A constant moving body of icy water

Moving on.

2009-09-21T00:15:00.000-07:00

I think its a rather selfish thing maybe, that I hate it when people move on in my life but I have no problem about moving on from people myself. Its the inaction, the idea of standing there watching someone leave and not being able to leave yourself or do anything. As long as I'm in motion and not stagnant, I don't mind leaving things behind so much.

I'm in motion now, and moving away from here. Life's vortex continues to be whirling, but this place records one of the longest period of stagnation in my life. There's a long chain of thought trails emanating from where I've stopped having strength and to where the logic inevitably leads to the frustrating idea that when you lose your own strength in life, your usefulness and competitiveness to everybody wanes. I've rushed through this long chain at an alarming pace, particularly at the ironic time period of having just attained a simpler and more peaceful life, lost a motivation for decency, expressing more and more cynical views and I dunno, it seems to be getting rather unhealthy.

Yeah like sucking the life force outta me..

I continue to place a large part of the blame on the world around me. But that's just utterly, incomparably and just plain stupidly useless isn't it. There's no way to change the world, and its not morally correct to change it to your opinion of what should be right either. There's only one place to go in order to change things, and that's deeper within the self. To examine some fundamental beliefs and find a way to change this mindset. Or at least be at peace at how things turn out somehow. I'm not too sure what I'll find when I delve into all this complex simplicity of raw emotions but I'm pretty sure here's not the place to do it.

Paintings that reflects emotion are.. like that.

I have to change things, because the consummate wanderer in me is being forced to diminish. There are things now that require presence, continuity and the sort of care and attention that can only be given to things that you can't walk away from. They aren't all bad, and in a way, they all deserve a better person to have them. I dunno if I'll be better, but I'm trying to be different.

Those pictures were not painted using skittles XD.

Much ado about Magic (do christians play Magic?)

2009-09-08T08:11:00.000-07:00

Yes THIS Crucible of Fire. I am not a satanist dammit. What would it be if I said it was a crucible of holy fire?

This is what happens when you eavesdrop on other people's conversations and jump to conclusions when you have no idea what they're talking about.

Yeah so this has the word 'hell' in it but if satanists could summon it out then hopefully God created you with 5 HP or more. If not you better pray that heaven above sends down:

But why be so westernized dammit. You could follow your chinese roots and go find some friends to make a:

And then go to war together. (I don't think Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei ever faced a dragon but I'm pretty sure if they did, the story would have been a lot more epic.)

This is absurd. What kinda fool would think to make such accusations? So never mind, I shall do something more absurd.

我们三人，虽然異姓，既然结为兄弟，...不求同年同月同日生，只愿同年同月同日死。如果背恩忘义，天地不容。

"Nosotros tres, aunque somos de ascendencia diferente, nos unimos en hermandad. . . . No osamos esperar estar siempre juntos, pero juramos morir el mismísimo día".

This oath is quite a mouthful in espanyol huh.

Sanguine Bond.

2009-09-03T08:46:00.000-07:00

"Blood is constant. Every drop I drink, someone must bleed."
—Vradeen, vampire nocturnus

And so it is. I tried pretty hard for a while and I really couldn't think of anything that one would succeed at without someone else paying the price for it. Against morals imbued within the stream of consciousness, we probably wouldn't do anything blatantly self-absorbed but to differing extents, every moment of our happiness is built upon others' misery to a certain degree. Its more a matter of scarcity really, that everything is limited. Whatever you have, someone else in the world will lack. Whatever you give, someone in the world will be unable to receive.

Y'know those melodramatic outbursts in movies and stuff, "have you got no heart?" I wonder what would it be if the villain would say, "if I had a heart, it would be wrangled, tortured, broken and I would be the one being victimized, asking that very same question to people. And I have no idea what they would say." What would it be, if the only thing that governs what you do, is what you allow yourself to do? What would it be, if morals were not decided by someone else, but by you? I think you'd quickly realise that to adequately take that role, you'll have to have no heart. There would be no room for emotions, no happiness or sadness. That way you don't strive for them and you don't fit into the scarcity chain. Its the only way you would stop sucking someone else's blood dry. And if morals were signed on a pact in blood, then it wouldn't be right at all would it?

I believe in a Creator. I don't believe he/she/it is compassionate. I think such an entity has to be incapable of feeling. We are the sanguine bond between life and each other.

Haven't been doing much these days. And despite looming exams, that's actually good news. But come next week, more administrative and medical appointments. And I've yet to collect my phone from repair. On a more recreational note, I've yet to complete my warp world revolution, nor manage to find time for an adequate magic session with jay. And the room's in a mess. Zetalambmary looks abandoned. Yeah, I reckon this short-lived peace comes at a pretty huge price. There's a sanguine bond on a single body affected through the time-space continuum.

What crap am I spouting XD.

Having 5 wires stuck into your chest for 24 hours makes you think about how socially inept you have been.

2009-08-29T10:34:00.001-07:00

Bliss told me mr toh was suan-ing me during maths yesterday. I laughed and joked to my mum, maybe I'd offer him one of the wires to stick somewhere in him. The green one was particularly irritating. But she went all terse and serious. Wanted to call the school and talk to the teachers. I told her not to.

"Are you unable to fulfill a lot of responsibilities in school?"

"As far as I remember, I've never let my classmates down in anything that involved them. Its pretty much just the individual school work that's suffering."

"Do they dislike you? Your classmates?"

"I dunno.. maybe I guess? I'm too proud sometimes I guess. About how I should live life, about what I owe people and what I don't. I don't go about making myself likeable. *short pause* They don't ask me anything, so I don't say much. There's not much I can do about opinions formed behind my back anyway."

*She looks a little distressed*

"And you don't have to be so concerned all of a sudden y'know. I've never been coddled for the past 19 years, you start now and its just gonna feel weird."

*She looks more distressed and then a defiant look starts to appear*

I pretended to go to sleep. As if I could with all those things sticking into me. And I thought to myself that such comments are probably what turn against me. I was being perfectly honest without malice, and I'm pretty sure there was an element of truth to it but all the same, its a social discourtesy I guess. If I were less angsty about everything I probably wouldn't have said it. Its just that plenty has happened already, I don't need an aura of blatent fakeness pervading all of it too.

Sigh.. A bit more self-restraint is in order. More smiles and quietness, patience to listen to everything, detachment from everything that I don't know about (after all, I really can't go about sticking green wires into my maths teachers), and to not give up on the notion/illusion that everybody else important seem to hold: that they can pile their stuff up on me, because I'll survive it.

Time cries slow in mourning.

2009-08-25T06:54:00.000-07:00

I shall scream in silence
I'll cry but not shed a tear
I shall speak with no sound
I shall hurt with no pain
You hold the breathe to my life
But something dies within

I like how the bleeding face shows no emotion. I like how the eyes are not there. I like how despite it all, the face still looks thoroughly alive.

I always imagine walking out of a door with everyone staring after me because there's an air of 'he's not coming back' in the way one coolly leaves without a sound, without a gesture. Maybe there are tinges of 'good riddance!' or 'we'll miss him..' mixed in it, but either way it doesn't matter. I'm not coming back. But then the doors aren't always open. And I'll stumble in the dark, feeling caged and trapped. I'll get tired of not knowing who else is there in the dark room with me. I creep along, I get tired of keeping my guard up and fearing that someone in there is stronger than me who'll turn out to be some life draining zombie or something. So I never do walk out. When I finally find that door, I struggle with all my might to open it and then I run, a mixture of relief, a pure desire to get away and a kind of shame that claustrophobic people feel after getting out of a trapped lift.

And I never do bother to find out what's in the room in the end.

Nights of Arabia.

2009-08-23T11:11:00.000-07:00

Arabian Nights. A thousand tales and one for life. Each with its own intricacy, unbelievable spurts of magic, malice, good and evil.

Sigh, such nights...

A month or so of solitude wasn't actually very different from normal life. And yet it was different. Being alone anywhere else and being alone at home brings about distinctly separate feelings. When home begins to lose its familiarity because its as cold and empty as everywhere else, its not something that can't be handled. But you sure miss having the folks around, even if you've never really had to depend on them much. And you develop a new-found irritation at doing housework. The place chains you down, you have to return to it everyday to face its emptiness, and it gets old after a while.

I'm really glad to hand the place back to the lady of the house today. Prepared to be welcoming, humour her by listening to all the big and little stuff that happened to her for the past month. I'm still glad to have her back. But I didn't get to do much humouring either. For the past 4 hours I've been getting steadily more and more depressed. Its not that I wasn't expecting her to bring more troubles to the pile, but I was hoping she would do something to balance it all out somehow. And like a sun rise over the horizon, it dawned on me more and more as the 4 hours flowed to the present that she was expecting me to do the same for her. And there goes the keystone to an arch.

She seems to have forgotten that I have school tomorrow morning. But it doesn't matter, I don't wish to face anyone just yet. I want to huddle up in my room, where my sphere of responsibility has reduced to from the entire house. I want to think. I want to form emotional barriers. I want to make sobriety an understatement. I want to do something about everything and not expect anything to be done for me, because I've been a little too weak for anybody's liking I'm sure. And then I want to be someone different for it. Someone who can take this life and live it.

And I have no idea why any of the 7 people who carried wooden clubs wrapped in newspaper and assaulted another person in broad daylight at a place as crowded as chinatown would think that they have any chance of not being caught. Yeah we all have such days, and such assholes in our lives. But before I rustle up a coupla guys (7 would be overkill for most of the scum currently existing in my very pathetic life) to beat up some bastard, I would think if I'd wanna end up in jail for it, and then reconsider. And committed on a saturday too. Police investigation takes 48 hours and visits are only allowed after that. Who feels like taking a trip to prison on a monday?

If I did, probably nobody would wanna hear me preach about self-control and not being stupid anyway.

Well, that's 2 things I didn't expect to know tonight. Didn't expect to happen. Didn't expect to need to know how to handle. Such nights.. there's gotta be a thousand and one of them already.

In the midst of all bad illnesses.

2009-08-18T04:53:00.000-07:00

"You've just got to make up your mind to be young!"

Time will heal the scars
Be proud of who you are.

Y'know, I haven't done much meditation these coupla months.

Total Perspective Vortex

The Total Perspective Vortex is allegedly the most horrible torture device to which a sentient being can be subjected.

"When you are put into the Vortex you are given just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it a tiny little mark, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says, "You are here."

Located on Frogstar World B, the machine was originally invented by one Trin Tragula in order to annoy his wife. Because she was forever nagging him for having no sense of proportion, he decided to invent something that would show her what having a sense of proportion really meant. Unfortunately the shock of being placed in the Vortex destroyed her brain, but Trin Tragula's grief was tempered by the knowledge that he had been right and she had been wrong. In Adams' words, the Total Perspective Vortex illustrated that "In an infinite universe, the one thing sentient life cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion."

Never let yourself know how small you really are XD.

The hobgoblins of little minds.

2009-08-05T22:02:00.000-07:00

I believe I used the word 'irritating' when I was talking about all this social maneuvering, manipulations and backstabbing going on behind incredible superficiality. I never said I was worried.

But really, on this aspect, its wayy easier to be a hoodlum. You don't like me? We have a go at it and if I win, that's the end of matters. You wouldn't dare to utter anything behind my back coz you have no idea how far our connections overlap each other and if I hear a word about it, you'd be dead meat for a second time. You wanna have the right to voice your personal judgments? You'd have to up your game. Its just that easy isn't it? Bad guys, yeah probably. But sneaky little rats who think their own opinions mean the whole world? Not a chance, you're either a really big rat, or you're a dead rat.

Its the little people who think they're big that's got a streak in the decent world, because that's why its a decent world: people in it are protected from harm. You're free to be carelessly and selfishly judgmental because you know all you need is a thin veil to claim deniability for this decent world and nobody can stop you from being spiteful. You're not doing anything wrong here because you're judgmental and you've already conveniently judged yourself to be right. Morals don't come in here, the law is protecting you and if a coupla people come along who share your sentiments, there you go, here's your universe right here where everything revolves around what you think.

Half the fun in living life is screwing up other people's lives. The other half is preventing people from screwing up your life. In a cynical austere way, its probably true isn't it? Maybe you don't see it this way because you think you're right and justified in screwing up the lives of the people you dislike and that people are wrong in screwing up yours. But that's just semantics, no matter how you see it, every little universe mashes each other up all the time and that's life.

Can't get around it. Maybe by trying to, I'm being judgmental myself, living in this one-man universe. But hey, why be worried? At least this shows I'm living life in a decent world XD.

Being smart.

2009-08-01T10:45:00.000-07:00

1.20am. Its late at night, technically morning. Surroundings are quiet. Things get to you more. If I remember correctly, its the time when people are most emotionally active. Certain things appeal to, or simply tug at, your emotions, and you react to them more readily.

I'm not very good at handling birthdays, mine or anyone else's. I ignore them when I can. But I don't care if birthdays are significant or insignificant. I just feel birthdays should be happy. I guess that's why I get thoroughly irritated at the throngs of "happy birthday" messages everybody gives each other. Most people treat a person's birthday as a significant event, or an insignificant one. That's not the same as wanting it to be a happy one.

And then wanting it is not the same as making it.

I know I had more than a touch of cordiality to it, but then again, I'm not very good at handling birthdays. So *shrugs* mea culpa, mea culpa.

Y'know, I know I'm smart at certain things. In fact, I'm incredibly smart at some things. But I also know I'm incredibly stupid at a lot of other things. Like handling birthdays. Or keeping a more amiable image, having some social affluence and not give off the impression that I'm an arrogant bastard. Or healing, finding solutions to wide gaping problems that I so easily see. Or handling guilt. I'm vastly imperfect. It just that I'm not very good at hiding flaws behind social pretense or false modesty either, and depending on the circumstances, that could be a virtue, or a death sentence.

I sleep better at night these days. Not well. But better. And I know it doesn't take any amount of cleverness, talent or proficiency at anything just to have a clear conscience. There are a lot of people who are famous and renowned for the things they're good at. I'm smart enough to know that I could be one of those people and I wouldn't be any special. Pedestals are man-made, and people put you on them. But when you fall down from there, its only you that gets the pain. Being down there with everybody else doesn't seem as cool as being nicely superior, winning up there at the top. But at least you've got your feet on the ground, and you know what's holding you up.

I was too stupid to understand that once. Its one of the reasons why I'm smarter.

For every grey cloud, there is a bigger fish.

2009-07-29T06:04:00.000-07:00

I cheered up when I saw that the pope had summoned a bigger fish.

"And now I summon an even bigger fish...!"

The way he looks at me has changed. Pretty schway for someone I don't even know. Yeah he probably heard about me, you probably had something to do with that. And yeah so I'm not gonna go all high handed and assume I'm right, but if I were to venture a guess.. The dude's got trophies. If you don't wanna become one, ditch the bloke.

"I was a dork for believing you weren't a bigger one. But I didn't go around telling people you're one."

But never mind, smug faces mean peace. Means the owners of the faces think they've won. Whatever they think they're fighting for.

Finally listened to Dead by April's debut album. Its very listener friendly. I wonder if its even really metal at all. Kinda mixed though, like each song has a different style. They're nice, they just don't have a Dead By April trademark on them.

This is not going well..

2009-07-28T16:22:00.000-07:00

I'll call it being foolhardy. Got tired of being sick and falling behind, so furiously decided to use the whole day to study, get everything done. Vindictively did all the econs schizz, read up my history, did the lit, practised maths and when I decided to take a break I went to write long philosophical commentaries in various places that nobody will probably even bother to read about anyway. Oh and I watched the debut episode of the mentalist on channel 5. Stuffing all this stuff in together with waiting for an eternity at the doctor's meant that I slept at about 3am.

That was yesterday/earlier this morning. A 3 hour nap later, I'm worse than ever. I am so exasperated that I'm not even bothering to go back to sleep. So I'm here, sniffling, coughing, rasping a little, and trying to stand up as little as possible coz bending up and down is causing tendrils of pain to shoot through the left side of the lower back and ranting at how I can't seem to fault on this on anyone or anything.

I dunno. I juz dunno. Maybe that's how stress is manifesting itself on me. What, one day you're fine and every other day, you gotta kneel by the basin to brush your teeth coz you can't bend your back at all? Shivers and trembles at room temperature? Vomitting out strange greenish looking stuff? I refuse to believe I'm a medical anomaly on that many counts, all within the span of this year. Plus there have been whole weeks when there's totally nothing wrong with me, and then days like these pop out. There has got to be a reason. I've never been this frail. So maybe I don't get enough sleep, but hell I've been used to late nights since.. oh I can't even remember how long it has been. Maybe this will all catch up with me in my old age (provided I live that long) but I'm freaking 19 and an A level year is really not such a nice time for this sorta thing to rebound back like karma.

And the cute thing is I don't even feel stressed, if it weren't for all this. I have hardly had a more stress-free year in my whole life so far. Its just plain normal school life, what is there to find difficulty handling? Nothing to get killed from, nothing to get hurt from, nothing to need to contact 200 over people just to get some information about something that probably takes a Ph.D in nuclear physics to understand, oh yeah plenty of pressure in school life. There isn't even anybody competent picking a fight. Hell, there isn't even anybody picking a fight.

Suddenly I miss my family. They don't bother with much, but if I get into a rampage about how I can't handle studies, they'd probably sit up. Maybe they'll be able to fulfill the occasional responsibilities of a dad and mom and actually come up with something that'll work for their kid.

Right, now I'm being sick and cynical. Great.

