silly billy.

sometimes, all it takes is a few words to make you want to climb into a little hole where noone can see you and where you don't ever have to emerge from again. once, you laugh it off. and one turns into two, then, three times. then you begin to wonder whether these words hold truth, and you eventually start to believe they do. it cuts, especially when these words come from the people you love most in the world.

it makes me feel a little less loved, a little more judged, and mostly, pretty lousy and unworthy.

i woke up feeling gorgeous this morning....

....and now i just feel plain ugly.

you take my breath away!

this is reno. reno rally royal. he is taking a saturday afternoon nap. on jeevan's shoe. MELT. not mel tan melt. wicked witch of the west in wizard of oz melt. awwwww.....

"looks like some people don't know what the phrase "let sleeping dogs lie" means...pffft."

it's fascinating watching reno sleep. how can anyone sleep so much? and today, he was fast asleep but his legs were twitching and i concluded that he was chasing rabbits in his sunday afternoon dream.

going for the geeky hunk look. melt.


reno is one of those dogs you meet once in a lifetime. and will remember forever. what a character, what a dog!

reno, you never fail to melt my heart. i love you!

we slapped, punched, kicked and screamed at each other. pulled each others hair out, had batteries thrown at our brows, told on each other ("aunty! look at akka (big sister)!!") , had the contents of our private diaires exposed....oh who knows where it ends? but i can't imagine life without us 3 together. the cycling adventures, the silly games, spj museum, the holidays, the jamming sessions, the concerts, the magazines and newspapers...oh who knows where that ends either? but most importantly, it's that unspeakable connection. where we laugh at the same things and know why, understand why one of us is so upset, know what songs and movies to recommend to each other, know what food each other would find appealing or disgusting, and where does that end? we're so different, the 3 of us, and yet, we're all the same. world, meet spj pte ltd.

we were having supper on friday night, a few of us, after the day was over for this retreat i was facilitating at. one of the musicians joined us and he was asking all these funny questions like is it possible to have a perfectly square house with all four walls (the outside) facing the north pole or whether it was possible to be the day before and after yesterday. the latter, we concluded, was possible and he asked because he was marvelling at the fact you could be in two states at once. maybe he should have met me earlier. anxious, scared, inspired, happy, contented, insecure, restless. that's like, a few states at once. and just in case you're wondering the answer to his first question..yes it's possible if the house is on the south pole.

"Our hearts were made for You, O Lord, and are restless until they rest in You." -St. Augustine

it's been far too long and about time! it was sweet meeting up with you again, addie. just like old times, you always feel like home. you're crazy and funny and lame and selfless and kind and i love you just the way you are. dear god, thank you for addie. amen. =)
(i think you can fry an egg on my forehead! eeeeeee!)

fireworks. boom! like a million little stars exploding from the nothingness of a black sky, fading away slowly and silently while they fall towards the earth and the sea and the people. does that ever happen to your heart?

i thought 2 months would crawl by painfully, slowly. i thought the 16th of july would never come. but now, i feel like veronika with her last 5 days left and i wonder whether i should be a little crazier. the world will go on without me whether i like it or not. as i walk along the boardwalk later, noone will know how numbered my days here are. and when i leave on friday, the piers will still be open. the seagulls will still continue to swoop down and steal exposed pizzas and funnel cakes. people will go to michael's to party like there's no tomorrow every other night. there will be new cashiers sitting where i use to sit. people will still go up to the booths to ask how many tickets the great white costs or where the nearest restroom is. but then, life will never be the same for the few who i mattered to. life will never be same for me.

saying goodbye never seemed so hard before...

someone stuck a piece of a wristband on some part of the window pane of my ticket booth today and it was blank and i was bored and i wrote the all too familar verse by blake on it.

