Catch Falling Stars on a Plate

2011-07-12T03:10:00.000-07:00

today, winter came. It had been looming for some time now but I came face to face with it today. okay I confess, winter was face to face with me all the time but today I had to finally awaken from this slumber.

It was paralysing. The winter made me want to lie motionless wherever I went. But work. Work today was a miraculous anesthesia, especially when it was my last day of work. The parting emotions of a last day at a meaningful experience helped. There, for a few hours in the cheery company of colleagues and exchanging words of gratitude, was some make-believe that the winter could be subdued. But, a foldable umbrella in a torrential storm, the umbrella cannot hold. Of course you might say too that the storm passes, but I am talking as I sit within the winter storm now.

is it useful to understand how winter arises? I think winter requires no explanation. Winter is akin to the consumption of poison - a natural beckoning for which parties are blameless and there is no need to question. Nobody needs to ask why the abused child sees vengeance, why people consume drugs, why we walk into the seemingly complicated.

I reread an old thought of mine, where I asked with some foresight, "what shall I fill into this gaping hole". Not endeavouring any answer, I think the predicted arrival of the winter today shows me the facet of me that welcomes and actively seeks out some pain.

This is merely an observation. Not a theory of anything. Yet curiously, I picture myself at the start again. It is a shady December. The dust tracks are lined with naysayers. I can't hear them clearly I think but the body language is unfriendly. Again, I ambled into the winter.

2011-02-22T23:11:00.000-08:00

If so, what shall I fill into this awkward gaping clothed hole.

2011-02-12T00:29:00.000-08:00

Ocassionally I like to think of myself as unique and weird. But really, everyone is unique and weird when they are not too busy conforming and being unwilling to admit just how much they love to be alone.

2011-01-09T01:12:00.001-08:00

might be rebelling against myself.

2010-10-01T19:01:00.000-07:00

Hexagonal tables are fun. IP was about hexagonal tables and having various tablemates. Before I continue I might as well inform that this will be nostalgic because life is not so good. When life is not good, people become nostalgic. It's a natural escape.

I am really living in my own world and I manage not to be affected by people's problems very much. That must make me such a cold person. But I certainly was a happier and nicer soul in my IP days. Not that life was such a breeze - we had so much work and the bulk of it was project work and knowing myself, two things happen - either I do so much work because I can't accept anything less or I don't get emotionally involved at all. Things are so much simpler when we all work alone without the complications of one another's feelings. I must be weird to feel for inanimate things like projects and studies but not for people and friends.

But back to tables, it is so nice to have these tables because I think those gave me surprises like grace su, thea and may. I never liked grace su and I always thought some people you will never befriend although some part of you wants to get to know them no matter how you find excuses like, "they're too loud" or "she's not my type" but I think we are really scared that the other person does not want to be your friend. So imagine my surprise at finding a friend in her, no doubt one left with some unfinished matters like going to her house or being taller than her. But I am a good loanshark. I always am. So these surprises are few and far between because I am always better off in my own space. Many things have led me to think that i'm a hermit. I am so convinced now that I am not suited to be in any romantic relationships. I must be a horrible girlfriend. But I say this not in self-pity or a lack of self-confidence. I say this because of things that happen which just show me to myself quite clearly. People ask if I'm ok. I realise that it is a prerogative and expectation that people walking out of something should feel not ok. But why should I feel derailed? Because I honestly don't and could that in itself be such evidence that there was something fundamentally wrong with the relationship that started out? I must be such a myself person. So now two options are available to me: Either I must give up some of my space which I so dreadfully guard right now, or I content myself with being a spinster (but in this case i'm so set on being an enviable spinster).

Life is quite dreadful and not easy to comprehend. Some people never get it their whole lives. I am balanced nonetheless, with the promise of life but that changes nothing about the present. And I love to study. Honestly even though law is tough, I feel happy to know there's something to read and study. Being a student is fulfilling.

2010-05-24T05:23:00.000-07:00

I promise to be alive.

I have been judging others for a long time, sometimes keeping my opinions to myself and at other times broadcasting and attempting to achieve imperialism of my opinion. I will avoid the question of who I am to judge others because who am I, in all honesty, to judge? Rather I want to come to terms with my guilt. It is a venus trap that I grew into as a result of my environment and it is a terrible, symbiotic relationship today that I have with this venus trap. For a long while, it has been too easy to forget that I am nurturing a silly weed in me since at every turn and dilemma where I contemplate the purity of dreams and emotions, some material achievement will ask me to turn away from my more humane pursuits that have very little to show for where my environment is concerned. Little by little everyday, I give in, my hunger for such achievement, as with the size of the venus trap, grows and I am thoroughly consumed.

And so I build my life. My life is a nasty, short and brutish one of 19 years plus I live here hence the material achievements are mainly academic. I should give myself a pat on the back as I have done well as far as you could perceive, and will probably continue in a trend as my venus trap and I become better and more resembling mirrors for each other. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this model and I estimate it is self-sufficient in the endless cycle of dilemma-achievement and I can live my life like this. If not for Guilt.

I am guilty of not being alive. This, I want to distinguish from "having a life". It is too easy to have a life. I need only be accommodating, have a wide social circle, have fun at parties and bars and take numerous pictures to upload onto Facebook. I have my life and better still, the results to show for my efforts to quash the bitter accusation that my life is controlled in a Venus trap or that I am a Nerd. So I can certainly go forth to produce these results and when the dissent about how I live is silenced, I once again have the all important achievement. My guilt stems from the people who killed the Venus Flytrap. These people are in complete disregard of who I am, what I have achieved or what I will continue to achieve because they are more concerned with being alive. They overlook all that I am and for this I hate them but a part that is not yet consumed respects them. They may be penniless, volunteering in Africa, forsaking a higher education and pursuing something very useless such as a dream in helping others but I hate to admit how deep this respect goes, and therefore the guilt that it awakens in me. The guilt at nurturing the venus trap, meeting expectations, settling into the average and peeling my eyes for the next milestone around the corner to enable my record to be in full view of others (not the people who made me guilty, but others.) at all those opportunities instead of having a go at being alive.

I am very guilty. Perhaps too much so to turn around because what would this make of the parts of my body that had been eaten, synchronised and romanced into the Venus Flytrap? Hence I conceal my smallness with all that I am but even then, I know I cannot fool those people who made me blameworthy.

Re-examined, life is perhaps about chemicals, DNA and neurons except that we could be a little proud to agree. However, I want to look at my guilt under a microscope as frequently as possible, and at those people who made me feel so. In this, I will then try to construct something a little more trustworthy for myself from these chemicals, DNA and neurons in an effort to nurture something else.

2010-01-10T04:50:00.000-08:00

So now we have the epigenome. The whole world is moving beneath my feet and I have to get moving too. It's ironic that when I have finally earned my freedom from studying, I want to plunge into a hectic worklife and renew the whole experience of sleep deprivation, stress, meeting targets and having no life.

Extremely disappointed with several things. I ought to take a more mature stance on all these things that I clearly have a choice in. The concept of taking responsibility is just growing up, which already began with the expiry of my ezlink concession privileges. Growing up will take much acclimatising. At the moment it's the flurry of decisions and more decisions. Universities, career path, temp job and a bond or no bond? See I think it's so much easier to just study and I didn't know how easy I had it then. I can see quite evidently now that I have to decide my own life but at 18 I haven't seen very far, at best 10 years down and if I want to be too cautious I should have a few more plans if the rest fail.

So why is my beautiful world so well hidden. Eh.

2010-01-10T04:19:00.000-08:00

What is the significance of writing?

Do we all have a moral responsibility to write- we consume the literary genius of other writers and with this receipt of what others worked to create, do we have the responsibility to pay if forward, by synthesising from various works with a dash of my two cents worth?

Writing can be immensely disappointing and it's like suffering from constipation. You don't seem to express yourself with the right words or the expression is only partial. It's irritating while a writer is on the task and at moments like these the advice would usually to await a stronger surge from nature that can inspire the writer to write gratifyingly and completely.

Thanks to numerous priorities that superseded my need to write, I wrote scantly. The A levels, CCAs and just staying alive. For one who is not a professional writer, and whose works are not meant to be shared in the first place, clearly, writing is not important for staying alive. And if it is about reflection and consolidation, which is why many people maintain a diary, is thinking, i.e. resurrecting the memories, reinforcing the lessons and reliving the emotions in your head a poor substitute? Does replacing writing with thinking make me any more vacant emotionally?