More maths, more econs, do that history tutorial on litespeed, I need to re-read Othello and lets have some positive attitude that tomorrow will be a better day~! Until a) some people decide for some reason to dislike me for not turning up, b) the teachers ask me for an excuse for not turning up when its sickeningly obvious they're not gonna give me one, and sooner or later they'll just give me up as a hopeless bum, c) I miss tests and assignments and what not that I have to find time to make up for (which I most probably can't coz I'm busy being sick some more) and d) classmates start thinking I'm like a solar eclipse.

I guess white.

2009-07-27T09:09:00.000-07:00

*ducks the blow that is sure to come* XD.

Quote of the day: The most disappointing thing about learning telepathy is finding out how boring people really are.

Good point. But then maybe that's subject to opinion. There are a lot of blogs documenting their authors lives and opinions and somehow for one reason or another, allowing them to proclaim that they 'have a life', particularly when they are subject to criticism from other proclaimed 'have-a-lifers'.

I have a life. Really.

I also found this from another blogger:

"I have no more will to approach people I am attracted to, and if I do they like someone else... oh dear, it's so depressing being a teenager. Just because it's common doesn't make it any less depressing for each individual experiencing it.

The trend seems to be: I like someone, we don't hit it off, they make out with a complete twat who is interested in them for purely superficial reasons.

Of course, this means that they too are completely superficial, which begs the question: if all the people I like are so easily swayed by the confident advances of superficial gits, are they really for me? But then since this seems to be the case universally, that would suggest nobody is for me. And that's quite bad."

Quite bad indeed. But then most people like to think how everybody else except them is superficial. The reasoning kinda goes like this:

"How can that idiot fall for her just because of her looks.. I'm not that superficial. Omgee look at that girl's boobs!"

*shrugs* How about trying to hit it off with someone that you don't like (in terms of attraction), and then see if the attraction develops as you get to know her better? Actually, how the hell do you like someone you haven't even hit it off with one bit and then say that you're not superficial? If you can justify that you're not, then how can you possibly tell that the twat she's going out with is superficial?

Sounds like a no true Scotsman fallacy, where you're the true guy around.

Wow I'm posting something about a guy who has no idea who I am and will probably never ever find his way here. I have a life. Yeap.

Its been quite a while since I've rambled on something hasn't it?

2009-07-23T06:48:00.000-07:00

I think I've heard it being said before that sarcasm is the lowest measure of wit, or something like that. Oh I dunno, I find the stuff that most people take for humour these days can be far more degenerate. But really, it actually is hard to practise sarcasm that's really funny. I think I'm beginning to appreciate it.

Of course, I s'pose it takes some acceptance at being ribbed and made fun of. Its ironic that its usually the people who probably look sexier with a third breast growing at the top of their heads and have a social life comprising of people who only remotely look bearable when they're wearing a full diving suit with a space suit worn over it while being completely invisble, who like to make fun of other people's looks and appearances. They can't comprehend the amount of hilarity they're emanating, but they're making use of it on others.

If you were smart, you wouldn't make fun of others, you dunno if people are laughing at what you say, or at how such an ugly-ass looking substance that looks possibly like a living organism can even think to make fun of someone else. But then, only about 1% of the world's population are smart enough to know they are stupid, so this point is pretty moot.

And that is why flattery will get you nowhere. In most people's worlds, all praise is fact when directed at themselves. If you ever try telling your bosses that they look great that day, they'll think its butt-kissing, because to them that statement is redundant. Its already a pre-established universal law that nobody even needs to mention! Do you ever go about telling people that the sun will rise from the east the next morning, or that the moon revolves the earth? Of course not. It would be incredibly suspicious if you did.

And certainly, all of you know I represent the epitome of human perfection, so you will all pay this post a lot of attention.

Now this is sardonic humour.

I've never been so willing to have been born.

2009-07-19T07:58:00.001-07:00

哎呀其实这一切都是心态的问题，期望不要太高，小小意思自然也会心领的啦。人家对你客气也算不错了，礼仪至少也得讲究心意，不是吗？

Yeah its been so full of nothings today, I was hardly doing anything either. But I'm happy. And I think I haven't really used that word to describe myself for very long time now. Add a 'very' in front of this word, and we have a once-in-a-lifetime occasion.

Maybe because I decided all the nothings mean something. I think you would too, if you received an empty box for a present (XD) and actually felt touched about that. Strange to put it this way, but a year older, and I feel younger instead.

In fact, it would have been even better if it weren't for you sigh.. Or I should say, the buncha you, but you gave me the news. I'm not saying I'm shocked coz I juz got banished from perfect-land, but of all people to get their asses into such schizz, I wouldn't have thought it of y'all.

yvfgra, v'ir ernyyl arire orra fb unccl sbe n irel ybat gvzr, naq v guvax lbh pbhyq gryy. naq vg jnfa'g orpnhfr bs jung jr'q qbar, juvpu ubarfgyl jnfa'g zhpu, ohg ba znal yriryf rirelguvat nobhg lbh vf jung v arire sryg v jbhyq nfx sbe be qrfreir. naq gung unf znqr rirelguvat nobhg gbqnl fuvar. gung obk bs lbhef vf gbb fznyy gb xrrc nyy zl unccvarff.

Damn, I can't just read that XD.

Someday I'll be good at being human. Maybe.

2009-07-13T07:30:00.000-07:00

Oh yay mid years is going to be a fiasco. I procrastinate too much, been lotsa other stuff during the whole month. I don't regret doing them at all. I just wish I had more time to include studies in. That's the wrong mentality ain't it? XD.

I'm listening to Kitaro now. Yes in a totally non-Alexi Laiho-heavy-metal-\../-you-muthafarker! way, wild long-haired pillocks can also be great musicians.

I sat 3 seats away and it was still easy. The words "YOU HAVE CHANGED SO GODDAMN MUCH" blared across so strongly in the silence, if I had been trying to look at you, I don't even know how far this can go. I haven't been trying for a very long time. A huge wave of dislike came over me, and I felt really contemptuous towards you. About what you've made yourself become. That lasted for an instant, then I stopped. Because that's not my style. I have no right anyway.

Three things I just can't do:
1) Not drink root beer.
2) Pass mid years.
3) Pretend not to care or worry.

Xinhui made me realise I'll be 19th on the 19th of July this year, juz like how she's 18 on the 18th of June. I guess that's some sorta interesting milestone. I don't think I'll be able to have such a long photo spammed post about my birthday like hers, but I've decided to be a lil happier about being one year more decrepit this time, especially since I won't be able to forget it in time. Probably quietly creep up to be one year older before anyone knows it and congratulate myself for a wondrous bit of ninja-ing.

我给的思念很小心

2009-07-12T08:01:00.001-07:00

Choosing to do what has to be done, wanting to do what has to be done and wanting to do it regardless of whether it has to be done or not are subtly different in principle I think. It seems that things are beginning to be increasingly out of our control, and the nuances of our mental approach to reality suddenly becomes of paramount importance.

I did not. You hurt yourself with your own expectations.

I've been living with a lot of guilt for a very long time. I do not take those words lightly. But I've also stopped hurting people the way I did for a very long time. That was deep. That was with explicit intention and aggression, with questionable morality.

I do not control your perceptions, or which emotions you would follow. I just am. I'm fairly certain you know that very well. You would choose your own standing and what you want to reap. But I have always been precisely where I am. Times change, things change, people change, but I don't.

What has to be done, I think, is clear. What remains to be determined is your mental approach.

I will still be here.

Sometimes I wonder where the wind has gone
If life has ever been
Sometimes I wonder how to live alone
In the world within
When your time has come
You know you'll be lonely once again
Life is treacherous
But you're not the only one who must pretend.

Everything leads to suffering.

2009-07-11T21:39:00.000-07:00

Ki-Adi-Mundi: Your thoughts dwell on your mother.
Anakin: I miss her.
Yoda: Afraid to lose her I think, hmm?
Anakin: What has that got to do with anything?
Yoda: Everything! Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

Yeah well you could argue your way around that but still...

Yoda: Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger.
Anakin: But anger leads to passion.
Yoda: Passion leads to jealousy.
Anakin: Jealousy leads to nurturing.
Yoda: Nurturing leads to weakness.
Anakin: Weakness leads to humility.
Yoda: Humility leads to injustice.
Anakin: Injustice leads to heroism.
Yoda: Heroism leads to pride.
Anakin: Pride leads to patriotism.
Yoda: Patriotism leads to totalitarianism.
Anakin: Totalitarianism leads to power.
Yoda: Power... leads to suffering.

Being alive is a path to the Dark Side....

But at least you get a free cookie.

While stocks last. After that, the rest of you can go die.

"I never did like those boom tubes."

2009-07-11T09:10:00.000-07:00

Fast fits the desires, satisfies the immediate need. But I guess its the slow and easy part that does the cultivation.

She's quite a girl huh?

Yeah, good teacher too. But some things can't be taught. Some things you only get to experience.

Like what?

Clarity.

I've been happy before when all I got was 3 minutes with you there the first time you tell me 'bout the skies you like. I was juz sitting there on my own. Never asked for anybody to plomp their asses beside me.

Now I haven't even got 3 minutes. And whether I've got the right to whine for someone to plomp their asses down beside me or not, I'm still sitting here alone and not asking. Not contemplating 'bout pizza either.

I sure hope there isn't going to be a third week though. I've got plenty other stuff to sigh about and accept as part of lousy life.

If everybody's a bigger hotshot than you, and there's just stuff to be done, why should any of it be your problem? The smaller stuff are expendable, and nobody treasures or respects them much. But they also fit in easier, get to slip through the cracks, harder to miss, faster to weave their way through anything. Life's easier when you're small.

A lot of scum are small too though. Somehow you gotta be bigger than that.

Your worry is too luxurious.

2009-07-03T11:16:00.000-07:00

Or so kfan says. And he quoted that from clannad, a tremendously unrealistic anime which features, among a truckload of girls, a guy seducing 2 twins to have threesome sex with him (no, don't take my word for it XD). And the twins are called Ryou and Kyou? How uncreative is that. I shall call them Ryou and Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink. There, now they're properly differentiated.

Anyway it wasn't really a choice. I didn't really have to choose and so I'm not worrying about what I should do. I've pretty much done it. I'm just worried. At... things. Things that are out of my control. How they turn out. Worried at how I might have to watch someone choose. And that worry is not luxurious at all.

I'm making a prophecy here. I am not fully understanding this. And I definitely don't know if I'm right.

The only sense I usually instill in people is that of don't-careness. I'm not very proficient at influencing people's feelings as a direct result of mine. I can't make people happy when I'm happy. Nobody really gets sad when I am either. People just don't care most of the time, and that's because I don't really give them a reason to. Which is why I can't quite grasp a situation where one's own dispositions can actually influence the person to affect his or her attitude, opinion and ultimately emotions, towards others. I sometimes wonder if that's morally fair.

So maybe I'm not personal enough to hurt people. They decide that I'm not going to leave them any money in my will so they don't actually have to bother whether I'm dead or not. But the good thing here is also that I don't owe anybody any emotional attachment. And if you're not this type of person, mighn't it be that you have a form of social responsibility towards those that you have brought close to you? So yes you have a particular need for someone to do a particular something for you, you have this desire to vent some feelings on someone, or you just want someone to be there for you. But what you want, need or desire from these people has completely nothing to do with your responsibility towards them.

Most people agree that you don't just live for yourself. But all of them have, probably at some point of time, done exactly just that.

Now you know why I hate the word responsibility. I have this certain biased opinion that if you don't, you're probably irresponsible.

You cannot find what you haven't lost.

2009-07-02T07:10:00.000-07:00

Because some things can only be found when you let it go. In a broader sense, I guess you can't find yourself either, if you weren't lost. Most of the time, we're stuck at something because we keep trying to unsuccessfully figure out how to solve it with the ways we already know. And then we come across something new, a hitherto undiscovered solution. And you realise you've only managed to know something new, because what you already know isn't enough. Discovery and understanding of anything invariably begins with the acceptance that you are and always face the possibility of being lost.

So we're not actually being stuck at the problem but at our own efforts to run away from being stuck by trying to find a solution that we do not possess within our knowledge. We get frustrated because we are trying to find something without actually acknowledging that we don't know what we are trying to find, and getting to know it. If you haven't lost the idea that you don't have a solution within you, then you can't find one.

That death is an exclusive game is a proclamation that probably signified the height of my cynical thinking. Justified by the fact that I've always had strong reason to believe that I won't live very long, and that people always feel sad when someone dies. Human rationality dictates that its sad when someone dies, you'll naturally feel that way and turn up all grave and sombre at a funeral, even if you hardly knew the person. Life is so that even in your own demise, at your own funeral, amidst everybody mourning and paying respects, you still have absolutely no idea who really cares. You'd only know that everyone possesses the emotional range of a normal human being. For all you know, your death matters exclusively to you, and only you alone.

I'm not so extreme these days. But at every funeral I wonder if the people there are feeling sad because as humans they're emotionally structured to feel so, or because the deceased really meant something to them, or because they're guilty that they never bothered to do something and bring some meaning to the deceased's life when he/she was still around. I guess that's the thing about death sometimes. People start remembering and saying how good you are, maybe because they realise how bad they've been to you.

Of all the things to say..

2009-06-30T07:13:00.000-07:00

Some things need to be emphasised, to make a strong statement.

Like when selling pineapples!!

Other things, sometimes its so hard to even find an opportunity to mention it. You don't think you need to be particularly discreet, but there's no reason to make an announcement out of it either. Its rather like a form of social responsibility, or obligation even. Otherwise, all everybody got to do is to observe the signs, and they'll know what's going on.

Rather like how selling pineapples actually should be.

"Who do you think is the best real madrid player of all time?"

"Claude Makelele."

Some time later..

"So who do you think is the best chelsea player ever?"

"Claude Makelele."

Ok so I'm biased, but that dude's the best holding midfielder in the world, and if you're not those street soccer playing hotshot wannabes, you'd know that's a position that's harder to play than 100 step-overs a minute. So everybody doing all the fancy stuff and being handsome gets all the fame, but I sure ain't ever gonna forget the one who does simply stunning stuff on the field off the ball. The positioning, the timing of the tackles. Man now that I think about it, playing left wing these days sure is easier. Probably coz I don't do it very well =P

Svo hljótt...

2009-06-27T11:13:00.000-07:00

It means so quietly, which at 2.15am, it most certainly is.

Today was post-rock day.

I've decided a lot of silly things over these coupla days. Like deciding that I want to be rich enough to buy my own park, and make it private, and not give a damn whether people think I'm a selfish bastard or not. I'll grow my own herbs there and use them to brew my own liang teh.

I've decided that just like in anatomical terms, I can only truly be alive, when my pulsating bouncing heart is with me. And since home is where the heart is, I find myself needing to move to a rather small home in order to stay alive.

I've decided the previous decision is an example of being figuratively literal, which is different from being literally figurative, since the latter pretty much means the same thing as the second word of the term employed by itself. Of course, I s'pose there are rare instances when 'figurative' is not used in conjunction with language, in which case it would be termed as figuratively figurative? I suspect that is precisely why art is so figuratively hard to figuratively understand.

I've decided that the first live concert I ever attend should be a Kamelot one, but seeing that they've never even been to anywhere in this hemisphere before, I might go against my metal roots and settle for Explosions in the Sky, who have at least been to Malaysia. Its a pretty huge jump I know, and what in the name of roy the grim reaper happened to Children of Bodom or Arch Enemy and guys like that, but that's owing to the another decision I've made, about who's going to be beside me getting whipped by the long hair that I hopefully will grow by then while I headbang.

I've decided to flunk mid-years cheerfully because gawdknows I haven't been very happy for quite a while and one should always try to be happy. Except when the world runs out of cheeseburgers.

I've also decided I should go sleep dammit, look at what the hell I'm writing, why isn't anybody stopping me? Oh right, coz everybody's asleep. Svo hljótt.

The only moment we were alone.

2009-06-26T10:19:00.000-07:00

I checked out the bands you wrote down, and for some reason, my thoughts went straight to Explosions in the Sky.

I'm not surprised. Deathcab struck me as rather intelligently melancholic in their songs. I would have liked them really, if it weren't that they're just so austere. Its not just that I'm half a metal-head and am used to energy, its almost a waste of instruments to make songs sound like a damn poetry recital.

But then again, I have very few love songs. And even fewer that aren't layered with different themes, melancholic, complicated, or in the case of Explosions in the Sky, completely non-verbal. Its just my style I guess. None of these things can be allowed to be easily termed and frivolously put into words.

The biggest something-good of today was a result of a spontaneous decision that arose from something bad. You see how life works out?

Yeah me neither.

I wish I didn't have to do it though. All that trouble and inconvenience I had to go to. I wish I'd always be right there, within reach, and able to do something about everything. Pfeh, and you say you give yourself stress XD.

It through all eternity.

2009-06-25T05:08:00.000-07:00

Dao and xyba to the rescue. With 3000 cards, in little packs that make them look like they were smuggling drugs or something. There's something calming and therapeutic about sorting 3000 cards into 4 piles and talking with cheerful people about all the light hearted things.

I had to return anyway, today was one of the medical appointments set by cmpb at jurong medical centre, and I didn't take the medical letter with me.

Yeah I miss the distance, or lack thereof. Miss the ease in getting vibes, in sharing everything. Miss being able to say so many things and not needing to say anything. Miss finding out more than knowing. Nothing comes close now, and in losing all these, my worry and sense of helplessness doubles when I sense something. Its like a series of ups and downs ain't it.

A moment of perfection has its imperfections.

But a moment, in its own standing, is all eternity.

Yeah I need to talk to her. I have no idea how to put it. If I did, I wouldn't have left in the first place. Sigh..

I don't know when to come back.

2009-06-23T00:25:00.000-07:00

I left.

