in profusion

closure

2005-05-21T06:55:00.000-07:00

when i started this blog, i knew that it would be quicker than time before i make the decision to shut the blog down. it would be an absolutely resolute action, one that gradually took shape, like the last one, as the blog downward spirals into oblivion and obscurity.
obviously, i didn't learn the lesson to limit those privy to the classified information that scrolls down the page of this blog. i told people about it, publicized in on my friendster profile and found, much to my consternation, that i could no longer pen the innermost, i.e the truest, of my sentiments on this blog. because there just some things that are too sensitive to discuss, let alone broadcast on the www, where anyone can access it and make a mountain out of a molehill.
even though there are a great many who believe in the freedom of speech, there are those who advocate it and who are scared as hell, if exposed. i am unfortunately one of them.
so it's best that the blog, if it shall be the privatest of your chestbox of issues, be restricted for the eyes of the few that you trust or maybe, one might want to consider, yourself and yourself only.
with that, other than email correspondences and the complicated gizmos that enable one to talk to each other conveniently online, my cyberexistence will, from a moment later, disintegrate into nothingness. there will, however, be remnants and stardust traces of my having been here -- the impromptu poetry, revelationary prose, internet lingo, somewhere, sometime --- which may make this all the more humorous in retrospect.
as i sink further into the trashy mood of lethargy (intellectually and spiritually), i am increasingly lost for words. my morbid existence has often become that of a vegetable. and until i decide, or make the folly to decide, to recreate and reinvent myself in this galaxy of cyberspace, i will walk away and never return.

your secret, your secret bring it down

2005-05-20T09:47:00.000-07:00

it is undeniably a pain to keep a secret and live in the mental world of perpetual hushes and whispers. surreptitiousness has it own personal danger of driving oneself crazy, of withholding an unknown reality and burying it in the depths of secrecy sworn to the grave.
for secret keeping means a lifetime of dilemma, trauma and suppression. an unpure mind fraught with unpure thoughts. no confessional can set it free from the clutches of the alarmingly disquiet.
it is living a life of shady identities and weaving around, in and out of sensitivities, when desperate times calls for desperate measures. deceit becomes an art mastered to confuse and befuddle onself. it is unbelievable how living on a secret rolled into its most minute of significance and relevance of those around, can wreak havoc in the psychology and consequently, warp a personality and attitude in life into cackling gruesomeness.
i guess that's all i have to say. my lips are sealed.

2005-05-14T03:46:00.000-07:00

...

2005-05-14T03:45:00.000-07:00

the birthday girl gets lucky

2005-05-14T03:14:00.000-07:00

as the splendour of 21st birthday celebrations ravages through the year, kelly's disneyworld ballroom-styled birthday was no exception. every of the 30 or so distinguished guests did his or her bit in glamorizing the occasion, clad in formal overalls reminiscient to proms, with a touch of modern simplicity and style.
the minto ballroom overlooked a semi-panoramic vista of an aspect of the city hall area. and adjacent to the twinkling lights of the cityscape was a room roiled with fun and laughter, not to leave out, wave after wave of embarrassment. for games were played that removed each reserved individual from his/her cozy nook. as we danced to changing music blindfolded, on stage and on newspapers decreasing in surface area, twirled around the idea of soccer-playing with just an orange and a banana, and a pair of wobbly, open legs, contended with one another in what was a semblance of the bachelorette, the ice was somewhat broken, miraculously, without the help of booming music, liquor and its fumes.
something again to carry into the chestbox of memories. something pleasantly decent.

2005-05-07T01:11:00.000-07:00

and the peace reigns

the old neighbourhood

2005-05-06T09:20:00.000-07:00

it's not often that one comes forth and declare that he loves his neighbourhood. beneath the harmony which shrouds the cluster of households, everyone silently agrees and acknowledges the fact that, in the midst of such tumultuous times, this is not a bad neighbourhood. as a matter of fact, one which tops the charts among our local estates where no one knows anyone, and each lives the privacy of his life in lonely solitude, domestic affairs brewing behind closed doors.
it's a rather poignant picture. no longer do we see children running the streets, the clatter of their footsteps, a rolling soccer ball, families walking their dogs, pushing their prams or any neighbourly organized crew such as a team of morning or evening walkers.
and the park, to our consternation, has turned into a landscape of redundant hills, plastic playground and empty pavilions. gone are the days of residential congregation, the yesteryears of the laughter of children, maids, couples, families and the elderly.
some move out and others move in. degeneration and succession. the neighbourhood slowly transforms in spirit and strength. i do know that as we grow up, such changes are part and parcel and as we each trudge along the vagaries of life, at times letting our memory dip into the simple yesteryears of beginnings, primes of lives and childhood, we know that there are those who still remain, with the spirit to endure. hopefully, that same spirit will resurface and run through us all as a thread into the tapestry of the beauty and peace of life.
the wind will continue to blow and rustle the leaves of the old mango trees left standing. the strays will die, new ones will be borned into the world. the familiar footsteps of familiar figures will continue to ring, the same old silhouettes cruising the self-same streets. and even if the architectural layout changes beyond the recognition of those returning after 8 years of absence, the same peace will pervade. we live in harmony so rich and precious.

junior needs a home!

2005-05-02T10:12:00.000-07:00

as luck would have it, i'm fostering a dog, considering that i've always been a cat-person. i'm rearing a godsend by the name of junior, a nine-month old baby. i think my life is changed for now.
i can't say how amazed i am by her excellent nature;her unbarkishness and superb temperament brought about by either her breed(mixed breed, i mean) or her intrinsic heart of gold.
right now, she needs a comfortable abode, somewhere she can call home for the rest of her life. like every orphaned and abandoned pup, she has a rather poignant tale. picked up from the stray by a samaritan, she was the only one left unadopted after her 5 other siblings all found their homes. maybe it was because of the dark patch on her tongue that sorta drove potential adopters away, i don't know.
then, the samaritan managed to find an owner for her who, after some time, had to give her up as she was due for studies abroad. then, while all was thought to be well forever and ever, junior was transferred to another owner whose tenants couldn't stand the sight of her. and there she is -- given up and kicked from home to home, family to family, like a rag doll.
gad! this is a cry to those who have a heart. please, if you're up for a responsiblity of a lifetime that can bring you a life so rewarding a hundred-fold, junior is your lifelong companion. even though it's been 2 days, i think i can qualify as her referee. she just makes my heart melt.
junior is looking for a permanent home of love and care. she deserves so much better than being exiled to the dog farm in j.b where she'll be enclosed and never get the chance to step on local soil again.
she needs a home... ASAP.

2005-05-02T10:11:00.000-07:00

junior needs a home!

the declaration of the abandonment of things i just don't need any more

2005-04-29T21:42:00.000-07:00

some things you should just obliterate from the face of life forever. there are things i don't even wish to remember anymore for memory triggers so much pain. a life so fragile and roiled with misery and angst. if that is what it's gonna be like -- the overriding dissatisfaction that eventually descends at the sunset of the day -- i'll rather not live. i'll rather live in harmonious coexistence with simpletons. in a good kind of way, that is. i'll rather croon/talk/cuddle to/with dogs and cats who couldn't care less if i'd told a harmless lie in my defence, what i wear or eat. i'll rather spend the rest of my life on this artificial, self-made heaven/haven/refuge/asylum/cocoon with animals i can lavish my love on, without having to think what other people may perceive of my craziness, or why i love x more than y, why i think this instead of that.

because i'm sick of the friggin' mind games and the conniving bitches who manipulate everything to his/her own selfish advantage. the whole world doesn't revolve around you, get that into your skull. what the hell are you trying to prove? i don't even know you anymore, and you know what, i don't wish to, anyway. knowing you, let alone understanding you, is such a pain unfathomable. well, just trying to get it off my chest.

why can't life be simpler, instead of the complicated mesh/mess it has become and entrapped/embroiled innocents in the process of its writhing and entanglement? hence, it's high time someone should start effacing the black dots from the white, the blemishes of the past, the gargoyles of heaven from the slate of memory. and move on, as you shed these bastards off you, to someone/somewhere, some less-complicated pasture where they haunt and trail you no more. can't you see i'm trying to block you from my life forever and ever? it's time to discard these unwonted parasites. stop leeching/clinging onto the times that'll never return, moments that can never be salvaged. it's the end. period. some facts can never be changed. they happened, they inflicted, you can never undo them and pretend nothing happened. you can never undo them.

the daze of freedom

2005-04-25T09:25:00.000-07:00

being free from camp throws me into a frenzy; i have no idea how i can going to constructively spend the rest of the time before school starts. boredom hit me like a bad heat wave since i started lying flaccid and languid for the sky to fall on me.
job hunting: i've tried it. compared to my younger counterparts, freshly graduated from the likes of secondary education, i lack the drive, passion and flexibility to take on a challenging albeit well-paying job. i'm living up to my words that i muttered to the whole world since 5 years ago -- that i can never be in the service industry, that running about under the commands and demands of others pisses me off a great deal.
working out and catching up on my reading are but a drudgery these days, a bothersome mammoth task i cannot commit my heart and soul to. i am getting too stale for that.
yet i know that right before i wove out of the chains of imprisonment, i set my mind to fulfilling my personal agenda, i was determined to get my life back in order, occupying myself with completing uncompleted works, catching up on lost times, running forgotten errands, completing the full circle.
i don't think i'm being fickle but there's something within that is dynamically influencing my tastes, wants and whims, that unchangeability seems to be the element of life. erratic is the word. even i cannot logically dissect these swift sudden change of moods and modes, elucidate to anyone the cause-and-effect, factor-and-outcome concepts of it all (i've learnt for a fact that there are differences between the two things).
and hopefully, with each passing night will come newer awakening and revelation of bits of my destiny, that i'll wake up everyday looking forward not to a brand new day, but a more absolute, grounded, substantial, realistic life.

forever my baby

2005-04-25T03:33:00.000-07:00

on the mound where you lie beneath
in eternal, ethereal peace,
wild flowers bloom freely
in abundance
swayingly mesmerizingly peaceful.
stagnant is the clock struck twelve,
the minute- and hour-hand in
line, in sync, in motionlessness
undefined, unimaginable.
your name. your name. your name.

i scream it in my dreams,
in my heart, in my ears.
ringing ringing ringing.
ringing is the past and its beauty,
those peaceful times when
i took for granted a life granted me.
i don't think i can kneel before you anymore.
where flowers bloom and beautify
a truth concrete
a time traversed i cannot lie.
forget the pain.

death -- its mortifying arms.
blew your flame and broke me asunder.
oft are the nightmarish nights
of the unforgotten past
and the ghosts of your shadow.
you drew your last breath right before my eyes
my breath caressing you
you caressing me.
your name. your name. your name.
me. me. me
oh i cry in gulps, in wallows unprevailed.

i am lost because of you.
my tears and croons to you.
---------------------------------------------------------------

life becomes harder each year. this year is no different and perhaps serves as a turning point, an opening page to a world that's more unforgiving and merciless than your speculation. it has been but barely two months and living it is like biting on a wet rag that only gets thinner with each grit. save me from the ruts. everyone's crying his story, mine's just as unexceptional. but i do not crave for sympathy, it's too cliched it has become useless. and only with each living step to the beauty of life more refined will it all end, the heavens smiling down on you.

lying on blogs

2005-04-23T03:10:00.000-07:00

don't mean to offend but i gotta say some blogs written by young singaporeans are a puerile show of exhibitionism. unfortunately, i happen to know some of them and a silent response to some, or rather most, of their entries is a mental thumbs-down. if anything, they are but a futile attempt of theatricality and boasting of their flamboyant lifestyles/happening happening lives/meaningful relationships/caricatured characters. the thing is, a good amt. of the truth is overstretched and overreacted. we are all in the know of the stories/events/situations. yet, some of their responses towards these just make me recoil and wanna vomit. it's true. i really want to vomit. not that i haven't done that enough.

but whatever, you're entitled to write whatever you want. turn a blind eye to the truth if you must. deny your true feelings and thoughts. you know that whatever you're writing/'ve written are distorted to your own advantages. self-deceit makes me wanna cry. you can lie to the world and yourself, but you cannot lie to me.

of slandering on blogs

2005-04-20T12:43:00.000-07:00

revenge serves as a temporal suspension of raging emotions and does not, by any chance, resolve conflicts between opposing parties who can't wait to murder each other to levels of deformities. slandering on blogs only proves that someone is living in a sad world of depression and angst that is just as suppressed as his/her reluctance to disclose his/her identity in fullview. anonymous slanders are acts of extreme hum-cheeness which anyone won't hesitate to spit at. this goes to show that these people are (a) double-headed snakes who behave all civil and nice to victim but malign him of deeds unknown and untold on his blog and (b) ashamed of the grudge they hold against victim for the despisal and condemnation are not logically justified.

in the latter, for if you are so sure that you are so suffering and should slander and toss him with insults, then you shouldn't be afraid to identify yourself to gain acknowledgement of your plight. and it totally disgusts me should i encounter unintelligent blatant banging on message boards or comment boxes that puts a blemish to the otherwise friendly fluidly-flowing notes and messages by others. it is very unsightly indeed, and speaks of this world becoming an unbecoming place filled with sore wounds filled with venom.

blog slandering has never been my cup of tea. it's like someone crumpling sheets of your diary and dumping them into the wastebasket. anne frank would've been pissed. thank goodness no one has artfully or overtly left hints of insults on my blog or i would have been worried about whatever insensitive things i have done to cause so much pain, man.

shutting down my blog

2005-04-19T20:09:00.000-07:00

at the rate i'm blogging, i'm not sure how long this blog will last before i decide to pull down the shutters and forever obliterate my private life from the eyes of the world. so many a time, i have felt the soaring need to blog about something but lacked the material and the flux of words and ideas to put them down. i am beginning to think that it's worthless to maintain a blog which belongs to someone who is constantly uninspired and lazy, who lacks the spontaneity to write profusely.
i've come across dead blogs that declared their end of lives since as long as 5 years ago, blogs that are in the process of shutting down, blogs that no longer exist and blogs that exist but are stagnant as hell. there comes a time when disconnection from cyberspace is part of the ritual to move on with life and living it in the cocoon of one's much-needed privacy is the way to go.
at times i feel withdrawn to write about stuff plainly because i don't wish the public world to cast its judgmental eye on my issues. when it comes to blogging, i feel like i'm stuck between a rock and a hard place.
yet, blogging is a purgatory process. i love the orgasmic, for lack of a better word, relief of shedding the baggage of woes and worries each time i write for myself. however, due to the nature of the www, my blog which means my personal territory of retreat and solace, has been trampled on with desired footprints that marred the beauty of its meaning.
and i'll see how long it takes before i call it quits on the struggle between the upkeeping and the encroachment of this personal space. for all i know, i may change my mind from time to time, or decide, out of the most random of days, to eternally efface this online journal.

transition

2005-04-17T03:27:00.000-07:00

my departure was partly a cathartic experience of walking through a curtain of spring water and reemerging on the other side, a dry clean fresh self, having laid the baggage of his past behind. last friday, it hit me that it was really my last day of piteous existence in camp. that from the day on, the truth shall be irrevocable. memories erased and affiliations extinguished, i am no longer tied down by the iron shackles of responsbility and duty. i have washed my hands off something that had infused thoroughly into my subservient existence. i have clapped away the dust of time and pain and relinquished my position to a new rising star. submitted is my soul to the inevitability of fate, i will resume with what i lost three years ago when i was yanked into the cauldrons of the military experience. perhaps, i won't go back there, but rebegin a new life. the faceless future holds its beautifully alluring prospects.