Once I was crazy about writing, I was insanely in love with language that I thought I would study the language in university but I realise it is a love I can put down, forget in the face of things like study, work, friends and play. Or at least I thought I could. I snigger at the feeble attempts to earn attention with garish photos, needless details about some super interesting and happening lives and the updated lists of newest couples and breakups. These made writing so easy to put down but once in a long while I stumble upon an entry that makes some cells dance. Slowly, many cells dance and awake the closeted passion I once had, channeling this energy to my fingers and head to write again in the hope that someone, a reader from the land of serendipity will also begin to dance in the cells too.

2009-10-09T07:37:00.000-07:00

Very old but it remains one of the most meaningful theme songs in channel 8 history in my opinion.

2009-04-02T07:43:00.001-07:00

OMGosh. Glosso's tomorrow and I didn't ask anyone to come because I'm seriously underprepared. Even with the co-written dentist poem with Ally and my own poem that no one understands (some compliment that is?) I will probably traumatise some person in the audience by staring intently into his/her eyes so I don't have to look elsewhere and have my nerves overwhelm me.

Admittedly, it is counter to my nature to speak like this but truly life sucks now. School sucks too. And it's depressing that I cannot resist becoming a bimbo. Increasingly I am anti-social too. Well I do have a life, one that revolves around my work, Piano and Writers. Oh no. But I qualify. Now.

keeps blowing me away.
I can't make my day.

2009-03-29T07:26:00.001-07:00

I've been sitting, watching life pass from the sidelines
been waiting for a dream to seep in through my blinds
I wonder what might happen, if I left this all behind
would the wind be at my back, could I get you off my mind
This time.

2009-02-15T05:52:00.001-08:00

Oh no. I don't like blogging. But I do sometimes when the alternative is a 2500-word GP report on politics. Yes there is lots to say.

1. Orientation 2009
I have been through 3 orientations since 2006 and this has got to be the best yet. Not that there is any basis for comparison, but the company of my Creon OGLs were awesome, amazing and simply all-pervasive and addictive. It was a massive amount of fun and explosive character packed into a very limited span of 1 week so I was so tired having fun every moment. You see, I have been through orientations so I was expecting the routine of cheers and games just with a different perspective of an OGL this time. In short, I was expecting something like 50% satisfaction from orientation but I know it has already surpassed the limit right now. Instrumental were my wonderful sub-og ogls, sarah (my best camwhore companion), jiada (whom i always slap) and smeet in livening up everything and being at the receiving end of my eccentric ways. I think it's really different when you have freshmen who look up to you and make you want to be as unusually nice as possible. Ya they all make me crazy but i'm still very composed at least.
Also I had been to suntec, to ECP and to OG bbqs before and honestly i expected nothing but it all came up very surprisingly when i was in all these places and everyone around me allowed me to experience these elements of the orientation in such a fresh light. Yes. I loved it so I will remember it.
But the dominating part of orientation was more the OGLs whom I met. I remember sitting in that circle after the first ogl meeting thinking that I must have been a hermit cos I swear I didn't know any of their names (except the IP peeps) and now to think I know them all and camwhored so much with them :)
I guess I will remember orientation. I will reminisce about my freshmen (and all our private sharing sessions at KFC where we occupied 5 tables without buying anything! OMG.). I will relive the moments with my fellow OGLs in school with our favourite cheer adopted from fish-and-co. Although I cannot say it i still think it's so amusing. Birthday Boy, wanna have fun! Where to go? Fish & Co. Haha exactly. And that is why the limit to the satisfaction had dissolved :):)

2. Eh I'm tired.

2009-01-31T05:47:00.001-08:00

I could abstain.
But I could also play, invest, burn and live to tell the story.

walk into the fire.

2009-01-18T04:42:00.000-08:00

I think I've never really talked about my chinese name before when it is actually such a big part of my life even right now when I no longer take chinese, speaking of which, I MISS CHINESE A LOT. I miss learning yan4 yus3, cheng2 yus3 and just comparing all the stickers that Chen laoshi gives us. Oh and how I love my chinese table in V11: Jing, Althea, May, GuoWei cos we always get to bond and eat during chinese. I also think about my very first table arrangement when I came to VJC when I was sitting with Althea, May, Alvin, Sanchit and Jerald and we were named 'A' dumpsters by althea cos all our names comprised the letter A. Yes I have no idea what all this is doing in my brain but with this Chinese grp it was equally fun with the systematic 'ting xie' relay system we had from one point in the hexagonal table to the last person. 我好喜欢讲华语！

Anyone who wants to at least bask in some modicum of 'coolness' would resist having a chinese name like mine cos "wei2? wei wei" only makes the other ppl laugh. Ah but I have to say that I really embraced my chinese name increasingly because it makes others laugh so I've learnt to laugh with them and think really hard for some way to laugh at them later. Secondly it's memory-friendly and both characters are really the same word: 玮玮 which is straightforward and sophisticated enough yet not to the extent that it is a super-sophisticated-wannabe. But I still have my qualms. Everyone's names have meanings, e.g. Jing jing = a glowing star in the sky; Hui Chieh = wisdom and purity, etc. At least the parents had meanings in mind. Problem is my parents don't know what wei wei means. This means I have lots more self-discovery to do zomg.

2008-12-21T04:54:00.000-08:00

I love humour. Hybrids, crossbreeds, witty and poorly-bred humour.

Oh this is good.
"Behind every successful man, there is a woman rolling her eyes"
- Bruce, Bruce Almighty

I think it's about my natural inclination towards laughter. I laugh so much. I laugh during lessons- so uncontrollably that I need to cry, so much that anabella who sometimes sits beside me during econs cannot accuse me of insanity because she's laughing as hard. I laugh in the bus. I laugh when people fall and when I fall. I laugh when I'm alone.

There has been archives of social evidence about the correlation between laughter and personal charisma or how surrounding a laugher can make you a laughter via induction.

I think the sociologists forgot to add in the section on 'How to make the laugh work'. It is one laugh when you bang the table and get a stomachache and another laugh when you are trying to stifle your laugh and it erupts anyway. The point is that both are really unglam and I've tried them and I cannot find personal examples of the laughter that is supposedly charismatic.

Ok given that laughter, whether glam/unglam is an effective social lubricant, what is laughter in the private sphere? Laughter when one s alone is supremely complex. In the well-explored circumstance, laughter is literal. You think of a funny incident= you laugh. But the darker tenet is that you give your sadness a laughing face. Perhaps you were laughing at yourself. Perhaps you thought it could dissolve the grief. Perhaps you were in search of an anesthesia.

Haha.

2008-12-21T04:53:00.000-08:00

there was no time, except to keep walking and burning through the fire.

2008-12-20T06:03:00.000-08:00

I realised the posts had ceased. All the posts, even the crappy ones which i like to publish just to fulfil the make- believe of a lively blog.

Actually, numerous events that punctuated my life in the vast interval are worth their lot of cyberspace but I have always noticed how blogging about an event alters my experience of the event thereafter. Many people call this expression and expression does redefine what you initially sketched for yourself.

2008-11-18T06:14:00.000-08:00

Inspiration is lucrative business today. This is evidenced by increasing numbers of graduates entering the inspiration industry, or professionals making a career switch to inspiration when their previous jobs have not illusioned them sufficiently. So what does one do in this up and coming industry? They talk, give motivational speeches to a largely disillusioned audience as well, empower their audience and for the magical duration of their speech, suddenly the world and all of life's choices and outcomes are condensed into a simple equation improvised from the american dream. You Work Hard = Anything is Possible. The products can take form in books too. I read The Last Lecture myself and I'm sure you did. We all contributed to the high earnings in this industry where this popular inspirational book was concerned. Yes so in summary, this industry supplies sparks to our otherwise mundane and self-depracating lives.

This is an industry that I predict a growth spike in the coming years. Let us analyse this from a basic SS & DD framework. On the demand side, the recent global recession would invariably have worsened the low morals in people, employees. This increases the number of disillusioned, demoralised people who need to rediscover the spark in their lives. They are likely to turn to such books, moptivational speakers along with counsellors so the demand for people to join this industry will be high.

On the supply side, I foresee that the pool of unemployed workers (such as those from DBS) will seize the opportunity of this growing demand in the inspiration industry by joining. This is coupled with fresh graduates (especially in from business/finance faculties) who will face harsh entrance conditions except for this industry. At the same time, the barriers to entry are not intimidating. What skills must you have? You need spark, a genuine or convincing understanding of the human demonralised psyche and an electrifying gab.

Oh damn. I think I really have the delayed sleep syndrome. That is one of the side effects of inspiration overdose.

2008-11-10T05:00:00.000-08:00

Oh how I love my narcissistic self and Puey laogong who made this haha. Yay post-PW is simply high!