I have places to go to, but I have no one to run to.

I don't know when to return.

I need to find a voice, a face, something physical, truly manifested in reality, something so real you cannot doubt that it isn't there. And because I have no one to run to, I don't find it.

I don't know when to come back.

I need someone to give me a reason why I shouldn't just leave and vanish. I can't keep myself chained when I'm the one who wants to leave can I?

Maybe I can, didn't I just reassure someone that I won't drift far?

Maybe.

But I don't know when to go back.

Because I don't know when will everything stop being pushed on me.

Sigh.. And things were just... well I can't say things were just going on fine, but they were more or less bearable y'know. And you had to push it.

And y'know what the fucked up thing is? I don't know when to go back, but every single repercussion of this action is still going to be my fault when I do.

My heart in a potion.

2009-06-22T10:15:00.000-07:00

I s'pose it started with me staring at your note with the spanish word emblazoned on it, and at my ECG report that I somehow failed. Rather uncharacteristic of me I think, but I guess that's how it gets with communication that's not face-to-face. You don't get the feel of how or when to say things, and in a I-know-what-to-say-but-I-dunno-the-best-way-to-put-it-across sense, you just wing it and hope the other party's getting the idea.

But of course when you don't see a person often enough, you usually don't have anything much to say, much less put it across to him/her. And yet people are seeing less and less of each other these days. Having a life now consists of having dozens of tiny blips on your screen that represent people ranging from guys who used to go to a kindergarten in the same area as yours (hey that's something in common!) to your mother's hairdresser's husband's nephew-in-law's pastor's little boy slave's grand-uncle's illegitimate daughter (nope, I am totally not dissing facebook).

Like having that muscleman take my blood this morning. Haven't seen him for ages, wasn't much to talk about 'cept the irony of him growing fatter during his time in NS. Get a good PES, he was kinda saying, unless you wanna be stuck in some room getting fat and pushing needles into people's bodies. Actually that sounds to me like a rather powerful position. After all, everybody's at least a lil afraid of needles ain't it (that's why missiles are shaped to look like giant needles.) Which is why overall it still helped to have a friend do it. Even if I hardly know what to say.

Decided to try out another music player. I put in the last song because of the title, I don't reckon anybody'll fancy it really. You won't, I'm sure. So here's another one:

Blossom. The Witch - Still Remains

XD.

But all wounds are there to see

2009-06-20T21:51:00.000-07:00

(I picked something that hopefully came from a happier time)

You wait by the window
Morning's breath on the sill
Idle hands given another try
So you wait and you savour the moment

All these years (actually its only been a lil more than one) I keep trying with this kid. And she never really shows or tells me if it works, if she actually feels better. Or if she's even grateful, or derisive, or just totally nonplussed about it all. So I keep trying anyway, when I can. She says there's this boy she likes, who likes someone else. I think its not difficult for someone to want to like her. Its seems harder to know she likes you, to let you show her any affection. And in her own way, she hardly shows you any either. Its difficult to approach someone like this ain't it.

There really wasn't much else I could do, except somehow managing to feel her moodiness in addition to mine. And I rather think that was her own particular ability.

I realise I call quite some people kids despite the fact that I'm hardly (if at all) older. Its probably because I keep prodding them, getting them to talk about themselves, and listening. I think its the things we don't talk about that makes us old before our time. And if I can, I'd rather nobody else does that. Its an aging society already as it is.

I told him I was angry about it.

He said it sounded like I was hurt

I said, "No. I'm angry."

He said, "Anger tends to cover hurt."

I said, "Tendencies are not absolute."

He said, "This one pretty much is, though."

I said, "Now I'm even angrier."

Stupidest psychiatrist ever. That wasn't tactful at all.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

2009-06-19T08:17:00.000-07:00

She has been at it for more than 3 hours now. I can't blame her, I know where she's coming from, perhaps I know much more than she thinks I do, she never did pay much attention to her son. And that's the darned thing. I wish she knew that I'd feel something about it all, that there is a damn view here on my side. But its about her, and I'm where she pours everything into.

My biggest shortcoming, is that I might not be able to stop wandering. Which is why I've always looked for things to be natural. Because if they weren't, and given my particular ability of perception, as long as there is the slightest reason for me not to be there, you can't possibly imagine how strong the desire is to hoist my mental rucksack and walk out that imaginary door, to move on and never look back.

I don't doubt that I will still be here. I'm just not infallible, and I dunno if I will always yearn not to be.

Someday you will, I'm sure. I think. Maybe. Hopefully. XD. We'll find a way to not let things stick huh. And we'll find a way to anchor each other down.

In order to talk you need to possess a tongue and a larynx

2009-06-18T18:57:00.000-07:00

I wonder if you ever need to say that in a biology class. But I can't think of any other circumstance when you'd actually get a chance to make that statement. Unless you happen to be in some haunted place where a skeleton starts talking to you. If you weren't busy putting as much distance between the skeleton and your ass, saying that would probably stump it and prompt it to make a good comeback, which is probably is to put its bony hands around your neck and squeeze.

Hmm, actually it could be a nice jab towards people who simply talk too damn much and irritate the hell outta everyone around them. Say in a pleasant cheerful voice, "In order to talk, you need to possess a tongue and larynx. Would you like me to remove them from your body?" And then you innocently produce a machete from your bag. Very subtle.

But I guess this is logic, the causation between events. If you methodically backtrack every single factor of a circumstance to its cause, finding a solution to a hypothesis regarding this circumstance invariably becomes apparent. For example:

Man these days sure have been passing real fast.. If I had 2 weeks to train with someone, I'd pick flames, the master of jabs and hooks. Looking at his miss-hit ratio, he would have been the world's greatest fighter if he were born an octopus. Of course, in order to get close enough to hit, this actually means his footwork and bodywork is awesome.

Alternatively, I had a vision of wielding 2 gigantic watermelon lollipops. Hmm..

** You liar, I so did not hear you squeal in delight XD. And it was only 3 bucks, you forgot.**

我的天空今天有点灰

2009-06-17T22:03:00.000-07:00

That's right, I went insane and listened to S.H.E, while musing that the common metaphorical value of gray skies don't seem to apply to you ain't it. Or maybe it does, in a deeply rooted psychological inverse path of metaphysical value and I can continue in this fashion for quite a while but I don't anybody will understand, including me eventually =P

Anyway songs these days hardly have any subtlety in their lyrics, even the metaphors and similes are dismally common ones. On the other hand, I can't imagine how it won't be either.

Bark of ambiguity
Manifested as
Subtle display
Of blatant bears.

Those who claim to understand what that means, piss off. Even I don't know what the hell that means. But this goes hand-in-hand with the fact that nobody seems to like (or understand) words that exceed 3 syllables.

In a deeply rooted psychological inverse path of metaphysical value
I have anchored an existential presence in this tide of social milieu

Yeah, this'll top the charts some day, definitely.

But hmm I s'pose its always been like this, nobody likes long words. If we did, there'd be an Indian James Bond.

"My name's Sai. Sitaramanjaneyula Rajasekhara Srinivasula Laxminarayana Siva Venkata Sai."

"We call him 007, because his name has 7 words in it and nobody can remember what they are."

And that's one of the thousands and thousands of reasons why I don't push it. But y'know kid, not everybody asks questions because they don't know the answer.

I will never sleep alone
Never without you
Whatever you say to me
I already know
If I said something to you
You would take those words
There's so much power in those words

"You tell me everything" and "I know everything" are completely different. And in the idealistic sense of either terms, I would prefer the former.

Hard feelings? No hard feelings.

2009-06-16T06:30:00.000-07:00

I wonder if its accurate, what they say, that its impossible to hate a single person when its everybody that you hate. Because then its not personal, its just a clinical distaste for something that's part of a collective. A minuscule speck of something that will never be worth hating on its own.

Of course, "hate" is a strong word to use, and its not one that I use anymore these days.

But its still not personal.

After all, I understand "professionalism" better than you do.

Its just that I understand "friends" better than you do as well.

You're wrong y'know. I worry plenty about people. I just usually do something more constructive about it than expressing it. And I s'pose its not really personal either. Its like a duty, a responsibility, something I have to do. Sometimes I wonder if I want to, but mostly, I don't need to. I just do it.

Like I did for you. And probably still will for a very long time to come. I'll just have to remind myself not to act upon it.

The world is not a cold dead place. As I keep having to tell myself. Amidst all the cardboard shrubbery that is reality.

One needs neither intelligence nor wisdom to gain power.

2009-06-16T03:24:00.000-07:00

Shen came with news, that everything from all that had been resolved. In complete secrecy. And so for everything that has passed, I can merely say that I have lived through something that did not happen. Not that its a bad thing of course, hell no.

But y'see, the whims of powerful people can be whims, but they nonetheless can dictate how your life will turn out, or whether it will even exist. And if you have sacrificed something before they decide that its no longer important, too bad, nobody gives a fuck about you. If they did, you wouldn't have had to sacrifice anything. We are taught what is right and wrong because statistically speaking, and realistically speaking, most of us will never get this sort of power. But for those who do, there is no such thing as morals if they so wish it to be so. For them the right thing to do is what they would like to do. And if you hold less power than them, that's what governs your laws and your world.

That's why I s'pose it may be normal to dream about it but unless you're that sure you can rise that high and stay there, it might be better to shrink instead. Become so small that you fall through the nets of society and the practical world. Rather than become worthless pawns in a game of gargantuan proportions, you become nothing in the large scheme of things. To me at least, I see a huge distinction between being worthless and being nothing. When nobody knows if you exist, you get to dictate your own value.

Everyday, every moment, someone decides that he or she has the power to do something. And the world cracks a little more. But nobody cares, they're all busy trying to dictate something that's not their own.

If I were a girl, I'd squeal in delight.

2009-06-15T06:51:00.000-07:00

Well, maybe not. The author is 81 years old this year after all. But all the same..

I BOUGHT LILA~!

Ok fine so call me a philosophical geek, but its a book written by a guy with an IQ of 170 who has wandered all over the States on a bike and then all around the world on a boat, and is completely devoid of magic wands or this guy loving this girl who fancies this other guy who has a crush on his pet tortoise (or having the same scenario played out with vampires and werewolves who might have pet vampiric tortoise half-wolves), or guns fighting bigger guns, culminating in giant ballistic missiles (essentially long-range guns) being nullified by galactic hyper quantron Type Muthafarker-damn-big laser guns. So yeah, I like it.

It is probably an unique experience to be reading Body Languages while standing beside someone, on the chapter on How to Break the Touch Barrier and realising that I might just have done it completely wrong with her. Of course, I could have wrapped my non-existent strong muscular comforting arms around her, offer her a jacket I do not own to keep her warm in this chilly 32 degrees celcius weather, or hold the small of her back without risking being off-target and be labeled as a molester, but being the highly ignorant me, I thought I should just stick to punching your arm and squeezing the occasional shoulder. Or whip my imaginary ponytail across your face. I think I should write a book on this too huh.

I realise I have a formidable grandmother. Though she is gone, her spirit is here with us through the post office. While the letters stamped with private and confidential might actually be relevant, I do wonder who is the idiot who thought to send a Lifestyle magazine to someone who has passed away for more than a decade.

Actually whether he was successful or not doesn't matter to me one bit. I just wanted to know how you feel, the depth of it all on you. I can't really say for sure what I wanted to do with that knowledge, but I felt that I should know. I think I got my answer anyhow, not wholly, but it doesn't matter, there are thousands and thousands of thousands and thousands (XD) of reasons why I won't push it.

Smiley face. *stifles a laugh*

Thousands and thousands and thousands...!

2009-06-13T07:25:00.000-07:00

Today, I've learnt that hundreds-and-thousands is the name for a type of topping that is sprinkled on the top of desserts and pasties while "thousands and thousands and thousands (etc)" is juz a very cool phrase that causes your breath to make a nice sound as it passes through your teeth when you pronounce it. I think that the latter is much more interesting. It is also numerically larger.

I slept through most of the final event that I would ever participate in as part of the journalism team today :O Was really tired from the night before. Well I dunno, its certainly been a fun time with this batch. And 3 years in this, its a lil weird to say this for journalism, but I'll never stop thinking that I'm a part of it I think. I liked that I've never skipped or missed anything of journalism unless I had to, and that there were never any politics. Somehow under the mantle of journalists, everybody could just get along with each other reasonably well, from the quiet ones to the weird ones, from the 06 solemn as hell batch to the rather diversified 07 batch to the really wacky 08 batch. I've been in better teams, more efficient, effective and successful, but I've never been in a team as easy to fit in as journalism. For the rest of my JC life, it will always feel weird not to head for meetings on wednesdays.

外练筋皮骨，内练一口气。

哎呀。。我这气也快跟不上了。。我本想说自己老了，但我看其他老人家练太极拳也比我行，我这内气还真说不上来是练老的呢。。

I kept thinking you'd have this burst of creativity and leave something unexpected in my hdd.

I think I think too much XD. As a figure of speech of course.

Play by everything you see and do.

2009-06-10T07:15:00.000-07:00

In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest proposal that our universe is simply one of those things that happen from time to time.

- Edward P. Tryon

There is nothing within any universe, any world, that suggest that you should understand why anything happens, including the existence of any and every thing itself. I would know, I understand a lot more. Concurrently, I also understand a lot more about what I don't understand, that is to say, there are also a lot more things that I don't know.

Humans like to come up with explanations for everything. The world is going to outlast us, it has been here since the beginning of time for all we know, and we've only been around for the past coupla thousand years. When we're gone, the world will still be around, but all our explanations about everything won't be.

Which is why the whole saving gaia bullshit, like all the rest of the we-noble-humans-must-save-the-planet propaganda, is crap. The planet's always going to be around, even after we're not. If we save ourselves now, maybe we won't grow extinct that soon, that's all.

Damn how many times am I s'posed to refresh the page within what, half an hour? XD

Except from the general negativity, I can't admittedly say I gathered much. Maybe I will one day. Maybe I still have some audacity to believe I'm adequate enough to make a difference somewhere. And maybe I will.

You're not misery's crown.

The days stretch out now and I think I'm more free, in all senses of the word. When I'm moving on, I finally feel like I have enough time, time to do everything, go everywhere, think every thought. I was never really good at waiting. Its just in my nature to always stay for some things, and flicker in and out for others.

Play by heart - Play by soul - Play by feel.

2009-06-10T06:49:00.000-07:00

"When you finish the tales," he said, "when your eyelids have poured out all their ink between us and the Garden is black with them, will you leave me as Oubliette left Seven? As Seven left the Gaselli and the Manticore? Will you go off into a place I cannot touch and never think of me again?" He swallowed hard. "Or will you remember that there was once a nice boy who was not afraid of you, and walked in the Garden with you, and listened to you, and did not interrupt more often than is polite? Will you sit at a table of blue crystal with parrot wings for legs and fabulous monsters all around, eating lunches of leek and rose and think to yourself: I wonder whatever happened to that boy, where he is now, if he is married, if he is fat, if he has kept the Garden well trimmed?"

He could hardly look at her; his hands shook like brown cattails.

The girl scowled at him. "When I finish the tales, when my eyelids have poured out all their ink into your hands and I have nothing left for myself, will you run back to the palace like a good prince and leave me to my fate, just as Hind left the beast who loved her? Will you go into rooms at whose doors I am not even allowed to knock and never think of me again? Or will you remember that there was once a nice girl who did not ask too much of you, and walked in the Garden with you, and told you stories that made your head swim with all manner of strange fishes, and thought so much for your safety that she showed you all the secret places that were once hers alone? Will you sit with a Sultan's turban and crown on your head, a Sultan's bangle at your wrist, at a golden table borne up by the backs of perfumed slaves and think to yourself: I wonder whatever happened to that girl, where she is now, if she is married, if she is fat, if she has made friends among the demons?"

Neither of them spoke for a long while, the air between them heavy and sad as old rain. The girl clenched her teeth against the reassurances that yearned to come. They were soft and sweet and untrue. She did not know--how could she know?--what would happen.

"I think," the boy said, "that I would bring supper out to these stones, out to this lake, for fifty years, for all of my reign, in hopes that you would come back, with fresh ink on your eyes, and new marvels to tell. I would take down all the Garden gates, and someday there would be an old, white-haired man with green apples and roast dove on his napkin, sitting by the water and asking himself whatever happened to that girl."

-- In the Cities of Coin and Spice , by Catherynne M. Valente

Fantasy, I realise, isn't always about imagination. There is this subtle prod, the promulgation of that rare art: belief.

And fantasy shows that all worlds are so different from each other. But yet so much within them are the same. Perhaps you will be you, and everything will happen exactly the same way, except in differing circumstances.

不情愿也不得不放开

2009-06-09T08:27:00.000-07:00

Its been a very disappointing day for a multitude of reasons. I s'pose I should be sympathetic, understanding, worried, or at least accepting. But I've lost all vestiges of grace. It was never my forte anyway.

I've been staring at the night sky, in between making inconclusive agreements, discussing inconclusive propositions, having inconclusive arguments and responding to inconclusive smses. Yeah I wish I could howl at the moon too.

If all of you are just going to keep bouncing around halfheartedly, I can't possibly have time to manage everybody. You will fail to reach your aim and I will fail to honour my promise, you will lose your part of the deal and I will lose mine. And we will have to face the reality that this thing just isn't working out.

At times like this, I always think "I'd get it right if only I knew how!" But maybe I just can't. Maybe I'm just not adequate. Maybe I'm not strong enough, not persuasive enough, not emphatic enough, not charming enough, not human enough. But I'm bitter all right, I just dunno if its more because of how much I've done, or because of how much I thought you would do.

