have never given any attention to doing the things I love, like writing. I’m frequently constructing sentences in my head but I leave them as broken half-complete strings in the air. I think about all the books I’ve yet to read but never get down to reading them. I unquestioningly devote a huge portion of my days to the education system and it’s such a shame that I do not question such ‘natural’ occurrences despite being equipped with years of sociological training. I ignore the doors of opportunities open to me through the mentorship programme. The illogic of my actions suddenly became very logical to me. If I led my life waking every morning to ask myself what I would do if today was the last day of my life, I guess I’d have been living all my last days wrongly. I can’t wait for the vacation to arrive (Life can afford to wait for another week I guess). I’m going on long bus journeys. I shall visit Borders to smell the air, watch the films that I always wanted to watch, explore art galleries, hop by museums, return to familiarly distant places to read and start writing all over again.

Being in "Ctrl"

I thought about what it means to choose the word of God over emotions. Our emotions flow from the core of our heart, they overwhelm us, intoxicate us, and are in us, with us--to make a choice to deny strong feelings beating in sync with our heartbeat, that's tough. It is one thing to keep your emotions to yourself instead of parading it for the world to see, and quite another to be living through them, and retrospectively making the decision to deny them. But choosing the word of God is the recognition that as real and as powerful your emotions are, you choose to stick close to the word of God instead of acting upon feelings that confront you.

I guess the issues of life always birth out of our relationships with people. And that’s where it is the trickiest because we never have direct control over relationships, there are too many factors involved and it is not something we can work hard at solving. Yet a large part of our emotions arise from our relationships with people, instead of the last ‘A’ we achieve or the newest handbag we bought. Herein lies the contradiction: on the one hand, we have little control over relationships, on the other, relationships impact our emotional life so deeply. To resolve this tension would be to centre our feelings and thoughts on an outer objective truth that would give us more directed choices, and less emotional dependence over relationships. Ah, why have I made it sound so formulaic? I always wonder if one can be such a mastery of emotion handling that one becomes
robotic.

I really like this song:



Closer To Love


She got the call today
One out of the gray
And when the smoke cleared
It took her breath away

She said she didn't believe
It could happen to me
I guess we're all one phone call from our knees

We're gonna get there soon

If every building falls
And all the stars fade
We'll still be singing this song
The one they can't take away

I'm gonna get there soon
She's gonna be there too
Cryin' in her room
Prayin' oh, Lord come through

We're gonna get there soon

Oh, it's your light
Oh, it's your way
Pull me out of the dark
Just to shoulder the weight
Cryin' out now
From so far away
You pull me closer to love
Closer to love

Meet me once again
Down off Lake Michigan
Where we could feel the storm blowin'
Down with the wind

And don't apologize
For all the tears you've cried
You've been way too strong now for all your life

I'm gonna get there soon
You're gonna be there too
Cryin' in your room
Prayin' Lord come through

We're gonna get there soon

Oh, it's your light
Oh, it's your way
Pull me out of the dark
Just to shoulder the weight
Cryin' out now
From so far away
You pull me closer to love
Closer to love

Cause you are all that I've waited for all of my life
(We're gonna get there)
You are all that I've waited all of my life

You pull me closer to love
Closer to love
Pull me closer to love (You are all that I've waited for)
You pull me closer to love
Closer to love
Closer to love (Cause you are all that I've waited for)
Closer to love

Pull me closer to love

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Excerpts from Commencement address at Stanford University by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios:

.....Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it, and like any great relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle.

...
....
......

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important thing I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life, because almost everything-all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure-these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

...
.....
.......

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there, and yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now, the new is you. But someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, and most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Hearing voices in my head

I want to sit by a countryhouse cafe facing the stormy sea, have strawberry tarts while I pour through my readings. It's terribly miserable to be ill especially when you have tons and tons of work. Throbbing headache be gone!!: ( GONE!

Growing Old

"idealism is the drug of adolescence.
together with romance and revolution.
as we get older we learn how to plan.
besides, no one i ever loved with all my heart ever deserved it"

Joshua the Sage had those wise words...but when was it about whether the person is deserving enough anyway?

Against all Hope

I think there are many things in life we don’t understand and every thing that we don’t—we try to rationalize. Most insecurities, fears, doubts, questions become rationalizations because it makes dealing with them easier when we think we know what’s going on.

I’m in between two worlds, if I could broadly simplify them- a world of disbelief and a world of belief. They could both be worlds of beliefs, just beliefs in different value systems. As I shuttle in and out of the academic space where being critical is the Prized characteristic, and where various notions are easily simplified into ‘social constructions’, it makes me all the more reflective. I don’t think I can win anyone over through reason or through argument and how could I possibly do so? It doesn’t take grand theories to be brandied around, a simple and logical argument leaves me mum.

I don’t have answers to many questions and I have many questions unanswered. I know some people roll their eyes when they hear words like “faith” being thrown around. To them, it is a ridiculous idea that weak people depend on for lack of belief in themselves, God's presence could just be collective effervescence. I just read a thesis about how religion is a tool of social control, as Karl Marx most famously said, “Religion is the opium of the masses”. Religion teaches you to be content with your lot and not to envy and that helps ex-convicts re-integrate. Believing that whatever challenge you go through is part of God’s plan in your life makes everything easier to handle. All that seems very smart and admittedly, there is a certain amount of truth in that.

With all that said, I find my faith being challenged all the time. It takes a bump, or several, to root myself deeper. Today I was broken and I started tearing during worship and I couldn’t stop but I was also comforted with the knowledge that God is with me. I know that when a conclusion is drawn this way, in such a personalized form, it doesn’t seem like any sort of closure because individual experiences put every banter to an end. How could one challenge another’s personal experience? If it is a flawed conclusion, let it then be a truthful one. Sometimes I am incredibly weary and I'm left feeling that I just don't know what to do. And it is always during these times when God sees me through and against all hope, I believe.

