Friday, May 19, 2006

the good
i really had a wonderful time at our CG gathering =) i can't explain it, it was simple and profound, the kind of happiness and contentment.
supper and the kindness of tianen and kel. hope everything is alright and sorted out.
the only one who smsed me, has been keeping in touch with me, so cheerful and thoughful.
the simple dinner and company of a friend. our openness and ability to share about belief. the work that is going on in his life.
my last proper bath for the next 17 days. the forecast for when we land is max 41 min 29. degrees celcius. my mind can't comprehend how hot that is.

the bad
should have seen it coming. it happens every time. so angry and frustrated. i wanted to scream until you finally heard me. i wanted to hit you until you'd listen. but my voice gave out and i ran out of things to throw. a long time ago. it's too late, i decided then that i would never let you in.
i'm hurt. and i feel like a miserable person.
and a separate matter has been gnawing away at my heart. the distance and the silence between us, the sheer bad timing. where do i stand now? where do i deserve to stand?

need to pack.

ah, i am inept! who to blame for my poor socialization? i'm beginning to think that i shall always be this way. prevailing countervailing conditions notwithstanding.

the good and the bad are so tightly intermingled, a box of different coloured sand, violently shaken, producing new sand of an indeterminate colour. who would spend the years sifting through them? who would bother? who would blame you for giving up?

this calls for something more radical than selective amnesiacs.


my brother


my neighbour's two dogs


my two dogs

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Any kind soul out there who will lend me a digital camera?

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Meditations on Murakami
or
(Times I wished I knew how to read Japanese)

I have been absorbed, almost completely, for the past 3 days, with a singlular narrative. It might be considered serendipitous in that the first murakami i should read would be what some consider to be his finest. However, i consider it somewhat unfortunate, should i be let down by his other works, expecting far too high a standard. Nevertheless, it is foolish to think about such things which may or may not happen, and it is dangerous to imagine, to quote lieutenant mamiya.

I bought, and first read the book, when i was still in secondary school. with a borders voucher. It was the sum of 2 or 3 book prizes, i think I would not have paid $30 for a novel otherwise. I remember my mother frowning upon my selection, which i had chosen quite simply because i liked the cover (its very nice) and the blurb had seemed somewhat more interesting than the others. Perhaps she would have preferred me to buy a book written by someone she had actually heard of before, but i personally found (and still find) jane austen and the like too stuffy for my tastes. ah well, you can't expect too much from a tree frog.

as it turns out though, it WAS a bad choice for a secondary school kid. There was explicit sex, and gratuitous violence. as for the parts that contained neither sex nor violence, well, i didn't understand those, too. but i had liked it.

i'm one of those people who read a book, really like it, but then can't tell you what the book was about in a week after reading it, and in a month, can't remember what i liked about it in the first place. but i'd remember that i liked it.

there was something irresistible about the book that day. (perhaps the cover again?) I picked it up to read, since i had about 2 hours free till i had to go off and give tuition. and i find myself now better equipped with the vocabulary to articulate my feelings about the book. but its still not very good.

When I read a book like this, I am at once overjoyed and dejected. Overjoyed that there is someone else who thinks like I do, who perfectly understands the alienation and disjunction in the world. Dejected that someone else has beaten me to writing it down in a book, with more eloquence or erudition than i could ever hope to attain.

I have yet to mention the book's name, and this is deliberate. Nevertheless, now seems like an appropriate juncture: The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami.

And here is a brief summary: Weird. Wonderfully so.

The character starts of on your side, he finds the bizarre things that happen to him bizarre and he is just as puzzled and confused as you are. But as he grows, he becomes more and more accustomed to this weird world he happens to be in, and increasingly participates and initiates the weirdness. And still, you understand him, he has been written in such a way that you emphatise with him, and you start to think, "hey, i've often wanted to do that too, but was worried that people would think i was weird". The wind-up bird asks: but what is weird and what isn't?

What is real and what isn't? is another theme running through the novel. Reality and dreams blend, and Okada often states emphatically that his dreams are more vivid. What is the relationship between reality and non-reality? Are the bickering lovers? Are they estranged siblings? or are they in fact two faces of a schizoid janus?

