Sunday, March 30, 2008
Saturday, March 29, 2008
i love mac. i seriously do.
why am i blogging one-liners these days, you ask? well, i blog here sometimes too. perhaps, i'll double-post my entries there over here as well in the future.
week 13, the dreaded week 13, is arriving. cowabunga! lets go!
why am i blogging one-liners these days, you ask? well, i blog here sometimes too. perhaps, i'll double-post my entries there over here as well in the future.
week 13, the dreaded week 13, is arriving. cowabunga! lets go!
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
it's a different kind of conversation....
had an interesting conversation just now. something about it makes me cringe and yet laugh because it's just so nonsensical. people are people are people.
_: there's coke?
me, in jest: eh *, hurry pour for me before _ finishes it all!
_: i haven't had dinner the last four days!
me, perplexed: what's that got to do with coke? (and i was seriously wrecking my aching brain)
_, immediately: bla yaddea (some thing along those lines in some strange tongue in an attempt to shut me up)
me, still perplexed, but even more so after the burst of tongues: what's that got to do with drinking coke?
_: bla yaddea chika muka (more tongues followed by the silent treatment)
oh and by the way, this wasn't a conversation between two 5-year-olds. that may have been a little more intelligent. chika muka yalalalalalalalala!!!!!!!!!!!
....in our coke heads
had an interesting conversation just now. something about it makes me cringe and yet laugh because it's just so nonsensical. people are people are people.
_: there's coke?
me, in jest: eh *, hurry pour for me before _ finishes it all!
_: i haven't had dinner the last four days!
me, perplexed: what's that got to do with coke? (and i was seriously wrecking my aching brain)
_, immediately: bla yaddea (some thing along those lines in some strange tongue in an attempt to shut me up)
me, still perplexed, but even more so after the burst of tongues: what's that got to do with drinking coke?
_: bla yaddea chika muka (more tongues followed by the silent treatment)
oh and by the way, this wasn't a conversation between two 5-year-olds. that may have been a little more intelligent. chika muka yalalalalalalalala!!!!!!!!!!!
caught broken social scene's concert at the esplanade just now. reached pretty late because i was stuck in an insane jam at orchard. jams. gross. ended up sitting alone which was really fine by me because i was aching too much inside out, in every way possible, in every muscle i can think of, the heart included, and even those tiny ones on your eyelids, to do anything else other than sit down and stone. a concert hall full of people jumping up from their seats and screaming sweet nothings to their idols on stage and then there's little miss oldielocks sitting in a corner, giving herself a neck massage. haha.
i wish they played more echoey stuff. i love strings and base. ambient, but not too much. it needs to have soul, and bass gives some soul because of its depth. the trumpets and sax were a nice touch. and the way they used their instruments to do stuff were pretty creative.
a classic line when the lead singer forgot what was the next chord in one of the songs.
"i don't feel bad that i forgot the song. i know you expect me to but i don't feel bad. i'm over it. are you?"
to which the crowd gleefully laps it all up and gives a resounding "of course we're over it" in the form of some kinda...noise.
and another.
"this is not a scary place. don't be afraid, it's not scary...you have those pictures of a man pointing a gun at another man's back (refering to signs in singapore at restricted areas)...hey that's art man!!"
to which the crowd begins to hail him as their guru with another throng of woohoos and whoas and yeas and aaaahs.
but well, as much as i'm trying to sound enthusiastic, i'm actually really tired. and my heart just wasn't completely there. it couldn't really be now, could it?
goodnight anonymous readers of skunkeroonie. god bless you.
i wish they played more echoey stuff. i love strings and base. ambient, but not too much. it needs to have soul, and bass gives some soul because of its depth. the trumpets and sax were a nice touch. and the way they used their instruments to do stuff were pretty creative.
a classic line when the lead singer forgot what was the next chord in one of the songs.
"i don't feel bad that i forgot the song. i know you expect me to but i don't feel bad. i'm over it. are you?"
to which the crowd gleefully laps it all up and gives a resounding "of course we're over it" in the form of some kinda...noise.
and another.