Love is our Air

It's good to remember what you love.


A: How's ________ ? [Insert: Work/School/Hobby/Passion]

B: Tough.

A: But you love it.

Sometimes we need reminders...

uphill climb

What a trying day... I can't decide if it's a good thing that it's a new day (already?)For some reason, Steve Job's "Stay Foolish, Stay Hungry" keeps ringing in my head.

Baking in progress

The bad thing about staying up late is you start getting all sorts of food cravings. Now I'm really longing for a good fat slice of carrot cake with a cup of hot chocolate. Also I want to watch Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story, Coraline, My Sister's Keeper. Other cravings include Timbre's Peking Duck Pizza and wings, a Carls Jr Mushroom Burger, 10 000 Xiao Long Baos, Percy Pig Gummies, okay--this isn't helping!

The Sky isn't Falling Down

Winter has arrived. It has been pouring daily and they’ve started playing Christmas carols in the forum. There’s a chill in the air, fog on the bus windows and if I’m tired enough and closed my eyes long enough, I might forget that I’m in Singapore. I have decided that I must be a Barista before I start working ‘for real’ and I realized that I have internalized societal norms and expectations that making good coffee isn’t a proper job. It is a job nonetheless, but only something that I could pass time with before drifting to bigger, greater things. I wonder what bigger and greater things could possibly refer to. Not many things can bring me more joy than a good cup of Frappe and a slice of carrot cake.

99 Balloons

What a shame that I am going through my afternoons with caffeine and eyes half-closed. Every single day ought to be celebrated...

Oooohhh....

I think I think, therefore I think I am.

(Ambrose Bierce)

This is kewl stuff....

Makes a good wedding piece!

500 Days of Summer is frank and has a brilliant script. I love how nonchalant Summer is, I can imagine her rolling her eyes to Taylor Swift's "Love Story". Her character is such a refreshing change from the guy as the player...it makes girls feel empowered.

Secret Place

Every once in a while, we discover something new about ourselves and I recently realized that I want to be in control of the situations in my life. Instead of going with the ebb and flow of life’s daily ups and downs, I want to be sure that I am in the pilot’s seat steering and ensuring that everything goes as planned. That could be the reason why I am often indecisive because I need guarantees and certainties in the choices that I make. I get myself worried and end up going through a thousand hypothetical What-If situations in my head.

And every once in a while, I need a reminder from God. Recently the essence of this revelation is quite the opposite of a ‘revelation’: All the times I’m in a fix, I need not understand the “Why?” behind it but simply have Faith in God. I learnt that it is when I no longer require explanations from God over the situation that I am in that my faith has matured.

Actually, in a weird way, this reminds me of Bentham’s Panopticon: “the machine for dissociating the see/being see dyad: in the peripheric ring, one is totally seen, without ever seeing; the central tower, one sees everything without ever being seen”. We think we are seeing, but we actually don’t see anything beyond the walls of the ‘cell’, we don’t see the bigger picture. On the other hand, we can be seen all the time. Okay, just a loose association...This is what too much Foucault does to the self.

Golden moments

I held my breath each time he was gonna land...Nobody said cycling on rooftops isn't allowed:

Black Widow

2am mornings are made complete with one of life's best creations: ice cream. Life is full of wonderful surprises! I read this passage from one of the books I saw at an art exhibit and I love it:

"Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak. But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words.

It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it.

The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled."

It reads like a puzzle and it took me a few reads before I got it.

I wish I could document here the crazy and outrageous thing I've done but sadly, I didn't do anything that comes close to crazy. Something has gotten over me and I feel like I want to be a Deviant. Another quote I picked up somewhere: "If you can't solve a problem, it means you're playing by the rules"....And it makes me want to get into some kind of trouble, not for the fun of it but because it'd be a refreshing change from sterility.

You gotta be bad....

W. H. Auden says, “The way to read a fairy tale is to throw yourself in”, which is actually true for most things in life. We either make up our mind about the fairy tale we want to read and immerse ourselves in it to enjoy every page of it. Or don’t at all.

I am wondering tonight what is it like to live life dangerously: to not make calculated decisions, to act on impulses and spur-of-the-moment rationalities. What does it mean to lead a life that throws rational choice theory out of the window? I must try something outrageous, and crazy this week….Though I can’t seem to think of anything at the moment….: ( How more exciting can I get?

I have always believed in agency within structure but I just read this which made me see things in a new light:

According to Durkheim, although the social is external and exists prior, to the individual, it is also embodied in the individual. If the individual does not feel the externality and coerciveness of the social, it only means that he is so well socialized that his individual desires are similar to what the social demanded.

Durkheim pointed out that:

When I perform my duties as brother, husband, or citizen, and carry out the commitments I have entered into, I fulfill obligations which are defined in law and custom which are external to myself and my actions. Even if they conform to my own sentiments and I feel their reality within me, that reality does not cease to be objective, for it is not I who have prescribed those duties; I have received them through education.

Gosh, woe is me!

Some post that lacks a title

My secret desire is to spend my afternoons and nights in the library pouring through books with interesting titles, such as Surrealism, or reading stuff I don't even think about: The History of Glass Making. I always tell myself I would get down to borrowing cool stuff one day when I'm free and not writing a paper but I guess when I'm not writing a paper,it always seems that there are a lot of other stuff crying for my attention.

I wonder if life would be easier if I lived in a kampung climbing trees, killing chickens and having less choices in life: no MSN to commit to, no faithful checking of Facebook, small circle of friends I would risk my life for, a wholesome boy from across the street to marry because he would sweep me off my feet on his bicycle, stars to gaze at every night....No decisions to be made simply because there is no choice or easy deicions to make for the lack of choice. Then again, that is impossible because I would come to miss the lifestyle of a multitude of choices eventually, having been exposed to it.