"to see the world in a grain of sand,
and heaven in a flower;
hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
and eternity in an hour."

and then i go back to reading "veronika decides to die" by paulo coelho and then read a paragraph about Infinity and Eternity and my heart stops and then starts, but only this time, it beats with a new vigour. is it a coincidence or merely the language of the universe? i'm not too sure about coincidences these days.

sometimes, alot of times these days, i feel sad during the nights or in the mornings when i'm alone. i don't know how i got this way because i used to love these moments. and today, i felt sorry for myself when i caught myself trying desperately to fill up the empty spaces of the day with people and activities to battle the time alone. then we sang a line of a verse of a song today..

"are you sinking in your sorrow?"

and i thought to myself, hell yeah.

and then...

"come spend some time with me, come away.."

such simple words. spoke volumes to me. why do i desperately try to fill up the loneliness and then crumple into a heap of despair after that feeling tired and angry that it's reached such a state? no really...the question is..why do i need to? is it a form of indulgence? is it my pride? or is it that i just forgot?

alot of times, i feel alot of things. things touch me in so many ways and i can't tell you i'm happy i can't tell you i'm sad but i can tell you i'm happysadmadglad and a whole lot more, if a whole lot more could say the whole lot. i can feel joy the way a perfect sunset brings joy in the midst of profound sadness that only sunsets can bring and i can feel profound sadness amidst the happiest day in the world. now tell me, am i crazy or am i alive? or are they the same?

ok, i guess it's been a pretty long time since i last blogged here. well, i've been moving around alot i guess. first, i was moving around germany as part of a course in school. then, i moved on to czech and hungary. and after that, new jersey, where i am now. it's been almost 2 weeks that i've been here in wildwood, new jersey. and i'm here working in a theme park called moreys piers. well, what can i say? i mean, the past month has resulted in ALOT of things worth blogging about. so much randomness and spontaneity and risks and adventures. so many lessons learnt. so many people i've met, friends i've come to know. you get the idea...i might talk about those times another time.

but for now, i will be blogging here most of the time. that's the blog melt and i created to last us our stay and travels here in the states till we get back to singapore. but melt is so lazy, she's not postin anything! might come back here sometimes when i feel like it though...later!

so exam week so aptly fell right smack onto holy week, and what do you know? my very own walk down calvary. and aptly so, i finally break free from the reins of exams on saturday morning. funnily, it's business processes, my cross for almost every monday night of the term!! (long story). and on saturday night, i will celebrate the easter vigil mass. and it'll be kind of like a resurrection for me too.

this whole period of lent. wow. really zoomed by just like that. sundays during lent, i'm sitting in church. it's the 1st sunday of lent. and suddenly it's the 5th. then suddenly, palm sunday comes and we're all holding up our palms (as in the leaves, the really poky ones) and kids are poking their parents and siblings with them and lent is over. just like that.

yet, as i look back over these weeks of lent, so much has happened, within and without. and it's amazing how it all happened in like what, 6 weeks?? how a prayer answered turned my world upside down and left me feeling almost totally deserted at some point and then, soon enough set my heart burning more than it ever did before. yes, in a way, it was my own 40 days in a desert. my own journey like the shepherd boy in the alchemist. the desert...has always fascinated me. how something so barren can enrich and nourish the soul. have you ever seen a desert? for real? i think i mentioned before that i once did. from the plane. and i was totally in awe. because seeing it from that level allowed me to see just how vast and bare it was. it was an awesome sight. like a golden ocean that stretched forever. i could see no beginning and no end. i'm learning to appreciate the beauty of the deserts in my life. there is nothing there, and yet it is ALL there.

so straight after this period of recharging my ammo and this whole process of discovery begins another. again, so apt. a new adventure if i may call it so. next wednesday, i leave for germany. and then, the states. that's 4 months away from home! and my whole summer vacation! i am scared, excited, sad, relieved, stressed, happy, apprehensive, curious, one helluva rojak inside! oh, all the things i have to pack!!!