conversely, on friday itself, i sensed all but a loss of placement for suddenly, my life was derailed from its routine track, the humdrum of spending 100% of daylight hours in the camp. no longer would i grasp this sense of normalcy as a stable anchor, it struck me. which was why i decided, pounding the gavel on the oak, that i would go clubbing last night before my mind plummetted into useless reflection and execute its philosophical damage on me --- the swift tide of time and the brazening of the self to move on with life.

consequently, after a night of thorough distraction, i felt better for no, i am not sinking back to Hades to have my life torn to shreds. that wasn't what i had yearned for prayerfully, that wasn't what i endured all the time. this book closes its wonderfully difficult chapter and begins on a new sheet, its unwritten tales of the unexpected.

scrumptiousness relifted

2005-04-13T04:21:00.000-07:00

my mood has turned colour. suddenly, i am filled with an improbable longing to indulge in good glorious food. it is hard to explain how this longing has come, but all i am aware of is that i can't keep my hands off mouth-watering elements and i can't keep my teeth from sinking into luscious meat, juices run aflow. truly tantalized, i want to be lured and enticed into some self exploration of delicacies and cuisines everywhere. where food adventure is concerned, my current state of mind seems the right kind of mode to luxuriate in gastronomic lavishes, abundant tastes and spices.

the yearning is inexplicable for it arrives in random binges, craving for the fresh, succulent, lascivious curves of fruits and foods. there is no worry if the belly shall exceedingly protrude because the need to dump through the alimentary proves more crucial. but first, taste buds should be aroused, every fibre needs to be shot through with the electricity that something good is taking place. savour the flavour. lick every drop and crumb. and when the finger is pulled out in its dripping glory, you know that every bit of goodness has been absorbed, internalized and engraved onto the gastronomic tombstone. hmmm...

a free man

2005-04-10T05:44:00.000-07:00

come 15th april, when all is packed and handed over, the steel gates walked through for the last time (rather, second last time), KZ will be a free man. kz, from that day, will unshackle the iron chains that used to bound him to the confines of the spooky fortress and make his walk on the premises a laden gloomy one.
kz will be declared a free man, able to blondify his hair in different shades and tones, tattoo his skin in all patterns and designs. of course, kz won't tattoo. tattooing is an art that kz doesn't appreciate, the pain inflicted on the body as he lies, sinking his nails into the upholstery of the bed and his teeth clutching a saliva-soaked rag.
kz, perhaps, will roam this earth his head held high, his emotions running high and his spirits flying high. he will be granted with the liberty to do what he wishes and never again, for at least in the distant future, will he be disturbed by the call for duty, the nagging buzzing prick of the conscience to report punctually and execute his govt-bonded responsibilities.

for all you know, the air already smells different; the refreshing hodgepodge of the civilian senses will waft through the nostrils and reawaken the fibres that have been lying dead for the past years. i am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, the reigning daylights of hope, peace and joy in their pure innocent rays.

it's good to be a free man.

my 21st birthday

2005-04-04T01:46:00.000-07:00

unlimited thank-yous to those who came to my party, it was a blast, unbelievably adrenaline-pumping-hot-action-in-da-house party. thank you so much. it meant a lot to me.
i have problems trying to write this down because everything happened so fast, like shooting stars flashed across the sky, meteorite magnificence in their temporal glory. it was beyond words. experential is all i can say. here are some of the highlights, great company and rendezvous:

pei hwa gang outside desire bar

AH crew

so glad they came

my april 7th siamese twin

they saw me puke

hot mamas

holy mama, these are friends from prehistoric times, my buddies from scss

my army buddies, without whom, i would have died on the street

man, shing, arvind

my truly bootilicious cake(thanks esp. kel, char, zhimin, ivan, faith, jen)

and after 02 x waterfall ...

i became this: wasted on the floor, wrecked to the core.

of course, you can see nikki taking a quick shot in glee.

omg, you won't believe what transpired thereafter...
but, i really love my party.

rise and shine to a brand new world

2005-03-26T19:33:00.000-08:00

i woke up after a fitful sleep punctuated with strange nightmares and deja vus, urges to pee and heart palpitations. it was a short slumber that didn't make me resurface to the world exhausted and sleep-deprived, but in desperate need of earthly peace and quiet that will allow my mind and soul to run in its recuperating meditation.
i need my mornings to be slow and steady, devoid of the rants and raves of cranky people who awake angsty and sore at the world. i need my defined space of privacy in which i can plan and carry out my tasks and at the same time, the kind of freedom to digress and deviate, doing things at my whims and fancies.

however, just this morning, i was greeted by a tensed aura that permeated every follicle of my skin. the fact that my maid was preparing breakfast at 430am on a sunday morning brings not mystique and awe, but an eerie danger about her demeanour. next, the morning proceeded in a cacophonous flurry;cellphones ringing incessantly, mom begruding about every minute detail, and how can i forget, my conniving quiet maid going about her business in every possible outlandish fashion -- slamming the fridge door, flinging the cockery, hurling the dry laundry. what is up her arse?
and so, the morning went by on a note of agitation and underdrifting discord that made me feel sick. there is not one word i can think of that can aptly describe my feeling. for lack of a better word, 'sick' in its all-encompassing meaning and implication, is all i can offer. i feel sick.
perhaps, next time when i am reminded of the maid's erratic violent behaviour that occur at surprising randomness will i document the things she does to show that she is pissed with this world, and the paraphernalia she is attuned to tossing and hurling around in the kitchen.

there goes my sunday morning; it is ruined.

wheee.....

2005-03-24T19:06:00.000-08:00

i cannot contain my excitement, what with the long-awaited operationally ready date inching closer and freedom reigning supreme, and of course, as some might already be in the know, my first ever birthday held on such scale.

ORD: a melange of sentiments bombards the mental faculty every time i think about how marginally close this day has come and, as we speak, is taking me to the sphere of liberation and humanity. i know, a good portion of the guys my year, has long escaped the clutches and their hair dyed in a myriad of colours beyond instant recognition. but looking at the present '85 batch of newbies scurrying like mad fools in the battalion just strikes me how long ago it has been since i was just like them, at the beck and call of those shits, and how it has finally all been lived through, teeth-grit and slient, the ord pressed closer.

i have a greenie under my charge in the office, my understudy. i can't really believe after all these years of dramatized servitude to the monsters within the office -- the playacting, the farce, the cowering, the lies -- i am unloading my knowledge, expertise and basically, my entire job, on this timid guy, whom, i guess has made me fortunate and blessed, the willing-to-learn understudy he is. good going.

birthday: a tumultuous rumble of stress, perplexity and uncertainty belies this gleeful excitement. i didn't know organizing something as seemingly simple as a birthday party is that hard. but i want to see friends i haven't seen for, like, so many years; friends who have forgotten about my existence and yet, like me, will remember our shared past, friends who are overseas who deserve to be here to celebrate it with me, friends who after the fall-outs and makeups are still who i truly want to be present on the day. ade, tanya, gail, kim, nat, jess, renu, charles, joyce, piya comes to mind now.

kayzee's 21st imperial birthday party

is held at desire bar, circular road

on april 1st, near boat quay.

830pm onwards drinks-and-fingerfood rendezvous

with good spirits in the house.

soul-themed. rsvp asap, please.

out of dementia

2005-03-18T19:50:00.000-08:00

momentarily, i am inspired by some of my friends' bold condemnation of the army or the s'pore armed forced or s'pore itself or rather, our rather authoritarian government that schematizes the paths we take and dictates the lifestyles we should adopt.
i mean, what the hell, conscription should take place on a voluntary basis, not by coercion or brutal legislation that would otherwise, put you behind bars, simply because you don't want your freedom taken away or you don't want to die. i never understood the impact conscription would have on me until i went through it experentially and surface, after two years of gruelling grinding, as a much different person.
i do understand the larger picture, that every warm-blooded guy has a role to play, that each of us stacks into this tessellation called national defence without which, the goverment will topple and the country, crumble. yet, i believe when one is at the educated age of 18/19, when he is able to make up his mind and thrive on independence and solitude, there is no way someone or a some system can ruthlessly and lawfully force him to stay put in something, let alone like something that he detests. thus, we can only blame the fact that we are born into the stringency of a system, this predicament in which we have no say, no control, stranded and helpless.
of course, national service isn't all that bad or hellish, but i can say that when i finally get out of this liability, i'll remember how freaked out i was when my ear plugs dropped during live firing and my hearing impaired, how my morale denigrated when i was threatened, pressured and humiliated, how my mind felt like bursting when i had a gazillion commands coming in all directions, when my palms were wrought with blisters and boils and psychology turned topsy turvy by the general feel and aura of the camp.

maybe i am too pampered, maybe i'm just unlucky, maybe i'm too headstrong, maybe i'm too defiant, maybe i'm too arrogant, maybe i'm too inflexible, maybe i'm too whimiscal and whiny, maybe i should stop talking.

i didn't mean it

2005-03-17T08:46:00.000-08:00

due to reasons unbeknownst even to myself, i let the cat out of the bag, or should i say, let someone in on the dark hideous controversy of the truth that with effect from tomorrow, many people might shoot me at gunpoint. i didn't mean to hurt or make a mountain out of a molehill but i felt that as a friend, it was a vague natural responsibility that i disclose the devious machinations going on behind his back.

much to my consternation, the truth will most likely slither and waft into my already tumultuous bumpy ride of a life and enshroud and eat me alive. i spoke too fast, too much. it was irrational, stupid, not of my character to put my nose into something that might undulate, distill and peace out eventually, although on rare occasions, i have the tendency to subconsciously blabber like a neverending chainsaw.

i don't know what awaits in the stiffness of the office atmosphere tomorrow, but i have this whacky premonition which befuddles me like no other, as if something seriously out of the order of nature, out of prediction and prophecy, out of the sanity of the human mind, will take place. i shall sit myself in sedentary mode, and watch from behind roving eyes as the world goes past and people talk with insinuation and take actions that will actually mean something. i shall play it by ear now.

imagining

2005-03-17T02:18:00.000-08:00

it is a matter of time before i will walk through lecture doors, dribble my way through school timetable and feel the space of academia. the time will come when i won't have to awake at the crack of dawn and gaze listlessly at the moon of the late night as it whizzes past the silhouettes of jungle trees and the urban landscapes. when i won't have to breathe in the dust of the locker room as i change into my green overalls in a desensitized sort of way, as i walk into the stifling cold of the office smelling of the rust of steel, the rancidity of ink, the sturdiness of papers, the buried dirt settled in the crevices of the hollow walls and behind those godforsaken heavy metal cabinets.

the time will come when i won't have to live through the day like a dog on the run, scampering from the onslaught of abuse, politics and humiliation, when i won't have to do my religious countdown to the end of the day.

and when i think of the transition from the military to the civilian realm, the in-between, the limbo phase where nothingness seems to dominate, the future looks like a psychedelic blur. when i imagine my hand held out into it, it fades into a spinning whirlpool of obscurity; the future untouchable, ungroped, ungrabbed, unforseeable.

downward spiral

2005-03-15T03:43:00.000-08:00

this afternoon, i passed Dr Phua a hallmark card and a bag of cookies, in gratitude for what she had done with good faith, although sometimes i asked myself if she was indeed the model veterinarian because after all, i didn't have other examples of the same profession to compare with. and i searched my soul, amid cries for the lost and mourning for the irrevocable and unsalvagable, for answers to a series of big questions. is there reincarnation, life after death, resurrection of the self-same soul that we take for granted and miss with fervour when it's dead and gone? is there a penny of worth in living now, for what are we living for? is there reunion in heaven, long-awaited rendezvous and reconnection preordained by god with loved ones? do we go to heaven, will i go to heaven, or be some aimless soul, ghost of the attic drifting with the rust of the wind?

i bothered with the idea of existence, that existentiality, despite being a technically sophisticated concept, one step above existence, is simple and plain as it should be thought, if one really comes down to it. and our mortal suffering at the hands of a better afterlife? earthly achievements for the benefit of our future sons, respect of our ancestral heritage? what about living for yourself, whatever you like, whatever's comfortable to your being, whatever keeps your sanity? a lifelong quest of self discovery, your the placement in the world, in society.

it feels like if i continue with this deadly ritual of working round-the-clock while i slog at the mercy of abuse and return home and resettle into the somnambulistic mode my mind has so gotten used to, i may die young. on a more paralytic level, i may implode from the crux of bottled emotions intermeshed within and feel slowly, the skin of my brain peeling away and flushed out of my system, total annihilation. in other words, i may become cranky and crumble like a cookie and never be rematched and refitted into its wholesome entirety. it was never entire to speak of, anyway. i may lose control. i may break down. i may be stepped on, downtrodden and vanquished. i may just lose it. if i don't stray from appreciating the likes of prozac nation and sylvia plath, i believe i may just die, the past buried on me, heap after heap of it.

is it ever easy?

2005-03-14T04:47:00.000-08:00

is it ever easy to wipe the tears,
put on a smile,
dust your hands and pretend
that the past has passed,
the worst come and gone
and contentment never ends?
it is not easy
to massage your eyes while your
face is blemished
by the marks of tears,
voice run dry,
the sting of truth --
a slap to your senses.

is it ever easy to kneel before
the grave as the compost mounts
on a strata decaying away?
it is not easy
to gaze for hours as the sun
goes down,
the clouds mutate,
the dynamics of life,
the evolution of time while
the truth remains
unchanged
unmoved
unforgivingly hot.

is it ever easy to chuck
the debris of deconstruction,
shambles of pain shackled,
the hissing of nightmares into
far reaches of the mind?
it is not easy to
forgive the heavens and gods,
forget the infliction and infection
all within the schema of things
of life seemed unjust,
your unspoken quandary.

is it ever easy to run your
fingers through the remnants
of the dead and gone,
ruffle the toys, the fluff of joy?
it is not easy to with-
draw the force of tears,
the gush of emotions,
memories reignited,
scenes reenacted,
sentiments reiterated,
love re-declared
life relived
and history walked again.
it will never be easy.

crawl to rest

2005-03-12T18:38:00.000-08:00

i needed some reprieve from the brutalities of the outside world. as few would know, the past week dragged for what seemed like 10 years, i had slowly retreated into the cocoon of solitude, in search of a sense of peace and tranquillity that would protect and shut me from the subversion and perversion. i need to be true to my feelings, locked in the hearth of refuge, home where i can call my haven. outdoors venture seems like an idea that requires herculean strength and incredible will. assimilation to the throes of the rat race is just too hard.
as i allow the wounds to heal and form indelible imprints of mistakes learnt and grief stomached, i have no clue where this path of private convalescence will lead me to. would it be a cavernous tunnel to light, a treacherous journey littered with debris to pick? or would it eventually bring me out and let the good of heavens shine upon and varnish the self with a brand new polish?

pardon me if all i offer is nonsensical excuses to stray from the fun, sunshine and mardi gras. forgive me if i sound like a hermit content with eternal confinement, after all, i haven't been myself.