Sigh. There is something adventurous and even romantic in this stage of life-- at the threshold of leaving school and pursuing passions or being a cog in the machine.

Bleah

If titles should capture the essence of what's to come, I'm sure this does. Banana Yoshimito and the gloomy weather go hand in hand and I’m left feeling that my thoughts are her thoughts even after I put the book down. That often happens to me—when I’m engrossed in a book, I easily take on the writer’s persona and start thinking, feeling, acting the way the persona does.

I’ve been on a frantic search for thesis topics and I chanced upon this while surfing around:

"Artists today think of everything they do as a work of art. It is important to forget about what you are doing - then a work of art may happen."

-Andrew Wyeth





and his paintings

Mad World

I like this video a lot. I feel that it was shot from the perspective of the old guy sitting up there watching the children, and there is a kind of sad quiet peace in that.

gentle scoops and harsh blows

"The sea's only gifts are harsh blows, and occasionally the chance to feel strong. Now, I don't know much about the sea but I do know that that's the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once, to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions, facing the blind, deaf stone alone with nothing to help you but your hands and your own head."

-Into the Wild

While waiting for the lift today, I wonder if people's experiences sharpen them so much that they become numb to emotions. I'm also incredibly tired tonight, more somber and less trigger happy than the previous. Watching throngs of people appear from the train station and walking to their Friday evening destination is therapeutic. I’m not sure why people often search for answers. Increasingly, I like discussions with no conclusions; I like it that it can be either this or that, or this and that. But I guess the appeal for me is that an intellectual stimulus doesn’t drain away as much energy as an emotional one.

better, better, i'm on fire.

My eyes feel tired, my legs are tired, I am tired, I might fall asleep just sitting here not moving. I’m unbelievably happy tonight, fatigue can kill me and I will die with a smile in my dreams. My emotions have been on a fluctuation this week but it has finally reached a kind of stability and I am at peace. I am happy everyday being in school, thinking about bureaucracy and democracy in class, having luncheons with Tam, being in the company of like-minded sociologists, getting surprise gifts from MK, etc, etc. Generally, I enjoy every moment of my day as if I were living my last. I don’t even know how this started or why this has been continuing. And the best thing about returning home after a long day is the warm shower, popping Royce chocolates, smelling the night breeze and listening to songs like Tom Baxter's Better.

when man and mountains meet

Before this faith came, we were held prisoners..., locked up until faith should be revealed. (Galatians 3:23)

Our own nature, circumstances, trials and disappointments all serve to keep us submissive and "locked up" until we see that the only way out is His way of faith.

"It is well with my soul"

The funniest thing about life is that each time I’m fully convinced that I’ve made a right decision, the moment I get off the fence to take a side, I have to begin the whole process of convincing myself again on why I choose the steps that I take. These days are a whirlwind, my twenty-second birthday came and left before I could get a sense of turning twenty-two. School rolls into its third week and the Christmas lights will be up before long and we’ll be whisked away into 2010. I still remember the days of getting frenzy over the Y2K bug in 1999 and now a decade later, here we all are, ten years older, hopefully some years wiser.

Living/Surviving

Sometimes I feel as if I'm accountable to this space because there are thoughts which deserve to be preserved. Yet, whenver I open this page, it always feels like there is nothing really worthy enough to be written.

I am now back to going to bed in the wee hours of the morning, not doing the stuff that ought to be done, not packing my life neatly into organized boxes of time. Reading a colleague's CV made me realize that these documents are such rude awakenings to the mundaneness of life. What could one include in the list of "Special Skills/Achievements"? "Knack for understanding people"

or "Work Experience"? "Brewed coffee at Starbucks"?

"Interests"? "Loves discovering novelty in familarity"

It makes afternoons of meeting old pals and nights spent looking at the stars seem quite silly. Then again, silly is as silly decides.

Stitched with colour

"Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid."
Fyodor Dostoevsky

“ The worst lies are the lies we tell ourselves. We live in denial of what we do, even what we think. We do this because we’re afraid. We fear we will not find love, and when we find it we fear we’ll lose it. We fear that if we do not have love we will be unhappy. "
Richard Bach

"Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard."
Anne Sexton

"There is immeasurably more left inside than what comes out in words. Your thought, even a bad one, while it is with you, is always more profound, but in words it is more ridiculous and dishonorable. "
Dostoevsky

Ecclesiastes 7:8

"The end of a matter is better than its beginning,
and patience is better than pride."

Cool Stuff

Kash introduced a whole range of different films and short videos. I can't wait to check all of them out!

Here are some of those that caught my eye:

WESTERN SPAGHETTI


HER MORNING ELEGANCE


This is my personal fav. How apt a title too--nothing short of elegance: )

THE PEN STORY


A cheery one.

Increasingly, the desire to be away from Singapore is greater as I listen to travel tales, read of places that I only know about in print, but I know I'd only continue ranting about it for a long while and not put anything into action. I hate changes, together with routines...I guess my plans would only materialise when the stagnation of routine triumphs the fear of changes.

The Structure of Sanity

“Is it possible, in the final analysis, for one human being to achieve perfect understanding of another?

We can invest enormous time and energy in serious efforts to know another person, but in the end, how close can we come to that person’s essence? We convince ourselves that we know the other person well, but do we really know anything important about anyone?”