you know, when i was young, and when we said all those "when we grow up things", i said i wanted to be an adventurer. when i made my brothers act in little skits we put up for fun, i always played the adventurer. shireen the adventurer. i guess i never left that behind. and now i'm 21, an adult so they say, but i'm still shireen the adventurer. and everyday, is nothing short of an adventure. some people ask me how's my day. and if you really got me talking, it's hard fo me to tell you it was just great or ok. so much goes on in a day, in me, around me. by the end of each day, i'm full of stories to tell, as though i just came back from some long expedition. everything has the power to inspire, to speak to me and touch something in me. especially when i let my heart be open. she told me, that my heart, my mind, my life were flowers, all the same one flower. she told me to let it open and see how beautiful it was. i recall that message from time to time and everytime i recall it, i learn something new because of all that has gone on in between.

today, i got home and they said i had a parcel. i was sooooo happy. i love it when i get mail. except that i hardly ever do! except for bank statements. and well this time, i didn't just get a postcard or one of those. i got a parcel!!
all the way from japan! thanks (japan) adrian!! i will not throw away the parcel wrapper for sure!!

ok i want to go on and on and on because my mind is so alive now and i want to talk about everything! but it's 346am and a little (not that little maybe) chimpanzee-by-day-werewolf-by-night might end up looking like a panda because of me if i don't sleep now!

so.......i won't hold these thoughts. i'll let them go for now. but should they ever come again...

so goodnight, world! :)

i was at the stations of the cross yesterday. a few things struck me...

usually, a feeling of weariness and impatience creep over me even before the stations begin. i just think about all the kneeling and the standing that is to come and how it is not just one but FOURTEEN stations i have to go through. i think about the seeming dreariness of it all and what i'll be doing after that as a reward for going through it. something like the feeling i used to have before netball trainings, just that the only difference was, for stations, i still WANTED to go back. i wanted to go back not because anyone forced me to or i felt obligated to. i want to go back...only because i am in love.

and there i am, sheltered from the rain in an air-conditioned church. the bright lights above illuminate our little stations books so that we read out his passion. cushioned pews make kneeling slightly more merciful. and for 30 minutes, just 30 minutes, i relive his passion, trying to see what he saw, what he heard, how he felt...what they saw, what they heard, how they felt. except that, i was not the one who felt the stinging blows of the cruel whip, who wore that crown of thorns,who carried that cross, who fell three times, who sipped the vinegar, who spilled crimson as the nails tore into flesh and bone. no, i was not the one who hung there, stripped and emptied. what is my tiredness? what is my feeling of dread?

and i think to myself. what if i were there then? would i have shook my head sadly as i looked at that man with those crazed eyes, burning like fire? would i have been one of those who said, "ah, poor, crazy man. he was a nice guy. if only someone had talked him into his senses. all these son of god stories. ah, what a crazy world"? and then, would i have just walked on home, be sad for a while about the state of things in the world outside, and then just gone on with life, tending to my sheep or drawing water from a well? the way i do when i watch CNN and get greeted by statistics about fatalities of a bomb explosion in iraq?

or would i have followed this man, with those eyes burning like fire, even unto the folly of the cross?

it was one helluva gamble he took. who would have taken him seriously? would i have? are you kidding? what a crazy thing he said! what a crazy thing he did! things! but...i have fallen in love nevertheless. he loved me first, even before i knew him.

and this love, it defies all reason. reason is only as far as i can see. it limits life, and my view of it. love is infinite and has no boundaries.

i look upon the love of my parents for me and how they knew and loved me even before i saw their faces in my human form. how they were with me, whether i was bathing in the glory of my successes or rolling in the mud of my defeats. and there, i see how he has loved me.

a boy looks at a girl and feels her eyes connect to everything in him and his heartbeat falls into a beautiful and chaotic rhythm. and there, i feel his infinite power and love in his one infinite gaze.

a man dies on a cross for someone who doesn't even care. oh, the folly of that cross. and there, i see how love has conquered death and all logic.

birds do it, bees do it,
even educated fleas do it,
lets do it, lets fall in love!

because we can't help but fall in love. so stop trying to resist! hee. =)