"this is not a scary place. don't be afraid, it's not scary...you have those pictures of a man pointing a gun at another man's back (refering to signs in singapore at restricted areas)...hey that's art man!!"
to which the crowd begins to hail him as their guru with another throng of woohoos and whoas and yeas and aaaahs.
but well, as much as i'm trying to sound enthusiastic, i'm actually really tired. and my heart just wasn't completely there. it couldn't really be now, could it?
goodnight anonymous readers of skunkeroonie. god bless you.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
it's a different kind of conversation.....
excuse the dearth of entries. it happens when i need an escape. i need new experiences to release some epinephrine and norepinephrine a.k.a. happy juice. i need a jolt, an electric shock, a splash into the deep, a boost into the cosmos.
u2's "your blue room" is an amazing song in every sense. it's one of those songs that's hard to get sick of even if you listen to it over and over again. the worse thing i can do is to pick it apart and analyse it.
i wonder, if you manage to pick apart something totally, you'd be left with these little pieces. atomised; electrons, protons, neutrons and is there anything smaller than that? do we know for sure? isn't the beauty in how it all comes together in different combinations? the whole? isn't that what makes you marvel at the tiny details in the first place? that something so glorious emerged from their insignificance?
or look at a human face. we see a perfectly pretty face and try to pick it apart. ok, ugly nose. hmmm, eyes are too small. ok mouth is too big. cheeks a bit chubby? you reduce a perfectly pretty face to a few adjectives about its different parts, forgetting that the whole was in fact beautiful and how every feature came together so perfectly. you forget about the way it touched your heart and jolted your senses.
and here i am analysing what it is to analyse. my life pretty much spirals into a paradox these days. like how i sometimes feel/know i'm living a lie, admitting truthfully that i am, thus in a way, being true and honest with myself. this is all so tripped.
back to my psychology books, the mother of human analysis.
...
......your blue room.
excuse the dearth of entries. it happens when i need an escape. i need new experiences to release some epinephrine and norepinephrine a.k.a. happy juice. i need a jolt, an electric shock, a splash into the deep, a boost into the cosmos.
u2's "your blue room" is an amazing song in every sense. it's one of those songs that's hard to get sick of even if you listen to it over and over again. the worse thing i can do is to pick it apart and analyse it.
i wonder, if you manage to pick apart something totally, you'd be left with these little pieces. atomised; electrons, protons, neutrons and is there anything smaller than that? do we know for sure? isn't the beauty in how it all comes together in different combinations? the whole? isn't that what makes you marvel at the tiny details in the first place? that something so glorious emerged from their insignificance?
or look at a human face. we see a perfectly pretty face and try to pick it apart. ok, ugly nose. hmmm, eyes are too small. ok mouth is too big. cheeks a bit chubby? you reduce a perfectly pretty face to a few adjectives about its different parts, forgetting that the whole was in fact beautiful and how every feature came together so perfectly. you forget about the way it touched your heart and jolted your senses.
and here i am analysing what it is to analyse. my life pretty much spirals into a paradox these days. like how i sometimes feel/know i'm living a lie, admitting truthfully that i am, thus in a way, being true and honest with myself. this is all so tripped.
back to my psychology books, the mother of human analysis.
...
Friday, February 29, 2008
must be the leap year
remember my musings about how art/entertainment imitates life and/or vice-versa? since wednesday, it just went up a notch. strange things have been happening since wednesday.
the head of jemaah islamiah (supposedly a terrorist organisation), mas selamat, escaped from the ISD's whitley road detention centre on wednesday. as i picked up the papers yesterday morning and saw his face there with the accompanying headlines, i was just shocked. how could this happen? apparently, he had asked to go the toilet during a family visit or before and that's when he fled. that sounds too easy. watching too much 24 set my brain ticking, as i tried to play detective figuring out how a high profile criminal like him who poses a big threat to so many people could have escaped so easily? going to the toilet?? hello??! next thing we know, the military, police, airforce, they're all over scouring the roads, coasts, borders, homes, schools on a major manhunt for mas. meanwhile, all the possible plots are flooding my mind. insider job? an excuse to put him down? plain stupidity and carelessness???
i was having lunch just now and looking at my gate and i started to imagine mas running into my house to take refuge. i imagined i was on the stairs looking down and he couldn't see me. i tried to plan what i would do, how i would outsmart him, get him caught. but he must have had alot of training in combat so that would be tricky. i imagined him going to the kitchen and knew that if he got himself a knife, it would be too late. i imagined aunty sitting in her room, oblivious that a man, now armed, was just outside her room. i imagined how i'd save her, how i'd knock him out cold with a vase or something. it's not highly impossible. i imagine that having nowhere to run, it could turn into a hostage situation. but if it's an insider job, there are probably more people involved, planning his whole escape route. watch 24 season 3 if you don't believe me!