-Haruki Murakami’s “The Wind-up Bird Chronicle”

Life now is absent of routines, I have lost count of days and my week is separated into portions: early week, mid-week, end week. The first five minutes of every waking moment is spent figuring out which day of the week it is. A new day often feels like a yesterday, and I am in bed wondering if I have lived the day or is it just the beginning of another day that feels set to be like the day before, and the days before that. Between the day and the night, I am traversing places, meeting various social groups, packing the hours down to the very second, catching up on the life that I think I ought to be living.

These days that finally count as liberating and enriching ironically feel just as structured as days of routine. I am tired of meeting people: old friends, new friends, people that would last only during this period. Everyone is essentially quite the same. Unpacking the exteriors of different houses, tastes, occupations, social circles, families, every person goes through life in a similar fashion, with the same struggles in each life phase. Conversations begin to become predictable, places no longer fresh, experiences aren’t stale, just blend. Meeting people repeatedly and simultaneously zaps away a fair deal of energy, and I feel it seeping into the ground like a melted butter. It becomes a task to tick on a To-Do list, or an obligation of sorts.

I watched Revolutionary Road the other night and it was awfully depressing. I didn’t enjoy the movie at all, save for the question Kate Winslet asked Leonardo Dicaprio, “What is insanity?” To which, he replied, “Insanity… Insanity is the inability to relate to other people. Insanity is the inability to love another person.” I’m not sure why his reply appealed to me most. Perhaps, it’s because it throws the Normal person off balance and questions his/her sanity.

songs, places, books and people.

I've spent the whole night listening to worship songs and every song belongs to a period, depending on when I listened to a particular song the most.

The same goes for places and books, they all belong to periods. And I know I should read less of Murakami or feed myself healthy dosages of it else I might start feeling blue.

When I was fifteen, I read The Bell Jar and I was depressed for days. The image of how she slithed her wrist with a razor over the bath tub and likened the blood to a long river with tributaries comes whenever I think of that book. It is as though it makes perfect sense that geography and suicide came hand in hand.

Between eight to ten, I loved Enid Blyton. I always wanted a tree house I could climb into with my picnic basket, or sucking toffees and skipping to the forest.

I wonder what I'd make of this Murakami phase a few years down the road.

I guess reading is, in many ways, a form of waiting. Waiting to find that someone else feels the same way as you do in fiction, and waiting to find that you feel the same way as the writer in reality.

Do people belong to periods too?

Beauty and Delusion

Grand Shanghai’s ambience is awesome—the red couches, dimmed spotlights, green lamps, retro cheongsam women paintings, and most of all, a live band accompanying jazz songs. I rarely recommend eateries but this place is such a must-go, it ought to be top on the list of HungryGoWhere. I was a little surprised that such a place exists in our little modernized island and it definitely ranks high on my list of Chinese restaurants to visit.

In line with beautiful places and things, watching a kite fly is gorgeous (for the lack of a wider vocabulary). There is something alluring about watching it shrink into the blueness of the sky as the wind takes control, and agency takes a backseat. And the only thing that snaps one out of daydreaming is the occasional tugs on the string as a fresh brew of wind stirs.

Switching perspectives, trees, hills, houses, brown mud, buildings, mountains, grass patches, blue sea. That’s how the world looks like from an airplane. The vehicles and the people become black dots that disappear as the plane soars higher. Michael Jackson died. A friend broke up with her boyfriend. Just as how the world spins and we don’t feel it, the magnitude of these problems fade from up above.

Someone said this over the weekend, but I can't remember who now. "Life itself is a delusion".....It's been floating in my mind ever since.

My favourite MJ songs are Heal the World and Ben.

trains and trees

I journeyed to a foreign part of Singapore, saw the crowd on the other part of the island, took the Circle Line home for the first time today. I love all the times I spend travelling on the train, it is always such precious alone time. All the way home, I felt jittery. But I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t at ease and I scrolled through my messages wondering if it is because Sarah is going to be gone soon and that would mean dealing without a pillar in my life for half a year. I feel a certain sense of loss but I can’t quite place my finger on it. Sarah’s only gone in a month’s time and it’s too early to be feeling this way. Walking home with night-scent wind on my face, I realized circumstances and situations have made me a little steadier even when leaves and branches shake.

Found & Lost

My room feels new because the bulb from the old table lamp blew and now everything looks different in white light instead of the previous orange light.

In other news, I’ve gotten myself excited coming up with a list of haute places to visit:

i) SAM- TransportAsian exhibit
ii) Polymath and Crust- To purchase Wena Poon’s “Lion in Winter” and Suchen Christine Lim’s “The Lies that build a Marriage” or just to soak in the atmosphere.
iii) Sinema Old School- White Days
iv) Tom’s Palette/ Island Creamery/ Dempsey’s Ben & Jerry’s- Ice Cream is the world's best creation!
v) Heirloom and Caramel
vi) Mac Café opposite Parkway Parade on a week night
vii) Pacific Coffee at Vivo City
viii) Chinatown- The whole Club Street, Ann Siang Hill area is quite a treasure I recently discovered.
ix) The tree houses in VJ and running to Bedok Jetty
x) Mr Teh Tarik at Far East Square
(to be continued…)
Drawing up this list made me realize how places are so intricately linked to people. Every place belongs to someone who was there with you and who made enough impact to be the first person you think of when that place comes to mind.







I love this quote I found on Wena Poon’s site:

“So, to all of you, writers and dreamers out there, whether published or unpublished, whether employed or not: remember Kafka was an insurance salesman. The odds may be stacked against you and you may have to run away from your gift in order to survive. Your friends, parents, society may define success as having a career as a lawyer, a banker, an engineer, a doctor. But take heart. Because in the end, you don’t choose Art. Art chooses you. And Instinct always wins, in the end.”

First gleam of dawn

Coming home from a powerful service feels like being the birthday host staring at presents and leftover party food after the last Goodbye. The first wave that hits is the awareness of being alone and the next wave is the realization of the need to bring evocated emotions and feelings into decisions and actions or else the impact lasts only for two hours.