I don't care if its my responsibility or my fault or to my own dishonour, I've had enough of obligations. I've made my last stabs to be decent, I can now fume in peace.

Why does it always seem like I'm the only person who's not allowed to let anybody down.

I can't write these storylines without you.

2009-06-06T21:29:00.000-07:00

I made it to chapter 4 and I think that's that really. I don't really have the time anyway.

In any case, I never did see the allure of my own writings, and I guess its the same with everybody. You don't look at something you've written and can really bring yourself to say "hmm, this is really good!"

My days have been filled with obligations for the past week. And that's despite the fact that there is once again no one around to control how I live life. Strange really, after a while you just let yourself be bound by the chains of reality and no one has to be there to guard over you.

It doesn't matter which cause, as far as I'm concerned, long bouts of wandering for you are synonymous with me. You don't go far on your own, and who the hell else is quirky enough to 'not drag' you walking for hours? XD

Quote of the day:

"Gyara Spearhurler would have been renowned for her deadly accuracy, if it weren't for her deadly accuracy."

Found this off a magic card's flavour text. But I s'pose its true, there are very few instances where you cannot be famous precisely because you are very good at something. But that doesn't mean such a situation does not exist.

Hmm, I think if it comes to magic, I might play a wolf deck.

The Heart of Everything

2009-06-04T01:38:00.000-07:00

Looked at but cannot be seen.. Listened to but cannot be heard.. Grasped at but cannot be touched.. These three elude our inquiries and hence blend and become one.
Not by its rising is there light,
Not by its sinking is there darkness
Unceasing, continuous
It cannot be defined
And reverts again into the realm of nothingness
That is why it is called the form of the formless
The image of nothingness
That is why it is called elusive
Meet it and you do not see its face
Follow it and you do not see its back
Yet crystal clear like water it seems to remain.
... Continuously, continuously it seems to remain. Draw upon it and it serves you with ease...

I believe this comes from 道德经 by Lao Tzu. More certainly, I believe its talking about the epitome of quality, what they call 道. Quality governs what is considered good about everything. The ultimate meaning of things. The ultimate meaning between things.

The ultimate meaning between people.

Formless, elusive, undefined, but ceaseless, continuous, and ineffable (yes I still remember this word XD)

I never said it was a good dream *wink* It was juz as matter-of-fact as I had said it. And certainly, dreams are known to be mostly formless, elusive and undefined. At least, mine usually are.

So don't take too much by it. You can't XD.

Even the best will make mistakes that they don't commit.

2009-06-03T06:49:00.000-07:00

I will remember that.

I think there will be times when I miss the solitary nature of my sojourns and would rather not share the experience with someone else. But if I am not alone, I would rather be with you. I find that we're not two people, we're like one and a half. Whether you're on the left or the right, a part of you is centered within me. And I gladly diminish.

People often have this annoying habit of questioning and challenging who you are or demanding that you be who they want you to be. The alternative is to treat you like you don't exist. Sometimes don't you just wish you really don't?

Well I do. Hate the idea of life after death. But until I cease to exist, being diminished is just fine.

Do we really have to put anything in words, specify and define everything neatly before we ourselves can understand, and then everyone else leaps to analyse and discuss this amongst themselves? My dream is that we don't. But that's just me.

Speaking of dreams, haha.. y'think I'd give a lie to sweet talk anyone? I've always been very matter-of-fact. Reality is what's ever-changing and so thus statements that record it.

Its not a good time to go overseas..

But I guess she has to go.. Would make me a lot less worried if she weren't alone though.

Working through pain.

2009-06-01T06:19:00.001-07:00

Pain cannot be overcome.

No, but it can be put into its place.

That place is where pain can work for you?

Pain doesn't work for you. You work through pain.

Does it scar?

What pain doesn't?

Scars. There are two types of pain. The exterior, which is governed by forces we cannot control, and the interior, which we can. Scars. Pain cannot be overcome. So there are two types of scars.

Willpower can only get you so far. You will never be unscathed. And that is something those who are cannot understand.

I failed you. You came asking for help in dealing with your pain. But your pain is beyond my abilities. Perhaps yours as well. For your pain is leading you down a path you desire.

Once again, I am left with much to contemplate about.

I dunno why my conscience gnaws at me every year to do something for my mum's birthday, she never does anything for mine. I think if it weren't for the pain she had to go through on that day 19 years ago, she probably wouldn't even remember the day, hell my old man doesn't. But never mind I'll keep the bitterness down to a minimum. Its a way of dealing with pain no?

Formless.

2009-06-01T00:54:00.000-07:00

The start of the day (which began right from the end of the previous day) was the only bad thing. I'm on the verge of giving up. He is still thinking like an athlete, relying on speed and strength, refusing to grasp style or mind. And because my current condition is far from an athlete's, I don't gain his respect. He challenges me, because he thinks he can defeat me, completely disregarding why I defeat him again and again. Sigh.. how do you even begin to help someone when his own illusion of superiority is so strong even the reality of his own failures cannot penetrate it..

Using weakness to counter strength is uncommon but not unusual. He's so obsessed with trying to hit me as powerfully and as fast as he can, he's totally oblivious to how I'm not resisting his strength but redirecting his force against him and moving as little as possible against his superior speed. And the more I tell him that, the stronger and faster he aims to be, which is completely beside the point. I sometimes wonder how long has he been training. He possesses the physical aspects, but nothing more. Nothing noticeably more. He is so going to get creamed.

Otherwise though, I am so surprised at how well the day went. I keep fearing that I had brought you too far though, literally speaking XD. I juz did what I naturally always do, being formless, constant and completely opposed to dictating what reality should be. I would have tried my best to endear, and I think you won't deny that it would be a considerably accurate effort, but I didn't find any value or point to it at all. I don't have a motive to fulfill after all. I rather think that leaves off a lot of pressure XD.

I don't need a camera to capture a moment for all eternity.

And this watermelon lollipop tastes rather interesting.

When it comes to me, we don't deal in fists.

2009-05-28T05:49:00.000-07:00

Apart from people in this other community who knows, I realise the people who get along with me best are those who don't probe. Even the guys never do, and they've known me for years. I s'pose that's why I've grown used to not saying anything.

Today, I found out that yet another person don't like me because he thinks I'm faking or he's not believing something that I DID NOT SAY. Sounds incredibly stupid but that's how it is. It'll actually be amusing if it wasn't so perplexing.

1) I didn't tell you because I don't want you to believe me, I don't think that you deserve to have an opinion about it at all.

2) How the hell do you not believe or think I'm faking something that YOU COMPLETELY DON'T KNOW ABOUT anyway?

If you're disbelieving your own opinion of what you think I'm faking, then its all just you ain't it. I'm completely not in the loop. I never told you about my life, nor have I ever found an urge to prove my way of life or experiences. Whatever you heard from others/thought I was insinuating about but never sought to confirm with me is your dishonour and petty flaw. If you don't want to believe what you never knew, then that's your problem, but you had better not get in my way.

Clement never made much of you. And if it weren't for aloy I wudden even have a reason to acknowledge your existence. Hardly anybody else does. The day I have to bring myself down to the level where I have to lie or fake something to a person like you will be the day you go down with my honour. I'll make sure of that even if I end up half dead for it.

On a cheerier note,

01101001001000000110110001101111011101100110010100100000011110010110111101110101

Apparently this is 'I love you' in binary XD. Man same old tiak, she never really changes. Still the most unlikeliest person to cheer you up at the most unlikeliest time that you expect someone to.

I'm gonna send you a reminder tomorrow.

Clutch my last breath, don't let go. It was for your sake that I feel so old.

2009-05-26T07:48:00.000-07:00

The 22nd storey isn't nearly at the altitude where a lack of oxygen can get to your brain. Of course, if you were to jump out of your window, you'd certainly die, which I guess is a form of thinking that never quite sunk into me, since I live on the 3rd floor. Jumping down from my house means I'll probably break a leg (not in the drama sense), while crashing into a lot of the mangoes from the mango tree that's right outside my window. The pigeons would have a field day.

Oh I've been a jerk pretty often. Mostly unknowingly, unwittingly, and sometimes vindictively. I guess its not easy to be decent, particularly when your sense of perception keeps showing you traces of malice, selfishness and general ineptitude hidden behind a cardboard world that you keep having to take extra care not to ruin. One wrong step and you squash a cardboard bush or crash into a cardboard tree, and suddenly the real monsters of the forests rear their ugly heads, very often attacking you from behind.

Mountains are not meant to be flown over, I think. But even so, there are very different ways of climbing them. I'm not falling. I'm just climbing with as little effort as possible, without desire, which is perhaps something you've never known someone to do. But the thing is I'm not straining to get anywhere. The reality of your nature should determine your speed, that's what's natural. I don't climb as the means of reaching an end. Its only when you're not thinking ahead and just trying to get to the top that every step becomes an unique event in itself. Note the leaves, the contours of the land, how each rock is visibly shaped, how blue the sky is. These are the small things you should notice anyway. To live only for some future goal is shallow. Without the top, you can't have any sides. But the sides are what defines the top. And that's where I want to savour every moment of a climb, at the sides, where all life is sustained.

Your expectations of a teacher is gratifyingly low. But my role as a teacher of the blade currently isn't going very well either, and I'm pretty sure part of that is my shortcoming. Sigh.. And I realise that's the only thing that's remotely connected to the title of this post.

And the big key to the gate.

2009-05-25T08:09:00.000-07:00

I found this on yingyi's blog or zephy, as she affectionately likes to call it/her/him. That's nice, though I look at my blog url (or my previous one for that matter) and I rather think I can't emulate her on this..

I would have told them that they didn't understand my mom.

But maybe you're given the big key to this gate. Or maybe I've got yours. *shrugs* Not that it matters, I've got lockpicks and hell, what kinda gate can't be climbed over eh XD.

I'm not a good teacher. 2 paragraphs in and I already knew what the problems were, but for the hell of me I had no idea how to put it and explain. There's just the way words strike out at me, like signs and images that I cannot interpret do, and the sentences, the ideas behind them, just seem wrong. There is this austere professionalism that needs to be mastered perhaps. This is the question given. You need to answer the question efficiently and effectively. That is your first and foremost priority.

I dunno how jia sheng manages it. He teaches at school in the day, does remedial, steals some dinner while waiting for me to arrive predictably late and still can look less dead than I do. Having lessons with him makes you feel guilty about how you're not more alive in everything you do. It also gets a bit irritating when he gets into calculator mode, solves sums faster then you can key it into your calculator, and then expects you not to use the calculator as well.

I didn't know what to do or say, so I just sat there staring at you when you're not staring back.

Afterthought

2009-05-25T07:29:00.000-07:00

Actually, I do know.

Guess you'll just have to read from 4 posts back XD.

2009-05-24T10:19:00.001-07:00

Developing Sentiment du Fer comes down to having a lot of experience and practice, almost to the point of reaching perfection in swordsmanship. But I think similarly, interaction with a person allows you the same insights into his or her immediate intentions, and you'll know what to say or do naturally in reponse to these intentions. Its just a matter of practise, of having to meet and deal with a large number of people in your life, and knowing exactly what you want with them. And how much you are willing to manipulate them.

But you don't know what drives this person, what makes him or her a combatant, what is his or her mindset and principles; in other words, the essence of someone. The underlying form, the part of someone that transcends morals, or principles and even emotions. There is no right or wrong, it isn't about how you make me feel. Its about who you are, just as it is. The ultimate understanding.

Not everybody believes in this concept. But I do.

But I don't think I do it very well..

2009-05-24T10:15:00.002-07:00

Classical fencing depicts the concept of Sentiment du Fer, crudely translated from French as "feeling the iron". It is the rare quality of a swordsman to extend his sense of touch from his hands on the grip right to the tip of the blade itself. When the blades come into contact in a bout, the combatant feels his opponent's blade, where it is subtly tilted towards, which direction it might be headed, how much strength is coiled behind the next move etc, thereby gaining some insights into his adversary's intentions. Feeling the blade also helps wield the blade with better precision and finesse; like an extension to your own body, you know how and where to place it, and does so as quickly as though by innate instinct.

And so I shall write in fragments too.

2009-05-24T10:15:00.001-07:00

Rudimentary understanding of a person isn't difficult to get.

Outshines all reasons inside.

2009-05-24T09:12:00.000-07:00

Blank face in the windowpane
Made clear in seconds of light
Disappears and returns again
Counting hours, searching the night
Might be waiting for someone
Might be there for us to see
Might be in need of talking
Might be staring directly at me

Listening to Opeth's 2003 album, Damnation. They're lyrically brilliant, but I reckon this album can cure insomnia.

You just have to write in fragments don'cha. It does make it a little difficult to see what's aimed at me and what's not. Continuity, one of those concepts that empiricists don't believe in, because it cannot be grasped by our senses, yet so important in that dark mysterious abyss between the mind and the heart. Every gap, between the pieces, that say 'you must stop'. Bottomless valleys that ends everything if you cannot jump across. Every gap like the night sky that always seems boundless because you don't know where it starts and where it ends. And somehow its like the real you reside in those gaps *shrugs* Its why I said I can't grasp the essence of you.

I'm the anchor of your sorrow.

2009-05-23T00:20:00.000-07:00

Or at least, I try to be. People are fallible like that, everybody in your life will one day let you down. Its best to look to the self when in doubt. But as it is, we all keep faith.

Was wondering if we could sneak up the rooftop but whaddaya know, they padlocked and bolted the place up. Yeah, lockpicks wudden have been very useful here, you'd need like a crowbar to pry the thing open. So *shrugs* ended up 2.5 metres in the air at some random playground in aljunied, talking about all the stuff I missed for the past 2 weeks coz of drama night.

I dunno how dao took the picture but yeah.

彼说长此说短
不关己莫闲管

Everybody's always got something to say about each other, this opinion and that opinion. But if its not something that's directly got to do with me, I ain't bothering.

When you're facing someone, the rest of the world's behind your back. You can't stop everybody from talking, but you can stop caring about what they're talking about. I only want what I can see in front of me. I rather think that's enough. If somebody's got a real problem, step in front, choose a weapon and stand 5 paces across.

That's turning into a catchphrase. I've had to say it a lot yesterday. Bugger kept trying to cheat by standing further away coz he's taller and got more reach. Doesn't wanna move his legs. Classically trained practitioners like us are always obsessed with footwork. You can look like superman but if your legs are like chunks of wooden blocks, being able to reach far is juz gonna trip you up.

I'm getting forced to drink liang teh.

Liang Teh replaces Coca-cola?

"Sir would you like to have some Liang Teh to go with your steak?"

Wouldn't it be nice if the world was Liiiang Teh~

Tonkat Liang Teh.

For better cleaning purposes, flush your toilet with Liang Teh!

Wolverine's claws are made from solid Liang Teh.

Liang Teh and Zhu Ying Tai.

This is making so much sense.

About 6 feet deep.

2009-05-21T02:20:00.000-07:00

From the time Mr S cancelled history remedial, the decision was hovering somewhere in my head, ceaselessly ubiquitous. I had to make the challenge. I had to see how much better you were. And how much better you could be.

Do you realise you were facing someone who is nowhere near peak physical condition, with a lower back injury and a wonky left elbow that seems to affecting the shoulder too, someone who can't even play a goddamn handball match without looking, and feeling, like he'd been sitting in a wheelchair for the past decade?

And you dare? You dare to lose? Who gave you the fucking right to dishonour all of them with such a ridiculous effort. You're not happy that the person you replaced has come to challenge you? You think you don't have to prove yourself to be better? You're not trying out for a fucking manhunt, you think bulging muscles and cool mannerisms are all you need? You can be pathetic all you want in your world, where people fawn all over you, where you think you have the right to decide who is inferior to you. But in this world, if you think you're so cool, you had better start doing something cool, like surviving what you thought you were good enough to live through.

You can diss me all you want behind my back out in the real world, but you have no facade to hide behind when you're standing 5 paces away from me holding that in your hand. And I will not allow you to be the sissy that you don't want people to know you are either. Unless the rest of them stops me personally, I'll treat you like a 6-year old holding a toy lightsaber if I have to, until you learn what you need to be, and be it.

I just defeated an opponent faster, taller, with greater reach and at least 2 times stronger than me, in combat. And I am thoroughly unhappy about it. Imagine that. No wonder people try to diss me so much.

Nobody's really happy, they don't wanna think that I can't be replaced, and I'm not helping things. But this goof has to be better than this, else he's gonna get slaughtered.

Perkele.

Sometimes, you just know its good to be alive.

2009-05-20T09:52:00.000-07:00

I woke up on the bus to school this morning to see xuan xuan slowly blinking her eyes open beside me, seems like neither of us knew we were sleeping on the damn bus beside each other, and I reckoned that was pretty much an omen to signify a quirky day.

So it was. In no large amounts, and most things remained the same, the good ones and the bad, but still! For one thing, it was a darned sleepy day but I kept awake somehow. Till now.

And yes, I have a problem with another name. In exactly what country do people name their kids draleksi? And this guy's about as crapped up as his name sounds.

If your opponent wields two blades, he's either very good, or very stupid. If you're not taking chances and flipping the middle finger to fate, you'd assume the worse. In which case, be afraid. Be very afraid. Then face your fears, pull off the best you can and hope to hell you don't get hurt too badly. Before you think about the adversary, look within yourself. Get rid of the psychological barrier. Even if you were facing an 8 armed octopus, every strength has its weakness.

Of course, the presence of this guy juz makes my life easier *rolls eyes*. Somebody get him a damn checklist..

I'm sorry, but do not ask. There are very few boundaries in my life that I won't let you cross. Hardly any. Very unfortunately, as things invariably turn to be now and then, this is one of them.

Butterfly in French is le papillon.