One theme that resonated deeply with me was the inability to explain yourself. For example:
"So this was how secrets got started, I thought o myself. People constructed them little by little. I had not consciously intended to keep May Kasahara a secret from Kumiko. My relationship with her was not a big deal, finally: whether I mentioned it or not was of no consequence. Once it had flowed down a certain delcate channel, however, i had become cloaked in the opacity of secretiveness, whatever my original "intention" may have been."
I've often felt that way, especially with people I don't see often. Things that happen to you day-to-day, small things that are really of no consequence, like how i love the trees near the USP block, or something really nice i ate that day, are suppressed and omitted, because its irrelevant to bring it up in the normal course of conversation or i simply don't remember it. so we talk about absolutely nothing instead, i invent something and feign interest in it. I thought it was an improvement over what i used to do, which was to say nothing, which unnerved other people or even myself sometimes. but now i'm not so sure.

spoiler warning
Toru Okada takes up the second theme that really resonates with me when his wife of six years leaves him, really unexpectedly, one day. he then begins to question: how much of a person can you really know? what is a person's essence? it started with kumiko coming home from a bad day at work, and getting upset over the wrong colour of tissue paper he bought, and the fact that he cooked beef with green peppers, which though acceptable separately, she detested when cooked together. they had lived together 6 years and had not noticed those things about her. trivial in itself, but it made him feel uneasy:

"But this was different. It was bothering me in a strange new way, digging at me like a little fish bone caught in the throat. Maybe -just maybe- it was more crucial that it had seemed. Maybe this was it: the fatal blow. Or maybe it was just the beginning of what would be the fatal blow. I might be standing in the entrance of something big, and inside lay a world that belonged to Kumiko alone, a vast world that I had never known. I saw it as a big, dark room. I was standing there holding a cigarette lighter, its tiny flame showing me only the smallest part of the room.
Would I ever see the rest? Or would I grow old and die without ever really knowing her? If that was all that lay in store for me, that what was the point of this married life I was leading? What was the point of my life at all if I was spending it in bed with an unknown companion?"

One by one you get introduced to a cast of the most strange characters. I really like those oddballs =) Not all of them are well fleshed-out, but they are highly interesting and three-dimensional nonetheless.

Even after having gone on and on blah blah for so long, I still feel i haven't quite sufficiently explained why i like this book so much. Here i will regretfully cop-out with a feeble: aiyah, just read it for yourself lah.

Next novel to hunt down: Norwegian Wood by Murakami
Then: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
and then: Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Other holiday readings i want to finish are an anthology (yeah very ambitious i know), and 4 christian books that I have bought/been given, but haven't read.

sigh. even my tuition kid thinks i'm nerdy. when i told her darryl said i'm a nerd, she said, "yeah what". sniff. just cos i know how to do your maths doesnt mean i'm nerdy OK.

Monday, May 08, 2006

holiday.

all i really wanted was to spend some time at home, waking up to the afternoon sun on my face. hang out with my dad, maybe go riding and he'd take me new places, " places in singapore i bet you've never seen in your life!". spend the lull of midday on the sofa with my dog on my lap, pondering the mysteries of life and love mapped in his wavy brown fur. play the piano and write some songs on guitar. read all those books that people have bought me, i've borrowed.

but the holidays never turn out that way. ever since exams ended, its just been people. i celebrate end of my second year at nus with a date with my tuition kid. the next day there's a comm meeting. the next day there's a team meeting from 10-4pm, after which i go give tuition to another boy. then on polling day, i give tuition again, to the first kid. sunday after church (another stream of faces, none of whom i say anything particularly meaningful to) i go for lunch with my family, then i give tuition from 2:30-6:30pm and my new tuition kid really tests my patience. i go running with the twins and it takes my mind off things for a while. the next day i drag my sleep-deprived body to school for a whole day of meeting followed by an unusually long AGM. and tomorrow, after team meeting at 4pm, i'm rushing off to give tuition at bukit timah from 4:30-6:30, then rushing off for more tuition from 7:30-8:30. ok, so i do have the young adults retreat, but i'll still have to prepare the devotion, and well, there'll be lots of people there too. i mean, there's a bbq, and i hate the awkward bbq socializing with ppl i don't really know, and who probably think i'm still in secondary school. rantrantwhinewhine.

i'm sick of having to deal with people.

well, no, not really. i'm not sick of my dad or my brothers. i'm sick of the multitude. i'm sick of watching group dynamics play out, i'm sick of seeing endless faces, plastering on a faked smile, which passes notice, because its spread so thin. i'm sick of making small talk.

i wish i had talked to the year 4s today at AGM, seeing as to how it'll be hard for me to see them again. i wanted to wish them well, to thank them. but by then, i was sinking into this anti-social sulk. to think i had to end it that way.

but at the same time, i just wished to be alone. i want to bolt, i thought to myself as i was sitting there. run for cover to the nearest toilet, where i'd possibly find some solitude. but i couldn't move.

but i should go sleep, long day ahead, and a whole long list of sponsors to contact, so i gotta sound chirpy, or awake, at least. maybe tomorrow will be better.

maybe not.