To Mk’s question on “how long are you going to appear offline?” on late Thursday night, I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t ask if she was referring to real life or virtual life but I said I don’t know. When one is vulnerable, one is afraid of “yes”, “no”s and definite replies. I still show up where I have to. I’m at work early every morning. I go for my weekly visitations talking to the children as if my skies are always blue. I attend my writing workshops and make the usual obligatory small talk. On Wednesday, we had a dialogue session with the Permanent Secretary and I looked bright and fresh in my starched collared shirt. I am good at playing the roles I have to play, I keep showing up everywhere. It may not be a spring, but it isn’t a limp either, I just keep walking.

But my walk isn’t progressive. I am not walking nearer any destination, I am simply walking and then retreating and regretting. I am hesitant to meet people, I am tired of being brave and more comfortable being left alone. When I’m alone, I think about reversing time, undoing things that have been done, retracting emotions and energy that has been invested, editing the wrongs to rights. This is my winter: cold, gloomy, not conducive for growth a time of testing.

And Pastor Tan said, “With every winter comes spring.” That was a comforting knowledge that I already knew and I waited for what he was going to say next. I looked at him on stage, eyes of deep concentration and a sincerity to translate every thought into the most precise words. He paused and said, “God doesn’t waste any experience.”

God draws us close to Him, and cleanses us.

“As the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater”

Isaiah 55:10

If I could take home just a single sentence last night, that’d be the one I'd be bringing back.

feeling like you're outside yourself

Today’s workshop was called, “Theme and Premise" by Courttia Newland. It was held at The Arts House Living Room and as I was seated there, I couldn’t help but think this is such a lovely place to hold a wedding lunch reception. Fluffy blue couches, pristine white-washed walls, full-length mirrors, chandeliers overhead and a mic behind for the bride and groom to declare their love.

We had various writing exercises and one was “an obsession about someone/something you love”. I read this one aloud to the others:

She carries an eraser with her everywhere she goes. On a vacation, to work, on a date-an eraser sits in her bag, giving her assurance and comfort like the bible does. She has been obsessed with eraser dust ever since she was twelve. They accompanied her during an examination when she was trying to calm herself. The eraser carried the same soothing effect ever since. Or maybe she is just obsessed with the idea that something in this world of uncertainties could be moulded by her as and when she needs security.

We created various fictional characters and one of the final exercises was to write a letter between two of the characters we had earlier created. I quite like this one:

Dear _____,

I am penning this letter and putting to words thoughts I never have the courage to say when I meet you. I have been puzzled for so long and all my questions have turned into statements. I never understood why I feel indebted around you or why I foolishly willingly jump on your rides of emotional rollercoaster. It is funny how I am constantly carving explanations in my head, justifications for my imperfections when your flaws appear plain and obvious to me.

Both of us are like dangling pendulum balls moving in different directions. Yet, we always brush past and meet at the lowest point of standstill. The standstills were short and sweet. But I am writing to say I no longer want to deal with brief memories and have snipped off the string on my pendulum ball.

Regards,
_____________

I couldn’t think of two names that would fit and so I have substituted them with blanks.

Another person was to read the written pieces and come up with a dramatic scene based on the character. The girl who read mine interpreted it as a younger brother writing to an elder brother. Always interesting to find out how people perceive the same writing differently.

I'm a ENFP

I got the link for this quiz from Victor's blog and I think it's pretty accurate. But this is just my self-perception so any quiz that I take would be deemed pretty accurate since it is what I think about myself...
Anyway, try it yourself and share with me what you you are: http://apps.facebook.com/eccomstyles//?page=mytype

ENFP

The Inspirer

Extroverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving

Enthusiastic, idealistic, and creative. Able to do almost anything that interests them. Great people skills. Need to live life in accordance with their inner values. Excited by new ideas, but bored with details. Open-minded and flexible, with a broad range of interests and abilities.


As an ENFP, your primary mode of living is focused externally, where you take things in primarily via your intuition. Your secondary mode is internal, where you deal with things according to how you feel about them, or how they fit in with your personal value system.

ENFPs are warm, enthusiastic people, typically very bright and full of potential. They live in the world of possibilities, and can become very passionate and excited about things. Their enthusiasm lends them the ability to inspire and motivate others, more so than we see in other types. They can talk their way in or out of anything. They love life, seeing it as a special gift, and strive to make the most out of it.

ENFPs have an unusually broad range of skills and talents. They are good at most things which interest them. Project-oriented, they may go through several different careers during their lifetime. To onlookers, the ENFP may seem directionless and without purpose, but ENFPs are actually quite consistent, in that they have a strong sense of values which they live with throughout their lives. Everything that they do must be in line with their values. An ENFP needs to feel that they are living their lives as their true Self, walking in step with what they believe is right. They see meaning in everything, and are on a continuous quest to adapt their lives and values to achieve inner peace. They're constantly aware and somewhat fearful of losing touch with themselves. Since emotional excitement is usually an important part of the ENFP's life, and because they are focused on keeping "centered", the ENFP is usually an intense individual, with highly evolved values.

An ENFP needs to focus on following through with their projects. This can be a problem area for some of these individuals. Unlike other Extraverted types, ENFPs need time alone to center themselves, and make sure they are moving in a direction which is in sync with their values. ENFPs who remain centered will usually be quite successful at their endeavors. Others may fall into the habit of dropping a project when they become excited about a new possibility, and thus they never achieve the great accomplishments which they are capable of achieving.