In Spanish: la mariposa

In Italian: farfalla

In German: der Schmetterling

In Russian: babochka/baboshka (or something like that..)

In Basque: tximeleta (pronounced chee-may-lay-tah)

Yes well you get my point.

Wilted scenes for us who couldn't wait.

2009-05-19T05:28:00.000-07:00

D'you how many times the word 'excuses' has been used on me these coupla days? Neither do I, I lost count. And I'm the only one who can see the sardonic humour here, because I'm the only one who can see that y'all are each other's 'excuses'. Y'all are just unknowingly channeling accusations in a circle back to yourselves through me.

There are no such things as excuses in my life, those are luxuries that I was never afforded. I pay every single consequence of every choice. Nobody gives a damn what I go through, as long as I fail to do what I'm s'posed to, its my fault. I was brought up to anticipate a world like that. You don't want excuses. You're never letting me have one either.

So I'm going to get blamed anyway. I'm going to have to take responsibility anyway. And you don't care about the reason why. I'm not looking for concern or sympathy. And its perfectly rational for you to not bother about what's coming onto a guy who's not worth anything in your life. So there's no need to be falsely sanctimonious, to preside over and give judgment to an 'excuse' that you're really not concerned about anyway.

It is my fault, and I will try to make amends. But life deals me this hand, and I choose to play it the way I do. My conscience is clear. I will make no excuse and give you the satisfaction of tearing it down simply because you can.

I'm sorry. Its just that, like I said, 160 characters aren't enough to do schizz and I was too tired to try. And I get like that, when I'm tired of the world, I just melt away from it. You were getting really sweet anyway, and I'm not sure I deserved that. Self-deprecating, yes I know XD.

Stay with me a while.
Rise above the vile.
Name my final rest,
Poured into my chest.

If y'all could wait a little while. But y'all can't. Because Time doesn't. So its not your faults. Its just how the world is like.

I do not care about the things that I ought to.

2009-05-17T09:25:00.001-07:00

Someone asked me what I'd do if I had a lot of money, and I said I'll get myself a cheeseburger once every coupla days (yeah I wasn't kidding with you on that, I do like cheeseburgers XD). And I haven't forgotten the old question about what I would wish for if I had a wish. A rose from the gardens of helsinki. Something nicely unattainable, which doesn't ruin the essence of a wish, but something with a completely negligible value to the world.

I dunno. I have no brilliant plans or wish to fix anything, change the world, have some impact to let my name endure through the ages somewhere. Perhaps with great power comes great responsibility and I'll start to feel socially inclined to be noble if I actually get the power but since I currently don't, I only want to accomplish all the simple things. In my less analytical, philosophical, what-is-the-aesthetic-value-of-life moments, I think beauty lies in simplicity. You go in miles-worth of mental loops around every single idea (and I have on quite a few), you'll realise that anything that can attain both classical and romantic beauty often lies outside human rationality.

If I died right now, I would regret not having visited the world's largest cave (which is in Sarawak), not being able to see the moon again, not being able to persuade the guys to give up what I did, not being able to read your gp essays yet to find out just why the hell are you failing and that I wouldn't be able to eat another green apple, to hear the crickets again in the forests, or to walk another mile, just travelling and not intending to arrive anywhere.

I think I'm seriously not socially indoctrinated.

When the morning after turns to day.

2009-05-16T20:43:00.000-07:00

I woke up and sat on my bed for quite a while and thought back to the beginning when this all started. And only then did it strike me that its really over. I have no idea why I consented to join, but I didn't stay on because I wanted to perform, because I like acting (which honestly, I can't say I do) or anything of that sort. Abstractions such as entertaining an audience, making a wonderful performance, or having a perfect drama night don't mean much to me. I don't think I was ever loyal to drama itself on principle.

I worked on my character, my lines, because you wanted me to. I came for rehearsals because you asked me to. Much the same way I kept doing the things I felt increasingly guilty about doing because my whole crew was in, being the best as we were. Much like how I took up a blade again and again because I was needed to. And I only realised with a start on the day itself that I actually had to perform it, in front of an audience. And so I did, but not because this is what I've been working towards, but because this is what you've been working towards. All of you.

I got some rather good remarks about my acting surprisingly, particularly from tina, though I think its characteristic of me to be completely unaware of any ability to act at all on my part, I'll just have to take their word for it. Conversely, I didn't get much applause, much flowers, much requests to have photos taken on either nights or anything else pertaining to my popularity, or lack thereof. But none of these really matter. I made the choice to be in it, I stood by it, and I'm pretty damn sure I didn't let anybody down, least of all you. In my book, I think I did alright.

And ultimately all those chunks written above is negligible. I guess we all might have our own reasons for choosing to be part of this, but the deal is that we made a concerted effort together to make it work. There was a sense of loose camaradarie, there were friendships if not cordial relationships being formed, and as part of something big, I think we all did good.

And sigh.. its time again, but yet so different. The hell y'all will put your asses on the line without me watching your backs, I don't care whether you want me to or not. I just wish we all didn't have to do this. But these are your choices. I just make mine.

Give me a moment that the world won't need.

2009-05-15T10:57:00.000-07:00

I think I've settled on Omen, because nobody ever digs Nothing the way I do, and while you're not just anybody, I realise that precisely coz you're not, you might have just changed my own feelings towards it.

I wouldn't have been able to help much, if you hadn't let me. You breathed, because you allowed yourself to want it as much as I do. I don't think I really did much more than possess the desire. I have been very chuffed right from the start to know that I have a standing in your life. But this is, still, very much your life.

Memory is fiction. We select the brightest and darkest, what affect us most, and craft our own image of what everything we remember is like. When you are not there, you are not there. The things we forget may as well never have happened. Its not so easy to stop something from seeping into the cracks and crannies of oblivion. I have been my own form of meta-fiction for many people, their memories containing some very fascinating stories what I've done. But the transitory nature of life is such, that none of these really lasts much longer in their meanings than the real me.

What I can achieve is certainly much more. The fear I face is that even being the best might never be quite enough. I'm very self-deprecating, I know, but in this regard, ability doesn't really measure anything after all. I don't know what it is that I can do that actually means as much as I want it to. I was never very good at interpersonal communication.

But this is you. And even at 3am, during the times when I am most lucid, I really dunno what to say. Its in a good way though, that much I do know. There are so many more things that extend beyond words, and maybe, just maybe, find a peaceful existence in another world, where it becomes right to be.

Double entendres.

2009-05-14T08:08:00.000-07:00

The world can easily treat you like you don't exist when you disappear. But strangely enough, your mind will always be chained to some people, waiting, hoping. And so you start wandering the fringes of existence, not knowing what to do, until someone comes to bring you back, or to tell you that you're free to move on.

I looked at the not-so-blue sky today, and wandered.

You're not going to have much chance or reason to stick around with me. I can keep up the randomness, but real life is going to suck on this aspect y'think? Why I chose to disappear isn't going to be important soon, if it ever was, because I'm not going to be able to even appear in your life.

We call this living life with honour. That there are many things in life that are out of our control, but no matter which way the world tilts, we hold true to what we do, and our standings to the people who matter. You've done it.

I'm trying.

Mono no aware. This is the beauty that time will bring and take with it. And through it all, I'm just trying to be true, even if I have to let go.

2 more days of smiles and bows, of how-can-I-help-yous and facing the universe that a lecture theatre can hold. After that, what I am about to do, is nothing new to everybody who's been in my world enough.

Don't be afraid, of what they'll say.

2009-05-12T08:22:00.000-07:00

Well no, I s'pose you could call it a different type of fear. I seem to be rushing through life these days, intent on reaching.. reaching.. somewhere in the future? I get things done, yeah sure, and not incompetently or ineffectively either. But I rather think I should pause and give some thought to my courses of action. I seem to be causing a lot of undesirable side-effects that I never meant to, by rushing ahead and trying to accomplish everything, as much as I can, as fast as I can, without due consideration of circumstances.

The talk with the principal didn't altogether go very well, seeing that he never had a case against me in the first place, with the police already deciding not to take any action. Yes, my image worked against me, he was being rather sarcastic, and it took a lot of self-control to suppress the desire to return the favour. But to be the first student in the school history not to get expelled after being made a police case didn't exactly arise out of any act of malice, mischief or defiance after all, I found myself excessively abused for an instant of carelessness. And I don't think I reacted very gracefully to that, even if I did remain cordial and polite.

Right, and the poor guest lecturer during econs.. I think I made the unusually grave mistake of parroting an etiquette that was instilled in me but I never fully grasped the concept of. I said the right words, as was what is termed to be customary. In this case I rather think it was the tone that worked against me. I s'pose I must have sounded rather superior or just plain assholey, and I really didn't mean to, my mind was just racing ahead of everything already. 10 mins into his rather inaudible talk, I knew what I was going to say, and I moved on to the more worrying task of finding out what's bugging landin enough to make him mobilise my former crew. He was never one to be easily ruffled, and he knows the risks. Yeah yeah so I'm out and hung out to dry, but that doesn't mean I don't worry for the guys for old times sake.

So now I get a little more famous once again for all the wrong reasons, and I miss my talisman a little more each day. Emotionally, and practically speaking, I can let it go. But I think sometimes it juz serves as a constant reminder, being hung around my neck, that no matter how dangerous and inappropriate it is, at least I'm still damn good at something. That's something mr kwek never quite asked out of me in his sarcastic tirade. I don't need it for protection against half bit street punk wannabes, which I'm half-embarrassed to say, are all I'm reduced to being challenged by these days. I don't want to harm anyone with it either. I just need it to reassure myself. Rather shallow, I know, but when you're the best at what you do, what you do doesn't seem to be the point any more.

Now do you see? There is such a thing as a pet rock ok. I wasn't just making it up XD.

Very few people don't look nicer when they laugh and smile. And you are certainly not one of those few. So I'm beautifying you, imagine that XD.

Never without you.

2009-05-11T08:09:00.000-07:00

Ever. I won't say those sappy things like "we're in this together", but if you're not out of it, neither am I. In a sense, perhaps I never was, given how much I know. A lot of things may change. But I'm very sure this won't. After all, don't forget, times change, things change, but I don't. Not much anyway.

I'd express and justify what I'm trying to say if I could, but as it is, you're not the only who dunno how to tell the other things. But then again, my particular ability of perception is like another sense that I myself cannot fully grasp. I've said it before, its like trying to tell someone what an apple feels like in your hand when he does not possess the sense of touch. Its obvious its smooth, more or less round and all that, but how are you s'posed to explain how you know? And sometimes you open your eyes and you realise with a start that you're holding a peach, and you just got fooled by your own senses.

Drama night is making me very self-conscious. Yes, I've always said so, I've got a lousy sense of fashion, I've tried and failed at changing the way I walk, and as a speaker of 2 european languages, 3 if you count english, I think getting me to sound not fake (aka sound like a singaporean) is quite a task on stage. Not because I sound like a fake ang moh normally, but when I have to enunciate each word clearly and loudly, I automatically revert back to pronouncing separately them the way I was taught, with occasional mispronunciations by using latin phonetics and unnecessary rolling of the tongue.

I am after all, holding the dubious position of being brought up a gentleman, never really quite relished the idea being one, and am really not quite one. A position of existing at two extremes of the sartorial spectrum and not really near the middle where most 'normal' guys would be. All of which culminates in a rather apprehensive feeling whenever jodi asks me to get my ass on the stage, or when I get told to speak louder and work on articulation, or when I have to walk anywhere in the vicinity of leonard and gang.

At least, I think, I have created several memorable relationships during my time in this.

Time though, is not on my side.

And I wish everybody would stop asking me to go up against the new dual-blades guy already. I know he's good, I'm not, alright? Not anymore. And if you're feeling derisive about that, then YOU come face me in the arena.

Whatever you say to me, I already know.

2009-05-10T06:55:00.001-07:00

Yeah, another Green Carnation song, its more metal than PDPB so I think you'll find it even more unfathomable. The main riff is just nice though.

Until the possible becomes actual, it is only a distraction. And until you become who you threaten to become, I think I shall stay on and continue reaching. Because if I don't keep belief about who you are inside, then I wouldn't be much of a friend. Exasperated or not, I don't think I feel very comfortable 'bout ranting back and forth, so I'll rather we do this the conventional way, of talking till someone loses patience XD. But you're hurting the people around you, bit by bit, and if this isn't working out, I think its going to take a lot to solve things when it actually comes.

We've all got problems, some comparatively larger than others. I won't deny I tend to overlook others' troubles because of what I've been through. I cannot empathise. But that is different from understanding. And that doesn't mean I don't try to be decent anyway. Edna told me about endurance levels, about how much suffering one can take differs from the other. I haven't forgotten. Nor have I forgotten how much it took for me to get through various parts of my life. Its not something I'd wish for anybody. I won't tell you this is nothing, I know its not. But telling you that there's worse isn't going to help, or even register, either.

Y'know at the end of the day, there is something to be said about being different, being better, being someone who can do more, sense more, be faster and stronger. But that doesn't make you detached from the universe. You can try your best to go against the world, to go against fate, but I think most of the time, you realise that even being the best can never be quite enough.

That kind of doubt and fear, is never going to be gone. Because you can be that damn good, but you're still only human.

Behold Kamelot- the world's first good pandemic~! Sounds like an oxymoron but there you have it.

Aren't you just aggravating sometimes..

2009-05-09T20:33:00.000-07:00

I find with a certain mixture of annoyance and guilt that 2 long posts have been aimed at me for the things that I, admittedly, shouldn't have said there and then. But I'm losing my patience here because your attitude lies in your fixation with how much you think you're right and how I, or anybody else, don't seem to be trying enough to understand you. I rather think instead of being 1 step behind you, you don't realise I'm 2 steps ahead, with each step steeped in uncertainty. And uncertainty is precisely what you seem to unwisely disregard within yourself.

Not doubting yourself to things pertaining to your own opinions about people is just being high-handed. You would be sure that what you claim to sense behind people's words and actions are necessarily right? That your analysis of their personalities and characters is always accurate? There is always a margin of error embedded within everything you "know" and when I said you're not always right, all I was doing was to remind you of that margin. I certainly was not saying you're wrong or to judge you in any way, I don't even know what the hell is affecting you. And to say the truth, I can't be bothered either. But that's not personal, my stand on psychological problems have always been that you alone can change your own perspective and view your own standing in a better light. As ted would say, I don't need to know who you are, what your name is, where you live, or what your story is. I just need to know your perspective, and help you with it if I can.

After all, how can anybody care to fully get all information regarding the subject in order to help? If anybody is to try, they would have to know not only your viewpoint but ALL viewpoints. They would not only have to understand you completely, but your world completely as well. EVERYTHING about you. In other words, they would have to chain their soul to yours and I don't have to tell you how near impossible that is to do. If that has happened in your life, be really grateful but you ought not to expect it from anybody. You're not that important in this universe. Hardly anybody is and we all have to come to terms with that. People don't offer help or their opinions only after they know everything there is to know about you. Admit it, not even you do that to anybody, least of all me. You can disregard what I say, that is the result of a choice you have to make and I completely accept it. You can go ahead and insist I don't understand you. But don't do me the dishonour of judging your own illusion that I am judging you. If you continue to insist that you're right in the justification of your bitterness with the world and your friends, you know me, I don't push it.

I corrected myself with the other statement, in case you were already not bothering to listen by then. It was a mistaken figure of speech. You cannot think too much. You're either thinking too little or your thoughts are being directed wrongly. Its up to you to decide which one is it. But if you're fixated with the notion that you're definitely right, then its the exact same situation as above. Otherwise, consider that the wider perspectives you believe you have access to might be misdirected, that your analysis of people could be misguided due to factors that could be your fault but also very possibly that are out of your control. I'm not saying your judgment is necessarily wrong, but to not consider that they might be, particularly when you've claimed yourself that you can't 'logicalise' these thoughts, isn't being mature, its being self-absorbed.

You can only think with your mind. You cannot think with your heart, spirit or inner being, those are just concepts of thoughts, emotions and moral aptitude that ultimately still come from your mind. And if you've bothered to really know what psychology and philosophy is all about, you'd realise that they encompass all these concepts within its study. I may not be an accomplished scholar of either subjects, and I'm always the first to admit that, but anybody who is trying to care will definitely still be using them, whether they know it or not.

And you will deny that I care? After all my efforts? The question here is whether you think I, or anybody else, care enough. That's your own opinion, about something that's out of your control and bringing back the 2 statements, you're not always right about that, people express their concern differently and there are differing opinions about what caring constitutes as. And if you find that most people around you aren't caring, apart from those 3-4 people that do according to your opinion, that's a bitter cynical view of your world that suggests you're directing your course of thought wrongly down a mentally unhealthy path. That is not definite, but possible. If you want to keep this the-fucking-world-don't-give-a-fucking-damn-about-me attitude, you're dishonouring your friends, and you're juz going to prove yourself right. There's nothing perceptive about that. Change your perspective while its still not too late, and people might yet prove to care, even if not by your own embittered standards. You're the one living for yourself right now, not everybody else around you. And you're not the only one who's beginning to really not care either.

At then end of the day, if you want my judgment on this, I swear its nothing that high-and-mighty or malignant. The whole thing's really not that complicated to me. Its just commonly a case of you being led by your emotions, though what emotions and why they arise are not known to me. And that's good news because at least its not something that's difficult to grasp, even if solving it still isn't easy. But nobody can change your emotions. You have to find a way to do it yourself.

I found a new word~

2009-05-07T06:52:00.000-07:00

Q: How many floccinaucinihilipilifications would a floccinaucinihilipilificating floccinaucinihilipilificator floccinaucinihilipilificate if a floccinaucinihilipilificating floccinaucinihilipilificator could floccinaucinihilipilificate floccinaucinihilipilifications?