then, last night, i was at the park near the main road beside my house. mutu and i were talking when we heard a loud sound. i remember the first thought that ran through my head, "motorcyle!" after a moment's hesitation (we hesitated because it seemed like noone was stopping, there was no shouting, and everyone seemed to be going on with their life normally), we decided to go out and see what it was. when we caught our first glimpse of the road, we saw a man lying flat in the middle of the road, knocked out cold! we walked over to where he was. 3 other people were there, but they were passerbys. noone saw what happened to him. but from what i heard, he was definitely hit. and whoever hit him had scrammed. it was an old man. there was a cut on his left leg and his right elbow was dislocated (it was a horrible sight to see his arm dangling from the elbow!). his newspaper and wallet lay a distance from him. one slipper was still on his right foot or nearby, i forget, and the other one lay some distance away. thank goodness he was still breathing. he looked as though he were sleeping. one of the bystanders smelt his breath and realised he had been drinking himself. someone called for the ambulance and the rest of us stood there not knowing what to do, afraid that by moving him, we might aggravate an unknown injury. just then, a woman came by and started yelling instructions to us. a few of us followed her instructions and carried him to the pavement. the ambulance and police came and by that time, the guy had already woken up. he was struggling and trying to get up from the stretcher! he just wanted to go home!! can you believe this guy? he didnt have an IC or anything with him, not even a phone. and he refused to let us call anyone. well, mervin and i left after the paramedics and police came but i guess the guy is probably ok. i just don't get how you can hit someone and drive off, even after hearing the thud and the screams and watching the person's body squirm on the ground or lay motionless. i wonder how you can live with yourself. or are you "used" to it? i guess i can understand but it really shows some kind of poverty somewhere. fear stinks. it reeks. but i think, nonchalance is worse.
then, there's this dog. he has a collar so i think he belongs to someone around here. but he keeps walking around freely on my lane. this morning, when i was in the bathroom, i heard the dogs in this lane creating a racket! they were howling away and barking. and amidst their howls, i heard the squeaks and yelps of another dog. i ran out of the bathroom to the window, afraid that something bad was happening but i couldn't see where that yelping bark came from. i did see the wandering dog but he seemed to be looking at something in my neighbour's house. when i got back just now, that dog was still outside my neighbour's house!!! it looked like he'd been waiting there the whole time. i asked aunty why he was there and aunty said, he must be waiting for "ginger", the neighbour's dog. but i didn't see ginger anywhere. i've never seen ginger in my life! it's so strange.
i think what makes these 3 separate incidents very strange is that there are so many missing links in these stories, thus enshrouding them in mystery. how did mas escape and where is he now? who hit the old man? why does the old man want to remain anonymous? why was that dog yelping today and why were all the dogs howling? why was the wandering dog stationed outside my neighbour's house for such a long time??? so strange...
update: the wandering dog is ginger's lover. the howling this morning was because they were "at it", through the gate. gosh. haha. and then, the neighbours took ginger inside and ever since then, wandering dog has been sitting there at the gate waiting for his lover the whole day! he's still waiting there!!! sigh.
remember my musings about how art/entertainment imitates life and/or vice-versa? since wednesday, it just went up a notch. strange things have been happening since wednesday.
the head of jemaah islamiah (supposedly a terrorist organisation), mas selamat, escaped from the ISD's whitley road detention centre on wednesday. as i picked up the papers yesterday morning and saw his face there with the accompanying headlines, i was just shocked. how could this happen? apparently, he had asked to go the toilet during a family visit or before and that's when he fled. that sounds too easy. watching too much 24 set my brain ticking, as i tried to play detective figuring out how a high profile criminal like him who poses a big threat to so many people could have escaped so easily? going to the toilet?? hello??! next thing we know, the military, police, airforce, they're all over scouring the roads, coasts, borders, homes, schools on a major manhunt for mas. meanwhile, all the possible plots are flooding my mind. insider job? an excuse to put him down? plain stupidity and carelessness???
i was having lunch just now and looking at my gate and i started to imagine mas running into my house to take refuge. i imagined i was on the stairs looking down and he couldn't see me. i tried to plan what i would do, how i would outsmart him, get him caught. but he must have had alot of training in combat so that would be tricky. i imagined him going to the kitchen and knew that if he got himself a knife, it would be too late. i imagined aunty sitting in her room, oblivious that a man, now armed, was just outside her room. i imagined how i'd save her, how i'd knock him out cold with a vase or something. it's not highly impossible. i imagine that having nowhere to run, it could turn into a hostage situation. but if it's an insider job, there are probably more people involved, planning his whole escape route. watch 24 season 3 if you don't believe me!