2005-03-11T16:23:00.000-08:00

where flowers bloom and captivate
the hearts of those who came too late,
the destructive beauty settles
on those who sigh
of this unsettling dysphoric life.
the decades of life lived in rapidity,
bliss, loss and fear in an era
that meant preciously dear.
as the candles burn up above
in lengths and time preordained
when it's time to go
it's time to go.

the essence of life granted me ---
showers of love, pitfalls of fire.
we laze and languish in days of yore
though fleeting as they seem are
flowers bloomed and beautified,
withered, wallowed and waning
stalks of regeneration,
the bread of life.
is there afterlife or is it superstition
of my childhood brought forward like

wonderful memories of our togetherness
crystallized in the here and now?
last breath drawn and last breath puffed,
a journey walked in piety, loyalty, strength
to go on.
as you lay under the mound the fragile baby
you are, and tears fall and seep through in
the hope of a celestial connection that will last
in unreal longevity
my heart is wrecked and I am not myself.
my kisses adorned and fluttered in such
that you have already been enshrined a
special place in a mortal's heart.

when words fail me

2005-02-28T03:37:00.000-08:00

i visited dr jane again today for a followup on my eye and when i made a mountain over a molehill by talking about how barren and bare my eye feels, that it's never the same again and that i might have torn my cornea, she assured me that (1) i cannot tear my cornea - it's humanly impossible and (2) it's as good as it can be.
these days, i've gotten used to wearing glasses everywhere i go which saves a lot of hassle of having to cleanse those contacts and the dryness of the eyes and whatnot. i'm contented with the fact that as long as they are perched comfortably on the bridge of my nose and my vision is restored, it's all cool.
anyway, it's nothing to talk about, really.

seeing gailey off (i need my deathby brownies & almond cake)

times when i come across a good quote that is thought provoking and discussion worthwhile to say the least, or when i'm inspired to write about/against/for a certain entity of life, i often found myself too incapacitated and unwilled to seat myself at the computer to unleash the graphomania. there have been too many times when prevailing circumstances forbade me to quietly dissect my thoughts and orchestrate my words artfully, when disappointment in such impossibility was a cause to cry about.

anyway, perhaps, when things have somewhat settled on a more mellow foot and my mind is retained of its clarity and sturdiness, i will once again, articulate in a fluidity that i was once familiar with.

cheers to the art of expression.

catatonia

2005-02-24T02:41:00.000-08:00

it might be the haze or that i didn't rub off the scant bits of protein on my contacts before putting them on or that i wore them for just too awfully long (20 hours of the day), but the crescent paunch of inflammation beneath my right eye, half an inch above my eyebag, is unmistakable.
and it hurts if i so much as dab it with a piece of wet tissue.

oh my lord, what has happened to my eye?!

i made my way to the clinic and the nurse did some eyesight and eye pressue tests on them. i made a strange impression on her when i read off the numbers better without the pinhole than with it. a bizarre phenomenon of my already fragile eyes. i think i might have scratched my cornea and caused it to tear. that would explain for the profuse leaking and randomly blurred visions.

what has happened to my eye?!

consequently, in the days to come, i'm going to have to don my hallmark spectacles everywhere i go. a disfigurement to my already waning looks.

what has happened to my eye?!

insult

2005-02-19T22:51:00.000-08:00

with all due respect to my circle of female friends/family/coworkers, anyone who is female who knows me or who had chosen to be a female and shall socially remain as one, i would like to say that females, whether they are schoolgirls in micro mini-skirts hailing from the land of the rising sun or mid-40s sheilas in straggly hair doing their barbies in the outback, can be (not saying, ARE) highly vicious creatures with acid tongues that hurl toxic at another's eyes and do so unapologetically. in the face of their proverbial or universal submissiveness and demureness, they, as i say again, can be luridly offensive and derogatory and would, driven by a sense of purpose and deliberation, undermine, injure or cause to injure, given any circumstance at any time and place.

the sharp tongue can be found in many an acrimonious conversation. it serves to deprecate most of their self-worth, strip them of their dignity and pride, and demolish to distasteful pieces the ego and esteem of many. it is nothing but a malady found endemic in the social strata of not only the rich, posh and pompous (the sequined skirts and leather pants) but those struggling on the periphery of society as well, young and old.

it might bring colour to our otherwise laclustre lives, but nevertheless, add salt to wound and spawn discords and complexities in our already complex, bitter world. so as an advice to protect one's privacy, don't wash your dirty linen in public.

near the heavens

2005-02-16T07:24:00.000-08:00

joyce, sunny & i shot up to the topmost level of the island for a rendezvous in the spirit of merry-making and reminiscence. by gosh & golly, the view was breathtaking, panormamic vista of cosmo lights. the urban nightscape.
many a time, we rolled and rollicked with laughter. and came to the agreement that "chicken white" is spelt as "chee***", instead of "ci***", the way malaysians in hobart spell it.

which is absurd to say the least.

made me miss school. a teeny weeny bit.

thanks to joyce, this entry wouldn't have been possible without her.
because it was only until much later on my way to the rendezvous that i discovered my camera, as heavy as it feels usually, was batteryless.

spit

2005-02-05T17:42:00.000-08:00

i am handling this issue with a clinical approach because i know no sentimental lamentation on the pity of death can justify the death and bring light to the life of the husky that used to whimper and howl soulfully two units next-door. i shall be straightforward in my version of the case because i know in utilitarian singapore, you don't need a nimble raconteur to convince others.

the dog died an unnecessary, unjustified death. ever since it moved in back in july 04, it had been howling incessantly, at volumes of the coyote unbearable to many a state of mind. why? because the motherfucker of the owner aka malaysian tenant of the unit wasn't home 20 hours of the day and left the big dog solely in the miniature dwelling to its own nasty devices.
i filed complaints to the useless spca whose field inspector left before she could satisfy me with completed reports of her investigations and whose boss, an overpaid brit expat, told me it was beyond his control to help and eventually failed to reply me.
i filed complaints to the police who spun ludicrous tales to me about their incapacitation and shoved the entire workload to the ava. i filed complaints to the ava and its nicely heralded cruelty inspector informed it was just as hell beyond his control.

nicely done.

i was sickened by the noise, sickened by the attitude of said agencies, sickened by how their job scopes are demarcated and the hierarchical fashion in which they operate. sickened by what is expected of them vs what the reality of animal rescue work is. i was sickened by the landlord refusing to evict the tenant so long as he paid his rent. sickened by the sneaky/play-acting ways of the tenant, how he had been hiding at the corner of the street when the police were at his lonesome house and how he crept back after they were gone. sickened by the fact that the animal needn't/shouldn't had to die because of a bunch of irresponsible nimrods who didn't give a fuck if the husky lived or died.

to reinforce my point, here are pics of the site.

backyard where it perished and from where it whimpered its last cries of desperation. floor is strewn with shit. bbq skewers, knife, detergent bottles. owner said it 'accidentally locked itself in the backyard', why don't you just say you accidentally didn't come back for 20 hours of the day, that you accidentally were in the hiding when the police came?

cracks on my neighbour's concrete wall. the husky was so desperate to liberate that it crashed itself against the wall. the cracks were never there. the zinc partition was beaten through with clumps of dog fur attached to it. i was just enraged.

taken from the drain alley at the back. notice the array of sharp lethal objects exposed to a frantic animal.

i try to swallow my tears whenever i see this. trail of blood spewed from the mouth. it might have died of haemorrhage of sorts. i don't know how to make of this.

this is why owners who cause suffering or with potential to so doing must must must be stopped/prevented from owning even an ant of a pet. don't bother seeking the police/spca/ava if you see any act of animal cruelty because they are nothing but, honestly, useless. so much for the society of the PREVENTION of cruelty to animals. what the fuck did they do to prevent the husky's death?

precious

2005-01-30T08:15:00.000-08:00

it's never a wonder how i can always count on ade to alleviate much, if not, all of my pain and anguish over a tragic encounter. there has come a time when i can never hold my friends together for most are drifters on the buoyancy of wanderlust, of self advancement and walks to greener pastures. it will be selfish of me to dictate their progress and cast a spying eye on their movements for they have their private paths to tread and doughs of lessons to knead. it is an ineluctable melange of separation, reconciliation, birth and death.

so before he or she goes, cherish the time, however temporal it may be and work towards a land devoid of grief, mourning and regrets. i could have saved the dog, i could have broken into the house to free it but i was too sickened that i ignored its desperate pleas for help. it could be wagging its tail now, short stout legs of a young husky. i hope all dogs go to heaven.

life is again restored with possibility

2005-01-24T06:33:00.000-08:00

shopping for a friend's birthday gift hasn't been so tug-o-warish as what happened some hours ago, but finally, we settled on this.

and here are moments of my rendezvous with char & kel.

the day finally ends. breathing trots into regularity and PEACE descends on this diminishing wretched soul.

eastern gold

2005-01-19T08:43:00.000-08:00

sum wai,
meaning three people,
and the roasted duck,
fried mee
and
siew mai

are nothing less
of the cacophonic jazz,
ebb and flow
turbo eddies
of eastern gold.

victory
by dint of
steaming buns
flying plates
wooden chopsticks
crumbling porcelain
of the forgotten rush
against the ebb and flow
of the cosmo tide.

hollers and trolleys
beggars and pulleys
muggers
and the police.
chopsticks held
proper and parallel
crushed by the ebb and flow
gong of the bell
cymbals and drums
of the grind of life.

mother harbour
swished and swashed
by the ebb
and the flow,
bitter strength
made cheaper
bigger
louder
against the ebb and flow
of eastern gold.

the past

2005-01-17T06:28:00.000-08:00

sights and sounds,
faces and voices
familiarity struck close
at the stroke of twelve,
when i awake -
in sweat, shit, rancid whirl
of nostalgia.

now and then,
the flashes of lights
oozing traffic
burning air-con
strobe lights -
dots of green
enlarging in my eyes.

chapters close and reopen.
a streak of vein of a leaf,
ragged strip of the page
dog-earred and rough.
clean slate
of the here and now
masks the rust of time
the gust of disaster.

i awake -
in sweat, shit, rancid whirl
of nostalgia,
the book shuts with a slam,
dusts of yesteryears
glitters of memories
fractured mirrors
of
narcissism.

as i mourn
for lost times
old times
golden times
silver lining
of the past
shines sharply,
glass bits float and fly,
my eyes close shut.

pleasures in hide

2005-01-15T08:40:00.000-08:00

drenched in sin
a cup of wine,
brewing is the mist
of temptation
of seduction,
falling into a spiral,
dead spiral -
a bottomless pit
of no redemption.

the gloss of beige,
postures angles faces
defacement.
curves and contours,
the turn of torso
flip of the arm
swing of thigh
in mindless high.

car stopped and
exhausted,
a flurried click
a bogus nick
standing at half-mast,
novelty gone...
gravel on escapade,
fallen into shade.

love in the time of cholera

2005-01-08T13:29:00.000-08:00

love in its many guises weaves through the pages in its clandestine, mysterious movements - melancholic, unconditional, evocative. in the backdrop of colonial european culture, florentino ariza awaits half a century for his love to be repaid in kind by fermina daza. the lives of which are driven by the sheer force of love, their dealings in the superficial world of etiquettes, social standings and portrayal. love breaks free from the pestilential stigma and romanticism invades in a natural way that defies the authoritative control of social perception and familial ties. love, however unrequited, is answered and satisfied as the ring which encircles these star-crossed loves is complete.

the idea of love, to my reading palate, is not limited to the space of thrashy fiction, but from this day on, an alluring attraction of good literature. with good old sagacity, gabriel garcia marquez makes a brilliant raconteur who spins a good tale of romance. that is why everyone should stop & appreciate finer things in life, with a good book in hand called love in the time of cholera.

blinking new year

2005-01-01T10:45:00.000-08:00

funny how the new year has been ushered in by people all over the world. as the clock struck one and people ended the countdown with breaths of booze, the excitement and hype did not seem to arrive at the desired optimum. so much for that. the new year is supposed to be a brand new start. doesn't work for me; seems to me a fluid spillover from the previous year, flow in its perpetual continuum.
new year resolutions? naw.
it is however something to embrace and anticipate with a feigned gleeful rubbing of the palms. at least, get into the spirit of things and celebrate life in its multiple facets of existentiality, consciousness & fantasy, virtue & vice. new year day saw me starting off in a slow rush. nice, i'm a mellow fellow.

nick (seriously childhood friend) & i, right in the heart of b. timah. Jan 1st.

it is official

2004-12-30T10:08:00.000-08:00

stereotyping is an act of categorizing a generic species from perceptions of the puerile mind. one can never truly say for sure a flaw/trait belongs to an absolute community, 100%. that's just rubbish, because, there are always variants and deviations, random abnormalcies that run in the blood. therefore, in my 20 yrs of living, i've refrained consciously to stereotype and hit a boat of people with a bamboo, proverbially speaking. this is due to the fact that as much as i've been exposed to the common irrationally cultural misdemeanour of a community, occasionally, i am also exposed to fragments of acceptably behaviour from said community. at times, behaviour that are too darn angelic and gorgeously touching.
that said, i was, however, recently undermined and nearly monetarily assaulted by these marginalized sapiens who survive on the periphery of wealthy rings, and who, charged by culturally flamboyant instincts, frequent affluent hotspots, in futile attempts to assimilate into sophistication and fame. these are just poor shots of unrequited love, to be honest.

i am filled with so much angst and anguish, for a fact, that i see their food industries, in the face of so much convenience catered to my neighbourhood, nothing but a tidal infringement into what has always been an estate of repose and decency. when i cruise tiresomely past said establishment, i witness the glaring litter of cigarette packs, tissues, scramblers, vans and pickups along the alleys, walkways and avenues and mentally jeer at the attitude of this undervalued and deprecated species.

a friend once imbued in me the worth of a phrase which sweepingly disparages them: they are the blacks of the east. these days, the significance of aforementioned statement rings truer by the event. indeed, the pus of the favellas, the piss of the ghetto: i can't help but feel officially racist. i should be legitimately stoned for my unharmonious thoughts and influences in a country where everything rests upon surface synchrony but i can't care less of the repercussions of these raging views and vehement sentiments of this armageddonish crisis.

THANK YOU

2004-12-29T05:04:00.000-08:00

kim,
thank you so much for the card. you don't know how much it means to me. have fun over there. ade & i are having somewhat concrete plans to fly over. waiting for this reunion of the year, of whatever year this occurs in. soon, we will be reunited. it's in the scheme of things. we will...