Hello Group! Byebye group :D

After my personal experience with PW, I see great promise in this subject for our juniors and I hope they are as privileged as my batch to learn such crucial life skills through PW.

2008-11-08T19:54:00.000-08:00

This morning I painted a face on a paper

I dipped into the blue paint for the eyes,
the white paint for face and
tried
to apply the next coats.

I used black paint for the hair and
no where else
really because
the equation stopped then.

I found green so I dotted some
feelings for the face; saved some
space for
the other colours on the palette.
The face can feel them tomorrow.

Later, I found a large, brown folder and
I put the face in
so everyone would begin to see
the colours I used for the feelings.

Tomorrow morning I will draw another face.

2008-10-29T00:01:00.000-07:00

Oh where have all the keys gone.

Saturday kicked off with a strong bout of amnesia cos I forgot where I was supposed to be in the day and I ended up scolding GuoWei when he reminded me about the 24 hr-playwriting competition prize presentation WC was supposed to attend.

So I dashed out of my observation of the meeting in a hurry to join the WC exco ppl in a remote corner in clarke quay. Well the venue was substantial, almost like a hall with a sizeable stage itself with one of the most humble signboards I'd seen (10 cm x 10cm). The only identification for the entire place. Not surprisingly, Tasmana was the "someone amongst you" who won a prize although Huangyi's play was high on the entertainment ranking. I foresee GuoWei will continue to participate next year but can't say the same for myself really.

Bob is in a room there are 10 keys and 10 locks on 10 doors. Only 1 door opens to what Bob wants. How many wrong attempts could Bob make before he knows what he wants?

I am supposed to be extremely busy, or at least pretend to for now, just to match everyone around. But soon enough, once the piano exco stops procrastinating when OP ends, we will really begin to get busy with our projects and all. I think that once we have begun on the project we don't even have to talk about the problem of 'bonding' so frequently anymore.

They were always there. Stop looking and you'll find it.

2008-10-28T05:49:00.000-07:00

I have an urge to laugh at myself tonight.

This is a video I produced with my v11 classmates (jing jing, guowei, ian, yiling) when we were still young and shameless. I really miss the shamelessness we had previously. We went as far as to send it in for musicfest (we were not expecting anything) but GuoWei was always hopeful.

It makes a lot of difference that you are not young anymore, not simply because my PW topic is ageism, but because you become more boring and numbed by the usual entertainment so it gets harder and harder to tease a smile everyday. One day when I am old, wrinkled and cannot smile without showing gaps in my teeth, I can still revisit youtube and cherish the fact that I was silly and young.

Alyssa had discovered it on her own liberty and had a good laugh.
I now share this laughter with those who wander onto my weird space!

I AM COW (2007)

2008-10-23T04:59:00.000-07:00

So! I haven't been blogging for a very long time. Now how important is that with my reader base haha. In this span of time I have acquired a few bruises, a few more PW slides and a few lessons too.

1 of them is concerned with the method to making a most tactful and considerate rejection of someone's else request. In a way that the other person can accept.

I found that there are essentially 3 steps to this.

1. Say SORRY. yea duh. Express regret at not being able to rise to the cause.

2. Give a super valid reason for having to turn someone down. Well a reason and an excuse is really very different. A reason is sincere whereas an excuse is sheer patronising rubbish

3. Offer an alternative to the person so he/she need not be stranded and helpless.

E.g. You cannot lend someone money because you know your cash will die without you. Suggest ways for someone to find e money without you. Maybe it's legal, maybe it's a little darker but what matters is whether the person can dispense with you.

On a subject that has been occupying my days ridiculously,

My PW group, when the camera happened to be around.

I walk with a limp these days. Unglam aside, I feel bad for those behind me on the stairs who have to take an unusually long break from PW.

2008-09-26T01:25:00.000-07:00

Over the past weeks, the momentum of revision got me thinking about how this whole momentum works. The following summarises my understanding.

The Revision Curve

So we start from the point where no time/days has been added to the workpile we have. Our initial workpile has a low accomplishment level/microbytes. This snail-like progress persists for the coming weeks into the exams. Although lots of time is invested into the revision, it seems to make no difference at all. Suddenly, in that magical one week before the equvalence point, or the exams are reached, likened to the 'magical one drop' that produces a colour change in the indicator, an unbelievable amount of revision is accomplished. Yet still in microbytes.

and even then, i will still walk into the fiire.

2008-09-06T07:44:00.001-07:00

Ok. I'm only blogging to keep my blog alive. This post doesn't actually carry any significance, a product of my casual observation that pictures have begun to replace words on my blog. I will only discuss 2 things today.

1. Invisibilising of blog text.
There are many blogs that employ this technique today. Sometimes it appears as a large empty space in the middle of text and sometimes whole paragraphs and posts are invisibilised but the headers and the date are sorely visible. I can understand when bloggers want the reader to exercise some freedom in choosing if they wish to pursue the content that follows, for instance, movie spoilers, grotesque pictures or profanities like .

That, makes up a significant rare few whose style I can appreciate. However the majority of invisibilisers invisibilise their text for readers to invest the extra effort in highlighting the text because there are only too many clues pointing to the missing chunk of rambling. From a utilitarian point of view, it doesn't seem to serve any purpose. So I can only imagine, as a psychologist, that you really want me to read it. And remember it. And this is called Reverse Psychology. Because if you mean the invibilising, you'd lock your blog or simply not write it in you see.

There is a 3rd reason, that applies to too few of the invisibilising population. They lack the know-how on changing the invisible settings.

So my 2nd topic for keeping this blog awake is this.
2. Logic.
It's very simple. Anytime there's a problem too hard to solve, logic comes in.
Yea and I was wondering how to continue talking about this, so i thought logically. Talking about logic has no direct benefits, and probably even fewer positive externalities whereas thinking about my WR has both direct and external benefits owing to my good mood.

2008-08-25T07:11:00.000-07:00

I'm dedicating this photo post to you two who have brightened many nights of mine :}
Ok. I'm also doing this because i'm supposed to be doing so many other things but they can't decide for themselves which should come first so i'll just let them fight it out first.

2008-08-11T07:27:00.000-07:00

PW makes us sad.

PW drives us hysterical.PW makes us inhumane.

PW makes us, (ok me) waste $6.30 on a palm-sized nutella expresso single shot. It tastes horrible and I don't even appreciate coffee.

2008-08-04T06:15:00.000-07:00

Ok I'm gonna attempt this from Althea. Seems like a rather different quiz.

a) Answer the questions below, do a Google Image Search with your answer, take a picture from the first page of results, do it with minimal words of explanation.

b) Tag 5 other people to do the same once you've finished answering every question

1. The age you'll be on your next birthday:

2. A place you'll like to travel to:

3. Your favourite place:
4. Your favourite food:

Gosh. Guilty pleasures. The allure of the forbidden chocolate.

5. Your favourite pet

6. Your favourite colour combination:
7. Your favourite piece of clothing:

It's men's. And definitely not my favourite haha.

8. Your all-time favourite song:

9. Your favourite TV show:
Ah beautiful on screen storybook.

10. First name of your significant other/crush:

Don't know :]

11. The town in which you live:

12. Your screen name/nickname:

It's meant to be firewalking lol!

13. Your first job: -

14. Your dream job:

OHMYGOD. A dream you see.

15. A bad habit you have:

And i'm doing it now. tsk!

16. Your worst fear:

Hmm ok so I need to tag 5 more people. Let's see.

May, De Wei, Benjamin, FongSun and Pearlyn. I choose you!

2008-08-04T06:04:00.000-07:00

Pushing Daisies

Lee pace (a.k.a. Ned) is the really tall, white and handsome lead in this airy-fairy TV series.

2008-08-04T05:42:00.000-07:00

Ok so I burned my weekend at the 24 hr playwriting competition, organised by Theatreworks annually. It was held at the Eurasian Community house this year, a space about 4 classrooms big and had close to 20 round tables arranged in a wedding banquet manner. So 70+ people crammed in this place. I think the organisers were very optimistic about the venue cos they kept emphasizing on "the lovely space" and "the lovely Eurasian hosts" instead of the physical space we had.

I won't elaborate on the play I wrote. There are 2 reasons why it gets difficult to write a good play in 24 hours. For one thing, I believe we really exemplify the true essence of crap in trying to write a play within 24 hours. People are different and they become their true, irrational, unordered selves without sleep and they can get really high sometimes. Let me give you an eg.

Tasmana and Guowei at midnight. They were not posing.

