the four right chords can make me cry

Today was the first time in my life that I was ever kissed by a guy.

hahaha i knew that'd catch your attention! but once i explain it, you'll be like, chey...

my uncle dave, aunty karen's ang moh husband, kissed me, my mum, and my grandma, on the cheeks, goodbye, cos they're heading home for portugal tonight. was ok, kinda scratchy. guys should shave. i mean girls are expected to shave their legs, so its not that much to ask for, a non-pokey face.

they told us that the girls in portugal are really gorgeous up till about 16 or 17, then it's all downhill. they even grow facial hair, which they refuse to remove, and which turns grey when they grow old. how cool. i'd like to see that some day. and i've been invited to visit them anytime, esp if i go to birmingham, since air travel within europe is really cheap. even if i don't go on exchange, i'm welcome to go there for summer break, and work in aunty karen's restaurant! how absolutely, positively cool is that!?

I've decided that I like aunty karen a lot =) i'm really intrigued by her, her turbulent past. I'm said to resemble her greatly, appearance-wise, esp when comparing our childhood photos. pure nonsense, but it's quite cool imagining her as myself 30-40 years from the future, come back to tell the now-me what its like.

I really hope that it's not another 6 years before we see her again...

posted by beckyboo @ 12:07 AM 0 comments

can't stop hugging my dog ever since the maid gave him a bath using herbal essences shampoo!

posted by beckyboo @ 10:12 PM 0 comments

Rooting for Roy

In my indolence, i languished before the tv for more than an hour: a flair to remember, the chronicles of CYX. I only intended to watch flair, was hoping sinclair would be on, unfortunately, it was xiaxue instead. bleh. when the trailer for CYX came on, i seriously contemplated getting off my bum and stopping all this time wasting, the programme sounded really lame. CYX? err, trying too hard to sound cool. but out of sheer laziness, i continued watching and things started to piece together. aezoh told me last night that roy had won some design competition, but he told me it was "a handbang, or something". but i thought, "eh, isn't roy in archi?" and then i caught a 0.5 second screenshot of a vaguely roy-like person, and the whole show became a spot-the-roy contest.
a bit strange, to see a friend on tv, and to be rooting for him, that he would trash everyone else, simply because you kinda know him, though hardly much better than any of the other contestants on the show. but it was so fun and almost exciting, looking out for roy, and feeling so happy when he won (even though you already knew he won), and feeling that the show should have given him more airtime and portrayed him better. and realising, ah hah, that's where he's been these past few weeks.

on another note. i think its quite sad that such a cool thing could happen to roy, and people like me could be totally oblivious about it. weird situation, to consider someone your friend, and not even know something as big as that. i think its a sad reflection of how people can be so isolated, even in churches, where no one knows whats going on in anyone elses life. Worse still, what if no one really cares? For me, it's the terrible, bewildering, overwhelming sense of aloneness of the tea break. And i don't think i'm the only one who's felt it. And worse, i know i've perpetuated it.

sigh.

Congratulations, Roy, i wish i knew you better to say more.

posted by beckyboo @ 10:48 PM 0 comments

1. huh?
2. i like this one
3. erm... why give people such terrible gifts?
4. wah hey, now i have more chance of winning
5. can't deny it
6. "scientists" also claimed to have successfully cloned humans y'know.
7. eww. i don't want to fit around anyone's big toe. yuck.
8. and then they would be painted psychedelic!
9. i second that
10. thats moderately special! yay!

for laughs, i did one for my dog, using one of his many names: fluffbutt. the results are most amusing.


1. that's a horrible thought!
2. the one's they make now STILL don't have pedals!
3. peh, it was a lousy book anyway, despite the interesting main character.
4. and what a wonderful zoo it was
5. informative!
6. wow, people have tasted the water in my dog
7. and i'd break you.
8. their loss
9. freakay!
10. fluffbutt can also be smelt from quite a distance away.

posted by beckyboo @ 12:43 AM 0 comments

there's nothing like seeing my dearest cgms to redeem a bad week.

but now that i sit here in my quiet room, trying to avoid the heavy-lidded gaze of the yellow-eyed moon, i wonder where the lights went. even his frame's features are lost in the dark. of which, i've often asked; "whose life lights up that window?". where is his life now?

drips of frustration and mediocrity layer themselves across the canvas, pollockesque. that's not all me and jackson have in common; we drive fast when we are angry, too. I throw my twig down, and abandon painting.

I understood him when he said: I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them. But i wonder if anyone understands me. As I understand it, I may or may not want to be understood.