then, last night, i was at the park near the main road beside my house. mutu and i were talking when we heard a loud sound. i remember the first thought that ran through my head, "motorcyle!" after a moment's hesitation (we hesitated because it seemed like noone was stopping, there was no shouting, and everyone seemed to be going on with their life normally), we decided to go out and see what it was. when we caught our first glimpse of the road, we saw a man lying flat in the middle of the road, knocked out cold! we walked over to where he was. 3 other people were there, but they were passerbys. noone saw what happened to him. but from what i heard, he was definitely hit. and whoever hit him had scrammed. it was an old man. there was a cut on his left leg and his right elbow was dislocated (it was a horrible sight to see his arm dangling from the elbow!). his newspaper and wallet lay a distance from him. one slipper was still on his right foot or nearby, i forget, and the other one lay some distance away. thank goodness he was still breathing. he looked as though he were sleeping. one of the bystanders smelt his breath and realised he had been drinking himself. someone called for the ambulance and the rest of us stood there not knowing what to do, afraid that by moving him, we might aggravate an unknown injury. just then, a woman came by and started yelling instructions to us. a few of us followed her instructions and carried him to the pavement. the ambulance and police came and by that time, the guy had already woken up. he was struggling and trying to get up from the stretcher! he just wanted to go home!! can you believe this guy? he didnt have an IC or anything with him, not even a phone. and he refused to let us call anyone. well, mervin and i left after the paramedics and police came but i guess the guy is probably ok. i just don't get how you can hit someone and drive off, even after hearing the thud and the screams and watching the person's body squirm on the ground or lay motionless. i wonder how you can live with yourself. or are you "used" to it? i guess i can understand but it really shows some kind of poverty somewhere. fear stinks. it reeks. but i think, nonchalance is worse.
then, there's this dog. he has a collar so i think he belongs to someone around here. but he keeps walking around freely on my lane. this morning, when i was in the bathroom, i heard the dogs in this lane creating a racket! they were howling away and barking. and amidst their howls, i heard the squeaks and yelps of another dog. i ran out of the bathroom to the window, afraid that something bad was happening but i couldn't see where that yelping bark came from. i did see the wandering dog but he seemed to be looking at something in my neighbour's house. when i got back just now, that dog was still outside my neighbour's house!!! it looked like he'd been waiting there the whole time. i asked aunty why he was there and aunty said, he must be waiting for "ginger", the neighbour's dog. but i didn't see ginger anywhere. i've never seen ginger in my life! it's so strange.
i think what makes these 3 separate incidents very strange is that there are so many missing links in these stories, thus enshrouding them in mystery. how did mas escape and where is he now? who hit the old man? why does the old man want to remain anonymous? why was that dog yelping today and why were all the dogs howling? why was the wandering dog stationed outside my neighbour's house for such a long time??? so strange...
update: the wandering dog is ginger's lover. the howling this morning was because they were "at it", through the gate. gosh. haha. and then, the neighbours took ginger inside and ever since then, wandering dog has been sitting there at the gate waiting for his lover the whole day! he's still waiting there!!! sigh.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
thank god i'm finally on my bed. everything's aching like mad i'm getting old it's not funny. some days, even a minute seems too long and you want the whole week to fast forward. then there are some day where even 24 hours is not enough. but i say, if a day was longer than 24 hours, we'd be very tired people, i think. or maybe just me. a very tired old aching person. cultural psych exam on thursday with 6 research papers to digest and pick apart (it's an online exam in class and so i have to look for a laptop with windows!! actually my mac has one but i decided i didn't want to use it anymore and i think i deleted bootcamp.). filming for amazing race asia audition tape, which has to be done by friday because melt is going to climb kinabalu and we'll have no time after that (melt and reenie are trying their luck! will talk more about it after the application deadline. can't let our brilliant ideas leak out to our competitors, can we? we have to get in! i can't stop dreaming about it!!!). video-editting is gonna take forever. and there is cognitive psych exam coming up too. and oh, internship work. and of course, decisions to make and things to plan and you know what, i'm gonna sleep. goodnight!
Sunday, February 17, 2008
building a mystery
i love you.
pause. why?
what do you mean?
pause. why do you love me? (why would you love me?)
i don't know. i just love you.
pause. why?
when i look at you, i just want to love you.
silence. why me? why not anyone else?
pause. why do you love me?
i don't know, i just do.
you see!
when she fell silent, she was already convinced. that was the difference between the pauses and the silences. his one-liners always stunned her; they were always perfectly simple and simply perfect. most importantly, they were from his heart. love uncomplicated itself in his presence. it was just...love. but she never told him so, told him that she believed. she always added an extra "why?" for good measure, to make sure that it wasn't a mistake. she didn't have to. noone could have said it better, something so simple and true.
"when i look at you, i just want to love you."