Secondly, the nature of this competition also deters you from writing a normal story. There are 5 stimuli released periodically (4 horus apart) throughout the 24 hours. And we had to incorporate it completely into the story. SO stimulus went like this,

1. " I don't know, it has always been like this." - This was okay. Maybe I can start with someone talking about something like how he has always been gay.

2. Beijing. - I was quite thrown off. Suddenly a lot of fictional characters would have taken at least 1 long-D flight in the stories.

3. We were given this scent on a piece of tissue paper. We were promised it wasn't any form secretion...

4. We walked around the estate in Joo Chiat, passed by the President's house. No picture with him :{

5. A taxi cab.

Yea. So I left drained, brain contaminated by tasmana, Huangyi and one of the Canadian gamemasters. Sick too cos i ate the most cookies at the table. Safely 20 i tell you. You can't resist when Subway is the main cookie sponsor. Oh and I realised after leaving the place that I forgot to name my play too haha.

2008-08-01T09:35:00.000-07:00

A really cool and formidable looking fortress in our puny island which is really none other than the National Museum of Singapore coated with bright lights for the night.

2008-07-26T21:23:00.001-07:00

dy/dx = 0

2008-07-19T20:37:00.000-07:00

Angel In Disguise -Corrine May

I woke up this morning feeling kind of blue
and I stumbled out of bed
and dragged my feet across the room
Right outside my front door was a rose
and a note that said 'Somebody Loves You'

But out on the street it starts to pour
and before I get soaking wet,
A total stranger runs to give me
the jacket off his back
I turn around to thank him
But he waves me with a smile
I can hardly believe my eyes
He puts on a halo and starts to fly

Take a look at the ordinary
Don't need to look at Paradise
You could be next to
an angel in disguise

I met a good friend for lunch
and we had a delicious meal
But I forgot to bring my wallet
I felt like an imbecile
But she was sweet, she gave me a treat and
Bought me a chicken sandwich
To take home for tea

But out on the street with nothing to eat
A man and his shopping cart go
Travelling to places,
Collecting social graces
I give him my sandwich
and we chatter for a while
I see a rainbow wash over his eyes
He gives me his halo and
I start to fly

Take a look at the ordinary
Don't need to look for Paradise
You could be next to an angel in disguise

Don't try to hide away from me
I know you're by my side

Take a look at the ordinary
Don't need to look for Paradise
You could be next to
an angel in disguise
Everyday can be legendary
Every minute, an endless surprise
You could be the next angel in disguise

I woke up this morning
Feeling kind of new.

2008-07-19T01:46:00.000-07:00

"What! You're browsing facebook in your freetime? No life..."
-Ally Lim

I'm inclined to disagree with Ally that browsing facebook reflects the emptiness of my personal life and instead, obsession with others' lives. Facebook, which is a child of this tech era has the whole coin theory of benefits and problems, but that is just one huge slippery slope on the ethics of technology and i will not talk about that.

Interest about lives of others is a fundamental human instint anyway. You can stay at home and draw up a map of all the social relations in existence so you know who to offend and how to offend. You also get some relief from knowing that you have friends, because facebook places an absolute number to your social circle so that you will believe just how many friends you have. It is also a brilliant showcase of numerous camwhoring techniques which you can compare, collect, copy and criticise. There is life in knowing about people's lives because our lives are fairly much about other people, whose lives are about ourselves too. 24 hours are enough for a select few but when the hundreds or thousands are concerned, facebook is the life you need. People you know too/ People you know but are forgetting/ People who have no lives. You can arrest all the profiles and gather social intelligence in such a short time, or discover which people to take pictures with if you'd like to look photogenic (choose less photogenic mates) or if you'd like to take a good picture (choose savvy photographers).

But anyway if evolution of society is in progress, evolution of education must keep up. Schools currently offer H3 subjects in proteomics, plane geometry, game theory and research without even an H1 faculty of socialisation, politics, personal grooming, fashion and happiness. No wonder we learn from facebook, TV and everywhere else but the textbook.

(discussion on the textbook, a bio lecture)
"Do you actually believe all this, I mean, the codons and the whole genetic theory?"
-Ally Lim
"Do you actually have a better story than this?"
-Me

2008-07-14T07:01:00.000-07:00

Now i'm really shocked. iTunes tells me that i've played The Call over 100 times in less than a month. I know the lyrics keep me going back. There. What Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility. This only happens because you don't keep finding new elements to fall in love with. Why do you suppose some people can watch a film 20 times. They see different things, or the same things in a different light each time.

"pick a star in the dark horizon
and follow the light"

"know who your friends are
as you head off to the war"

and the tune that pulsates back and forth in telling a story in which the ending is really the beginning. It sounded best during the concert i think.

SLV. My kid was the chameleon. Refused to open his mouth for the first hour, sth like an autistic, introverted child where you must smile your muscles weak to get a one-word reply type of kid.

Ohmy. Then we went to the supermart and wild was an understatement. Optimistically, i really needed the workout, and hey, it's an air-conditioned environment. And over there, he insisted on buying the Yupi sweets for his sandwich. O.o well i didn't really wanna say anything because I know very well creativity is rarely my thing and it's supposed to be a "creative" sandwich I make with him. So we threw out the cabbage for the Yupi sweets. Ok my table's sandwich was star shaped with the upper bread missing 1 corner of the star. The bread was dark brown and looked gross in a way unique to each corner of the table you chose to look at it. Yea so we could only win the "cutest sandwich" title. How cute! The other titles hogged the glam words.

I had a great cup of Choc expresso at cartel after that, growing mainly on the free bread that I cut best in the whole table. Best attendance i've seen for a class lunch thus far. So now I know what makes us tick.

You must believe everything.

2008-07-12T20:12:00.000-07:00

I'm aghast whenever you tell me that you look here for intellectual ramblings. I mean intellectual ramblings? More like the China cardboard char siew buns you mean. I'm so apolitical it's boring to read myself so i read others instead. There is no fun without a war or a stand on something.

Maybe soon enough into the digital age we will see even the advent of the digital doctor. Online yoga lessons, online clinics, diagnosis and the chemical formula for prescriptions which you immediately prepare from your kitchen. And perhaps you can perform an online surgery. You will wear a commercially marketed surgical suit with all the instruments in various pockets and connected to the USB port of your laptop. The doctor in India, perhaps, will select a series of buttons that activate in sequence all the instruments robotically then go drink a coffee and watch heroes in another internet tab. Then you'll have the online therapist, online spa as well as online SPA (as in School Based Practical Assessment). I won't be surprised. We've already experienced an E-learning last thursday and I really must admit it was great fun with the new liberty at hand.

Yay my O2jam has successfully downloaded!

2008-07-12T20:02:00.000-07:00

The Road Not Taken- Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
-I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

+
I way too young for a heart attack.
These holes will patch in time as you
Numb yourself and move along your track.

2008-07-06T23:31:00.000-07:00

I absolutely don't think i'm girly.

I just took a simple tour of many girl friends' blogs and there is an unconcealable contrast.
There are those that go gaga over boybands, specific boys in boybands, romance novels, dramas, etc.

And I'm just wondering, thinking, consoling myself by thinking that perhaps, I do swoon over these and spend my entire summer savings (ALL my savings that is, since SP is year out summer) on a track record. I also probably sometimes go crazy over eyecandies and lose my senses. Oh yea I do? I would like to meet this other alicea then.

Maybe you don't quite grasp the picture. Let's imagine this.

my girl friend: I won't get a VJ guy cos they really CMI.
me: I won't get a VJ guy cos they all have to enter NS in less than 2 years time.

2008-07-02T08:36:00.000-07:00

we are all dealers in hope,
believers in stories of
what our lives are not.

2008-06-27T09:26:00.000-07:00

Thanks POKHAI the lovely artist whom i doubt has really seen rainbows before hahaha:) For you to see.

2008-06-27T09:05:00.000-07:00

and then, as he ran his fingers across the word 'prisoner' in his dictionary,
he didn't even know he was reading about himself.

ARGH.

She had forgotten what it meant to be sad,
or maybe she had been sad forever so
a larger sadness would show her.

2008-06-13T07:41:00.000-07:00

It's not in my usual style to rant. So i really have no idea what this blog is for. Internal ranting, or suppression of one's ranting is bad for health really, you run the risk of implosion.

2008-05-30T23:05:00.000-07:00

The same situation, viewed from 2 angles.

Life is a railway track. It always delivers surprises in big carriages.

Life is a railway track. No matter how many times you stand on it, you always get run over.

Life is a railway track. Waste no time being manipulated by yellow lines if you have $5000 to spare.