- kz

contentment

2004-12-27T08:09:00.000-08:00

now and then, i speak to various distinctive individuals on life on campus and perspectives of the varsity worlds. it is regrettably against my will and whim to sit through any form of academic lecture that could possibly drive me to the brink of perilous boredom and lift the languid particles of my brain to some measure of intellectual involvement. brutally speaking, i do not see myself hauling stacks of texts and poring, with a meticulous eye, through papers that ramble on austere aspects of the world and life or rhapsodize critically on the wonders of the play of colours. current contentment takes the form of engaging in humourous talks in utter gibberish and dealing with tangible pleasure, or even, blogging, just what I am so now doing.
occasionally, sweeping trails of philosophies, concepts and ideas might waft through my mind, but, they do not settle for long. and it is queer that i should be bothered by these trivial issues that hold meagre importance now and otherwise mount my poor soul with even more pressure.
thus, i have come to the conclusion that the mind shall not dwelve into the eccentricities of the earth strata nor the factors that contribute to a historical social reform, but, rest upon a plateau of ease and comfort at the lazy and inert life i am now leading.

godspeed

2004-12-26T09:27:00.000-08:00

27th dec, morning. christmas this year was ineluctably weird. as much as i forced myself to be, i wasn't decently excited about celebrating it. it was more of dragging oneself to the doorstep of a party and mustering, with every ounce of strength remaining, a guarded smile and effusive gesticulations, merely to get into the epicentre of the holiday mood of the household. it could have been the puzzling events of the past week, could have been the unseen force from within to withdraw into a taciturn state, could have been, just, a boggled mind which doesn't look forward to each waking day but wallow in the swamp of the nasty confusing thoughts that prick it. admittedly, i am confused. stupendously confused by a host of inexplicable acts of contempt, indifference and ignorance. the bottled-up issues have been, as i've found the chances, unleashed on trustable individuals. and my series of confidantes has but aligned to a determined decision to dismiss and disregard what could possibly be, the inconsequential outcome of the crimson tide. this is, by no means, explicit or remotely offensive, but an abstract statement of what that is the truth, and nothing but the truth.
and i have been time and again dissuaded from doing what i would normally do to resolve any matter of this peculiar nature.
but i digress. christmas saw me crashed out in a state of hangover. mathematically: gulps of rose wine, malibu, cranberry something shots, 01 x jug of vodka i-don't-remember-what, 04 x barcardi breezer. grabbing-toilet retching act. blacked out. goodnight. i broke my private pact to refrain from dangerous intoxication of the vessels that inhabit a poor drinker.
anyhow, i am thankful that the weekend rounded up nice and decent. ade, the calm and composed. faith, my long lost pal aka dotter. honourable mentions.

faith & ade

the girls & i. it wasn't too bad. i liked it.

and so much for that.

HK in a whirl

2004-12-23T22:36:00.000-08:00

never did i expect myself to board the plane to hk, having bought the ticket just one & half days prior. in a jiffy, i was literally transported to another dimension, away from the rigidities of the camp and the stifling aura of the office. away from the same old-ness of sg. liberty activated.
it had been some time since i got outta the island to somewhere substantially different in both culture and lifestyle. hk, well, proved to be not much different from my notion of it perceived before the '97 handover. an urbanite like i am weaved thru' traffic and throngs, and faded into obscurity of those in fashionable trenchcoats, furry jackets, boots and glittery scarves. just the kinda privacy i need, and breathe, amidst the smog.

i'm thankful for the hospitality i received. milo in the morn, meals totally paid for, shelter over my head, what else do i need?

shenzhen, hk

the bargaining enterprise totally swept me away. thorton, theo & i. and that's the elite estate where i bunked at.

intriguing were the signposts & directories.

i thought of bringing porn back until i saw this rarity of musculine ultimate gayness.

one facet of HK: the jostling crowd in the MTR is well, no comments.

us - in the cabin

undergarment elephantiasis

pac coff...

on the ride to the airport, as i conversed with uncle keong, the chauffeur in full-fledged rudimentary cantonese and keong, with me, in understandably broken english, i thought abt the emotional morning i met up with aunty merlyn; how i was abt to leave upon hearing unfamiliar voices on the intercom, how we weeped as we embraced each other, how long it had been since i last saw her, how our minds drifted to days of my childhood when she would shower me with care as if i were her family and she, mine, how we caught up on missed times and grew speechless at the boiling emotions running through us, and, how her eyes watered as keong drove me away from wharf road.

after the reunion, i realised there are just some things in life that i can't leave behind. things that i hold dear to my heart and instead of effacing with time, grow fonder and stronger. heirlooms of life, etched in memory, element of the human condition. i pray all is well for her, always.

unveiled

2004-12-11T10:53:00.000-08:00

things are kinda confused right now, i don't know what's happening in the family, what's happening to some of my friends, the people at work and the random crazy people outside. maybe i'm just feeling a lil edgy and paranoid and reading into things too much, but i'm befuddled just the same. and things don't turn out as expected and it's just these fragments of unpredictability and shock that take me off guard and remind me that shit rolls down the hill. i don't know, but i'm just confused and not feeling that good.
i've learnt for a fact that sometimes, full commitment backfires and it works out if you put self interests in front of you, and maybe, i'm gonna do just that... more frequently... and maybe things will ease out themselves.
i feel highly uncomfortable when life seems so ominous and obscure, when i don't know what's gonna happen to me or my closed ones in time to come. maybe it's just a passing phase that life has taken on a haywired route. and irascibility has taken a toll on me when disagreements surface and tensions turn taut.
i realise that as versatile as i want to be or think i am, there will always be unmatched nuts and bolts, hooks and corners.
even the love of my life seems dull and sleepy and lethargic. maybe it comes with age, the ravages of time. but then again, she maybe just afraid of my maid, who i suspect must have tortured her at some pt. in time. otherwise, i can't find any reason that she'll stoop her head every so often under the sweeping curtains to check if those pair of legs are there and if the coast is clear for her to roam and stretch her body on the floor in mindless abandonment.

love of my life

when will freedom arrive? when will the clipped wings flap its fully blossomed feathers? when will promises live eternally? when will desires be fulfilled? when will contentment reign? ---

school for seduction

2004-12-03T10:08:00.000-08:00

there's a little fire in every woman, or so preaches kelly brooks in pseudo-italian accent. the finger on the lips, curved and varnished. the dark hair cascading in swiping curls. the little manoeuvres around the chair, legs criss-crossing. stockings unrolling, the poise, the slightly gaping mouth, the twirling tongue, the slanted eyes. running her strokes along the handle of the broom, back and forth, slidingly, tempting and shady. the power of women, women who radiate confidence. sensuality, not sleaze, worked to its best. the overarching feminine lure, seduction that is arrestingly beautiful.

conversely, there is the raw and rigour of the male needs and wants, his fancies and cravings. pulsating testosterones. the male ego entails dominance, brute strength, fanatical interests and sense of focus. the male pride and chauvinism, the ego set high on the pedestal.

and the feminine passivity which whimpers under the thumb of the male oppression. women who cower in silence and anguish. the conventions of her role; women condescended, silenced, deprecated.

eventually, the female energy is suppressed for too long and there is an outcry, an outburst from the shroud. women empowered and found roots to her feminine identity, her value in existentiality. like the tips of the fingers touching one another. there is connection, finally.

weekend in retrospect

2004-11-27T22:14:00.000-08:00

this weekend poses a challenge to wrap up the week nicely and provide some sorta closure to the struggles of diet regime, sleep debt and stress management (as usual). and on top of that, the recurring astounding reality of how small the world is and always has been. turns out that we are not just linked by pure friendster's permutations of the world's friendships but familial ties as well. it also dawned on me how close i am to stepping thru' the doors of classrooms again when i noticed the sporadic clumps of underaged schoolgirls bootying away at zouk. in other words, as more of the girls younger than i complete their exams, the closer i am to the academic realm. bookishness resurrected.

anyhow, shing, mark and i decided to bake our skin to a golden tan and it turned out that we (at least for me) became more roasted and grilled alive than we yearned for. fresh outta the oven. good times at sunset bay, tho' the babes cruisin', beach-volleyballin', lazin', catwalkin' were slightly disappointing and lowered the benchmark of the bay's royal babeliciousness.

shing, mark and i --- coincidentally geared in black

and shing finds the sandcastle breathtakingly aesthestic. they were beautiful, in my opinion.

addition: weichin. his church mates pitched a spot at camp laguna, whatever the name.

the ominous weather that made me tell liwen to turn back as she was on her way to the island.

an artist's impression

pidgin language

2004-11-19T21:22:00.000-08:00

book selection: an absorbent eye cast upon the words of the text as it is leafed through somewhat haphazardly. what that is captured is the essence of the language, the stylistic approach with which the writer uses in orchestrating his words, building units of his writing, like the contemplative arrangement of the pieces of a chess game.

and so, writers who infuse vernacular into their works are masters of their chess games. writing pieces heavy with vernacular are uniquely alluring. the vernacular does more than allow the reader to tap into the geographical and cultural data of the setting and characters; it forms a mysterious veil between reader and text and access to the meaning and significance of the text becomes grappling, coarse and vicarious. the language becomes subtle, abstract and sometimes baffling, the reader is tuned to adapt to the aura exuded with which the words carry and his vision tunnelled into the cloistered culture the words are played and moved in the writing. yet, he is never to be able to fully grasp it. strangely, unfamiliarity which breeds comfort.

in the course of reading, the interest moves along with the flunctuation of the vernacular. sometimes, the words are utterly bizarre, the language accentuated and strong. sometimes, mild and undulating. and this is what keeps the reader engaged (and what qualifies a book a page-turner) as he moves along with the cadence, pace, mood of the words, as the tales fold and unfold, the ambience faded and obscure, or intense and heightened.

the vernacular evolves dynamically with place and time. sometimes lyrical, provocative, sometimes jargoned, convoluted, sometimes dialogue-liked, confessional, sometimes ghetto, soulful, sometimes insightful, incoherent, pidgin, nationalistic.

left to right from top: the color purple, true history of the kelly gang, angela's ashes, 'tis, a clockwork orange, grapes of wrath, some of which with vernacular so powerful they threw punches at my mind's eye.

flummoxed

2004-11-13T03:37:00.000-08:00

is it just me or have the ghosts of my past come haunting me again, gnawing at my insides and playing with my mind?
i don't get it. it's been close to 2 years since i graduated from ac and can forever say "yeah i took the A levels, now it's your turn, you loser!!", and through this time, it's no wonder that i did stumble upon ex-schoolmates. ex-schoolmates who NEVER said hi to me back in school, but now, as we cruised past each other, say, along orchard road, said individual would acknowledge my presence and willingly shoot me with smiles. some even went as far as stopping in my path and present me with a bear hug and exclaim vehemently how are ya?! what are you doing?! i'm good thank you, what do you plan to do???! scoobydoobydoooo...
and then conversely, there are those who did talk to me, did hang out with me in the same tuition class and are alibis of my friends, but who looked elsewhere when they saw me, either at the floor or some distant vague spot of interest, pretended they were contemplating about something really crucial they didn't have time to look me in the eye, or talked to me so nonchalantly as if we never shared a past.

i'm tiredly confused. maybe i'm a sentimental guy full of sentimental instincts, someone who grips strongly onto the past and who roots his thinking and actions in history and memory. but these dichotomous reactions and attitudes i have been getting from the folks who once weaved into my life and indirectly (or directly) moulded my identity, mindset & values are nothing but vexingly puzzling.

but i figure if that's the way things have taken shape these days, i can only shrug and let them be. it's not so much of a loss as it is a jigsaw part that will never fit into the picture of perfection.

but this is someone who has been sticking to what i can say a friendship that only gets better.
a treasured relic of the past.

karma

2004-11-11T21:09:00.000-08:00

oftentimes caught in dilemma, torn between conscience and convenience, one is forced to make absolute decisions, to defy, to betray his morals and ethics, crumbling a value system. a school of thought invalidated. he is tested for his righteousness, his strength of principles, or what that is left of it. he is to prove, not to himself, for he is merely a witness of his own actions, but to the invisible, spiritual and intangible, his worth in humanity, purity in existentiality.

a silent strategy murmured with fingers crossed. lie in the brewing, deceit taking shape. the individual takes on a habitualized subterfuge and the wrongs are infused into the daily routine of life.
the relief is all but temporal, satisfaction regained but shortlived. there is a constant tussle against temptation, the potential to bow and yield, succumb and surrender. and the fall from grace sinks deeper and deeper into the murk, shades and shadows, smoke of the grey areas.

definitively, it is action which entails consequences. the plain truth lies in what that goes around, comes around. what goes up, must come down. melodrammatically deemed as retribution. superstitiously rumoured as revenge by the gods.

it is KARMA, baby.

2004-11-11T08:26:00.000-08:00

i'm steeped in minor vacation season, what with the string of festive holidays and the natural mood geared towards the 3 letter word: ORD. i can't wait. and what a way to kick off this phase with the beach volley, kayak, drifting orgasmically afloat in the pit of the lagoon, the sun, sand, babes... and as joey claimed in his deliberately poetic way, "uninhibited, liberated and fucking carefree." however, all these took place in the face of the repulsive inhospitality of the mud-looking ratass who owns the kayak kiosk at the beach and his scarcity mentality of a singaporean money-hungry businessman who feared dearly we would transfer the friggin' wristbands and tip the balance of the market of his miserable beach business. and joey and i vowed vaguely and mindlessly that we would feedback whoever darn well has his thumb on the kiosk business that we'll boot him outta the island. yeah yeah, like we'll ever do it.
the same night saw us heading to zouk and what was to meet the eye but the pissing thick crowd thronging into the club, and we thought it was the millennium countdown caught in a time warp, squashed into the area of kim seng. unbelievable. who, in the right frame of mind, would pay to get in and end up doing shoulders exercise for dancing, queuing a good half hour just to get a drink... and so, i was lucky that emman was in the vicinity. knocked my head while entering his car, dissed, drove, emman didn't wanna club somewhere else, so that left me, giles and munch traipsing along the lively street of MS.
moloko bar:saw this gorgeous babe in halter (possibly a successful trannie) hooking up with a clique of gays (without doubt they are), one of whom wanted to impress with his ballet-looking steps, akin to a mixture of grease and save the last dance./china escorts humping on the laps of paunch-protruding, hokkien expletives-belting, middle-aged singaporean men caught in drunken stupor that would unquestionably make their wives flip should they see the tapes.
CU: oh man, giles and i tried to order our drinks over the counter and all the time the chicks were hovering their asses over my head as the hiphop went boom boom boom, and i thought my heart opened a gap. and one of them girls squatted down, whispered in giles' ears and giles was like,"no no no, him..HIM.. " pointing at me and i knew something embarrassing was gonna happen like licking booze off her belly, so i took off to the toilet which was still, a much needed relief. and then we watched with glazed eyes how an angmoh guy whip his dance by only and strictly thrusting his groin at one of them girls, same girl who was molested before the eyes of everyone when another sleazebag ran his hand over her titties. said sleazebag could only be remembered with his all-significant move:lift left hand and do nothing else. it was truly amazing. CU at CU.

i needa sleep, this sounds like an email i would write to tanyams, all in the day of a nolifer, trodden by the iron jaws of conscription.

i keep on fallin' in and out...of life

2004-11-06T07:50:00.000-08:00

gailey's return promises more reunions, more gatherings, more catching-ups with the rest of the class, most of whom i have either lost complete correspondence to, or by natural twist of fate and fortune, disappeared in the mist of life. i won't say it's heartening, but good, in its pure simple meaning, that most of us have mellowed through growth in each of our enclaves of life and work; the feisty learning to take the lowest lows with a pinch of salt, the innocuous gaining in strength and independence. in the inevitable diaspora, each of us has taken on a different role/persona/leaning to a certain secure aspect of life. and it is, again, a good thing to know that life has taken shape for each of them, and the future lies essentially fun and exciting, intellectual and prospective with the most bizarre of hopes and speculations.
life does and has to go on.

i have attached, courtesy of jen, semi-clear shots of alicia keys' soulwrenching performance that left an indelible imprint, brimming with richness and pride.

alicia in her turquoise (blindingly blue under the spotlight) thematic get-up

]
the backup singers --- powerful as hell, made me like old school muzak

sassying on the piano, she showed that she could play the piano backwards, yeah, BACKWARDS

jen aka dotter and i, we had our fill

and the tickets, up close and personal

fright night!

