it's a drizzly sunday morning. papa just finished bathing reno, and in my sleepy daze, at papa's request, i took videos of him cleaning reno's ears, brushing reno's teeth and combing reno's hair. as usual, reno tries to eat anything that comes into contact with his mouth (don't worry, he doesn't bite) so, as you can guess, he was trying to lick all the toothpaste up. it was a pretty funny sight, but reno is always doing these weird idiosyncratic things that only a reno does.

sometimes do you wake up really tired after dreaming? i feel awake but somewhat tired from the adventures my dreams took me on before i woke up this morning. they were so vivid, so strange, so crazy, so perplexing and so....real.

now i'm plonked down at the dining table which has become my new haven for studying, if one can even have a haven for studying. there's nothing much else to do but study really. i could go for a run, i could watch tv, i could read the papers...and i could think of you. i think i'll just study.

i have so many dreams, all these big plans swimming in my mind. sometimes, i feel excited when i study the things i study and i think about what all these things could do for life, for the world, and that i have access to this knowledge. and my gosh, all the things i could do! me, small little me, i could make a difference somewhere and for a while, i am smiling inside, excited as hell, devouring the pages. but the moment i look away, i get distracted and tired. just like when my stomach feels queasy and i start to eat and it doesn't feel so queasy when i eat but the moment i stop, it's queasy as hell. i don't know if that's an appropriate analogy but it's more or less the same feeling.

roxette's "listen to your heart" is playing right now and somehow, everytime i listen to this song, i feel a whole lot of feelings. they used to play this alot in morey's piers and it seemed to match my thoughts at the time too (so drama!). and everytime this song came on, it would be pretty surreal. people would still be screaming, doing silly things outside your booth, deciding what to buy. sometimes, some of the associates would walk by and smile, clean your window, whatever. and all this while you're sitting there behind that glass window, in your own world, watching the world outside go by, but with everything and everyone seeming to take on a different hue. i think this song will never be the same for melt and me. =)


view of mariner's landing from the back of adventure pier at night

And there are voices that want to be heard
So much to mention but you can't find the words
The scent of magic, the beauty that's been
When love was wilder than the wind

p.s. happy children's day!

this is just something jeevan and i came up with for fun. we were pretty inspired by hope. this is what happens when we study together. our outlets for stress take on pretty creative (nonsensical) forms. anyway, enjoy. and if you find it lame, well, in the words of hope, whatever. haha.

click here!

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!