2008-05-30T06:13:00.000-07:00

In no pro-MOE statement, I have just experienced the PreU seminar and i honestly feel it is rewarding. For 1 thing, the supreme importance of craptalk was highlighted over and over; crap required to know strangers, as the sort of crap others speak really define who they are reasonably reliably. And to say it stirred my mind is an understatement. If you thought polys and neighbourhood JCs were shadier in comparison of calibre, personality or quality of contributions, then you're living at the top of your skyscraper.

Did you know, the best way for African children or even the recent cyclone victims to gain weight is via attending seminars where they are fed 6 meals a day. Allow me to elaborate. We have breakfast before 7.30am, then 2 hours later we get teabreak which really is tea with sumos. Another 2 hours from tehre i have my lunch and in the next 2 hours i'm slated for a high tea which can feed sumo number 2. By night, I get my dinner of western fried cutlet in a personal pan and within another 2 hours i have supper. Ouch my intestines.

On a final note, we were in groups which contained only 1 student form every institution, so it was entirely breathtaking with all the colours and fascinating people who are defiant of expectations. We might just have an SG outing to celebrate the rare fate. Lovely too to have met my primary school friend and my secondary school classmate lookalike. Well many people in my sg also claimed i looked like someone they know. Ah the dread of the common face. I also learnt I could build sandcastles? O.o totally awed at the professional castles i saw along ECP measuring at elast 2metres high. Solid ones there that can last for 3 weeks. Talk about walking larger then life.

Looking forward to an 06V11 outing with my new old friends again.

OH I AM NOT HALF-INDIAN, just for clarification .:} What a pity. cannot be racial harmony ambassador.

2008-05-14T07:34:00.000-07:00

No i cannot comment loftily about my life because i'm only a small element in the cosmic event of my life.

Oh but happy?
The latest GP app question I have requires me to discuss the happiness level of my generation after the author had slammed happy totally in the article. And i agree with him, but nevertheless squeezed out a faint rebuttal as the Toulmin's model suggests, explaining how we are indeed happy under unique circumstances. I am now not happy about that. Now how did Neitzsche figure it all out so early on?

Ok, but moved?
Barely. Numbed perhaps. But speak of school spirit. I am reminded that I actually posses victorian patriotism at match supports. Today I supported the soccer match in the most unlikely of situations and am not regretting since the match gave me roller coaster emotions in a short 2 hours i spent being irritated with distractors deliberatly trying to foil the VJ penalty kick and welling with tears at the win. AH. I now have 2 pairs of socks, a dry pair yinghua lent me after mine were soaked in teh rain. I'm beginning to think she might not get it back because it's so pretty with vibrant orange stripes and a sleek cut.

2008-05-09T08:44:00.001-07:00

I think it is incredulously miraculous that 2 people can come to 'love' each other. Just think about the perfect blend of the right time, right chances, right people and right consequences.
I cannot help but salute the merry people around me even if it means goosebumps.

I feel it in my fingers,
I feel it in my toes,
love is all around you.

2008-04-30T07:15:00.000-07:00

Wow. It seems like a really long hiatus that I took since my last post. It was living the life of the lifeless for me in the previous days, perhaps something along the feeling you get as you take an exam for 3 hours on autopilot, where you only doggedly finish question after question whilst your emotions and senses disappear? Yea magnify that 200X and you understand your life.

If the winding road seems unending, close your eyes, close your eyes for the colours and the songs.

2008-04-05T20:44:00.000-07:00

I don't know what effect this is, but I have come to realise that many of us, organs of a bigger institution or body of people where rankings are salient, are consumed by a fear- a fear of being insignificant. Well definitely I am guilty of this fear. This is the major force driving us to do as many things as possible in such a short time-frame, everything being measured in a most quantitative manner. We begin to do so many things, thinking only about what more we can do to increase those numbers instead of the value of what has been done. Don't you feel that you have been cheated of your life sometimes? If you arrive at a phase where you can begin to introduce yourself with "good evening, I am the president of frick corporation", then you probably have submitted yourself to the make-believe of human-created ranks and numbers. And then you would have much to fear..

You have been the one, you have been the one for me

2008-03-20T00:46:00.000-07:00

When the lights are out
And faces begin to drip away
In melting wax and degenerating skin
Then we cannot see the lies.

When noses are mutilated
And the stench-aroma scent wafts into nothingness
Then we can smell the air and
Free the baggage of smelling what’s not there

When the boats have sunken
And we cannot trade nor see nor know
Grown between islands a seed of judgment
Then we cannot feel the fear

When the calculators are forgotten
And we cannot count how many stars we have
From a sky that is no longer tilted
Then (though the lights are out) we learn to see the shape of stars.

2008-03-18T08:24:00.000-07:00

Lost tongue for poetry
Like a severed friend
Simply when time chose to interrupt and chances to shy away
And us, and you, chose not to disturb the new equilibrium.

Distraction proves only too simple
Disguised as a convenient priority
So many things, too many paths, so
Strutted the well-trodden path and
Drained out the ink that composed new fears
Simply to see what had been seen.

2008-03-08T04:14:00.000-08:00

GOODBYE MY LOVER, GOODBYE MY FRIEND

2008-03-08T02:44:00.001-08:00

So many questions, too few answers

music.
Genre: he only chose the noisiest rock hits that produced sounds that he usually could not tolerate. He probably picked something like Lavigne’s latest album. He wouldn’t fancy it, and neither would the adults and that would make all the difference.

Function: so it was a crime to be different. He had to learn all about escaping and he learnt about escaping through music. Music that could make him look normal, music that gave him an air surrounding his age. Music that people wanted for him to listen to. It would taunt him unsettle him corrupt him but it would hide him. Hide him from a realm after a door that stood between two worlds. And that would make all the difference.

s. his eyes.
Genre: he taught himself eye speech so he could execute it with entire speechlessness. He does not know how to speak like the lawyers or politicians do or lie without looking away so he teaches himself not to speak. He has the quietest eyes, and that would make all the difference.

Function: he doesn’t know how powerful he is. All he knows is that he is trying hard not to be discovered so he hides in the protective sounds, the speechless looks so others cannot penetrate his world and screw it as they like. That is all he is thinking but he doesn’t know that that would make all the difference.

d. his questions.
genre: his questions have no genre. The paper knows that. When he draws, the lines are ill-defined, or meaninglessly ugly as the adults utter. The faces are a scramble and erroneous mosaic of paints and the bodies of humans and animals merge. He has so many questions and experiences an overwhelming ecstasy when he is able to draw them on paper.

Function: he actually is quite clueless about what he is searching for. He is asking too many questions and the paper cannot give him those gratifying answers. He knows, however, that he will spend the rest of his life asking more questions and never answering the questions that others have asked him. He does not know how far his music and eyes can conceal his uncompromising and nearly overflowing heart. He sometimes feels the massive weight of this heart when he faces the world, but he is certain his heart is what makes him the greatest in his world. And that makes all the difference.

2008-03-08T02:44:00.000-08:00

So many questions, too few answers

a. music.
Genre: he only chose the noisiest rock hits that produced sounds that he usually could not tolerate. He probably picked something like Lavigne’s latest album. He wouldn’t fancy it, and neither would the adults and that would make all the difference.

Function: so it was a crime to be different. He had to learn all about escaping and he learnt about escaping through music. Music that could make him look normal, music that gave him an air surrounding his age. Music that people wanted for him to listen to. It would taunt him unsettle him corrupt him but it would hide him. Hide him from a realm after a door that stood between two worlds. And that would make all the difference.

s. his eyes.
Genre: he taught himself eye speech so he could execute it with entire speechlessness. He does not know how to speak like the lawyers or politicians do or lie without looking away so he teaches himself not to speak. He has the quietest eyes, and that would make all the difference.

Function: he doesn’t know how powerful he is. All he knows is that he is trying hard not to be discovered so he hides in the protective sounds, the speechless looks so others cannot penetrate his world and screw it as they like. That is all he is thinking but he doesn’t know that that would make all the difference.

d. his questions.
genre: his questions have no genre. The paper knows that. When he draws, the lines are ill-defined, or meaninglessly ugly as the adults utter. The faces are a scramble and erroneous mosaic of paints and the bodies of humans and animals merge. He has so many questions and experiences an overwhelming ecstasy when he is able to draw them on paper.

Function: he actually is quite clueless about what he is searching for. He is asking too many questions and the paper cannot give him those gratifying answers. He knows, however, that he will spend the rest of his life asking more questions and never answering the questions that others have asked him. He does not know how far his music and eyes can conceal his uncompromising and nearly overflowing heart. He sometimes feels the massive weight of this heart when he faces the world, but he is certain his heart is what makes him the greatest in his world. And that makes all the difference.