Most ENFPs have great people skills. They are genuinely warm and interested in people, and place great importance on their inter-personal relationships. ENFPs almost always have a strong need to be liked. Sometimes, especially at a younger age, an ENFP will tend to be "gushy" and insincere, and generally "overdo" in an effort to win acceptance. However, once an ENFP has learned to balance their need to be true to themselves with their need for acceptance, they excel at bringing out the best in others, and are typically well-liked. They have an exceptional ability to intuitively understand a person after a very short period of time, and use their intuition and flexibility to relate to others on their own level.

Because ENFPs live in the world of exciting possibilities, the details of everyday life are seen as trivial drudgery. They place no importance on detailed, maintenance-type tasks, and will frequently remain oblivous to these types of concerns. When they do have to perform these tasks, they do not enjoy themselves. This is a challenging area of life for most ENFPs, and can be frustrating for ENFP's family members.

An ENFP who has "gone wrong" may be quite manipulative - and very good it. The gift of gab which they are blessed with makes it naturally easy for them to get what they want. Most ENFPs will not abuse their abilities, because that would not jive with their value systems.

ENFPs sometimes make serious errors in judgment. They have an amazing ability to intuitively perceive the truth about a person or situation, but when they apply judgment to their perception, they may jump to the wrong conclusions.

ENFPs who have not learned to follow through may have a difficult time remaining happy in marital relationships. Always seeing the possibilities of what could be, they may become bored with what actually is. The strong sense of values will keep many ENFPs dedicated to their relationships. However, ENFPs like a little excitement in their lives, and are best matched with individuals who are comfortable with change and new experiences.

Having an ENFP parent can be a fun-filled experience, but may be stressful at times for children with strong Sensing or Judging tendancies. Such children may see the ENFP parent as inconsistent and difficult to understand, as the children are pulled along in the whirlwind life of the ENFP. Sometimes the ENFP will want to be their child's best friend, and at other times they will play the parental authoritarian. But ENFPs are always consistent in their value systems, which they will impress on their children above all else, along with a basic joy of living.

ENFPs are basically happy people. They may become unhappy when they are confined to strict schedules or mundane tasks. Consequently, ENFPs work best in situations where they have a lot of flexibility, and where they can work with people and ideas. Many go into business for themselves. They have the ability to be quite productive with little supervision, as long as they are excited about what they're doing.

Because they are so alert and sensitive, constantly scanning their environments, ENFPs often suffer from muscle tension. They have a strong need to be independent, and resist being controlled or labelled. They need to maintain control over themselves, but they do not believe in controlling others. Their dislike of dependence and suppression extends to others as well as to themselves.

ENFPs are charming, ingenuous, risk-taking, sensitive, people-oriented individuals with capabilities ranging across a broad spectrum. They have many gifts which they will use to fulfill themselves and those near them, if they are able to remain centered and master the ability of following through.

Bigger

When I opened my notebook, the first page I arrived at was on Love Busters and there were three written on it:

1) Selfish Demands
But love does not make selfish demands.
Policy of Joint Agreement

2)Disrespectful Judgements
Consider the other party's response

3)Angry Outbursts
Nobody wants to live with a timebomb.

Then I flipped to the next page, and there were notes on 5 characteristics of Big People. I couldn't remember what the service message that week was on and as I turned over to the next, I realised I didn't have a title for that week, only "Saturday Service 28th March 2009".

The first line was: Big trials and problems to make you a bigger person.

The next line was marked with an asterisks and it said: The only way to abundance is through trials.

Jesus only asks you to step out of the boat when the condition isn't smooth.
The purpose of a trial is to develop in your life PATIENCE and capacity.

As you respond to trials properly, you'll get bigger. You can't control what's going to happen to you but you can control your response.

God believes in you even when you don't believe in yourself.



This is written here as an everlasting constant reminder and because I am amazed, again and again, by God's hand in things.

"You really got a hold on me"

This suits my mood now, lazy lyrics rolling off the tongue and the who-cares-about-anything attitude.



The greatest challenge when one is down and so emotionally fragile is thinking positively. Because all of a sudden, all those inspirational quotes and big life-saver lines seem so bright and plastic and passe.

L-Meow!

The biggest cheer these few days for me is the expression LMAO.

I always thought it stood for Lame like a MAO!



Imagine my big surprise when I found out what it really stands for.

Uneasy Observations

The wet-grass-scented breeze makes me want to sleep in bed with a good book all day long. Recently, I’ve been tampering with the idea of going to and staying in a foreign land for an extended period of time. I don’t mind staying in an old English country house or on the second story of a rented apartment in a bricked building in Hong Kong. Is this some form of escapism or a pining for something that is not to be found anywhere but only when I am still?

For a good part of the semester, I was tired of the campus landscape. AS1, AS3, AS4 corridors, and knowing what to expect every hour of every day in the week stifled me. It was not exactly dreary either. Yet, it was neither stimulating nor quietly compelling in any way. I wanted to go overseas to get a fresh breath of new landscape, just to see something different, not knowing what to expect of leaves against that portion of the evening sky.

Maybe it’s the highs and lows of growing up, but along the way, I fell in love with the NUS landscape all over again. Nothing has changed, the same trees are rooted in their exact spots, the same wooden benches along the walkways, and everything’s the same. Yet, everything was so beautiful all of a sudden, and I was genuinely appreciating every bit of the scenery.

What startles me isn’t so much the speed at which human beings turn our heads and change our minds. But in every ‘proper’ person’s functional life hides an entirely different façade that is not presented in the 9-5 jobs, over lunchtime chats, or in big dinner parties. It is only released in solitude over films, in a museum viewing gallery or behind a computer screen of a blog page. Is this Goffman’s conceptualization of ‘front stage’ and ‘back stage’ presentations? I think so and I’m certain every single person has this multiple-dimensioned side. Not just the quirky, wayward ones standing at the back alley silently watching the world go by.