A: Why, a floccinaucinihilipilificating floccinaucinihilipilificator would floccinaucinihilipilificate as many floccinaucinihilipilifications as a floccinaucinihilipilificating floccinaucinihilipilificator could floccinaucinihilipilificate if a floccinaucinihilipilificating floccinaucinihilipilificator could floccinaucinihilipilificate floccinaucinihilipilifications.

Floccinaucinihilipilificate: to describe or regard something as worthless. Aloy, wanna draw lots and see who gets to try and use this word in our next GP essay? XD

Y'know, you're like an anchor now, somehow pulling me back on track and with quite a fair amount of surprise I find myself starting to make some noticeable headway in... everything noticeable. How do things like this happen, seriously? I guess its got something to do with the fact that you're like a world outside a world and I don't have to worry too much with you like I do with this world. I don't have an image to keep up, you're not gonna get mysteriously pissed off at me coz I'm missing lessons or something, we don't have to draw blades over anything, we have't got anything on the line to lose. We're just trying to be fun and yeah its kinda plain if you ask me but damn, I've been through a hell lot worse. I just hope I'm helping you in the same way too, though gawdknows how, I wouldn't know.

Playing yugioh cards with zhen hao was kinda fun, even if we did get dissed by this kid, but who gives a shit he knows what he's gotta do to prove he's nothing more than a big-mouthed coward and it was fun to come back from 3-0 behind to draw the whole game 3-3 (Bliss kept score XD) Legendary Ocean FTW~

Mr S says Mr Kwek might wanna talk to me 'bout the whole run-in with the cops though, and I'm a lil apprehensive about that. As far as I'm concerned this isn't a disciplinary problem, this is a oh-crap-this-just-ain't-my-day kinda problem but I doubt my esteemed principal wants to discuss about my luck and recommend feng shui or something. Which means I'm in shit of some sort, juz what kind and how deep.

流浪是牧羊人的方向。

2009-05-06T08:16:00.000-07:00

Well, I did think of it, but I let it slide coz I didn't think it'll be this biggy. At most, they'll take it away, and I decided I was ok with that. No matter what, now I can prove (to myself at least) that I have given up the old ways.

You're welcome to the conversation, even if your contributions are plain. After all, that's what makes you so un-plain as far as I'm concerned, but I've told you that already. Everybody tries to be different in a noticeable way, but if you're really different, you'd see that its no cakewalk either. But of course at the end of the day, we are all unique, and in that very uniqueness, we are all the same.

Rather than rest, I think it could be a form of spiritual fulfillment, something that reassures us that we're not hollow inside. I've got it a wee bit further, I need to reassure myself that I'm not rotten inside sometimes. But you haven't done the stuff I have, another reason why I see your self-proclaimed plainness as something good.

A quote I like says only one thing can truly cure loneliness, the sense that the universe knows we're here. In this sense, if we constitute as each other's universe, the mutual problem seems to be solved. But then as it is, in the centre of the universe, we are all alone. And to be brutally honest, I don't think I'd give a damn about the universe, as long as the people who matter knows I exist. I'll never reach out to the whole world, I'll never beat the whole world, I'll never get sympathy/concern from the whole world and so I'll never need to bother about the whole world.

Right, I'm glad you're enjoying them, I'm giving you a music overload these days ain't it XD. But hey not bad, I have converted a kamelot fan~

You're right, the song does seem rather fitting. 'cept I don't own any sheep.

As I begin to lose my grip on these realities you're sending.

2009-05-05T05:39:00.000-07:00

Right well, I think I get it. It ain't you to me, its the other way round. And I think I'm losing my perception rather often these days. Along with everything else of course zzz.

I think rehearsals after school don't seem to work particularly well. Alright, so giving directions for yuting to cross a purple traffic light, turn right 3 times (effectively turning left) and walk past a gingerbread house was kinda fun but I think I'm juz too half-asleep most of the time to concentrate.

Listen, you're no stupid kid and I'm not saying I didn't read your signs either. But if you're not doing shit, and I'm not doing shit, then lets chill ok. I'm not going to take some two-bit step down to tear my own skin off and cheerfully break whatever small balance I still maintain over this increasingly misgiving-filled A level year.

And y'know, I had juz begun to stop hanging that thing around my neck.

Dao's random quote of the day: NSmen go through NS full of hopes and fears. They will graduate with neither.

Othello is a bugger. Rawr.

"Coz in the centre of the universe, we are all alone" is pretty much the main point of the song, though my favourite part is "All I find, reject my mind, and I wonder why."

But the part I connect with the most: "Tell me what to sacrifice, so there's a chance for me to want you."

Plummeting flight.

2009-05-04T01:52:00.000-07:00

So save me, I'm falling
And I don't have the strength to go on
I need this, I breathe this
So empty, afraid and alone

I have to admit this lateral drift isn't going anywhere. I've been to school before sporting a fractured rib- and after waking up from a concussion, hiding behind the ridiculous excuse of a back that is hurting due to the treatment process is just plain shameful. And I can't get things done as fast. Or sleep as well as I should be. This has nothing to do with circumstances that I am definitely able to live through. Somehow I'm just losing energy for life itself.

And I'm inevitably returning to being more of a loner again, something that wouldn't unduly concern me, if not for the fact that my competence at just about everything is currently questionable and that this is hardly an opportune moment to fail at life. Loneliness in itself is more of a status than a problem, but the combination of being empty, afraid and alone is another matter altogether. I reckon I need help, QED, but the crux of the matter lies in what and where. As I was indoctrinated in the practical addition of the popular saying: when there's a will, there's a way. But saying it and knowing it, is not the same as finding it. As it is, I'm not too sure about my will either.

I have a long bus ride awaiting me, and maybe your company still through the phone. But I need to get some serious thinking done. And some conclusive result out of it.

Voyage au bout de la nuit.

2009-05-03T09:19:00.000-07:00

Journey to the End of the Night. A book that fascinates me. Assuming that I have the time soon, I'm gonna try and find it.

Metafiction, I should have known. Very unperceptive of me, if it weren't for sophie's world, a piece that I recognise which allows it to fall into place. Jostein Gaarder and Amy Tan. So you fuse the result of your inspiration from their works into a metafiction depicting mother-daughter relationships? Well, that was just the obvious logical step forward given the superficial links. I don't really know. Or maybe I do but my mind isn't letting me in on it yet.

The thing about knowing who your daily readers are is that you actually can adopt a conversational edge to your blogging style isn't it? Fair enough, its a one-sided conversation, but on the flip side, there are many things to a interpersonal speech communication that doesn't need to apply on something that's written to be read. Taking into account your attention span for instance. And if you happen to not read, *shrugs* the blog still retains its original function.

I hope you're enjoying your albums, because frankly, The Submarines perplex me. And I am perplexed by my perplexity, since they definitely exhibit more musical structure and melody than some of the lousier thrash metal/deathcore songs that aloy has forced on me. But I can't seem to grasp the core of their music. Pretty much the same way I can't grasp you, if that actually makes sense.

Green Carnation, on the other hand, is intriguing me. But I've been accused of possessing only dark and depressing songs and I think they pretty much do nothing to disprove that. *shifty look* But still!

Dedicated as dedicated posts go, yours made me laugh. But I sense contemplation, which is always good, no matter how much or how little there is.

静宁。

2009-05-02T10:07:00.000-07:00

我觉得把宁静这两个字倒着来写，很有意思。关键在于“宁”本质上是在讲究心态；心灵的一种平衡与安定，而“静”是在针对动作。这样来看，宁静的意思是根据人们总爱说的“心静自然凉”类似的说法，也就是要安顿自己的心情来使周围的影响变得较淡泊。

静宁就看似比较有趣。它好像是在显示一个人必须先静下来，不要被环境挑衅，要从主观方面看待事物与情况，以外界的“静”来使自己心平气和，才能达到心灵的“宁”这个境界。

我想告诉你，我读完了。了解的并不深，但感触很多。

我记得我说过用塑胶做的花朵树木灿烂无穷，美妙的容貌永久不会渐变，却一点生命也没有。同样的，用这种不自然的心理构造来掩盖自己的思念会看似非常合理，但始终只会使你显得很暧昧。你这个“宁”，要指望达到，思路必须清晰，好让我走得踏实，安心，在宁静的心境，找到真正的你。

我坚信要找到你的这个“我”不存崔真的只是我一个人，而你当然也有选择的余地。只想要你记住，无尽的黑暗的确会在夜空无限蔓延，但要受得起世界的冷漠，还是得用心去寻找自己那不会被淹没的晨星。我想我能给予的帮助就是尝试替你卸下感情包袱，为你承受孤独。其余的毕竟还是得靠你。因为这是你的夜空，谁能扮演着什么角色也只有你能决定。

Because I can take it.

2009-05-01T10:48:00.000-07:00

So I brood. Because I'm not scared. I'm just worried.

There are people who will try and tell you that you are never alone. And there are people who will tell you that there is nothing wrong with being lonely. I belong to the latter group. I'll keep you company if you have no one better around, its part of how I'm trying to be decent. But I won't stay forever, and you're just going to have to put up with my loneliness, unless you wanna stick with me, and nobody's unwelcome for that. But I'm warning you, that's far from easy, even in the unlikely event that you're willing.

They say it takes two hands to clap. But the hands can grow tired from clapping. They will hurt and sting. Some more than others. And the heart that guides the hand needs to be prepared for that. But you'd be surprised at how much one hand can do anyway, how much it can hold, how strong its fist is, how unending its clenching grip can be on something it holds dear.

You will need to be that hand. And now perhaps you see why I worry. I will still be here for some time, but I wouldn't place any bets on you wanting me to be after a while. Has it not always been the case?

I have my blade and of late, because physical activity has to be limited, my harmonica. I have no words for the night. Just expressions and thoughts, a sight into the world below me and a silent contemplation about how life keeps on going anyway. That is why my acting needs to be more convincing for leading a night life on-stage. Because I have an audience that is s'posed to see the world that resides within ourselves. And mine is juz simply irrevocably silent.

Its coming to 3am. And you still bewilder me. You read these days, but you question me less. I s'pose that makes me the loser.

How can I help you?

Their faces mourning with a broken smile

2009-04-29T07:42:00.000-07:00

"I don't want conflict."

"Why?"

"I hate to fight."

"I also don't like.. I like to win."

Right, it has been real useful, talking to you. You'd muay thai anything in life as if it were your king's cup wouldn't you. Zzz..

I'll acknowledge savate when I see a graceful kickboxer. All the head-on pummeling, all the darned great buffed up bods, you can't say kickboxers or muay thai fighters aren't tough. If they turn out to master grace and elegance as well oh boy we're in for a new generation of combatants.

Ok fine, that's subjective to opinion haha.

I think I'll probably give ubin a miss after all. I'll need the time to catch up on work, and think through this drama stuff again as well. And maybe sleep. I'll pop out at them for dinner/supper probably. Not that ubin holds any particular attraction anyway, I can't quite say why, maybe its because people are actually living around the area, and signs of human life is always present, albeit a limited presence. And I haven't forgotten jon aiming our bike into a tree and jumping away, leaving me at the back to bear the brunt and nearly having kfan take my ear off from behind me.

I want this to be normal ok. Even if it doesn't work out. Nothing out of the ordinary, no big schemes, no people hunting after people, no hate and anguish, no responding to violence with violence. I'd like to be pummeled by you than to fight back. At the end of the day somebody's gotta be worth it. There will be no honour in this, nothing to put at stake. There will just be the people, maybe the affection, maybe the disappointment, but either way its still good.

You're like my one-man crew these days.

omgee that sounded uncharacteristically cheesy?

All these blessings, all these burns.

2009-04-28T06:48:00.000-07:00

Your biggest flaw has always been your high-handedness in the treatment of the world you perceive, a perception that has never been deep, clear or objective. When we were on amiable terms, I tried hard enough to change that without risking the relationship because a hell load of people were against you. Now I seem to have been pushed to become one of those people.

But I don't want to go up against you. I'm real dumb when it comes to such stuff but if I see an opportunity to make amends, and I'll try really hard to spot it, I'll take it still. I'm juz thinking you probably won't let me. And if you're really doing this, I'm juz gonna run to a point where type 2 comes and then we're probably all going to high hell topside of heaven.

You're not like that bully I had to face up, or any of those thugs from last year. You don't deserve that. And I'm worried because if I know how you're like, you will push it.

On the brighter side of things, I stayed relatively awake today. At the expense of a burgeoning phone bill.

Still struggling to keep up with stuff, but some headway, so that's good. Whatever that's being owed real far back, I'm afraid I'm juz gotta have to let them slide. But I think I've explained it pretty ok to the teachers for now. Justified or not, at least I got a break from all the high tides of circumstance.

Flyleaf sounds.. unfamiliar. *tilts head left and right* A coupla nice songs but hmm.. not used to it. Nor am I that up for aloy's industrial metal band deathstars either. Think I have a current music inferiority complex that's making me stick within my comfort zone for now.

Sonata Arctica~! Arch Enemy~!

What hasn't been blown away from today.

2009-04-27T08:40:00.000-07:00

I'm quite sure I used to be able to handle fatigue much better, and I'm not sure what's happening now. I feel so old =( Not having chewing gum didn't help matters. I really should get more sleep somehow.

I think we sianded our director today with all the antics. I think.

Rehearsal ended early, possibly because of the above point, there was some free time before setting off, so I styled my hair again just for the heck of it. The numerous cool/act cool vibes resonating ceaselessly from people into my head wherever I went has made me resolve never to bother again. Nobody said it look nice anyway, I just found it quirky, with hair standing up at the back.

I sat at the back of the crowded bus for a blardy 1 hour bus ride to upper bukit timah. This lady beside me fell asleep and her head began lying on my shoulder. I don't know who was more embarrassed when I was waking her up coz I had to get off the bus, me or her. But thankfully she didn't drool or anything.

Awfully Chocolate at cluny court is a rather scary place for chocolate cakes and ice cream. Apart from 4 black armchairs (and erm.. the attendent was but we're not counting her), everything else was white. Gleaming white. The floor, the ceiling, the walls, the counter. Bathed in a white bright light. I got strongly reminded of those asylum places you see in movies, 'cept without the patient dressed in a white strait-jacket huddling in a corner.

For some strange reason, Flyleaf's counting down to being part of my music collection, which looks strangely fitting below the other one on the list: Green Carnation. Why do they both sound so deceivingly nature-like? I am visualizing colourful flowerbeds and fluttering butterflies.

I ATE A CHEESEBURGER TODAY! Actually it was a quarter pounder with cheese (or as Pulp Fiction says its named in france, Royale with Cheese) but close enough. It wasn't bad. Yeah apparently ninjas eat cheeseburgers. Levitating ones. Speaking of ninjas..

I can only see 3 of them. The last one must be really good XD.

Because the whole of this damned country probably doesn't know this, apart from me, Green Carnation is an avant-garde metal band. I have no idea why globalisation doesn't seem to work with metal.

World Gamma.

2009-04-26T02:42:00.000-07:00

Our ikariam empire is getting along quite nicely. Dao and I started naming our towns after countries (well not really) and we've expanded until we now have Turkmen-is-tan, Boards-wanna, Oohruhguai, Me-and-Ma, Knya, Smlya, Jmka, Kzkxdan, Nrwei and I'm gonna finish constructing I-marry-Car soon. Can you identify which countries we've named our towns over? XD

Dissociative identity disorder. A condition in which multiple distinct personalities or identities are displayed by a single person, each of which during sometime in the person's life is able to take control. Repeated dissociation may result in a series of separate entities, or mental states, which may eventually take on identities of their own. These entities may become the internal "personality states". Changing between these states of consciousness is described as "switching."

- Each personality has its own pattern of perception, thought and relation to self and its environment.

- Exhibits least 2 different forms of mannerism, attitudes and beliefs that are not similar to each other.

- Experiences different depths of emotions and conduct different forms of expressing them with each different personality.

- Hallucinating the different personalities inside the mind. Can be audio and even visual manifestations.

- Depersonalization.

- Sudden spurts of emotion with no justifiable explanation.

This is a bit worrying. Psychoanalysis and personality checks cannot work when 2 minds reside in a single body. Memory loss doesn't seem to always happen, some personalities can be asymmetrical. The extent of a personality split appears to be impossible to determine. Can your other self, talk, walk and behave exactly like you, but make different choices than the ones you would make?

Cases of such disorders seem quite rare. Is switching necessarily bad? There could be something more to this than I thought.

Grade.

2009-04-25T06:02:00.000-07:00

Yeah, blazblue. Jin~ A sword and frost powers, what isn't there to like about this guy? XD Well ok he looks kinda gay..

I sat through college day with a passive sort of muse that all these awards given out only validates the hypocrisy of education. The exemplary students tell you their studying methods, how they deal with stress, how to have faith in yourself and tell yourself not to give up, that you can do it. Which is, of course, admirable. But they typify the type of student that is completely conditioned to work for a grade, and not the knowledge that the grade is supposed to represent.

The idea that most people come to an educational institute to receive an education that is independent of the grades and of whatever degree or diploma they want to get is a type of hypocrisy covering up that slight flaw with education. Because ultimately, schools teach you to imitate. In college, you need to master the art of imitation to a level where you are imitating what the teacher wants but make it seem like you are not. You regurgitate what you have been made to memorise and then paraphrase it. You form opinions that you have been taught to form, along guidelines that have been imposed on you. That gets you an A. Originality and creativity, thinking out of the box, questioning and dwelling on knowledge that is not within the structure of what you need to express, gets you anything from A to U, there is no reliable way of determining. Everything in education indirectly tells you to not to know about the subjects, but to know how to score well for them.