2008-02-25T04:06:00.000-08:00

06v11 after the play Dim Sum Dollies: A History of Singapore

They gave out these flags during the intermission so the audience could be interactive later on.

May and I are both wearing heels, which makes puen look only a wee bit taller.

Must you eat in every picture? Debby's beef sandwich was heavenly i must admit!

11 girls at New York in Citylink.

While waiting for puen at Paya Lebar, we decided to camwhore.

Writers' Circle outing to Changi War Museum on Saturday. We're actually bigger. Don't be fooled.

May with the time of her life.

Class outing at Subway.
Rouhui and I.

It's Jing, May and I. You see that extra shadow on the right, well, that's a passerby who was totally stunned by us. Probably thought we were crazy but decided to join in anyway.

Against the light.

A scene of ill fate on the bridge.

By the river Kallang, we sat and wept.

New year party with my lovely cousins.

The youngest of them all who is already 9.

With my unimaginably towering cousin who is younger than me still.

2008-02-20T04:20:00.000-08:00

Actually i never perceive happiness as a constant, or as a nirvana where a particular set of necessary and sufficient conditions have been fulfilled. Happiness is an extremely elusive thing. People spend their whole lives pursuing this H thing and an equally dreadful amount of time trying to define and calibrate different scales to determine happiness levels to the extent that people think things like, "oh, switzerland is such a fine place to live in. the switzerlanders fare much higher on the happiness scale," and finally create their own H things. We never seem to get any better no matter how much we practise, don't we?

In my opinion actually, happiness is rooted in relativism, and happiness doesn't appear simply because something occurs, but because something occurs with respect to a what I deem a poorer situation. Small shifts can officially make my day and totally reverse the sign on the downward graph.

There are small triumphs everyday

tonight i celebrate the triumph in transcending the gridlock of emotions to express genuine indifference towards lala and finally emerge from that self-deprecating closet of slavery to another. Some call it self-love.
Therefore, i want to encourage all my friends to engage in self-love (hmm that sounds a little off) and grow out of the emotional slavery that only serves self-doubt and self-deprecation.

Well i am not arguing that sadness is undesirable, as happiness as a relative can only come when you know what sadness feels like. Go ahead, go and cry your sadness away then notice other shifts that would make your day.

2008-02-05T23:23:00.001-08:00

I'm going to tidy my room and count meaningful things like the relative degrees of x in partial fractions instead.

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR :}

2008-02-05T23:06:00.001-08:00

Today I counted the number of friends I had and was entirely stumped. I never knew I that many friends had me, that there were so many people to say hi to; Tall ones, class ones, CCA buddies, smart asses, mega suanners, loud ones voiceless ones. Truly i think I am quite well interweaved in the whole social fabric. In fact i thought the number i conjured up was quite unbelievable in that i doubted I could possibly have that many friends when i didn't even possess the equivalent volume of emotions. So i recounted my friends, this time making considerable effort to count properly.

I counted zero.

Yet still i deemed this too exotic. I knew I had best friends in and out of school and classes, people to wave to and make small talk with at the bus stops, friends to date for lunch, friends with whom i would share and receive treats.
So then i acknowledged that what I was counting was in truth not a friend, a word overly and in a much-cliched measure of popularity was generalised, the word which has been purged of meaning for me. What I seek is therefore a soulmate, someone to whom I pour my soul out to, probably another me which is scary and thoughtful at the same time.
Even clones cannot achieve the emotional condition of my mind, so I'm betting on the human race to explain the entangled condition which I myself cannot take stock of.

2008-01-19T08:39:00.001-08:00

Go away audience! Gah. I feel like i'm blogging for you. Go away!!! I'm too lazy to relocate. Plus i love my new skin. So go away :} Oh forget it. I know you're not really listening to me. You're probably thinking that i'm employing the reverse psychology. Helloo? I rarely even blog because I know you will intrude upon my space. So go on, you see those links in the left column? Click on anyone. Anyone at all. You will enter a new realm of life, where you actually read about life, other people's lives since that's what you thirst for, and then, if that's still insufficient life for you those spaces will contain more links to more life for you. There you've found the gigantic neverending route to life. There's a term for this in language arts which begins with an S. So anyway halt yourself while you're in time and stop juggling with your mind. I am not seeing you again. ByeBye.

2008-01-18T23:12:00.000-08:00

How do you go about commenting on life if you're living in it? Philosophers do, likewise doctors, teachers and beggars who are deeply convicted when they blurt metanarratives about life such as "life is unfair" or "life is painful" or "life is the way of death". How do you really know, even if you were to undress your life from yourself to objectively peer at this piece of clothing you wear, that everyone calls "Life"; then you gather all the experts who are equally naked to appraise this piece of clothing with you, you argue for days on end, till some experts are frustrated to death and everyone has rubbed past the piece of "Life" that only a miniscule fragment remains. Even then, it is already impossible to redress yourself with that. So how then, do we become acquainted with life, to seek directions in life, and carry out that economics project of rationalising? Since there are no second chances in life, one can probably deduce that no one really makes any mistakes at all. To claim that someone has made a mistake would suggest erecting 2 identical scenarios where the subject carries out the act (the only variable) where anything not conforming to the correct act is wrong. Life has yet to discover such scenarios, each time frame unique, each condition helpless in mimicking another, each action situated in something new. Morality as passing speech is becoming increasingly rare as naked experts from all fields come to terms with the inadequacy of their expertise.

We should just try to make ourselves happy. If it means laughing at someone falling down, laugh out loud. You are not immoral when you laugh- no one has the right to slam you as such. You too will be able to make someone else happy in future when it's your turn to fall.

2008-01-12T06:47:00.000-08:00

as if to meet deep into the future and become familiar again
as if to weave through the vacuity of indifference and fading colours and then breathe rainbows once more
as if to intentionally fail just so to see if you care to set an r-paper
as if to imagine i am not holding on nor thinking of rainbows when my hands are full with loss.

2008-01-11T18:07:00.000-08:00

(200th!)

i recently discovered that the public bus analogy for the filling of electron shells is flawed.
Electrons do not continue dumping themselves into a shell that aready has all its orbitals filled?
Squeeze, cramp, shove, push, breath constriction in the bus.

I have chosen my funeral song by the way- "Time to say Goodbye" (the Sarah Brightman solo version)

2008-01-01T00:45:00.000-08:00

No you do not have to close one door to open another.
I'm leaving my door half open
so the memories and glory will, as sand, come through;
words i hesitated to speak, i still can speak
lies unexposed, remain a matter of choice.
people unthanked, gain the lisence of future patience
the holes i burned, i can still look through and claim they are deserving

bricks stacked atop one another,
private languages,
vaulted morse codes of las and lees
stories.
I'm about to write a new story of the old.
Hello my new oldfriends.

2007-12-14T20:44:00.000-08:00

such a delectable commentary of facebook through a catchy tune and great vocals. And another

2007-12-11T21:03:00.001-08:00

Forgetting is strung by simple strokes;
Erasing a contact burning a photo pushing the distance
To bleed away to forget to know it cannot return,

But I know of two memories-
the one that is deleted and the one that only pretends to be deleted but returns at nothing to taunt and jerk into a writhing anguish
So bleed away to forget to self-deceive to receive nature’s cell renewal.

2007-12-09T09:07:00.000-08:00

wrinkling- like forgotten creases in a worn shirt.
ironing- a single act that would summon all the familiar settings and set the shirt smoothened once again.
aching- losing the iron.