Daily Bread

I found a card from MK clasped in one of my half-read books and it ends off with “May you find your Daily Bread in 2009”… And I stared at that line for so long because it had a chilling effect with the realization that the year is half gone. What have I learnt this year?

I realized I am so silly. I am as susceptible to the perils of love as anyone else can be, am as tormented by it as everyone else is when I have always thought that I was immune to it. That’s just me thinking I am special and unlike the ‘usual girl’ when I am really the usual girl, experiencing the same emotions, the same tears, the same joy and the same hurt.

And then I realized it can be so easy to pull oneself away from the turbulences of life. There are so many things to do. It’s just a matter of priorities and rearranging of one’s schedule, finding one’s Daily Bread in everyday life.

Hot chocolate in a rainy morning

Strange sleeping habits leads me to be up at 5am. It's raining now, the cool morning air smells so good. And it just stopped raining, before pouring down again.

This is one of the songs I listen to over and over again for the lyrics...



"And if you ask me
The feeling that I'm feeling is overjoyed
And it's golden, it goes to show then
The ending of this song should be left alone
And so on 'cause the way it unfolds is yet to be told"

LIFE AND HOW TO SURVIVE IT

This is Adrian Tan's speech at the convocation of students at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information (NTU).
Adrian Tan is a litigation partner at Drew & Napier LLC.


LIFE AND HOW TO SURVIVE IT


I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address.
It's a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation.
I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband.


My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one.
She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living.
She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practising at home during conversations between her and me.


On the other hand, I am a litigator.
Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are.
I make my living being disagreeable.


Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home.
That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.


And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men:
when you've already won her heart, you don't need to win every argument.


Marriage is considered one milestone of life.
Some of you may already be married.
Some of you may never be married.
Some of you will be married.
Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you.


The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You're done learning.


You've probably been told the big lie that "Learning is a lifelong process"
and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters' degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on.
You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers.
Don't you think there is some measure of conflict of interest?
They are in the business of learning, after all.
Where would they be without you? They need you to be repeat customers.


The good news is that they're wrong.


The bad news is that you don't need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone.
That may come as a shock to some of you. You're in your teens or early twenties.
People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life expectancy.


I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people.
But I'm here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life.


You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy.
We are behind Andorra and Japan, and tied with San Marino. It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long.
We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless.
There's very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup.
Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and restful nap.


Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years.
Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom.


So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you'll have another 40 years to go.
Four decades in which to live long and prosper.


Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they're 50, 40, 30 years old.
Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation.
They would be very disappointed that they didn't meet their life expectancy.


I'm here to tell you this.
Forget about your life expectancy.


After all, it's calculated based on an average.
And you never, ever want to expect being average.


Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family.
You are told that, as graduates,
you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.


That is what is expected of you.
And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.


If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people.
I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them.

And you don't need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.


What you should prepare for is mess. Life's a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it.
Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it.
Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment.
Your degree is a poor armour against fate.


Don't expect anything. Erase all life expectancies.
Just live. Your life is over as of today.
At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look.
This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.


What does this mean for you?
It is good that your life is over.


Since your life is over, you are free.
Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.


The most important is this: do not work.


Work is anything that you are compelled to do.
By its very nature, it is undesirable.


Work kills.
The Japanese have a term "Karoshi", which means death from overwork.
That's the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways.
If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there's nothing left.
A rock has been ground into sand and dust.


There's a common misconception that work is necessary.
You will meet people working at miserable jobs.
They tell you they are "making a living". No, they're not.
They're dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.


People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free.
The slogan "Arbeit macht frei" was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps.
Utter nonsense.


Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort.
You may never reach that end anyway.


Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play.
Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again.
You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often.
Soon, that will have value in itself.


I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator.
I enjoy it and I would do it for free.
If I didn't do that, I would've been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction - probably a sports journalist.


So what should you do?
You will find your own niche. I don't imagine you will need to look very hard.
By this time in your life, you will have a very good idea of what you will want to do.
In fact, I'll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions.
By this time you should know what your obsessions are.
If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher.


Find that pursuit that will energise you, consume you, become an obsession.

Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm.
If you don't, you are working.


Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication.
To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth.
I'm not asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when it is dangerous or impossible to do those things.
The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth.
Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating.
There is also great skill.
Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences.
It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence.


In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it.
That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror.


I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truth.
I now say this to you: be hated.


It's not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you?
Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many.
That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.


One does not have to be evil to be hated.
In fact, it's often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one's own convictions.
It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions.
Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average.
That cannot be your role.
There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself.
Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.


The other side of the coin is this: fall in love.


I didn't say "be loved".
That requires too much compromise.
If one changes one's looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone.


Rather, I exhort you to love another human being.
It may seem odd for me to tell you this.
You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false.

Modern society is anti-love. We've taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings.
It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise.
Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance.
It is hard work - the only kind of work that I find palatable.


Loving someone has great benefits.
There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness.
In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way.
We learn the truth worthlessness of material things.
We celebrate being human.
Loving is good for the soul.


Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person.
Despite popular culture, love doesn't happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor.
It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming.
It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.


You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.


You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated.
You are not doing it to be loved back.
Its value is to inspire you.


Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone.
You either don't, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology.
It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.


Don't work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone.


You're going to have a busy life.
Thank goodness there's no life expectancy.

in quietness and trust....

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
John 14:27


"I will be still and know You are God."

Great Good things to do

I realised I haven't walked passed the Esplanade Concourse in a long time and admist being clueless to the visual arts on display there for the past few months, there's the ongoing film festival, the upocoming Singapore Arts Festival, and so many things/places/events/happenings to check out! Singapore ain't that small or that boring, really. I just found out today that they serve breakfast at Mount Faber on weekends--$2.50 kaya toast and free-flow coffee with the cityscape in sight. Could this be Oldenburg's idea of a Great Good Place? I'm gonna go check that place out! Why do I buy into PAP's economic pragmatism and study for my papers? Okay, no, I enjoy what I'm studying. But I really want to catch Revolutionary Road and the countless films that's passing me by...