2004-10-31T20:44:00.000-08:00

30th Oct, halloween night. zouk was morphed into the realm of the supernatural where ghouls and zombies have risen from their graves and roamed this earth in exceeding flamboyance and poise. where the transylvannian era has come to life and vampires, witches and the anne rice's characters scattered in vengence and horror. where marvel heroes and heroines reunited and slashed the world with their ultimate powers.
never before has the aura of goth in the most revolutionary sense assailed the grounds of kim seng. zouk was alive with those buried down under, the immortal, the revengeful, the woeful. a fright night not to be missed.

count gustoff & russian mafia --- the latter complete with revolver, the former who was refused free entry because "it's only the mask!" and the latter going, "oh my god, oh my god! you paid?! WHhhY?!"

don't exactly know what this is, but this random bloody cleaver holding, bloodstreaked plus sized murderer was caught on camera

practically laughed my toes off at this one. people do have lotsa creativity in the spirit of halloween

catwoman, dr oct, count gustoff --- lovingly scary

fine poetry

2004-10-29T07:19:00.000-07:00

a bundle of words, carefully chosen, emplaced. an arrangement, touching up, giving it a fine finish --- poetry.
smooth poetry flows in its seamlessness. like trails of bromide trapped in a jar, the words whirl in greatest versatility conceived, fittingly entangled and flowing over one another like silk upon silk. smooth poetry makes your heart go owww and a peaceful inspiration descends, a serenity hard to forget yet strong enough to make you pick up the pen and roam the page with curves and flourishes, sophisticated manuscript.
good poetry captures the essence of a particular moment, its spectaculars, its essence, its importance in a matter of a few lines. each line quick with words that comprises syllables that can be mentally uttered in a careless breath. good poetry freezes your mind in thought and leaves it prodded, provoked, in a state of its own. even for a brief moment, we know it's good because it hits you temporarily but unsparingly. encapsulation worked to its optimum effect.

************************

DESERT PLACES

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, so fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it - it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more intense ere it will be less -
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare with their empty spaces
Between stars - on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.

chanced on it back in tutoring days. one of my student's assignments. a weird but beautifully crafted poetry for both academic and leisure scrutiny.

********************

We Real Cool
The Pool Players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel.

We real cool. We
left school. We

Lurk Late. We
strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

--- Gwendolyn Brooks

superbly extraordinary. the whammed cadence tackles straight to the heart on the destruction of the naive, the young, the superficial, the poseurish. this is brilliant encapsulation.

************************

Farewell to Love

Since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part;
Nay, I have done, you get no more from me,
And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart
That thus so cleanly I myself can free.
Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again,
Be it not seen in either our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
Now at the last gasp of love's latest breath,
When, his pulse failing, passion speechless lies,
When faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And innocence is closing up his eyes;
Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,
From death to life thou mightst him yet recover.

--- Michael Drayton

a calm and composed confrontation of contemporary love/hate delivered by steady rhythm and alliteration well strategized.

the past month

2004-10-28T10:21:00.000-07:00

i believe, with the sensitivity of the age, people's reaction to the mass media's portrayal of life's vicissitudes, trauma, tragedies and comedies has been heightened at one undefined point of time and denigrated into a hodgepodge of indifference, maturity and toughness. life's elements, its tears and smiles, have been regarded as overhyped melodrama and idiosyncrasies.

with what that happened to me all in the month of october, i might have thought that i was steeped in life's idiosyncrasies and those melodramatic moments were flashing through my life so swiftly that i found myself wholly detached from the entire affair and looking at it from the angle of an outsider, a third person, the curious examining a stageplay in a crystal ball.
through this intrinsically vicarious experience, i was steeped in a whirl of toughguy playing. while i watched her break down and cry heartwrenchingly, her face grimaced into lines of painstaking agony of memory and past, i felt my face toughened into an iron-like facade, my shoulders stiff and face expressionless, the adam's apple bobbing down into the gut of my throat.
and inside, i was crying a river. i wasn't sure if i was stacking up the depressions and living life in the hope and prayer that they would disintegrate with time, or that, truly, i was crying a river. but i was crying a river, a river that flowed back in time and flowed through history in its timelessness. it ebbed past moments of bonding, playhood, childhood, defiance, contentment, anger, love, loneliness, peace, trust and filial piety and eddied through a time when life was simple, pure and harmonious, lovers faithful and families strong and cloistered, a time when the prospects were good, futures shining, success and glory at peak, a time when the love of a family was the essence of life.

the past of life reworked into strings of imagination and recollection that entered slidingly... and tied up much of my existence into a state of sedentariness and stagnation.
by some odd twist and retessellation of the pieces, life got on hold and broke into a trot, and i desire it to revert to wellness and continue to quest through its path...

in a fine gallop.

kids galore

2004-10-23T05:00:00.000-07:00

mom's cannon managed to snap MANY shots of the family kids at a recent gathering. happy times! here are the highlights...

i took this one, perched on the swivel chair and tried to the best of my ability to steady their attention TOWARDS THE CAMERA!!!

this is in my opinion the best shot of the evening

piggyback riding

another classic to add to the family pictorial heritage

on the throne

my hat off to kindergarten teachers who remain in their profession despite the setbacks, the screams, the pee, the frustration, the tantrums, the exhaustion.

rude awakening

2004-10-11T06:51:00.000-07:00

under the influence of drugs/alcohol/hypnosis for the past few days, my mind has been spinning, whirlpooling and drifting afloat in complete directionlessness. when i try to read alan paton's cry, the beloved country, the eye merely scans across the words in sweeping superficiality. i cannot grasp properly the concepts, content and the significance of the text. the mind lives in an isolated sorta way, detached from the motion of objects, the movement of life, the changes of the world.

this morning, i woke up to a drizzlin mornin and an immune system on the brink of shut-down. i trudged thru breakfast and the treadmill of preparation to go to work and decided at the 11th hour, when i was all dressed to get outta the house to hail the cab, to skip work for the day and rest my much deserved rest. and i forgot to cross my fingers (as i'm not in the habit of doing so) as i tried to sleep throughout the morning with my cell bursting with its vexing vibrations because darn it, th0se people from camp kept calling me about the most miscellaneous and extraneous of work matters and if the heaven and earth permit, i would've liked to line them all up and gun them down at one brutal go. actually, i've liked to do that a long time ago.
it didn't put my mind at ease that while my ________ was spinning a web of his fucked-up tale over the phone, matriarch goddess was hollering in the background like a mongrel and it dawned on me momentarily how the entire office's dependency actually weighed on me with its monstrosity. and my ________ whom i was beginning to rely on now betrayed my trust with their selfishness and self-defensivenss all in the name of survival in the military. trust them no more, God says, i think he was sorta pounding the gavel on the oak so that i could wake up to my senses and the cold, hard, biting reality, that life in that sphere functions exclusively differently.

soul soul soul

2004-10-07T09:45:00.000-07:00

alicia keys' concert was a melange of comedy, sentimentality and above said elements, SOUL. agreed, small affair it was, for there wasn't much of a publicity involved and the hall was not 100% used but the seats, to say the least, were filled an excellent portion, as far as i know. and also because the deco was done to a decent level of flamboyance and class; not too elaborate or flourished, but all good for the eyes.

one word for the length of its entirety: BREVITY. i thought it would've lasted longer but before i knew it, the routine concert encore phase befell and like what most artistes would do, alicia deliberately disappeared and got us craving for more. her backup singers, who were superb and pro in every sense of said phrase, informed that alicia "likes old school music" and each rendered a classic which was heartwrenching, heart strings-tugging and everything soulful. alicia appeared for the final time in her gear of sequined blue corset and white pants, belting out you don't know my name, which, i believe, pretty much got the american woman in front of me perked up to the heighth of excitement and exhiliration.
alicia's remixed version of a woman's worth was a comedy well targeted at the ladies of the night, some of whom, in my view, were eye candies worth it. anyway, she was like, the people in singapore are so warm and kind. i've been to the... night safari (momentary silence and the crowd went wild patriotically) ... lemme ask you something, are there any REAL men in da house tonight (hands shot up aplenty and crowd roared AGAIN) ... and lemme ask, are there any... strong... independent... beautiful (going adjectivally stronger here)... worthy women here?? (even more hands brandished in ecstacy). and i thought my heart rumbled and tumbled when she gave her soul fully to if i aint got you, that i believe, brought tears cascading down the cheeks of the heartbroken, torn and worn, who found themselves able to relate to the lyrics of the song as it was delivered melodiously. she did the song proud, oh so proud.

whoever planned this did a good job at focusing the show down to its core of soul in its crowning glory for they were alicia's cream of the best, the elite platinium soul classics. i figure she must have obliviously engaged herself in a segment of soliloquy as she droned us on her misfortune of an imaginary asshole boyfriend. as she expressed her agony of an urban woman, an american lady from behind bellowed alicia, you don't deserve him! THAT, kinda got us laughing, it's a pity she couldn't hear it amidst the din.

so much for my 2 cents worth of review. it was, in a nutshell, awesome in its brevity. and because of this, i'm left craving for more. i need soul.

2004-10-06T06:49:00.000-07:00

and tomorrow, smacked in the heart of suntec city, a singer will be performing live in town for the very first time. my childhood neighbor/classmate/best of friends, jen aka dotter, will be at the front row with me as we chill to the groove of soul in its richest, glorious form. hail to ALICIA KEYS...

polygamy

2004-09-30T01:25:00.000-07:00

stayhome thursday afternoon. the rain pouring in fair torrents. oprah (all-new oprah) on tv.
instead of dealing with the mundane, and pretty much redundant, domestic issues of the average american family (ie, how to compartmentalize my accessories? i think my spouse is having an affair, what are the signs? my ixora don't grow well in pots, does moonshine fertilizer help? i live in new york, i want my kids to be famous, but they are at odds with my wish, dear oprah, please help?), the episode today featured the controversy behind the attack of 'roy' from 'siegfried & roy' by his pet circus tiger (oddly explained by siegfried) and the harrowing tale of tracy lords' conversion into pornstardom since she was 15. last but not least, the revelation of prevalent polygamy in our modern society, in 2 separate locations of north america, bountiful, british columbia and colorado city, arizona, can you believe that?

for those not in the know, polygamy in these places (or any other place in the world) means having more than one spouse or, simply put, plural marriage. it's bad because girls are forced to marry men 3x older than them. bad because girls marry at 15. bad because girls end up marrying their granduncles. bad because it's incestuous. bad because there is no escape once she is married into the family. bad because she has to give birth to like, 15 children (that sets the record of a man having 73 kids in colorado city alone). you would think this is history or it only exists in places such as XXYY in nepal, but it's HAPPENING in our world.

check this out.

little has changed over the 100 years

And a poem that left me stranded, baffled and disturbed

I looked out the window, and what do I see?
The Prophet Joseph making eyes at me.
It shouldn't come as a complete surprise;
The angel told him 'Try her on for size.'

I could take a powder and leave the scene;
But he'd probably send Port runnin' after me.
I guess it must be so
But I don't wanna be
The Prophet's wife number thirty-three.

By Randy J.

summer memories

2004-09-26T10:48:00.000-07:00

life has somewhat halted to a standstill as this weekend ended on a note of austere finality. it has come to a point in time, when words, however masterfully orchestrated, do not suffice to paint the full picture or deliver a point/sentiment.
as i gently tap these keys in the quiet of the night and my breath breaks into fluctuating heaves, my mind traverses to wisps of these holidays, that had come and gone; the fun, blast, splendour, solace, hilarity, joy and euphoria.

tanya
zouk, the walks at heeren, far east, brandy lemonade, lips, preview lounge, geylang, phonechats, marijuana shirt, luncheon, flaming lambo, ac, waffles, c.a.n, kbox exec, lynn, patsy, white chix, pictures, metamorphosis of transition, mrt, city hall, thorton, andrew, gabes, fee, podium, bourbon coke, dip it low, blog, paul frank, apple, coffee club, tears, laughter, reminiscence.

nattie
orchard, shopping, kim, sjp shoes, blind dating, zouk, cigarettes, knnbccb, doughsticks, hwachong, chompchomp, bayshore, geylang, jeans, movies, black, bastord, throw outta window, sleaze, 10 push ups, swim, bakerzinn, taiwanese taitais, coupe cheesecake, membership, von, devils bar, black, lian, flowers, pictures, diet, fun, laughter, peace, joy, tears, goodbye, reminiscence.

frozen in time. encapsulation of the moments. love you.

until my saving grace

2004-09-21T19:10:00.000-07:00

it seems to be preordained by the One in heaven that my life would oftentimes be punctuated with bumps of all sorts, that unexpectedly, i would stumble, tumble, fall, crawl and stagger my way up again before i grope flailingly for some semblance of anchorage --- concrete and tangible.
and that try as i might, it is inevitable that through the traversing in the tunnel of the unknown and unpredictable, i would come to meet adversity, tension, stress, paranoia and misfortune in the flesh. once again, in my flurried struggle and tussle with these, i would learn to overcome, conquer and outwit, resurfacing as a more mature individual who has been bitten by the wind of reality, possibly disillusioned and smitten, possibly learned and grown.

life, for one thing, floats in an abyss. stranded in the age uncertainty. submerged in fear. drowned in the humdrum of work, the routine of life. at times, i long for life to be adventurous, splendoured, opulent, glamorous and exciting. other times, i settle for the mundane, the peaceful and serene. my mind lapses into erratic moments of delirium and quiet/apprehension and relaxation/dementia and composure/melancholy and excitement/fantasy and ugly reality.

undeniably, i am still groping, searching, tracing the silhouette for familiarity, discovery. tactile and experiential.

groping still.
my saving grace.

2004-09-20T07:55:00.000-07:00

chinatown orchard dhoby ghaut bugis zouk

in writing essays, i was drilled to present my points in descending order of importance slash significance and in this very fashion, i show to the world the colossal absurdity of advice to treasure your OVARY UTERUS, in the heart of chinatown.

nikki sent me this. it's amazing how you can turn a wad of gum into one nice big bubble, which, upon overinflation, bursts on your face, smattered, shattered, smapped.

a cloudy pic of tanya and i in the cabin of the train, squashed in a claustrophobic miasma, while onlookers stare at us in disbelief, like, like that also can take picture ah?

darius and tanya, is this NOT a good shot?

kbox exec is the best value for money, i swear. an aesthetic furnishing such as this ^ amplifies the luxury we were in.

this is what i call EMOTING, dear singapore idol hopefuls out there. put feelings, personality, the X factor into your singing and you'll get thru' before florence lian says 'dick'.

at c.a.n cafe, the singapore sling was fucking bleagh even tho' it was ornate with a coconut tree stirrer, a red plastic sword (for what use, that is just beyond me) and cherry and a slice of lime.

read the bizarre tagline. the lengths moneymakers go thru these days to attract customers, regular and walk-in, i kid you not.

salad concoction, a turkish delight. we realised, to a level of high enlightenment, that if they were to play turkish music in a tandoori restaurant, we would think it's bangra, still...

and of course, this pic reminds me of FRIENDS' central perk, less the gizmos and random paraphernalia that litter the premises. nice pic, i say.

zouk it out.

for those who undermine, diss, whack, sabotage, arrow, disregard. lovely.