2007-12-02T20:56:00.000-08:00

This holiday had actually been dedicated to catching up with a lot of people, but the most unexpected people actually turn up instead. (There is no chronological order to any of the events)
To a virgin event on the 1st Dec, Mr. Boy got married and invited us to his church wedding, for which the clothes i intended to wear got stolen in a most unfortunate event in the VJ canteen a day before so i didn't really get over it by the time i went for the church wedding. May and Jingjing were going "so sweet" all the way. Personally, the romantic feeling didn't transcend into my own emotions, but there was something envious about the whole ceremony in which I knew that it was a priceless moment of a "sweetness" only the man and woman involved could really experience. On the same night, i watched Enchanted with Jingjing. It was pretty lucky cos we actually were alloted seats A1 and A2 on the first row which required us to crane our necks considerably, until we spotted 2 empty seats on the 3rd row and made ourselves comfortable there. It was a happy show with heartwarming fairytale songs by Amy Adams, not to mention the cool animation. The plot, however, near the ending, was predictable and cliched. It was the format of the plot that was refreshing. So it was a happy night.
Met up with Yunhui on a certain tuesday after my sister's PSLE posting. She thinks I've changed a lot, and in a good way. I'm not so sure about the "good part" but i'm quite glad we managed to meet afterall, although it wasn't a very good day with meeting some pompous and irrelavantly dressed officer on the basement of the esplanade.
Ice-skating on a certain... whatever. The blisters were worthwhile, cos may, elroy and esmond learnt to skate. You don't really feel yourself while skating. It's as if you're floating, like a floating ballerina though i may not look the part, not like a penguin as guowei puts it. I felt quite high during the skating. But the $16.50 i paid was definitely not worthwhile. Cheat my money. The indoor stadium reminded me of my 2sy kite-flying outing.
Facebook. I'm facebooking a lot now. I suppose it's a symptom of sheer boredom, but there's some kick from being poked and receiving sticky notes and beating people and mindjolt games. Soon i'm gonna conquer all the quizzes and games. Facebook committees better invent new apps. And updating your status is actually more fun than it seems. It's like an msn email and game site combined.
More academically, i was occupied with my NRP research, which culminated in the NRP symposium on the saturday of Nov 17th. This was more tedious than challenging, cos marjorie and I were great smokers although i do not deny i'm a poorer smoker than she is. We met really sneaky judges at the symposium who were trying to discredit an epic poster. So it's over, but then again, it's only part 1. The bane of science research is that teachers use the same project repeatedly for so many competitions that I only have to force myself to love it over and over again. It's not really over lor.
Electrically, i plugged the TV and computer for lots of movies and serials. Noteworthy amongst my serials are 恋人 Lovers (korean) and 宫s Prince Hours (Korean). It is such things that oversensationalise the concept of Love and BGRs, make them so coveted that lovers sacrifice everything for their loved one and threaten to kill themselves when love falls apart. And in the supposed journey towards love, every action, every trip to the toilet, every drop of sweat is in the name of love. It is from such over exaggerated sources that you and I learn about and mimic love. I feel unaccomplished in the cinematic sense. While my friends have made numerous trips to the cinema with their friends and family, I have only made 1.
Friendly, i was in search of a best friend, and soulmate. I still haven't found you. Nevertheless, I'll be meeting my best friends in sec.
On the piano, I am struggling with The Man I Love. I can't seem to control him. It's just a case of practice makes perfect and getting into the appropriate mood for the notes to reverberate and resonate.
I found a new hobby which i feel is rather out of place in this fast-paced society. I consider it an emotional avenue of solitude, where, privately in public, i watch my buses pass at bus stops until I feel the time is ripe for me to actually board a bus.

2007-11-30T09:02:00.000-08:00

Although i have no idea how many new androgynous guys the 21st century has nurtured, but i'm pretty sure that the four of you cricket guys from VJC would have no need for my clothes. And don't even bother giving them to your mums, girlfriends, sisters, greataunts or little brothers; I guarantee you'll be submitting yourself to pure self-torture with the sizes. Don't bother selling them either. Sales for these sizes would be dismal if you have your eyes open while not cricketing in the fields.

So please. If you see a DFS maroon plastic bag with my denim shorts and 4 tops in white yellow pink and grey, please hesitate in selling, wrecking, or transferring its ownership in any way at all.

Mine only,
Alicea Tan.

2007-11-26T08:25:00.000-08:00

Tonight I am Happy
I feel happy from watching The Pursuit of Happyness
It reminds us that there are more forms of love than just the oversensationalised BGRs, such as family and kinship love that are worth treasuring.
It pronounced my own life as more sheltered than ever, and my own sadness as stupidity.
When your own survival hangs on a taut thread, and you do not want, but have to succeed, success is happiness beyond measure.
Ah Will Smith is a very good actor. And his son is none the less cute.

2007-11-25T20:27:00.000-08:00

There's this distinct quality about sun yanzi's voice that attracts me. This song is brimming with emotion too.

2007-11-22T03:59:00.000-08:00

有些人觉得用华语抒情最恰当。

因为无法坦诚相对
唯能装疯卖傻
以最灿烂的笑脸
假装自己的心声不存在

我觉得这是不好玩的儿戏
因为会忘记会期盼会感受
以为儿戏可以不息
以为期盼能有实践之光

因为由始就已是一场舞台剧；
只有两个主角
虽然是儿戏，却戏中有戏
戏后又有不可告人的秘密

我觉得用华语抒情最恰当，因为他把原来复杂的心思更复杂化。

2007-11-14T09:06:00.000-08:00

It used to make my brain (it's really not the heart. emotions are in the mind) jolt.
So the emptiness i have myself to credit, for reserving into eternity.
Your words hang like a chopped thread, and guess what,
the stars have a clue.
(i shall seek the North star now)

2007-11-13T20:03:00.000-08:00

Hmm. It has suddenly dawned on me that the nature of my blogging style is one that i will never relate with much later; I cannot look upon a particular post and try to remember what the double/triple coded metaphors were supposed to mean, if i assume they meant something. Perhaps i will be able to draw out certain emotions, which is most likely going to be melancholy, but there will be no context for that sadness. So why do i bother to blog? Maybe i trick myself into believing that talking about your sadness to your readers will make you feel loved and earn you attention and hence erase the heaviness. But no. It just impresses and reinforces it. So maybe, it's time to reconfigure.

On a separate note, the morning of the last day of chalet was pleasant. Directly opposite our unit, a break-in took place and a certain meek looking suspect was cornered beside our unit for interrogation. I waited for a good show with Kelvin, GuoWei and Jerald while emptying the bottle of sparkling grape juice Miss Low brought. Nothing. It's too plain a morning for a chalet i think. One learning point here is never, to book promo packages for an entire class. I'm now sick from the chalet, blasted with bbq smoke that disrupts my throat; ouch.

2007-11-09T00:31:00.000-08:00

2007-11-04T00:08:00.000-07:00

I remember the braille code.
It masks the handicap for subtlety.

2007-11-03T21:03:00.000-07:00

Hmm. Fine.

2007-11-02T04:11:00.000-07:00

“pretence of a pretence,” I spoke to my only audience.
You tried to comprehend, and show that you actually did.
“and the false truths were a pack of lies,” I continued.
You seemed to want to change the subject.

I realise why the study of histories are imperative,
or for that matter, personal histories.
Because the saccharine in the elapsed moments
can only be retrieved from the records of the past,
in a vault termed the memory.
You are at liberty to choose, which sugars to consume;
a sweetness unprecedented.

and so, I grew not to love him.

2007-10-28T07:34:00.000-07:00

It's the heart afraid of breaking

that never learns to dance

It's the dream afraid of waking

that never takes the chance

It's the one who won't be taken

who cannot seem to give

and the soul afraid of dying

that never learns to live

2007-10-27T05:38:00.000-07:00

The 感动谬论.

2007-10-24T05:03:00.000-07:00

I was trying to find the adrenalin people get from uploading photos. Sadly, i am deprived of any feeling of that sort because the uploading tool idolises the dying snail and had to be shut for "maintenance" halfway. Not fun at all.

2007-10-22T09:12:00.000-07:00

虽然知道是毫无意义的。

2007-10-20T06:54:00.000-07:00

Alicea would like to contest the understanding that continuous eye contact allows truthful and sincere conversation for 2 reasons.

1. She thinks that eye contact, more often than not, can be pressurising, especially when there are people around her with gazes that seem to pierce right through your skulls. When speaking with people like that, maintaining eye contact would be tremendously pressurising. The speaker would tend to, under such conditions to try and squirm out the stressful situation quickly by saying something clouded with falsehood. The speaker might also simply just please the person with something the person's ears desire.

2. Alicea has discovered, via personal experience, that without eye contact, piercing ones especially, a message can be conveyed much more effectively. This is because the speaker can truly confront his/her heart and speak from "the bottom of the (his/her) heart" without the distraction of external factors like menacing eyes.

Alicea proposes conversations from the back.

2007-10-20T05:49:00.001-07:00

I regard myself as an extremely inpenetrable person, in some ways, cold-hearted and unmovable. Never have I been moved by a movie, song, nor a speech, at least not to the extent of tears. My friends can vouch for me. I have a heart of stone. But this time round, in just a matter of weeks, my heart had been melted several times over, simply by an assemblage of people under a common calling and a common desperation to freeze time.

(The melting point of stone is rumoured to be 600 deg. C )

2007-10-20T05:29:00.000-07:00

A tale of the future.

We caught each others' eyes,
summoned the trove of memories of the past 06v11.
[1 metre away] Towards the familiar stranger,
I walked straight.
[0 metres] From the corner of my eye,
you teared.
"Hi." "erm. Bye."
[-1 metre] We had walked away,
careful not to repeat the awkward glance.