And so it seems to be that the best people are nobodies. Because their abilities are so great they break past the confines of the system, making the possessor of those abilities virtual unknowns because the system cannot grade them, because they are better than the system. The only catch of course, is that the world works in a system and being unacknowledged by it, even if it means you are better, juz means you will never be somebody.

Until one day she told him.

2009-04-24T09:37:00.000-07:00

If there's one thing I learnt from psychology, is that finding the emotions and problems that are affecting you mentally makes use of the scientific method just like any other classical hypothesis test, just like conducting experiments. Work backwards, compare and contrast, come up with whys and whats, follow the emotional path down to its very basic and see if it matches. That's what I encourage people to do, to think deeper within themselves to search out the fundamental thing that is being affected. Because everyone harps on the symptoms, they just want to stop feeling like how they're feeling, and because everybody keeps having idiotic friends who tell them they think too much whenever they try to really find the source of their discontent.

You cannot think too much. Nor can you try too hard. Your efforts either aren't enough, or they're being directed wrongly. And only you can decide that, and choose. Whatever I say isn't right or wrong in its underlying form. Its just that if you listen and you decide whether I'm right or not, at least you're making a choice. Life goes on when you choose and then you deal with the consequences and that is all.

Giving up isn't so bad. Its neutral, it might even be good, if you can handle the consequences. If you can't, then perhaps you might want to reconsider not giving up. Isn't that juz a matter of what you'd rather wish to face?

I know its not that simple. But the concept is, and how you carry it out is really mostly up to you.

I've juz watched someone say 'I like you' for like 50 times over today and got deemed inadequate for just about as many times. And I start to wonder if as hard as it is for someone to express it, can it be juz as hard for the other party to understand it.

Dude's s'posed to be shy and nervous. But that's because he has to say it, and not because he has to express it? I think there's a difference. I am usually clueless about stuff like this, what I think doesn't mean squat.

Blazblue is actually quite a nice arcade game. Well-endowed female fighters aside (XD), I actually quite like the ice swordsman guy.

Your trust, is what I place my trust in.

2009-04-22T09:32:00.000-07:00

Scattered moments of type2 have been popping out these coupla days, along with a purpose. Your opinion does not count. My efforts to ensure that you are well does. In a rare moment in life, I'm being a protector. Not a likeable one, not a reasonable one, not a heroic one. I'm just doing what I have to.

Medical checkup application's finally done. Late june, thanks to all the delays and all earlier dates have been snatched up. I hope to have a clean bill of health and fitness by then. And pray that they find the damn vein, I have no desire to get pricked multiple times. I still can't help being apprehensive about NS. I don't have a great track record for teamplaying.

Coupla teachers been telling the class off. I know all of them have got issues with me. I got that look from mr S so I asked. I know I haven't been a very good student, despite all the stuff that's been going on, if I'd really wanted to, I'd definitely be doing better than now. But I won't judge my own decisions. There are consequences to be faced, I don't need to put any blame on it to add to the burden. In my life there are no excuses, but the teachers haven't been asking for any. They asked 'why?', and whether they really want to know why because they're concerned or because they seek to blame and scold, I see no point in attempting to lie. I'm not asking for sympathy anyway. They all say the same thing, that they still get paid anyway.

As for the rest of the kids, *shrugs* I think everybody, at a certain point in time, will start to rise to the occasion and seek a good end to their jc life. I know I do, especially since it had a very bad start. They're not half-smart kids, and everybody knows they've got personality, they can take life.

On my honour, I meant it. But you already knew that, I'm sure. I may have joked a lot in my time, but we didn't get to where we are now because of my jokes. Have you ever been chained to a promise? That's a form of faith in someone. And I make it now.

Carmine red and deep.

2009-04-21T09:20:00.000-07:00

That was meant to describe the scarlet skies. Its been alternatively hot and cold these days, totally irritating. Looks about to rain now, wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't and temperatures go up to 33 degrees instead.

I've been staying out of trouble these days, and trouble's been keeping outta my way too, which is a relief considering how busy life has been. I let a lot of things aimed at me slide, because its not my deal to go chasing every single person on this planet who doesn't like me. But I don't scare easily either, especially not when I'm standing up for my friends. And no matter what, juz because you think you're stronger, cooler or simply more popular you think you can bully your way into someone's life, well you have no right to. At least here's a guy who got to where he is now on pure ability without having to resort to manipulating and cajoling to improve his social standing, or relying on some shallow inferiority complex to need the people around him to affirm who he is.

Throw it at someone who can take it, why don't you. You can have the whole world supporting you, but in this age, even worlds can be destroyed. If you think you can never be alone in this, then you're deluded. If you even dare issue a challenge by such a dishonourable rot of a principle, I will double it back and lets see if you truly understand what is combat. Or maybe something will just happen to you while you're out somewhere at night, without giving you warning, without telling you why, without showing you how. And then you'll see that even as a coward, you make a pathetic one.

On a more self-deprecatingly bewildering note, I dislocated my elbow slightly?! How the hell did I do that? What, those arm exercies during pe? They were hardly taxing on the joint, old injury or otherwise. Ah well, a load of pain and adjustment later, all I need to do is to tell myself not to strain it much over the next coupla days. Wish the spine would be healed so easily too. But y'know it sure seems to be much better these days.

Perkele, where has the weekend gone to?

2009-04-19T01:33:00.000-07:00

Seriously, its almost over already? Aw hell, I need to apply to some galactic cosmos judicial court for 48-hour days. Or maybe I just need to prioritize better XD.

I've been reading about Occam's razor, a principle that can basically be summed up by this:

That the best explanation for anything is the one that holds the least assumptions or unfounded beliefs. In other words, the one that requires the least faith necessary to explain, and provides the largest fundamental basis for fact and logic.

And that, kristen, is the source of my discomfort with that nice young man who came to sit beside me that sunday and then accused me of being too logical. In all truth if I were too logical, I would have come up with a few well-placed statements that could shoo him off in 30 seconds. He in his nice shirt and formal wear, matter-of-factly explaining his understanding/opinion of the concept of christianity as if he were rattling off economic statistics, as if it were a very factual and logical process. And funnily enough, he says I'm the one who's too logical.

I got an unnerving image of someone who is using some skewed form of human logic to inadequately hold fallible groundless assumptions as an ultimately illogical 'truth', and not holding truly unquestioning faith that stands unwavering in midst of uncertainty.

Rather like a previously heard explanation that god is good because 'after I believe in god, I strike toto twice! He bring good luck coz he knows I no money!" Remind me to be wary of aunty hairdressers if they ever ask me to buy anything because its 'good' XD.

That much being said, Occam's razor seem to hold an inherent advocation of simplicity and in an 'awww this makes things no fun' way, limits the imagination. I mean hey, wouldn't it be so cool if the universe was created by having a large amount of galactic chocolate falling on a cosmic wheatfield and poof! it became cosmic koko krunch that a bigger fish came along to eat it and exploded, forming the universe?

And someone majorly cool, going against Occam's razor, assumes that there are stuff such as galactic chocolate, cosmic wheatfield, a bigger fish that eats koko krunch, and that koko krunch is really that simple to make, and actually believes that?

Yeah, this is how I spend my weekend. No wonder XD.

The passing age of time.

2009-04-18T09:39:00.000-07:00

一岁主场亮相
十岁天天向上
二十岁远大理想
三十岁基本定向
四十岁奋发图强
五十岁老当益壮
六十岁打打麻将
七十岁晒晒太阳
八十岁躺在床上
九十岁挂在墙上

Maybe time is pre-destined, maybe we're under the illusion of choice and everything in time- our choices, our chances, our coincidences, have all already been decided and mapped out on a gargantuan tree diagram.

But we still can't shake away the feeling that the world is in our hands only when we're in our prime. When we get decrepit, we have to revoke our claim in this world and try as gracefully as we can to fade to nothing. And the funny thing is everybody anticipates its coming, but nobody really prepares for it until its already upon them.

Bliss' design of the drama tee needs to fit the theme of time somehow. So my thoughts juz wandered over, in my usual wonderfully cheery manner XD.

And of course, time has joined the list of things I am running out of, which includes money, usable earphones, coffee and ideas to continue writing this post.

I need to update zetalambmary dammit.

WIthout praise or blame.

2009-04-16T10:34:00.001-07:00

"I believed that all evil, at root, was a wound and never a choice - and I still hold on to that, when I can. But I've met charming people who tell me they've done unconscionable things, quite freely, without the benefit of yesterday's misfortune. And I believe them. The wounded and the free: they both break windows. But there's one narrow piece of ground upon which they have an equal footing. It might seem unfair, but forgiveness is available to each - not because they can prove they deserve it, but because they can both say sorry."

Forgiveness. I have received it twice within this two days, and am very glad of both occasions. It gave me a chance to admit I'm weak, and to be understood. I've always been weak, I was smart enough to know that and I sought to change it. All the things I'm not proud of doing, all my 'accomplishments'. All the existentialist justification of choice. But its so long now before I can see, that all I did was to mask my weakness and never to find strength.

I can change that now. Not because I know. But because I've been forgiven, and that abates my guilt. At being someone I wasn't, at doing things I shouldn't, at making the people closest to me live with nothing but an image of someone who fears that he's inadequate. And when I'm reduced to little me now, every time I feel like sneering, placing people beneath my attention because they're weak, I ask myself why I shouldn't be who I was and can actually have an answer: because my conscience is clear.

I'm skipping half of school tomorrow, hopefully for the last time. My lateral drift has brought me somewhere at least.

I might still like this director of mine yet XD.

When the wolf is in love with the moonlight.

2009-04-14T07:56:00.000-07:00

Is this picture cool? XD Album artworks~

Luca Turilli, the guitarist for Rhapsody of Fire, with 2 solo projects. Symphonic power metal is real catchy.

I've done my last blood donation drive today and the meaning only seems to set in now. From the times in the hall, the people who ponned lessons to come donate blood, who asked for company coz they're scared, lying about on the stage, sleeping on duty with ah yong or jasper and getting woken up to look at girls =.= And the i-space, which was a less enjoyable experience, maybe coz by then it was this batch of new kids in red cross whom I have never really gotten fully used to, or maybe coz its juz more cramped with less romping space. Either way, its an end to an experience.

The bastard of a physician really wasted my time today, but the millionaire high-flyer who helped set this up cheerfully waited and even treated me to a jelly (...?) so I had to act like a good boy and said nothing. All this because of a mother's frivolous anxiety. How this letter is going to help with NS, I really don't know but I don't give a rat's ass, I want to recover, not escape from the army.

Its been quite a while already but I still sighed over this today. Y'know I think the reason why I'm a wanderer isn't really for all the glorious notions of freedom or anything. I juz can't let anything go even after I've lost it. And the best way to deal with the loss is to run away from it.

You know how is it that every day passes? Well, neither do I.

2009-04-13T05:00:00.000-07:00

Round 2 of the empty building saga, where I spent half of my good friday. This one was more difficult to climb in, and the house itself wasn't as nice I think. But the rooftop was wayy better, because its part of the units at the top floor, unlike the previous one, and has at least a tinge of personality to it, something rather rare for rooftops.

A carpeted room with.. is that like some sorta stage?

This bell is scary. You open the door, and it tinkles, that's bad enough. Then you see what the bell is like... Not the nicest thing to leave behind in an empty house.

Woo a bar~

Anybody wishing to climb in here will have to do so cheerfully under the scrutiny of the people waiting at the bus stop opposite. People who exhibit typical bo chap-ness. Unless you tell them there's a donut store in there that gives you a hello kitty doll for free if you also buy their bubble tea to go with the donut. Or something like that.

The very cool entrance of the first penthouse unit to the roof.

Reminds me of those air force ads. Above all. Climb rooftops. \../

Yeah so that's how it looks from up here.

Yeap that's the building I went into the last time XD.

The even cooler entrance to the roof from the second unit.

Nice clouds. Lousy picture.

Got spooked by a coupla bats who got spooked by us. Flew too fast for me to get a shot, but they do look rather scary, though they're pretty much harmless.

Speaking of flying, these days seem to be flying by at supersonic speeds, so fast that nothing can be accomplished at any point of time before you're already in another moment. Life needs to slow down, seriously.

And you need to be less hollow. Really, you're scaring me.

Future stance.

2009-04-11T05:28:00.000-07:00

New physician, new diagnosis, new treatment. But the guy seems to know what he's doing, and what he says explains quite a lot of slight anomalies together with the main problem, the weaker left leg, the recurring elbow discomfort, inconsistent appetite, drastic loss in energy. Hell the spine become a problem embedded in a multitude of problems in a 20 minute diagnosis. He had this stern rebuke that I'm trying to act tough by not showing how much pain I am in. *shrugs* I'm juz trying not to show weakness. In this world, if you're lucky, you get false concerns and apathy. If not, you get mocked, challenged, utterly pushed down.

Tentatively though, without trying to get my hopes up, I think he might really be able to help.

I've been in some 2-dimensional stasis, where I neither advance forward nor step back. With the further addition of a philosophical dimension, I s'pose I could say I've been in some sorta lateral drift, following no known or advocated protocol of procedure, searching for some truth. Moving laterally to stay on the same platform, searching for something within this modicum of spiritual and aesthetic existence.

Maybe this drift is taking me somewhere. Maybe this drift is taking me nowhere. I juz can't stay and have no faith, no drive, no belief, nothing to drive back hatred.

Rachel held me to one spot today, and I fidgeted with mental discomfort all throughout lunch, church and dinner. But I appreciate the gesture all the same, and nicely enough, nobody seemed to overtly mind that I was not being anyone, juz flickering in and out of reality. It felt strangely nice, to be there and not belong, but still being there anyway. I think that takes a lot of tolerance and patience on their part.

A day to commemorate the dead. I sometimes wonder if I should be feeling derisive about that. But then life is fragile, and no one really wants to die.

In this silent tide we're driftwood passing by.

2009-04-09T08:55:00.000-07:00

Sometimes my visions are distant and vague,
Once in awhile I am weak and afraid.

I've been very self-conscious lately, because all my endeavours seem to be met with a certain degree of failure. Its a very ironic self-destructing loop. There are no excuses in my life, because nobody's around to tell me its not my fault. There are only consequences to deal with, to take responsibility for my failures. That your weakness is a cost of living, in a life that someone merely gave to you, together with billions of others.

Tell me that you're torn asunder
From how we fail to learn.
Tell me as your world goes under
Where's your anger now?

My problem with ted is that I cannot relate, which is a failure on my part because I try to be decent, try to be someone more like him, and I realise I'm totally not.

My problem with zen, vortex of the dominion, is that I cannot exceed him.

You can say I'm not me, I'm ted and I should do what he would. But I've spent more than half my lifetime being someone else, someone whose achievements my present self cannot match, I can't help but fear if who I am now is even competent. Competent enough to act well as someone I cannot hope to be.

Area for today was Novena, not a territory I'm familiar with. So I tagged as company, until the lady of the house called to drag me back. At least dinner was good.

Ahmagawd today is...

2009-04-06T06:22:00.000-07:00

Well not that there's anything special about that, or about today really. Just a hardly beneficial school day, yet another wasted trip down to red cross headquarters and a short exploration of singapore shopping centre. Haven't been in there since it underwent renovation some time back.

I'm still behind on homework. Search still continues. And xin hui is playing ikariam O.O Hahahaha new ally. I dunno, I mentioned it in passing and woosh suddenly I've got somebody to coach on how to manage her own empire.

Can artificial intelligence one day program fate or destiny, and control its own course of evolution, exactly according to calculation? I wonder if its possible to outstrip fate. Wouldn't it be self-contradictory? Artificial intelligence is built upon computers, which are built upon numbers, mathematics, which includes probability. If we can determine fate perfectly, there would be no probability, no chance, maths will fail and calculations will collapse, there won't be any computers, and no artificial intelligence. Maybe. *shrugs*

I dunno, someone brought it up today, and I was intrigued.

Money doesn't buy you happiness, but at least you'll be comfortably miserable.

2009-04-05T09:40:00.000-07:00

I've always been cheerfully telling people I'm only slightly richer than a beggar. Nothing much to it, wanderers like me don't really stay within civilisation enough to desire much material enjoyments. As long as I get enough to eat, and that's not difficult to achieve- I'm thin for a reason (a mental image of someone saying "shut up farah" suddenly comes to mind XD), and have the clothes needed for moving about often (gears for urban exploration and roaming about in wilderness can be vastly different), I'm cool.

But lets face it, I'm one heck of a poor kid.

Yeah I currently have a $300 wallet, a $500 bag, several suits that probably cost as much as I don't wear them, a priceless azure hilt sabre hanging on my wall and a coupla Omega watches that I never bothered to find out how much they're worth. But all it takes is for me to get dragged to macdonalds by classmates twice in a single week, and I'm heavily in debt. Taking into account the statement above that I'm thin for a reason, that says a lot less about my appetite and a lot more about my very diminished spending prowess in a society that I'm obviously not up on par with.

I don't need all those stuff that makes me look/seem rich. I need to be rich. Dammit.

'part from my blade, I have no idea why I've got those stuff. I try my best not to use them, I don't even like them. I should pawn them or something and go get a big mac. I haven't had one in years.

Speak to me now and the world will crumble.

2009-04-04T07:05:00.000-07:00

Speak to me now and the world will crumble
Open a door and the moon will fall
All of your life, all your memories
Go to your dreams, forget it all.