2004-09-13T10:04:00.000-07:00

some pics here, tho' total replicas of what my friends have posted, hit the funny bone/enchant with their intrigue/shock with their revelation/prick with their acidity or just have very sentimental values. sharing...

the spidermen cleaners who rustled the attention of those lounging at lips cafe and brought quickly, the flashlights of cameras, aimed to capture the moment

this is, if i'm not wrong, one of tanya's fav pics; we take so many pics together that we can open an album conveniently labelled 'metamorphosis of transition' in memory of shared humour from a long way back

mark and i. one of the few friends i can really talk to in camp and man am i glad he's from ac.

this is fucking funny, alliteration intended.

the bizarre of smoking discouragement ads

trying on shirts in a shop and this father of an uncle came in holding the exact same shirts, so this is me pointing to the NEXT fitting room where he was donning the exact same shirt in, of course, less cool fashion, oh my.

in the spirit(no pun intended) of the 7th month, a figure lingers up the stairwell of kbox executive and poses for a pic with the enlarged face of jacky cheung. guess who?

nattie and i. every guy i introduced her to has lost his senses, lost his girlfriend and fallen for her.

kim and i during her early days of holidays here. i don't know if we look happy or drunk or just happily drunk, or, just for a fact, drunkenly happy.

and i really like this one cause it's classic, touristy, and the bag is monosyllabically spastic.

so much for now, before i head to work in a few hours. just a word of caution to all potential tutors eking out a living out of educating the young, should you come across any kid (chinese high, gifted program, sec 4, resides in novena territory) looking for tuition in english slash geog slash lit, please do not take it for you'll get delayed pay and abuse from the bitch of a mom from hell. feel free to contact me for a full cover of the story.

flurry

2004-09-11T13:37:00.000-07:00

three consecutive days of non-stop clubbing can be quite a killer, but this can't really beat the spastic jokes darius brought up, which, btw, either leave you nonplussed in dumbfounded-ness or laugh like a retard.
am glad to have brought tanya to douse herself in a dose of singaporean clubbing and see for herself how the scene is like, as opposed to durham's, which, i have not the slightest clue about what sorta muzak and crowd go on there. speaking of the lack of knowledge, i must say, as i pound the gavel on the oak, that people truly do not have the slightest clue what rubbish they spout and what implication their garb might entail. nat's right, what goes 'round comes 'round.
i swear to the heavens and earth i will swim tommorow morn and swear as i do all the time, self promises to wake up early and complete those mere 30 laps go down the drain. why why whhhy???
and in a few hours' time, it'll be brand new day and one step closer to starting work, and you can hear me groaning inside in utter consternation. work is inevitable and that's how the cookie crumbles.
all the time.

of a singapore idol judge

2004-09-09T06:07:00.000-07:00

ken lim aka i-like-to-slant-my-specs-when-i-look-at-you-please-think-i'm-serious is SERIOUSLY uttering rubbish, junk, garbage, dump, dirtwad.

2004-09-07T08:48:00.000-07:00

a picture is worth a thousand words and here are, ta da duh da, the pics trigger-happy tanya took of the day which chronicles our laughter peace and joy.

mischievous vandalism has taken its toll on heritage cafe

2 thumbs up for radical school dishes

ac smiley

gimme purple heart for valorously indicating 10 bucks as fine for walking past the track

tis a bag wid a meaningless word

shoulder butt and organ soup, wassup baby??

everyone likes a clean fitting room

and i'm posting this pic to bec a) it's bizarrely funny how the japs infuse animals into foods and b) to spite the uptight lady who thought we were paparazzi after her goods

2004-09-06T08:41:00.000-07:00

tanya and i took ac by storm today when we decided, out of most random of craziness, to pay our motherland a visit and just, well, hang out there. besides the comfy couches newly installed in what is now known as heritage cafe which serves a splendid array of jap snacks and meals, motherland ac didn't offer much until geog teacher horror came slandering me lasciviously that i had been stalking him. which is just wrong. i am not your sweet and vocal guy.
and that basically thwarted our plans to breko at holland v, which was good in a way, because that made us explore town even longer, which is nothing but to our great heavenly benefit.
for there were tonnes of ppl shooting us with stares of every nature and we were forced to banana each other (lingo lingo) and this reached an all time climax when i bellowed(sorta) to an uncle in the third person that he had been locking his eyes on my dear friend here in lecherous scrutiny. and audacious it was of him to smile at me, i felt an urge to punch him.
misadventures and adventures these were and we covered the grounds of orchard and bugis in prolly a jillion steps, it was really cool cool cool.
well till upcoming friday (that's if i get outta camp) and we can go check out the modelling firm at taka, buy the black shirt and wind down at C.A.N cafe...

2004-09-02T10:32:00.000-07:00

my first trip to chompchomp wasn't too bad, now i finally know what it's like at the eastern tip of the island where the hustle and bustle of nocturnal eateries are flaming. and then there was the coded insinuation i and nat's friend, nikki were playfully acknowledging as she nudged me under the table, cause it was laugh out loud hilarious when the money issue was brought to light.
and then the flurried ride back through the seamless traffic of the expressways during which i faded into blacked-out obscurity which i was fine with, actually, for i find it doubly tough to connect with the topics at hand, and where we have left off several months ago when revulsion sorta creeped in.
anyhow, it wasn't too bad for the lord blessed me with a day of r&r where i was able to finally do my own stuff and chuck workload in the far reaches of my mind. and tomorrow begins early (in fact, in a few hours' time) when the horse hooves of the machinery break into its gallop and ride me topsy turvy. but hell, such is life and i shan't complain.

2004-09-01T07:47:00.000-07:00

aight, i am so friggin beat. when i look at myself in the mirror, i see i have white goggle marks around my eyes and i look like an inversed panda. and then beneath the eyes are swollen bags, black and unsightly, an eyesore in every sense of the word. my brains aint thinking straight at all and they are falling into little fragments in fugly fashion, just like how the streets of mumbai are as i watch amazing race with its extreme urgency, frustrated contenders, honking, vulgarities and ego stroking. my forehead is smattered with a line of sweat because the weather is just bad hot and my brother slept so early i can't go into the room to even pack my friggin bag. and people are not calling me like they promised me to and i'm not even pissed, and that's weird. and then i'm sick of going to work because i don't wanna see those bastards and assholes, let alone talk to them and feel like i'm burning in hell. today, this freak of a shithead just shook my hand because of our excellent results in the inspection and you know what i feel like i telling him? i don't even give a flying fuck what you mean with that connotation of a handshake, cause it doesn't feel right at all, you big fuck loner. and then there's m'am who can't stop bitching bitching bitching about her colleagues, like why can't you just shut up or either that, tell that nimrod you hate him? shut the fuck up or get outta service. and then there's oh holy mama the shittiest employer i've ever seen who's smoked almost everyone, including king boss, and just fell on his knees today because he found out he was going somewhere else, whew thank the LORD!!! ah, and king boss beckons for me so softly i can't even hear a fibre of what he was saying, speak up, do you think you're talkin to your chest hair or what? and then there's oddball who expresses himself in this american accent it's friggin bogus he doesn't know it, oh, some therapist please help this sad guy. and this place, god forsaken of a place is just brimming with people who are so darn weird, so darn flamboyant, so darn egotistical, so darn brainless, so darn screwed up in mind body and soul that they oughta be burnt in hell. burn you burn.. you nimrods!

man that feels good.

sorta.

prayer

2004-08-26T08:06:00.000-07:00

here is something i have learned about prayer that i have not seen mentioned in books on prayer i have read: prayer is meant to be preventative more than remedial. we usually treat prayer as remedial, meaning we pray when we have a need or are in trouble. but in luke 18:1 jesus says that at all times we "ought to pray...and not lose heart." in other words. prayer isn't the last thought; it's the first thought. it is preventative, not remedial. also instead of praying when we are tempted, jesus says we should pray that we "may not enter into temptation". when we are not under pressure and stress, we should be praying so that we might be shored up and defended against the pressures that will come.

until we come to the place of prayer, we will never find release from stress. if we treat prayer as just a religious ritual or option, then we are not truly living in dependence upon God. prayer is the soul of man crying out in inadequacy to a God who is adequate, a God who is able to do what man cannot.

--- david jeremiah

cute heroine

2004-08-24T09:17:00.000-07:00

li jia wei is cute. no question about it. we should all play ping pong.

troubled

2004-08-21T02:11:00.000-07:00

The fingers of one hand interlock
with those of the other,
clasped, grasped,
and latched.
Smooth assimilation.

Skin to skin, strong as one
down to each fibre
pulsating with fire, that
burned voluminously
crushingly
till each fibre repelled,
each finger rebelled
and the clasping fingers
lost their unity
and crumbled astray.

Save for one finger which
dances with fumes,
all bonds exhumed.
The remnants lay
forsaken, random and disarrayed.
Silent destruction.

back on the road

2004-08-19T07:33:00.000-07:00

with emotions recovered and desires withheld, i am starting to yield to the mundane drone of work, surrendering to the onslaught of arrows from all directions, silently killing my spirit and soul.

the proper treatment of work comes with adopting a down-to-earth, composed attitude which serves to deal with the daily admin more efficiently, no time wasted. and with that are thwarted dreams, distorted visions and a slap to fantasizing, rest and relaxation because the organisation does not tolerate those who sloth, mock, imitate, bemoan and wanderlust. it grounds you with its sense of realism, urgency and efficacy that one can only think it a dehumanizing process, an extinguisher to aesthetic living, a demolisher to the comfort zone.

and with the daily grind fragmenting all my drive, hopes and dreams into their smithereens, i can only look forward to the evenings and the sought-after weekends when freedom roams and solitude beckons. only then will i be able to luxuriate in a privacy i can call my own.

my beloved piya

2004-08-17T08:26:00.000-07:00

in 9 hours, she will return to the states, her place of birth, the land that shaped her values and identity.
a few hours ago, i stomached a surge of emotions as the elevator doors finally closed. and that was the last i saw of her.

it's been some time since i hugged someone with as much intensity as i did tonight, when i had to say goodbye to her and whisper the cliched 'take care' which, though stale-sounding, comes from a genuine heart which trembles with goodwill and a whole load of emotions.

it will be another 6 months.

or more.

yet another period of time when both of us will traverse different spirals of destiny and live lives headed with different goals and expectations. she will go back to her town, where subways reign the streets and house bashes are the relief outlets at the end of week, while i, will resume with the daily grind, pushing myself through each quivering second of time and finding solace at home, peace and tranquillity.

and how will we be able to take each other again after that lull of 6 months during which we would have been transformed in our value systems, priorities, lifestyles and desires. would the sense of juxtaposition be too much to take, or would we fraternize that linkage, just like how we've always done whenever we reunite?

goodbye priyanca, i miss you already.

hair business

2004-08-16T02:48:00.000-07:00

out of totally random boredom, i have posted some pics of my hair styled by deft hands and in imitation of some semblance of pomp and grandiosity. thanks to the really hand digicams of appletart and kim...

2004-08-16T02:42:00.000-07:00

2004-08-16T02:40:00.001-07:00

2004-08-16T02:40:00.000-07:00

2004-08-16T02:39:00.000-07:00

tuck in your shirt, please

2004-08-14T02:52:00.000-07:00

eons since i visited ac. i have not the slightest clue what's hot and what's not in the school, how the teachers are doing, if any of them has left/died/resigned/been fired/sought for greener pastures, how the students are doing, what new facilities have been propped up, what the system is like and if the choir crew still go "1,2,3... sing" unfailingly, each time before they render the national anthem and school song.

there is but a speck of change i have witnessed among the students i see on the streets, clad in white and blue. ac students, however much they are steeped in the school culture, have evolved unashamedly into pai kias with their nicely-pressed shirts totally not tucked in and flailing with the breeze of the traffic as they cruise the streets of town and bukit timah.

yes, the guys still sport the spiky geled hair, baggy pants hanging low on the hips and humongous shirts that enlarge their frames. the girls, on the other hand, still prefer mini skirts, ankle socks and school bags that look like shopping carriers. the general exterior remains unchanged 'cept for the shirts that hang mercilessly loose on the outside and this makes them no different from grunge-looking ah bengs/ah huays squatting by the ditches, relishing a long drag from their cigarettes.

not to say i'm at the heighth of fashion but at least when it comes to self-presentation, these folks have scored a mark down to the pit and it's seriously sad that degeneration has taken its toll on fellow alumni like me, who has fond memories of the place and its people, but those which are now tainted by the sense of decadence, defiance and attention-seeking features of those who walk through the spaces i've walked through, who sat the desk i've sat at, play hookey, run on the tracks, swim, sleep, everything that i've done.

so long, guys.

style

2004-08-11T01:17:00.000-07:00

i'm not sure if bloggers know but most of us have an affinity for speaking at the 'you', the general public, the imagined self put in this position, viewing the world from this standpoint, the individual stranded in this very predicament.
'you' has evolved into a universal word, a term of endearment in fact, because for some strange reason, the 'you' is able to undergo the experience, suffer the pain, feel joy and jubilation, pathos and poignancy. the 'you' is an individual, created by the workings of the mind, whom the blogger can conveniently relate to. an attached self who mirrors who the blogger is --- abstract, obscure, inexplicable, nonetheless, a useful and convenient tool to deliver oneself.

i surmise this should be the stylistic approach of blog writing. 'you', as a form of direct narrative address, bridges the gulf between reader and blogger, confronts those whose eyes scan the blog and creates an inquest within the reader himself, or herself for that matter, to dredge up similar memories, common histories, shared sentiments and build an intangible rapport between reader and blogger. that the reader, before he knows he is caught unawares of such psychological linkage to the piece of work, sees points of departures and stories that reflect from within, a deja vu of sorts.

the direct narrative address is straightforward. it captures you from where you stand, grips you by the shoulders and tackles the mind with such conviction and depth that you are sucked in by the beauty in the writing itself, entrenched and enchanted.

and before i know it, i'm using it myself.