Mick sang to me, holding back the years. Thinking of the fear I’ve had for so long. When somebody hears, listen to the fear that’s gone. Strangled by the wishes of pater, hoping for the arms of mater. Get to me sooner or later, nothing ever could, yeah.

I’ll keep holding on.

Chance for me to escape from all I know, holding back the tears. There’s nothing here has grown. I’ve wasted all my tears, wasted all those years. Nothing had the chance to be good, nothing ever could, yeah.

And I sing back: If you don't know me by now, you will never, never know me. No you won't.

If you ever read the Virgin Suicides, my favourite part of the book was when they played the records back and forth over the telephone. If you haven't, you should.

Back to Hucknall. I want that, that chance for me to escape from all I know. I didn't get to articulate what exactly I meant by that to Clement, I'm an abyssmally poor speaker. But I hope he understood me. I hope he doesn't think I'm anti-social. I'm really just awkward.

The SEP people seem to have chosen later than sooner. I accepted the Birmingham offer, though, though I had no time to rationalize an alternative. Nothing ever could, he said, twice.

Two people. The new and the old; with one i have to resist the urge to violently push away, the other i'm almost giving up looking for. The discomfort gnaws and drags like an anchor, tearing deep rents on the sea floor and wrecking the coral reef, beneath a calm blue sea. Deadweight.

But don't let the sun catch you crying, Beck said.

But the man in my life proves reliable once more. If you close your eyes, it feels like you are flying. I pretend to be a hippie folk singer, an icon from his era, and i wonder about his past again. It is a good night for riding.

I want to be a hippie, minus the licentiousness and drugs. To be idealistic, to sing songs melodic and quaint, hoping for a better day. To wear flowers in my long brown hair and groovy sunglasses, and bell bottoms without shame. To sit on the grass in the sunshine and to stage sit-in protests against vietnam and to ride around in a van that looks like the mystery machine. To buy records of the Beatles which i could auction off today so that i would have enough money to go on exchange.

Don't waste your time.

posted by beckyboo @ 1:33 AM 0 comments

What you missed in 2005


best friend + best friend's family - best friend's sister + best friend's bf + hazel & me


everyone likes matt!
everything, including the doggie cookie jar and the water bottle, has aligned with him! but this photos is funny, the cups and water look like they're the most important things in the photo, followed by the yellow aeroplane.


shiny happy people


more shiny happy people!


pretty pema and beautiful berwine


Elvin thinks boys with long hair are very suspicious


matt and his adoring fans


more friends and food, yay!


super scissors-paper-stone curry showdown: place your bets!


tian en is positively deranged!


but, who wouldn't be when the stakes are so high?

posted by beckyboo @ 9:28 PM 1 comments

Pearls of Wisdom from Becky:

When the skin that peels off your fingertips is green,
it's time to change your guitar strings.

Indeed.

posted by beckyboo @ 1:50 PM 0 comments

nonononono.
not ready for 2006.
not ready to get out of bed.
not ready for another semester.
not ready to fake yet another smile.
not ready to shoulder responsibility.

sorry to the various groups of people i've been with these past few days. usp gang, jc classmates and church friends. just feeling very tired, pms-y and annoyed, respectively.

haven't had time to think much about 2005. but here's a statistic from the class rep (me, covert attendance taker extraordinare):

DTC attendance (out of 27 recorded weeks)
1. Hazel Chee: 27
2. Rebecca Tan: 27
3. Graham Choo: 25
4. Dominic Koh: 24
5. Daniel Choo: 22
6. Ivane Neo: 19
7. Hozea Ngoh: 18
8. Shaun Ong: 18
9. Christina Su: 16
10. Serene Huang: 12
11. Gerald Ang: 11
12: Victor Phua: 10

i was rather stunned at the number of weeks taken up for CAP activities. Even if you discount the month of feb which was blank (dom to me transition), a year has 52 weeks you know. There was also church AGM (which i think all of us ponned), Teacher's day celebration (an exercise in tokenism), church camp week, and a few ABCs.

interesting, i've never reviewed my year in the light of the church calendar before.

speaking of calendars, NUS artsfest calendar!
the only shows i'm willing and able to pay for are:
1. Festival Highlight:
Strings & Serenades: Corrinne May in Concert
Sunday, 12 February 2006, 7.30pm
UCC Hall
Tickets at $48, $38, $28 (excluding SISTIC fee) from SISTIC*
Singapore’s answer to Sarah McLachlan returns to kick off the Arts Festival with this one-night-only acoustic concert, backed by an eight-piece string ensemble.
2. NUS Arts Festival presents
Harlem Goes Far East by the Harlem Hot Shots, in collaboration with Jitterbugs Swingapore
Sunday,26 February 2006, 7.30pm
UCC Theatre
Tickets at $23 and $14 (excluding SISTIC fee) from SISTIC*
For one magical evening, be transported to the Cotton Club and the Savoy Ballroom of the 1930’s for a glimpse of the colourful world of Afro-American dancing.