Accepting sympathy requires both patience and gratitude, neither of which I possess much of. There is only guilt nesting between my moral consciousness and social apathy. Because I know people can't feel what they don't want to, don't have to and aren't made to, being derisive because they don't feel what they say is pointless. The underlying form of such gestures are invariably hollow, but the fact that they are being made should be appreciated. In most cases, at any rate.

But I just can't.

I've long reached the stage where I can't justify who I've become. Maybe even if I could, it wouldn't work. The world disagrees with me on many counts.

"Why are you chatting up my mum?" has now entered my personal mental list of things-to-laugh-uncontrollably-at-in-my-head. Yes, I can achieve that with a straight face. Happy birthday.

You are truly your brother's sister..

2009-04-01T00:52:00.000-07:00

Word from jocasta and condor, streetkids search, 2 straight nights and a day chasing a hot trail, having to revoke my personal vow not to miss school anymore, and still nothing. I dunno if I'm s'posed to be impressed, worried, or simply irritated.

Just add another point of guilt. Story of my life sigh.

Now I'm really behind on stuff once again. I'm ruining my school life, and I haven't got a second chance this time. Nothing lesser to sacrifice.

You don't think it gets to me? Yeah it gets to me. But I'm not pushing it for anybody. If you've got a problem with me and you don't feel like letting me know what it is anytime soon, then its just gonna stay that way. I've got a kid to track, the few remaining true friends to keep and a hell lot of work to catch up on. I'll maintain civility, and still try to be decent, you wanna take me cold, I haven't got further triviality, humour or patience to take this up with you.

In an ideal world, I'd handle all inperfections. In the real world, too many things get to me for me to be a decent guy to everybody. If you're not helping by throwing me a chance, then damn, that's that. I wouldn't have thought I'd be worth all that trouble and effort needed to dislike someone though. What d'you think you can do to me anyway? Get a lawyer and find something to sue me for, or pick a weapon and stand 5 paces across.

Y'know its funny. I spend half my life telling people not to pick these kinda small stuff at each other. But now I'm asking myself, if its that small, why the hell am I bothering to get irritated at it? Coz people aren't listening to me, is that it? Well, who am I, some kinda big shot? *snorts*

Two things that are completely unrelated.

2009-03-29T06:29:00.000-07:00

Spent the day grudgingly modifying Zetalambmary, which has officially become a part of MOG music network. For a site that's only been in existence for about 5 months, and only truly active for 3, we've been receiving a respectable amount of page views, which isn't bad at all. So.. yeah.

Y'know its been gawdknows how many months and I still haven't solved that code of edna's. Just one stupid mushroom-shape left to decipher and I can't get past it. And I actually like mushrooms.. It would make me feel stupid, if I didn't already know I am. I am really. I've done some spectacular things in my life, but I've also made some truly spectacular blunders, some of which is what caused me to do those other spectacular things in the first place. I think I just cover up this part very well by usually residing in a completely different modicum of thought, and rather than become clearly stupid, I instead become unfathomable.

Knowing things doesn't make you smart, I reckon. It just makes you know that you ain't. Maybe it makes you wise though. That's something to ponder about. Of course, wisdom is like some sorta compliment you pass that doesn't really mean anything 'cept to be polite to people who don't possess anything truly worth complimenting about. "This is a good man! He has a set of finely-shaped kidneys, selects toilet paper of respectable quality to wipe his ass with, he's awesome at playing pac-man and he's wise!" Things you take comfort in knowing, maybe even privately take some pride in, but probably gives no credit whatsoever to anything that has any sort of bearing in your life.

Take a happy fool and a happy wise man. *shrugs* Who knows, it might even be easier to make a fool happy. In which case, I'd rather envy the fool.

BEHOLD, FOR I AM... Ted?

2009-03-28T07:16:00.000-07:00

So yeah I pretty much went for the drama night auditions just for kicks, but I didn't make the whole thing like a joke either so *shrugs* I still think ted is a rather lousy name though. Not that this character needs some bombastic name like.. oh I dunno, maximilian? But seriously, ted?

These few days have been a flurry. Only notable thing is probably finding this empty housing estate along upper paya lebar road that was only vacated sometime after chinese new year this year. The entrance was boarded up. But wooden boards don't keep out rats, or cats ("hell can anything keep out a cat?"), or juvenile delinquents, or bangladeshi workers, or time, or rust, or ants, or birds, or curious, determined guys wearing NYJC school uniform. Stupid wooden boards. Don't worry about boards.

The door on the left was locked at first. It took some climbing over from the unit on the right to the balcony over and unlocking it from the inside.

Creepy room with the curtains still there for some reason, and drawn.

You see this room with girly-kiddish furniture in it?

You see that thing on the floor?

Ok so the owner of the room was a girl called Janice.

Found this on a table outside Janice's room. That girl in the photo's probably her.

The owner of this unit is awesome. He left behind clothes..

And his company's accounts for the whole year of 2008. A restaurant owner.

The torn-off part that is missing?

It got stuffed there.

That's pretty much the most welcome invitation I've ever seen.

Well that's pretty much it. My uniform got thoroughly dirty, and we had to go to some interior design office and pretend that we have a house to renovate just so that we could use the toilet to wash our hands and stuff. But y'know what?

That building beside this one seems to be empty too ^^

I know that silence.

2009-03-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

"So if I'm miserable its because I'm a sad, weak bastard?"

"That's about it."

"Cheers."

Well.. that's right y'know.. Damn.. Bugger on that.

There's nothing wrong with being selfish I think. About being self-absorbed and forever thinking of solely yourself. You were brought up to think its wrong. The world gives off this stigma that its wrong. But *shrugs* everybody hides a latent selfishness, and it can be the ulterior motive of every action. We don't know, we keep faith that it isn't. And the faith will still be there, whether or not are you truly totally selfish.

But the reverse works too. If you're only going to bother about yourself, I s'pose you'll come to it one day that you're the cause, effect and consequence of everything in your life. Which effectively means that yeah if you're miserable, its your fault. Must be something you did or did not do that caused it.

Karma.

This form of silence is foreboding. It implies that I have done something wrong or did not do something. And I wonder if I'm selfish by worrying about that. And I guess it doesn't matter? What's important is to brace for what's coming next, to prepare to lose something, or to cling onto it.

All I have, is you.

2009-03-21T00:51:00.000-07:00

Petrucci forums had a thread recommending this new swedish metal band, Dead by April. Experimental metal they call it, I found it nothing refreshing, but all the same, I like their music. Kinda emo, maybe that's why.

I learned the German word for platypus today ("das Schnabeltier"). I think its something worth commemorating because its highly unlikely that I will ever bring it up in a conversation or anything. I'll probably forget it by next week so to at least give this event some small part in my life, I thought I'd mention it.

I'm kinda bad at being human, which may be a flaw or a sign of moral integrity, or both, or neither. I pick at this a lot because I dunno which it may be, and I guess its juz how I'm like. Perfection is something I completely do not aspire to have, and if I had to pick a flaw (assuming that this is one), well seriously, this one isn't so bad. There are so many more things living on this planet apart from humans. Maybe I'm better at being a seven-spotted helmeted kicking beetle.

*Grumbles at the rain.*

Does anybody even know what is a parade de pointe volante anymore?

2009-03-18T23:59:00.000-07:00

Now that I think about it, I still have no idea why I let myself get dragged to clubbing. Everybody in Zirca looked older than us, and of all things to order 2 jugs of, they went for whiskey *shudders*. At least the tequila shot was decent. And since I am neither a fan of finding pretty girls to grind against, or dancing in general actually, nor of getting myself drunk, it wasn't exactly time well spent.

But speaking of dancing, I found this korean song on shanning's blog and I thought the dance was.. half-impressive and half-hilarious.

Went to fencing with a slight hangover, and it was a rather embarrassing time. Beat the guy 5-4, and the fact that he was tall and had much more reach doesn't justify the small margin for a win. I dunno how my thrust in low quarte missed and his random attack in seconde caught me by complete surprise because the coach didn't teach them that. Half the time I was trying to execute a flanconnade by engaging in quarte but he kept disengaging. I almost managed it once but the bugger hit me first D: By that time I was 3 points down and it was starting to look stupid. My winning thrust was, to my eternal shame, a flunge, something only sabreurs would do. Which struck me as kinda dishonourable; to have to beat a complete beginner with some advanced sabre technique is well.. almost like cheating?

On the other hand, it was epee, executing a flunge was stupid on my part. So sue me, I hate epee, it was hard enough to take it with the non-master hand as it is.

A classical fencer has no place in the modern sports arena I guess. Hell even the teachings are different, the coach teaches quadrants instead of the wrist, and classical terms and moves are almost all abandoned. And beginners with epee? With no rules in epee, it is much more difficult to maintain honour and discipline, and to traditionalists, that is the base of every beginning fencer. Entering a bout using bare blades with no knowledge of right of way, even if it doesn't apply, is fatal.

I guess that's the thing, its considered a sport here, completely safe. If I hit your leg first before you hit my heart, I win, because I don't die. And that revolutionizes the teachings considerably.

Does desire still hold true?

2009-03-17T08:06:00.000-07:00

I think there are places in the world, where you can be completely alone and not feel lonely. Where it is not stifling silence but serenity- peace of mind and soul, the only fragment of wisdom to which human imperfection can aspire.

One day, I will sit jo down and bring myself to look into her eyes. There has to be a formula to why people can be like this. I am not seeking a beautiful soul. And I have learnt my lesson, I'm not seeking fascinating depth of thought either. I am seeking... I don't know. I think I'll know when I look. For now, I can't define anything, and I don't mind it that way. There is always something we don't know anyway.

A day's journey isn't much of a sojourn. But then I don't have much time to spare either.

Fencing tomorrow. Oh boy, haven't held a foil in ages.

1) Fence with non-master hand.
2) I hope they have foils with french grips. I never got used to the pistol grip ever since sabre.
3) Try to do a flanconnade. Exceedingly difficult.
4) I was trained and am a traditionalist. I highly doubt any modern fencing schools do that these days, particularly not here. Maybe its time to adapt to new styles.

Ubi Avenue 4 is rather hard to reach..

My brain hurts. Maybe yours will too if you read this.

2009-03-16T09:39:00.000-07:00

"If it cannot be measured, then it does not exist."

Xin hui brought that up yesterday. She was trying to think of examples of things that do exist but cannot be measured. And she couldn't. That was interesting.

Within the parameters of that statement, I s'pose one could ask, what is existence? She said it was something that we can see or feel. But that didn't seem right. Sight and sense are forms of perception. We can see something, that's a form of perception, but it doesn't have to be real. Like mirages for example. Conversely, we can't sense or see time, does time exist? Sure, we can measure time, but measurement is also a form of human perception. We came up with the term "measure" and the ways to measure things. We can measure things, but how do we know if what we're measuring is necessarily real?

Human perception is limited, perhaps time is not relative within the existential plane of a 5th dimension but since we cannot perceive that, it doesn't exist to us. Whatever we perceive, we take it as real but we don't actually know. And whatever we cannot perceive, we think it doesn't exist, but that might not be true as well. So to use measurement (a form of human perception) to define existence (another form of human perception) is self-defeating, no? Its using human logic to prove that human logic is correct, a flawed loop.

That actually makes a lot of sense, for real.

Of course, I screwed the whole impress-xin-hui operation in the end by trying to move into psychology, ideas of measuring feelings. And anybody who knows me knows I failed psychology.

At least there was nothing to lose.

2009-03-14T10:53:00.000-07:00

The picture is misleading with the trophy in it.

We got through to the finals of the FASS quiz with aplomb but in the end, it was a 4th and *shrugs* nothing doing. But I got to know a coupla people and they were nice, peers and seniors included. The quiz itself was kinda fun too so 'part from losing time, sleep and travelling costs, there's really nothing much to lose in going for it. Not a bad deal in other words.

Still sick, the body's not like how it used to be. I mused if mood can affect health a coupla days ago and dao's theory that bad moods and good moods both induce wild sex which is good for health aside, most people seem to agree that it does. I s'pose they're right.. Just that in the end the point is moot. As long as you are determined to remain efficient no matter what, who gives a damn about your moods. Not everybody else, that's for sure. So you might as well forsake emotions from time to time as well. That way there's nothing to lose.

'cept maybe the humanity within you, which is worth less and less with each passing age.

Yeah I'm bitter now but don't worry its just a stage. Someday it will be your turn to be lonely, or together, or by yourself but unfettered and free. Almost nobody's just one for their entire life. It's okay. You'll understand what the people who have had the same sensations as you understand. The important thing is to live and choose now, to reach that next stage and not hang broken clocks on fading walls. To be ready for anything.

Except what's actually going to happen. Life. Haha.

I'll hold all the world in my own two hands if I could, and call it paradise.

2009-03-13T09:51:00.000-07:00

I sat in front of my comp and thought about what constitutes a good live performance by a band and maybe its bliss' influence these days, but my first image was kamelot.

I felt very out of sorts, watching a music performance that featured two horrific bands and nothing else within my immediate genre of interest. Not that I didn't enjoy myself, but I did say and do a lot of uncharacteristically quirky things that probably creeped out the poor girl eunice who had to endure me and daniel, who at least should have gotten used to such a version of me by now. Overall I wasn't any good company.

My mind was on other things, as usual.

That were out of my power or desire to control. An out-of-the-whole-situation kinda outlook, that was yet not simply musing or even fully detached. A little worry, a little despair, a little anger and a little of the innate helplessness that comes with knowing you exist in a certain universe that you cannot change.

But it doesn't matter, everybody is picking their path, every second of their lives. Eternalism and all that, maybe its already long been mapped out. And all we have to do is to live it through eh.

The only sentence that keeps floating in my mind for the whole of tonight:

"Something that I like more than indie rock is symphonic metal."

Abberations of the mind.

2009-03-12T04:47:00.000-07:00

Consider it purely aesthetic.

What is there to say? There is no justification really. There is no common sense. There is no right and wrong. There are endless opinions and those aren't worth anything unless you let them. And of course there is no justification for, common sense or right and wrong in letting opinions that aren't yours be worth anything.

Its easy to accept things, particularly when there is no other option. What matters then is the attitude. Pick a stand, hold it, and stay there. As long as you do not let yourself feel that you are mistaken, you are not. Its just a matter of aesthetics.

It has been very long since I have last assumed to tell someone he or she is mistaken or wrong. Because to do that is to essentially issue a challenge, to try and break his or her defenses down and burn all the boats away. And even then, when they have no other option but to concede that they are wrong, that doesn't determine anything. Only that they've lost their stand and are free to pick another.

Maybe you could have done this differently, maybe if you had known that there was a different path, but no you are not wrong. Its just a matter of aesthetics. If you are perfectly comfortable with how things are, then of course you are not wrong. Just be aware of the consequences.

Its not about pleasing the world. But if you're not going to please the world, then be prepared to defend yourself against it. Because many people have been brought up to think in a very nice fashion, that the world is about life and living life. But the world is about wiping out life as well. Every second, hundreds of people fail to successfully defend themselves against the world. They feel its right to cross the road when the traffic light is green and a car comes along to prove them wrong. Whatever their stand is, it is crushed.

It doesn't really matter who we are, as long as we decide to be someone. That someone could be alive, happy, content, dead, lifeless, hollow, and all without needing a reason. Juz a matter of aesthetics.

You can drown in your own sorrow, nobody else will.

2009-03-09T07:30:00.000-07:00

"I am the most courteous man in the world. I pride myself on never having once been rude, in this land full of the most unutterable scoundrels, who will come and sit down next to you and tell you their woes.."

-Heinrich Heine, Reisedilder

And I'm like that too, I think. I don't pile my troubles on anyone. Ever. Somehow, on a point of honour, it just doesn't seem very appropriate. On the rare occasion that someone bothers to ask, I will never allow my problems to be expounded on for extended periods of time. You have the courtesy to ask, I reciprocate by touching on the matter, and that is cordial.

You're not obliged to read what I write here, or read the signs from me. I'm a nobody, I don't deserve nor ask for attention. Perhaps it gets me down a little that I don't, but I know what I am and what I am not. At least I can take pride in that, in not overstepping my position or being pretentious about my austere view on society.

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I think the final product is good, the awesome twin blades pincer move slotted in rather fittingly. The ukrainian twins probably aren't gonna post it on youtube or whatever but hey, its a sense of satisfaction no matter what. Too bad about craig eden's death though, he was wicked fast, a talented swordsman, wild but true to his heart. And a car accident should not have been the way to go. But.. life deals you a hand, and you are forced to bow out of the game. I'm sure he of all people would have done so with grace and acceptance.

Ruefulness.

2009-03-07T21:58:00.001-08:00

"You were born too late. Or maybe you just didn't die at the right time."

The former sentence is a sentiment echoed by many of my acquaintances, mostly close ones or formerly so. The latter however.. is intriguing. Particularly given that I never expected to live to a ripe old age in peace. It is an unusually deep insight, especially for a young lady of such background.

I'm a traditionalist, holding onto fading and outdated principles with sobriety and respect. Less because of my upbringing than my choices derived from experiences in life. I am out of sorts in a world that I regard with disdain, young enough to be part of constantly changing times, yet too old to be disloyal to proven habits. But at least I can now stand to look at myself without temerity when I stand before a mirror. And that is something many men, save to pander their own vanity or to lament how life has reduced them to their respective states, cannot. I owe nobody an apology for who I choose to be.

But I am appalled at myself for the sophisticated bantering this morning. My chosen words and mannerism bordered on that of a sartorial flirt. And those 2 terms are words that have never been associated with me. It was highly disrespectful towards someone who actually possessed and desired to make use of a great depth of thought within her. More so given my eligibility, or lack thereof rather. I am visibly impressed, intrigued but I have yet to be despicable.

Of course not. After all, I can stand to look at myself in the mirror, but barely.