---------

What did you learn?

Kate Winslet: "Not to overplan. You can think as much as you like, but on set you really need to be willing to let everything change. That's what I took home from Sam as a director: that it's okay to be scared, and not to feel you have to come to work and know all the answers, and it's okay to admit I'm failing, I'm drowning. Save me."

"I held the key"

"God has not promised skies always blue, flower-strewn pathways all our lives through; God has not promised sun without rain, joy without sorrow, peace without pain.

But God has promised strength for the day, rest for the labour, light for the way, grace for the trials, help from above, unfailing sympathy, undying love."

--Kristone



I love the start of "Viva la Vida"--it sounds like a building anticipation of something that's about to happen. You stand on top of the cliff with strong gusts of wind whipping your face, you almost can't open your eyes, but from the slits, the orangeness of the setting sun is comforting yet powerfully unsettling. It is a hue that pushes you off where you are. You are waiting for something, you don't know what it is, but you know you are just moments away from it happening. With that one deep breadth, you bungee down the cliff, the cold air rushes through your lungs. Green-orange-yellow-blue-brown, the world is a myraid of colours. You feel incredibly empowered, the past is the past, and that is it.

faking reality/presenting fiction

At one extreme one finds that the performer can be fully taken in by his own act; he can be sincerely convinced that the impression of reality which he stages is the real reality. When his audience is also convinced in this way about the show he puts on—and this seems to be the typical case—then for the moment at least, only the sociologist or the socially disgruntled will have any doubts about the “realness” of what is presented.

--Erving Goffman

Monday Blues

To kickstart the week:

coming through, bursting fourth

Choosing to think the best of everyone, and to see love in everyone cushions the world.

Someday we'll know

A friend gave me a bar of chocolate on a night when I needed comfort, only he didn’t know I needed it.

I am quite a master of emotions, I have learnt to artfully show whatever I want to be presented. I control the tone of my voice, the questions I ask, the thoughts that seem to be in my mind. It is not a pretentious attempt, but a desire to remain functional when everyone continues running along. There are roles to be played, responsibilities to be fulfilled, and I can’t stop short at the side of the tracks, waiting for my eyes to no longer sting each time a fresh supply of wind arrives. Managing emotions so skillfully also means the pain hits doubly hard in solitude. The immediate remembrance of sadness after companionship reminds me of this line I’ve read somewhere, “I know I am living because I have a heart and I feel it breaking”.

I think the only time I don’t have a firm hold of my emotions is when I sing a worship song, and feel the tears coming before I know there are tears to be shed. Then I know that everything only builds me up to be stronger.

If I were a confused passenger taken on a long ride, the biggest relief is that I am not lost in the jungle. I get off the swirls and turns of the journey simply by hopping off the train, and walking to my destination. Perhaps I still don’t know where I am heading, but I’m doing the directing now. The scenery captured along the way, the rows of trees that flashed past through the glass windows, the feel of the pebbles and little rocks that the train grinds through are over. Now walking, I enjoy the feel of the soles of my shoes touching the tarmac road and study the different greenness of the trees for as long as I want to.

That night, I kept the bar of chocolate in my fridge, announcing that this is my comfort food reserved for the next time I feel sad again.

My first day of school begins tomorrow. I am excited, and full of genuine anticipation. Every single one of the modules I am doing this semester is of interest to me, and I am back to doing the things I love and enjoy. I've decided to peel off the silver foil for the next time I feel an immeasurable amount of joy because from behind I heard, “there is no again, and no more sadness”.

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Last year was lived mostly in a haze, everything feels surreal, all that I remember are random bits, my memory of the whole year is choppy and fragmented. I was tired mostly, living one day and stumbling over to the next. Whatever good that happened was truly by God's grace and love. Whatever bad that happened, I'm also thankful for, for it drew me closer to Him.

I have allowed your earthly comforters to fail you, so that by turning to Me you may receive "eternal encouragement and good hope" (2 Thess. 2:16)

If anything, I'm just glad that this is a new year, clean records, fresh starts.

Don't fool yourself

I like it from 1:04 onwards...

Just fall in, right?

What is so alluring about love that makes it such a popular conversation topic? Something on love life, or the lack of, would definitely find its way on dinner tables or over coffee. It is the instant connector that bridges time spent apart among old friends, the magical ingredient that binds strangers into feeling a lifetime of familiarity. The question is rhetorical, the answer quite a rude awakening: in the heart of hearts, we’re all looking for love, whether we realize it, whether we confess it, it is a desire that sits on everyone’s mind. Particularly so in this stage of life, before marriage when nothing is cast in stone diamond ring, after days of immaturity when we think we’re a little wiser, a little more discerning, the need to be in love with another human is- ever present.

So, we talk about it all the time, the ideal guy, the ideal girl. We listen to lyrics that promise of fairytale endings, watch movies with gorgeous couples having candlelight dinners, read books that describe an experience so amazing, it carves a hole within us that enlarges the more we purposefully set out to find Love and pocket it.

Sitting on the sidelines of love, all I speak about is the difficulty of falling in love. All the other benchwarmers excluded from this capital L game agree. This unison and certainty in their replies unsettles me and makes me quite sick and tired of all this discussion. All talk and more talk makes the desire to be in love stronger.

I have come to realize that we can be in love, with possibly anyone, any person in this world. Our emotions are simply a concoction of various factors, our then state of mind, the people around, the environment.

But one thing puzzles me greatly…if you never know what love is, how will you know you are in love?