hamartia of the common man

2004-08-10T01:54:00.000-07:00

putting myself in the shoes of those who contemplate the idea of signing on, a number of reasons come to light:
1st & foremost: the steady income. this, plus random attractions like pay increment, performance bonus yadda yadda, are suffice to buy milk for your newborn. why newborn? because regulars practise shotgun affairs. contraceptives, dude!
2) rank supremacy: the higher you are in the rank hierarchy, the more subordinates you have. the greater control you have, the more you are the king on that ladder and below, in your very own right. self-empowerment appeals to the ego.
3) privileges: the safra card entitles you to use of gyms, swimming pools, arcades and whatnot when you are really bored and in need of entertainment absolutely free.
4) no more brainwork: more often than not (and sadly, a true thing), the act of thinking is a rare job. act on impulse, scream, shout, bark, vulgarity... that's the way to get the job done, to hell with the thought process.
5) respect & dignity: come with the military personae. but these days, with the full-timers' proving that they have more smarts than regulars and regulars portraying themselves as nothing less than clowns, the 2 elements of glorification have degenerated. Much.
6) backup facilities: free showers (albeit heater-excluded), free meals (albeit msg-saturated), free lodging (albeit decrepit condition) make basic survival possible. 'least you have roof over your head.
7) subsidies: maybe this should go under 3) but what the heck. hospitalisation, medical leave, maternity wards, service injuries, taxi fares: the govt. pays for everything you, no cent less.
8) sense of system: for those aimless and bordering on wasted existence, the discipline of the military ensures that you wake up early, have your meals at regular times and guides your derailing life with a sense of direction.
9) socializer: a friendless sort like you into making new friends and creating a false sense of brotherhood looks forward to entering camp everyday because simply, you are forced to talk to people, by hook or crook.
10) anger management: when you wake up on the wrong side of bed and feel that the world still owes you a living, you ignore your mom as she eggs you to have breakkie before you leave for camp. you ignore her and drive with a sullen grave look to camp. you enter the office and upon seeing your men, you unleash that penned up frustration and vent it on these innocent souls. thereafter, you feel orgasmically relieved and you don't even have to say sorry to anyone.

however royal one feels up there sitting on his throne, it is, in my opinion, a dehumanizing job that just plainly distorts his once-affable and humble personality. while he shoves all tasks to his subordinates and claims credit for his polished job at the end of the day, he smokes like a chimney every few hours and gets so high that he forgets who he is. lethargy leads to mental atrophy. he books in later and books out earlier by the week. the partying last night is too much for him so he decides to take an afternoon which lasts the entire afternoon. he is bored because he has nothing of interest to him to do. he bets on soccer, naps at the mess and smokes even more. he flirts with the secretary, the only average lady in the building, and wonders dreamily of all things incoherent.

brilliant. ladies & gentlemen, if you think you're protected by the country's well-trained elite soldiers, you have only been more wrong. these are the people who drain your taxes by doing nothing. these are the people who play a big part in mobilisation when the country goes to war and you find them not in camp, but in a theatre in town, hanky-pankying with girlfriend.

$ $ $

2004-08-09T09:07:00.000-07:00

i have a post-it stuck on my shelf that says "start being thrifty" and it's written months ago when i did a rare math on my expenditure and savings, and realised, to my colossal shock and horror, how my finances have dwindled so disastrously.

then and there, i decided to go thrifty and start saving up for more important necessities but i found it stupendously hard to do just that because the impulse to buy comes at the spur of the moment and once it comes, you can't stop it. the post-it, as it flails to the moving air of the fan hovering above, fails time and again to remind me a virtue i have yet to cultivate. it's a sad thing.

maybe the uselessness of it is a forewarning to my future finance level, that at some point of time in my life, i may face bankruptcy, that for the rest of my life no matter how hard i try to bring the dough home, i'll spend it on booze and night life and be eternally bordering on a state of scrimp-and-save. and i don't wanna be a pauper, not even close to it.

but.

beggars can't be choosers.

club club clubbing on heaven's door

2004-08-07T10:59:00.000-07:00

it didn't strike me that the odd combination of friends i asked last night for a session of fun, dancing, booze and partying would blend well, each of them contributing his/her vested wildness and outgoing side to make the night such an enjoyable experience.

as expected, clubbing is a time when i'll definitely see a familiar face, rekindle an old friendship, witness something horrific, appalling, mind-blowing, catastrophic, insightful or inspirational. yesterday was no different for i bumped into a higher-ranking officer of my workplace who sorta stunned me with his ear studs (clip-ons, that is) and posh-beng outfit. i never really expected that any under circumstance, i would bump into the likes of him on such a joyous occasion, considering the fact that he pumped my course mates and i down a zillion times, hurled disgust and shit at us all the time when we were subject to rigorous training, i am shocked, in every sense of the word. which is why i evade, to the best my ability, any correspondence, even eye contact, with people of the god forsaken place, those that we do not speak of. unless, of course, they are my friends.

i should've known better when i read the headlines on the papers that the employees of centro are facing delayed pays. which prolly explains for the dilapidated state of the club, stripped of its original carpeted floor, state-of-the-art laser-patterned illumination, weird drinks, oddball crowds and on the top of the list, the repulsive techno music with its hammered rhythms. i must say that i was conned into believing it was an nus party when basically, most of the patrons were from sim. now, that's helluva difference.

and we hopped to cheeky's, thanks to liwen's soberness and steady driving skills, and danced the remaining time of the night away to oh-my-luuurd music of the ghetto that seeped right into my veins and stimulated every fibre to assimilate into the SOUL, the atomophere. it was great. and shing, while the fun lasted, was keen on keeping the new-found clique together (let's keep it closer, dude he bellowed to me) and practically blew me away with his accentuated hyperactivity, glorious enthusiasm and high high high spirits. in his wobbly drunkenness, he did a host of outrageous acts such as kneeling at the feet of jaycheong and betty to implore them to go for supper, circled his arm around bets' waist, uttered a long string of unintelligble rubbish incongruous to the topic at the moment in time, or just rubbish in general, regurgitated the jugs of hard liquour he downed earlier at one go, ordered majestic portions of supper, strolled around the hawker centre directionlessly and did a helium-releasing hiccup...

but all the same, he was really really funny and got me all cracked up. so much for chionging.
i never knew the odd combination of random friends and distant acquaintances could work out just fine, it's a wonder how clubbing could dissipate tension, enliven humanity, relax the spirit, oh, whatever it does to you...

ditch the bitch

2004-08-03T09:20:00.000-07:00

i have been witnessing too many tragic tales of fractured love, heard too much piteous cries of the victimized. tonight, another friend added to the the statistics of the war of love, a new photo on the wall of shame and sorrow.

it's vexingly incomprehensible how most ofmy friends become the receiving end of the warfare, that try as they might, they are still the suppressed, the dominated, the trodden. just a few moments, i tried to imbue in him some sense pride of the male species, that it's time for him to stop wallowing in his own tears but deal with the issue like a man with backbone. a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

and it pisses me to hell to see him suffer like that and commit himself emotionally, not to mention monetarily, to the relationship while his girlfriend sucks the blood out of him slowly. because this particular subject of a bitch is boring a hole into his bank with her vampiric fang and all this while flirting outrageously with every other guy, shing and i decided that the best way to ameliorate the situation would be to ditch the bitch... before she does.

so i'm not sure how this is gonna end, or if it'll ever end. i believe i've said enough, it's up to his own very discretion. adios.

inadequacy

2004-08-02T03:02:00.000-07:00

it baffles me overwhelmingly how strange things work out between us, that after all that has happened time and again, all that we've been through, the ups and downs, the trials and tribulations, the separation and reunion, we would be able to talk to each other just fine all over again.

i wonder why God would bother to intersperse these moments of life with fall-outs and conflicts, irrationalities and mood swings, when ultimately, we would talk to each other all over again, just like the old times. i wonder why God would bother to test this friendship with the passage of time, with the tide of emotions and the stress of life, just so that we could grow up and become more rounded individuals? mature and developed? intellectual and sensitive? understanding and tolerant and kind?

it baffles me all the same that after yonks since the nasty fall out that i would even bother to compose a mail to you, maybe it's because letter-writing has always been our hobby since we met and fell in love with the fun of it.

maybe i have been too honest with you, too honest with what i feel about you that things had taken a wrong turn and resulted in the precarious situation it is now. maybe i had been too opinionated, or maybe, we are just so alike that as much as we find common interests in each other, we repel each other.

i have not the slightest idea how you were able to reply me after all that has transpired but i thank you for your magnamity, your good heart and your reliance on this friendship that has stood the test of time and the pressures of life, death, detachment and absence.

i don't know how it's going to go on from here. maybe it'll stay how and where it is, safe and pleasant. but i long for the spectacular element of our bond, the candour, humour, the zest, the positivity. maybe that's a situation it is not meant to be. maybe, just maybe.

foul barbies

2004-07-30T23:30:00.000-07:00

my health fell prey to the endless loadsa work work work, to the fitless short sleep plagued by bizarre dreams and sinister nightmares, to the incessant grind to seek out-camp for food, luxury and entertainment which would, at the end of the day, serve to save my sanity which is, by the way, on the verge of collapsing. so yesterday, i found myself physically degenerating with the common cold; leaky nose, snot, sniffling, sneezing and all that.

and i recollected the treadmill of monotony and toil i had undergone for the past week which has resulted in the breakdown of my immune system. i remember: on one of the evenings, i thought i was gonna simply chill out with a couple of friends and relax all limbs and bones for recuperation purposes, but instead, i was forced to sit through one horrendous birthday dinner which i, out of friendly obligation and courtesy, attended.

the guests invited were an odd mix for i found myself having to socialize with my friend's girlfriend, an obscure character back in ac days, and girlfriend's friend, an oddball of sorts who never stopped dabbing my seafood platter with her fork.

if not for the fact that it was my friend's big day, i would've struck a showdown with those 2 nimrods who strode in (1) fashionably late for dinner (2) disregarded my presence during introduction (3) stole my food every now and then (4) made snide remarks at my appearance and every topic i brought up.

with all due respect, my friend has deepseated bad taste in girls. hailed as mixed-blood, big-eyed, hot and gorgeous, i was anticipating an embodiment of said qualities, an ugly duckling turned swan, a low-profile character back in ac days. that's why i wasn't able to recollect a friggin' grain of her existence even when her name was brought up. but familiarity struck when she made her hail-me-i'm-da-queen presence and asked she did if i thought she's changed and i blurted out a you look quite the same, an answer she obviously wasn't satisfied. i could've honestly told her she's put on perhaps a 100 pounds, thank you very much.

but with weight being a universally sensitive issue to the female species, i was careful not to tread on the topic, but i regretted having not done that because said girlfriend's friend kept jabbing her fork at my seafood platter of squids, rice, fries etc without batting an eye. at the end of the course, she prolly gobbled 2 fold my share. in addition, they kept making insinuation at how hot and wanted and rich they were, mad at flinging and partying, and that ac parties were very mild compared to the standards of night spots they frequent. oh you bootilicious queens. what's more was the horrible pseudo-american accents the duo put on; the twisted rolls on the "r"s of "parties" & "really" made me wanna punch them. in fact, they looked like punching bags every bit because when they sat down, i could not believe the pillows-full of lard their bellies turned into. jiggle jangle. and then there was the attack on my look, that i wasn't dressed enough to go clubbing with them, oh my gawd, the blatant assassination! the acid-tongues!

and all the while my friend clutched said girlfriend's hand, caressed her back, her arm, her face and demonstrated his chummy affection for her, i was roiled with disgust and i felt so sorry for his lack of taste. what happened to your eyes? what do you see in her? i feel like shaking his sanity out.

at the end of the ordeal, i became a racist for the duo belonged to the realm of colourful rugs and friday mass congregations. it is totally unbelievable, till date, that they acted thus just to show they belong to higher caste of society. shameless bratchnies.

and in a rather abrupt huff, i left the group to their own fatty devices.

close shave

2004-07-29T10:05:00.000-07:00

just wednesday morn, my mom almost ran over a student in her hyundai. not that we were in a rush to get to my camp asap, or that she was still reeling from her sleep deprivation, or that she was bursting to put me in camp and dash home to the loo, but that some kid had decided that a personal particle was more important than his life. we found ourselves, for that brief moment of our lives, stranded in a situation that might land us shivering and shuddering at the interrogation table of the police post.

so as usual, i was still fringing on sleep mode while my mom stopped her vehicle at the traffic light. the morning crew of yishun early birds was crossing the road in an orderly albeit pressurized fashion to the neighbourhood mrt station. i watched drowsily at the mingle mangle of housewives, students, odd job workers, office boys and girls stride with hurried steps across, as the traffic light countdown flickered fast... 04, 03, 02, 01, red man, and the crowd still did not bother to quicken their steps but trudged along half-heartedly. of course, we wouldn't expect any dare-devil driver in the country to run down the whole lot and feel deviously orgasmic about it, of course, my mom wasn't going to crash into all of them, but wait, with a patient heart, as the throng reached its shore safely.

i remember vividly a clique of secondary school kids trailing at the tail of the crossing crowd. the usual neighbourhood malay crew who, by the looks of it, play hookey, strum their guitars, celebrate ethnic festivals religiously and sleek their hair flat with gel, side-parted, a hairstyle pioneered by the forefathers of gypsy musicians. so it was red-man already, and the majority of the crowd has made it through. mom stepped on the accelerator to slowly and gradually inch her way past the insensitive crowd and little would we expect one of the malay kids to stop in his tracks, bend down to pick up a blue packet of tissue/blue comb/blue whatever that slipped out of his hands, and the right front wheel almost, let me reiterate, almost ran over his tiny hand on the tarmac.

i yelled to caution, flailing my hands vaguely at the direction of the reckless pedestrian. mom hit the brakes and there was the momentary inertia both of us felt as we were jolted forward. the next thing i knew, mom was unleashing a string of racist hokkien expletives which i totally had no qualms to hear. hear hear.

imagine the horrors of crushing the tiny brown hand of the kid who won't be able to strum his guitar anymore. imagine the sorrow of a tudong-clad malay mother who hears her kid is in hospital as she brews mutton soup. imagine the outrage of the family at our alleged fault in overlooking the tiny stature of the boy. imagine the shock of his friends and fellow onlookers as he holds his other hand that is stained with blood and the imprint of goodyear tyres. imagine the shitload of troubles we would have to go through because he would rather pause to pick up his accessory, because he didn't give a fiddler's fart if the red-man came on, if the drivers waiting to make the turn had waited for too darn long, if he was going to be late for school, if his girlfriend were to say anything had my mom ran him over without knowing.

and i realise this is the kind of thing i may very well have to deal with everyday of my life, even when i have had stepped out of the confines of camp because i no longer live in the sequestered world i used to live, but that i have to deal with the mental, physical and intellectual obstacles posed by the likes of the malay kid, nuts like him who would make no difference if their skulls were crushed or not, because they do not care how precious life is.

a blacklisted philopolemic individual

2004-07-20T06:01:00.000-07:00

his lonesome childhood bred an independence within him, alienating him from the norm of the echelons of society. he grew into an oddball, a happy one that is. he never fathom why people mistreated him the way they unanimously did. either this, or it is natural of him to chuck the hostile stares, curt remarks and malicious insinuation into the far reaches of his mind.

at the first glance, one does not think him obnoxious, self-centred or anything of that sort. at the first conversation, one is quick to throw judgement and pass on an assumption that lasts to his grave.

he lives by a value system he holds on dearly, so close to his heart that one will not be able to shake it even if he is the most cogent of speakers. worse, he imposes his values on others and does it forcibly so. he demands that one abides by the principles he demonstrates. he platforms his ideas and denies refuting, rejecting and reality. he attaches philosophies to almost anything under the sun; office politics, human behaviour, military systems, economics and money-making, you name it, he theorizes it. unashamedly, he forms swifts thoughts and injects judgments based on the sole workings of his mind, influenced by the personality he already is. he is showy in his intelligence and supposed innovativeness, and bears animosity to those who question, who challenge his depth, his sophistry, his style.