We were now hi-bye friends. But at least for now we pretend to be short-sighted and ignore the future.
Memories will become ever precious when there is nothing tangible in the future.

2007-10-17T10:19:00.001-07:00

I believe in the loss of opportunities that only knock once.
So I absolutely fail to fathom my passiveness and perhaps, indirectly,

2007-10-17T10:08:00.000-07:00

Sometimes people don't say anything because the words emerging will only dampen all spirits. Goodnight. (We need to stop indulging in the irresponsible realm of deceit and apparent ignorance)

2007-10-17T07:17:00.000-07:00

shattered.
Now i have to buy superglue.

2007-10-16T09:12:00.000-07:00

2007-10-09T10:15:00.001-07:00

I think i'm mad. Oh but at least i'm allowed to be.

(end of the emo series. bye. 06V11 rocks because there are no stones of poorer grades than this existent. !nvigorate :)

2007-10-09T10:02:00.001-07:00

I'm feeling philosophical again. This is not a good omen. It sucks, trust me. Philosophers don't usually get very far with their thinking because they become too pessimistic for their own good. Even if they do cover a fair distance, it's unlikely that their propositions can be well-received as any cuckold philosopher can conjure a bunch of crap and pass it off as philosophy too to compete with them. Well, the problem with me is shallow. Thinking makes me pessimistic, weak and completely confused. I end up talking to people from all walks of life (quite limited a pool actually) and feel myself playing the role of some stupid martyr instead. Sigh.

"you are the perfect product of the singapore education system (Jolyn A., October 2007)".
Can i veto that? The root of the problem is so apparent. So it helps when someone else comes along and says, "i guess what you should do is keep finding what you love, and dun settle down (Jing Jing Y., October 2007)".

And what if i die tomorrow? What rubbish. Of course i won't. I'm gonna play captain's ball. I can't believe i'm excited about a ball-game.. it's just so un-me. But then again, what does it take for something to be distinctively me? No wonder i'm such an egoistic person and i establish futile religions like Aliceanism and call myself god. No wonder. Thought is bad. Censorship shouldn't have stopped at just films and ratings and sanctions such as the corner...

2007-10-09T09:56:00.000-07:00

I lack the ability to evoke tears in my friends
so i allow them to evoke in me instead.

2007-10-09T09:52:00.001-07:00

You took my voice away once again,
entrapping me within the questions you
were too fearful to answer.

You never learnt the correct spellings.

2007-10-09T09:29:00.000-07:00

I need a real cause, not just any facebook cause you can add and delete at whim.

2007-10-07T00:28:00.002-07:00

It's perfectly alright if your sexual reproductive system is malfunctional. The number of spermatozoa your body creates or the disintegration of ovarian eggs are no longer problems, immaterial to you and to your children. Gone are the days of child-bearing competitions, or sexual libido performance comparisons. Even the in-vitro fertilisation scientists are dawning on this new prophecy, and switching to the family planning advisory committee.

The globe has nothing for the new generations anyway. We're just going to end up in one big ball of fire, basking and indulging in the 'hotness' of one another.

2007-10-07T00:28:00.001-07:00

sun sun, go away,
come again another day.

2007-09-29T06:59:00.000-07:00

A student asks a teacher, "What is love?"
The teacher said, “In order to answer your question, go to the paddy field and choose the biggest paddy and come back. But the rule is: you can go through them only once and cannot turn back to pick.”
The student went to the field, went through the first row, saw one big paddy, and wondered, “Perhaps there will be a bigger one later.” Then he saw another bigger one, but thought again that be might be an even bigger one waiting for him.
Later, when he had finished more than half of the paddy field, he started to realize that the paddy he started to see were not as big as the previous ones he saw, and he knew that he has missed the biggest one, and he regretted it. So, he ended up going back to the teacher empty-handed.
The teacher told him, “This is love... You keep looking for a better one, and it is only when it is too late that you realize that you’ve missed the best person to love.”
The student asked, “What is marriage then?”
And the teacher gain said, “In order to answer your question, go to the corn field and choose the biggest corn, then come back. But the rule is: you can go through them only once and cannot turn back to pick.”
The student went to the corn field, this time careful not to repeat the previous mistake. When he reached the middle of the field, he picked one medium corn that he feel satisfied with, and went back to the teacher.
The teacher told him, “This time you brought back the corn that you found just nice, and you had faith and believed that this is the best one you would get.... This is marriage.”

By virtue of e-hui.

2007-09-21T09:43:00.000-07:00

Arh. No taste.

2007-09-08T10:15:00.000-07:00

sometimes, I look upon the closet of masks
not knowing which one to wear.

sometimes, I scan the stacks of processed trees
not knowing why i thrive in meaninglessness.

sometimes, I interject with sentences and phrases
imagining I have impacted the preceeding frame.

sometimes, I attempt to smell the roses and examine the barks of trees
believing that I can sew the colours onto the negatives.

sometimes, I look into the mirror at night
discovering that the mask has not been removed.

2007-09-04T07:11:00.000-07:00

A glass calling another transparent.

2007-09-02T09:42:00.000-07:00

List out your top 5 birthday presents that you wish for:
1) my friends
2) good results
3) eternal happiness
4) the usual
5) certainty

Answer the following questions :

1. The person who tag you is? Owyong PuEn
2. Your relationship with him/her is?Classmate and beloved friend
3. Your 5 impressions of him/her? conscientious, responsible, reflective, overly curious, selectively hard-hearted.
4. The most memorable thing he/she had done for you? not that i know of.
5. The most memorable words he/she had said to you? I dunno. But her voice was nice though.
6. If he/she becomes your lover, you will?She already is my lover. :}
7. If he/she becomes your lover, things he/she has to improve on will be? Work out a proper dialling roster.
9. If he/she becomes your enemy, the reason will be? a clash of interests in some pragmatic area.
10.The most desire thing you want to do for him/her now is? break her leg for the EOYs.
11.Your overall impression of him/her is? She is a helpful friend and an enthusiastic lover.
12.How you think people around you will feel about you? They'll think i'm overly egoistic, which may not be entirely true.. I only show it.
13.The character you love of yourself are? The ability to wear my emotions on my sleeves and offend as I wish! Yea long live Alicea:}
14.On the contrary, the characters you hate of yourself are? The same thing. For offending the wrong people. gosh.
15.The most ideal person you want to be is? I have never subscribed to idolising (apart form myself), and i'm not about to begin. Besides, it's tiring idolising >1 at once)

The next few to do this survey...
Seriously, i'm not out o sabotage anyone so here goes.
1. Althea
2. May
3. Yiling
4. Ian
5. Guowei
6. Jing Jing
7. Esmond
8. PuEn
9. HuangSui
10. Alicea

17. Who is no.6 having relationship with? She is?
18.Is no.9 a male or female? Female. A bit obvious right?
19.If no.7 and 10 are together, will it be a good thing? Anything in combination with 10 will be a good thing! Haha joking. No, as 7 is already romantically involved with another male/female.
20.How about no.8 and 5? Well, i wouldn't rule out that possibility... afterall there are opportunities :}
21.What is no.2 studying about? She studies weird guys. Academically, same lor
22.When was the last time you had a chat with no.3? Not today, but in the near future, probably in some 9 hours time.
23.What kind of music band does no.8 like? I know! Emo songs, and upbeat, yet sensuous songs, such as the g-l-a-m-o-r-o-u-s song.. (the name evades me)
24.Does no.1 has any siblings? 2 sisters..
25.Will you woo no.3? Save that for 4. I don't want to be accused of snatching anyone's girlfriend.
26.How about no.7? He attached. read above.
27.Is no.4 single? Maybe.
28.What’s the surname of no.5? Wu.
29.What’s the hobby of no.4?Eating apples and scratching cars.
30.Do no.5 and 9 get along well?Yea. They collaborate extensively
31.Where is no.2 studying at? 06v11, at vjc
32.Talk something casually about no.1? She hates her thighs although i see nothign wrong with them. SHe full of weird ideas. lol
33.Have you try developing feelings for no.8? I already have.. refer to above :}
34.Where does no.9 live at?VS Hostel
35.What color does no.4 like?white- the colour of mac
36.Are no.5 and 1 best friends? good ones.
37.Does no.7 likes no.2?7 sounds like a real flirt here.. MAYbe. we never know. But 7 might not stand a chance with 2 though..
38.How do you get to know no.2? Through VIP. Classmates I told you..
39.Does no.1 have any pets? not yet.
40.Is no.7 the sexiest person in the world?haha.. i've yet to verify

good luck for promos alicea:} and all of 06V11 as well!

2007-08-27T06:26:00.000-07:00

A: Why do you walk on such long stilts?
B: I'm short..