James Gomez has been arrested!!!

i want to know why!!! this is unfair!!! how could they do this?!?!

Saturday, May 06, 2006


WOAH NELLY! THAT MUST HAVE BEEN A LONG TIME AGO! Haha, see uncle trying to act kawaii!

Friday, May 05, 2006

There’s a girl I know
She’s gorgeous, glamorous and gifted
A magnet
She draws everyone in
And polarizes them:
You’d either love her,
Or be deathly jealous
Yes, she’s that fabulous

She happens to be someone
Very dear to my heart
For past the surface
Don’t be distracted, boys
Is a sensitive soul
Who perceives and responds
In tenderhearted compassion
And though I don’t often get to say so
I thought I’d let her know
Before she turns 21
That

I can’t imagine those 2 years without you
And all the support you gave to me
All the things we all went through
Teachers, classmates, the dreaded A’s
When the urgency of the present
Was so overwhelming
That we’d never imagined how things’d be today
But here we are
2006, 5th of May

Thank you for calling me that night
When I was at my wits end and in tears
Though you couldn’t see, over the phone
Thank you for sending those flowers
Though you couldn’t be there that day
Y’know, I never loved flowers till then
Thank you for calming me down
And putting up with my paranoia and insecurity
That gave me the courage to face talentime
The most fun I’ve had in my life
Thank you for the day-to-day
In our all-too-short time in AJ

Perched on the brink of adulthood
You’re already, have always been, independent
Perhaps now we learn how to depend
On God, and family, and friends
Don’t be sad, be happy, today
That’s how we’d want you to be
We miss you, and we’ll see each other again soon

Though my prose is rather verbose
All I really wanted to say
Was
Happy Birthday
=)

Thursday, May 04, 2006

How many times have I turned away?
The number is the same as the sand on the shore
But every time, you've taken me back
And now I pray that you'll do it once more

Please take from me my life
When I don't have the strength
To give it away to you
Please take from me my life
When I don't have the strength
To give it away to you Jesus

How many times have I turned away?
The number is the same as the stars in the sky
But every time, you've taken me back
And now I pray you'll do it tonight

and i know, i can't live without you. and i'm sorry i've hurt you. and i realise now, that i miss you too, though not nearly as much as you miss me. Pick me up, dust me off, and let's try again?

quote of the day goes to
Timojojojo!

"Because prata is not a good conductor, what."

oh my.

take at look the these photos!!!!

*jaw drops*

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Grandiose exaggerations

When I grow up and move out, the most important thing in my own, new house would be the bookshelf. In fact, my house will exist to serve the function of keeping books. (as well as a little bit of space for me to sit and read.) Not just any books, but only the good stuff. wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling. I will organise it according to my own arcane and esoteric system, which no one will be able to understand, save myself, naturally. Books like Waiting For Godot will sit next to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which will be next to Yamaha Buyer's Guide 2006.

But first things first. I should get starting on cleaning my room.

Tommorrow.

incomprehensible colours

in the words of the beatles, Help!

Monday, May 01, 2006

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation;
O my soul, praise him, for he is thy health and salvation:
Come ye who hear,
Brothers and sisters draw near,
Praise him in glad adoration.

Praise to the Lord, who o'er all things so wondrously reigneth,
Shelters thee under his wings, yea so gently sustaineth:
Hast thou not seen
All that is needful hath been
Granted in what he ordaineth?

Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper thy work, and defend thee;
Surely his goodness and mercy here daily attend thee;
Ponder anew
What the almighty can do,
He who with love doth befriend thee.

Praise to the Lord, who, when tempests their warfare are waging,
Who, when the elements madly around thee are raging.
Biddeth them cease,
Turneth their fury to peace,
Whirlwinds and waters assuaging.

Praise to the Lord! O let all that is in me adore him!
All that hath life and breath come now with praises before him!
Let the amen
Sound from his people again:
Gladly for aye we adore him.

I really like jon's version of this! soooooooo nice! i have approximated my own version of it, which is passable =) hurrah!