disputatious, he is ready to disagree, to undermine, to extinguish even that little bit of humour of the opposite party, should he find it a threat to his existence. he bloviates about his past glory, habitually so till it becomes stupedously unbearable. yet, he is not conscious of his doing, his acts, his words. they may be unintentional but they are blatantly injurious. it is often too late for one to find out when the knife is jabbed into his back, twisted left and right, and blood gushing in profusion.

words can't describe how much i hate him, how inflamed i am and how lethally dangerous i have become as a victim of hate and anger.

knife

2004-07-13T03:40:00.000-07:00

despite the drizzle and my untrustable brolly which flailed with the gusts, i made it to a heart-to-heart session with a close friend who confided in me her tragic failure of a relationship that has befallen her of late.
her tale is one that reflects some semblance of my past, of debilitating experiences, lessons learnt the hard way and bittersweet moments that left me hanging high and dry. although i've never met her alleged ruthless prince-charming that pretty much, i would say, turned her world topsy turvy, in the flesh, i can understand the guy's psyche in this tangled relationship, why he had responded thus, a behaviour that seemed totally out of his character and good manners.
i believe there's always an element of generalization involved when it comes to dealing with a guy's ostensibly icy cold treatment to fragile love. sure, every guy's born of independent personality, but i found, as my saddened friend unfolded her ordeal to me, that i am very much like the said accused. accused by the rest to be 'heartless','a fling' and 'player' (if i remember correctly). years ago, when i tried to efface myself of the responsibility of serious commitment and tender love and care, i, too, adopted the clear-cut attitude, to either love or, not love. i denied, dramatized and manipulated, evading confession, weakness and the reality. i befuddled, confused, toyed and cheated. i sinned, shirked, hurt and exterminated, exterminated all possible correspondence and created for myself and the other party, a realm of neutrality and that devoid of intimacy. i was a jerkoff, an asshole, but i was doing it for the best of us, and left for us, not a vestige of hope but many moments of regret and confusion that i foresaw, in the many years to go, were to leave us, all the same, hanging high and dry.
undoing the love meant stomaching the agony and ardour, propping up a facade that hid exploding tears and imploding desires. it meant putting an end, sealed, forbidden, stigmatized.

so no one told you life was gonna be this way

2004-07-12T09:32:00.000-07:00

alas, i finished watching the whole season of F.R.I.E.N.D.S, thanks to brian's generosity for lending me his downloaded loot for such a long time. brian, a rare good soul i only got acquainted towards the end of his national service. nevertheless, i'm mighty glad i got earlier access to the entire season than the rest of the local citizens who have to bemoan the fact that they have to labour week after week religiously just to complete it, while i, on the other hand, could finish it before you can say phoebe buffay.

the finale is indeed a tearjerking episode that put a poignant closure to the 10 yr sitcom that had come and gone by the snap of the fingers, which is basically as long as my growing up process into young adulthood. throughout these years, the show has undoubtedly brighten up many a laclustre weekday and served as a universal topic for people for all creed, race and sex to dwelve into all day.

joey: the dim-wit everyone loves to love, he is hilarity itself. a caricature in humane terms, his spontaneity, perverted-ness, stupidity are entities packaged complementarily in an one adorable, retarded walking fool everyone loves to laugh with while sitting on the couch at central perk while the coffee brews.

phoebe: often paired up with the aforementioned, she cracks me up delightfully with her folk-singerish, cultish, alternative-lifestylish persona. a good hangout on any avenue in manhattan.

chandler: the least funny of the cast, but his sincerity is as true as his tendency to screw things up impromptu.

monica: she's a jewish-looking gem whose bossiness is the unshakable support of the purple-walled apartment and its inhabitants. her extreme demeanour in areas of hygiene, housekeeping, family rearing is impressable and a fun element.

ross: his modern aristocratic ways are a clash to ordinary lives, and of equal measure, a hit to the funny bone. fluctuating emotions, impulse-driven sarcasms and pretense are the beauty, not the flaws of a good comedian.

rachel: ahhh, the greek beauty who wears clothes like her skin, whose smooth-flowing hair falls in the right places. girls love to hate her while guys yearn for her, she's gorgeous even when she's dead pissed.

so there you have it, my brief overview of the cast. FRIENDS has penetrated into our lives so inextricably that fantasy of the silverscreen is often dreamed of as a possible reality. i often wonder if there is, in any part of this cosmo world, where friends are able to live with one another in such good spirit and camaraderie and take troubles with a pinch of salt. the show provides vicariously for me a social elysium where words are said without implicit meaning/motive, where friends are hilariously audacious, where everyday is a thrill and friends are able to rendezvous at a coffee club at the end of the day, tell stories to one another, kiss and hug, cry and laugh together.

i'm gonna miss this show.

love aint possible

2004-07-03T09:13:00.000-07:00

on thursday, the sparks began. i found myself, unknowingly and silently, treading into the cavernous realm of love and romance. on friday, when i was yet again trodden by the derogatory mistreatment of the military and its raw-tongued, myopic people, i saw her talking in her semi-business sounding tone on the phone, her voice youngish but down-to-earth, the latter quality an anchorage to my somewhat buoyant soul and unsteady frame of mind. on friday, i found myself falling in love again. yet again.

a close friend once told me that (quote, unquote), love is elusive. and to that, i would like to add a few more apt adjectives to amplify its meaning and effect to ordinary-feeling homosapiens who are born into the world of hate and love. that love, apart from being hard to grasp, let alone reach by the bare hand, is inexplicable, mysterious, obscure and/but wonderful. it's a nice feeling, so to speak. when you find yourself in love, more often than not you find yourself soaring in a way you don't do so at church when you're raising your hands in praise or worship, or when you found that you've won 2000 bucks worth of voucher that will last you for a year. it's dreamy, yes. it puts you in this mist of daze, wonderment and bewilderment, a sense of the wanderlust in the everyday life when the rain of love pelts on your face refreshingly. it gives you hope in very humane and earthly terms, makes you wake up every morning of the day, looking forward to something, even if it's just that one simple sms, phonecall from him/her. it makes you feel veritably happy. the emotion is genuine, an elysium on earth. you're like, as a chinese saying goes, a deer in random collision. making mistakes in abandonment, and at the same time, feeling beautiful in it all.

however, deep in the psyche, i know it's virtually impossible to effectuate a love like that. oftentimes, i find myself stranded in hope that will never actualize. besides the fact that it's unethical should i pursue it, it's just simply beyond reach and control. then again, i'll myself tunnelling down this viscous cycle of dismay and disappointment, facing a surreal love that will not come true, not in this lifetime at least. if only we'd met in a different world, in different circumstances, different identities, maybe things would have turned out... differently. at least with a potential, even if it's just minute, to blossom. for now, it seems downright impossible. scenarios of us being together will only flow in the world of fantasy, when the mind takes on an imaginative mood, speculative, idealistic, like the deer in random collision. making mistakes, but beautiful, oh so beautiful.

fortress

2004-06-28T20:39:00.000-07:00

a few moments ago, the heavens cracked a little and a beaming ray of morning sun radiated down Mother earth, penetrating the stagnant pillars of haze. there's a soft glow to the skies, which seem to be layered by a thin fabric of mist and clouds, the new delux wallpaper of the cozy home. and i shan't go on further about how beautiful the morning is on a weekday like this. sounds fabricated (but true). people are prolly still lazing under the covers, in dream-like elysium.

i was up early on an errand to a nearby camp, which anyone who lives in my area would hope to be posted to, after bmt training. the first time i was there, i was pleasantly shocked by the purposeful layout of the camp for the entire area seemed highly fortified, resembling an ancient castle protected by a moat surrounding it. just that this camp, is a castle of modern days. today, the architectural design of the place shocked me no less. the walk from the bus stop to the guard house via the bridge, the railway, the wide tarmac road. the winding route to the vehicle checkpoint of inhumanly steep gradient. from the checkpoint to the building itself, the great-wall-of-china stretch of covered walkways, road, road and more roads. finally, the stout, austere building painted in plain white and within it, the labyrinthine hallways to departments that can only be entered(and exited) through small openings of doors. the placards jutting out from the top of walls into the corridors in fine print; most of which don't mean nothing to me, others dazzle me into deeper spirals of confusion.

truly, it's a friggin' dungeon of claustrophobic chambers down there. when i entered one of the branches, what stunned me was the boxed-in structure of the offices with virtually no inlet of natural light. naturally, the hardworking hermits of the place are a reflection of the colour of the walls --- skins in ghastly pale white. and of course, such suffocating work environment exacerbated nothing but irascibility, discord among colleagues, and made the grumpy aunty slaves all the more disgruntled. in all seriousness, i wouldn't want to spend my life slogging away in such spiritually-squalid conditions.

but i'm glad i'm out and shrouded with the abundance of fresh natural air. in a few hours' time, i will return to my post in the north, dreading the sheer workload that will tower over and flatten me out in, tumbling, delibitating.

a tame sunday

2004-06-27T08:18:00.000-07:00

today saw myself whiling through the day fast and furious. the day didn't really begin until eleven plus when, with a stupendous amount of reluctance, i woke up with an urge bursting to the toilet. usually, when sleep overrides recovery --- for my case ---i will only be up and out of bed purely because i need to take a leak. that's how bad my sleeping habit has become, i am perennially bed-ridden.

next was family lunch, minus my younger bro's presence for he was gone early in the morning for military duty. mom commented it was a pity he couldn't be with us to taste the highly palatable dishes, as compared to substandard meals in camp on sundays. and after that, i retreated to working out the answer scheme for my tuition kid's teething question on plate tectonics, a question that the previous tutor could not solve and who is apparently from my jc as well. it's a small world, what the heck.

braving against the rush of time, i hopped onto the bus to begin my hour-long weekly pilgrimage to novena, my kid's place (conveniently referred to as my kid nowadays). sky was blue adorned with wisps of white, sun was moderately blazing and i thought to myself how wonderful it would be to swim then, but of course, professionalism had to upheld and head-on i made my way to my kid's place. who would expect that i was to hop onto the wrong bus and land up at k-k hospital, some distance away from my destination. and then i had to take a bus back to where i came from and wait for the damn right bus to come (which didn't), and so took a cab straight there.

tuition sailed through smoothly except that the kid wasn't in the right frame of mind to discuss the topics. failed to rouse his attention, failed to execute my plan... somewhat...

mom came to pick me up and we had a tour around the northen part of the island, passing stuff to several of my relatives. one of whom, my aunt, whose name i wasn't sure of when i asked for her at her parlour. from agnes to ade to adeline to adel. i'm a victim of abbreviated singapore english. her employees were prolly appalled by the fact that she has a nephew that old. and mom decided to traverse the long stretch of remote road leading from mandai main road to the zoo. it then struck me how many dog years i had been to the zoo.

anyways, so here i am trying to relieve my compulsive logorrhea, it's times like this i just have to write something.

comedy of errors

2004-06-26T09:07:00.000-07:00

after a prolonged lull in your life, God ordains that your life will accelerate to a brand new peak before swoosh , it goes back to the daily treadmill portioned to us.

that peak took place tonight or rather, a few hours ago when kim, me and nat loitered the malls of town in laid-back moods, waiting for something to happen, whatever it could be. and happened it did, something we didn't anticipate ourselves for when we performed an espionage session at nat's meet-up with her online acquaintance, norman. norman, a name that even i am embarrassed to utter at this moment.

so the key was for kim and i to perform reconnaisance at the designated spots of the mall, and locate, with our razor-sharp eyes, her online acquaintance whom she has never seen in the flesh. clue: red shirt, someone from the air force. to me, it was like crap, how am i supposed to bring myself to scrutinize for someone who has, out of unfathomable rhyme or reason, signed up as a regular to the military government? but scanned we did till we pinpointed on a pale red-shirt that belonged to a mature-looking, crew-cut haired fella in beige khakis, or berms, for that matter. apparently, we were less subtle than we should while nat lingered discreetly 10 yards away and target red-shirt sort of noticed the presence of 2 concerned citizens recce-ing the area in what i would term hyper-kaypohness. and curiosity did kill the cat. cats, in this case.

hurriedly, we rushed to where nat was hiding with concealed apprehension. in brutal honesty, we told her we sort of screwed up the pretensious recce part and that if we were to tag along, target red-shirt would know we were sent on this top-secret mission to spy on him. thereby, a no-no to meet him in the flesh. but what was to transpire thereafter was beyond my expectation...

so nat mustered the courage to meet up with target red-shirt and during the initial formality-exchange, kim and i loitered semi-casually at a shop nearby. a spitting image of(or what could be the real) sean yoon appeared and locked eye contact with me momentarily, but in my fluttering urgency to complete my mission, dismissed his look and was whisked to the escalator with/by kim, away from the rendezvous couple. just, just when i thought we were out of their peripheral vision, a familiar nat stood a few steps down from me. our eyes locked for a few disconcerting moments, her eyebrows arched in tandem with a stifled chuckle. spontaneously, i feigned an overeacting HI NAT!, teeth-gleaming smile. with a fully-flushed face turned, i nudged the neighboring kim who, irrationally swallowing the butterflies of giggles in her stomach, would not budge to turn and say hi to our oh so familiar nat, nice to see you, nat. so when we got to the 2nd floor, the impulse to unleash volcanic eruptions of laughter from within became unbearable, and in a flurry of randomness, i yelled for the supposed sean yoon who huffed his way away without reacting to his name, my hasty calling sean, sean! sean yooon! (hands brandishing).

when i turned, i was all the more shocked to witness a farcical conversation kim has started with nat, and a brief introduction to red-shirt target, oh like we don't know him already... questions(posed by nat) like are you 2 together?(pointing to kim and I) were totally out of this world to speak of, let alone in this critical situation. too hot to handle for kim, calm and composed, who found it hard to manage those questions without batting an eye. and very VERY very illogically, nat refused, till the last drop of her blood, to speak to me, let alone introduce me to red-shirt target, and in a while, after heavy moments of excruciating tension & drama, we took off in separate ways and boy, we laughed our heads off at the ludicrosity of it all. it was esp. bad for me because after nearly laughing my guts out and not to forget with the lady looking at me with scornful bewilderment, i felt nauseous. indeed, drama to its max.

right now, after some moments' respite, i'm better, less disoriented, less displaced and less confused. i wonder how nat is faring at session with red-shirt target.

sometimes, it's true: the sky does open up a little. a syringe comes through and injected is incredible humour and human drama. a good dose to remember for the rest of your life.

entry number one

2004-06-26T08:58:00.000-07:00

hola, back to blogspot, i guess i was wrong, terribly wrong, quick to judge and pass assumptions. so here i am, back to where i began letting my thoughts flow onto the net for all to see. this change in blogsite is partly because too many people have access to the previous online diary, a fact that greatly impedes me from saying what i want. therefore, this blog is only availabe to the eyes of those i can trust to take the stuff that i say with a pinch of salt (sometimes), a pure pleasure (i hope) to read and laugh about or react in any way to. an embarkation of a journey, an online existence started anew. cheers.