If i book by tmr, there's 20% off! so if you wanna go, sms or call me or something, asap.

posted by beckyboo @ 11:23 PM 3 comments

yay, google.

Definitions of bootstrap on the Web:

To load and initialize the operating system on a computer. Often abbreviated to boot.
www.ontrack.com/glossary/

(boot·strap) (b[ldbomac]t¢strap) in statistics, a method for computing the distribution of values based on random resampling from the observed data.
www.mercksource.com

A technique for loading the first few instructions of a computer program into active memory and then using them to bring in the rest of the program.
www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/AASMGlossary.html

a method for assessing the statistical significance the positions of branches in a phylogenetic tree that is inferred by a pairwise method (eg Neighbor-Joining or UPGMA). A bootstrap starts with a set of sequences in which every possible sequence pair has been aligned. For each aligned pair, it samples scores from random positions in the alignment, adding the scores. This is repeated until the pseudo-alignment is the same length as the real alignment. ...
calliope.gs.washington.edu/software/bonsaiWebDocs/Glossary.html

The bootstrap program can be used to start the computer, and in doing so, clear the memory, set up devices, and load the operating system from input/output internal or external memory.
www.careydigital.com/support/glossarya-b.html

help oneself, often through improvised means
a strap that is looped and sewn to the top of a boot for pulling it on
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Bootstrapping alludes to a German legend about a Baron Münchhausen, who was able to lift himself out of a swamp by pulling himself up by his own hair. In later versions he was using his own boot straps to pull himself out of the sea which gave rise to the term .
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrap

i love the vagueness and arbitariness of the english language.

posted by beckyboo @ 11:10 PM 0 comments

Give me time and give me space
Give me real, don't give me fake
Give me strength, reserve control
Give me heart and give me soul

posted by beckyboo @ 8:36 AM 0 comments

buttercup, do you realise that the cake we had yesterday was called "peanut butter cup"?

haha, stayovers are always fun, and a great way to usher in the new year, unostentatiously.

church "shareholder meetings" at 8:30am the next day, on the other hand, though not as fun, are really important. i have more questions than answers.

but i'm so thankful for tianen and nick and late night post-run suppers. brothers, respeck. conversation topics are P&C, not supposed to wash dirty linen in public afterall, but i felt so edified. there is hope.

i can't tell if i was impassioned or just had too much ice. but in any case, i still wish we had prayed before i went home. i nominate them for gentlemen of the year award for walking me back and waiting till someone opened the door for me.

as i left the house to meet tianen today, something about the house across the street seemed different. It slowly dawned upon me that they had completely removed the bushes that were growing there, and only when i saw an unusual number of trash bags on the side of the road. In passing, I gaped. Because for years I had been wanting to pluck some of those really pretty leaves and keep them, but always walked on by, thinking it would look silly to do it, or that i was too tired, and that they would always be there. not this year.

stumps.

i think i was too harsh on her. i didn't think it'd affect her, the same words seem to return to me hollow like an echo every other week. but i realised and remembered that i was dealing with a 15 year old kid, who despite apparent laziness and a short attention span, is still growing, and very fragile. to easily, i forget.

should old acquaintance be forgot
and never brought to mind
should old acquaintance be forgot
and auld lang syne

Happy New Year!

posted by beckyboo @ 2:35 AM 0 comments

Dear friend,

I prayed for you today. I won't lie to you and say that I know how it feels, I couldn't possibly. No platitudes, the stillness will speak for itself.
I asked Him to watch over you and take care of you. So, you're in good hands.
Blessed 2006.

Love,
becks

posted by beckyboo @ 1:51 AM 0 comments

A time to build and a time to plant.

5-year plans and mission statements.
But i ask for humility and repentence and revival.
Let it start with me.
Where are we going?
What's the best way to do things?
Where is your heart?
Frustration and disappointment to grapple with.
Speak of what you love till tears well in your eyes.
And then relinquish them.
What?
How?
WHEN?

posted by beckyboo @ 1:10 AM 0 comments