Saturday, February 16, 2008
till today, i had forgotten how i much i loved long, lonely busrides home at night. till just now, i had forgotten how music can take me away to another place where everything makes sense, where pain is fully acknowledged and experienced but does not sting and does not need to be hidden, where i can celebrate the sacredness of my being and the essence of my soul.
some days, i go to the movies. i pay about $7-9 for a ticket and sit tight for 2.5 hours watching people laugh, cry, fight, make love, lose, win, sleep, eat, drive, hide, die, date, break up, dance, turn into a total mess, lose faith, kill, steal, watch tv, stare into space, pump petrol, dream, sigh, put on make up and comb their hair, only in different combinations. some days, i think, how my life seems to have jumped straight out of a movie, or did movies, as incredible and unrealistic as they seem, jump straight out of life itself? (well, the truman show illustrates this really well) i replay memories in the screen of my mind, which only i can see, these memories that i never dreamt i would one day have, and wonder that maybe, just maybe, people might actually pay $7-9 for this. but noone ever will, because noone will ever know. i wonder, will these memories die with me. these stories, these moments, will they just cease to exist? or did they die the moment they were born?
i attempted to begin writing a script for a movie two days ago after listening to my grandma recount snippets of her life to me. as she spoke, my mind was a giant projector. i added music and colour, visualised the characters, imagined how the scenes would connect between past and present and finally, the inevitable future. it started to look like the epic of the century up there and i was really serious about it. it wouldn't be for money, it would be a tribute to life and death, a tribute to memories, a tribute to humanity and its beauty, a tribute to amama. i didn't know what spurred me then (i don't just go writing scripts on a whim!) but i think it's the sudden desperation to grab all you can of what's left of those moments, and then, the memories, before you lose them forever. it suddenly hits you, you could lose it forever and you think that perhaps, just perhaps, you could just immortalise some part of it.
i should be sleeping. i did something stupid today. like one of those stupid girls in one of those stupid horror movies who stupidly walks straight into trouble and makes you feel like slapping her silly. or one of those stupid girls in one of those stupid chick flicks who can't see what's good infront of her and walks away from it and makes you feel like shaking her silly so she'll wake up her friggin' idea. sigh.
some days, i go to the movies. i pay about $7-9 for a ticket and sit tight for 2.5 hours watching people laugh, cry, fight, make love, lose, win, sleep, eat, drive, hide, die, date, break up, dance, turn into a total mess, lose faith, kill, steal, watch tv, stare into space, pump petrol, dream, sigh, put on make up and comb their hair, only in different combinations. some days, i think, how my life seems to have jumped straight out of a movie, or did movies, as incredible and unrealistic as they seem, jump straight out of life itself? (well, the truman show illustrates this really well) i replay memories in the screen of my mind, which only i can see, these memories that i never dreamt i would one day have, and wonder that maybe, just maybe, people might actually pay $7-9 for this. but noone ever will, because noone will ever know. i wonder, will these memories die with me. these stories, these moments, will they just cease to exist? or did they die the moment they were born?
i attempted to begin writing a script for a movie two days ago after listening to my grandma recount snippets of her life to me. as she spoke, my mind was a giant projector. i added music and colour, visualised the characters, imagined how the scenes would connect between past and present and finally, the inevitable future. it started to look like the epic of the century up there and i was really serious about it. it wouldn't be for money, it would be a tribute to life and death, a tribute to memories, a tribute to humanity and its beauty, a tribute to amama. i didn't know what spurred me then (i don't just go writing scripts on a whim!) but i think it's the sudden desperation to grab all you can of what's left of those moments, and then, the memories, before you lose them forever. it suddenly hits you, you could lose it forever and you think that perhaps, just perhaps, you could just immortalise some part of it.
i should be sleeping. i did something stupid today. like one of those stupid girls in one of those stupid horror movies who stupidly walks straight into trouble and makes you feel like slapping her silly. or one of those stupid girls in one of those stupid chick flicks who can't see what's good infront of her and walks away from it and makes you feel like shaking her silly so she'll wake up her friggin' idea. sigh.
nobody said it was easy,
no one ever said it would be so hard.
oh take me back to the start.
no one ever said it would be so hard.
oh take me back to the start.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
i need a break. i need to put myself around people who care and are not reckless with my heart. i need to stop being around people whose hearts i'm reckless with, at least until i learn how to stop being reckless with their hearts. i need to take myself out of situations where i have to pretend and end up feeling confused about who i am and utterly empty and alone inside. i definitely need to distance myself from triggers until i learn how to be calm. of course, i'll still have to go to school and meet my boss and get work done and blablubleah, but i will need to be more discerning regarding my socialising and activities.
sometimes, you have this bad feeling about things, but you just do it anyway, and it really turns out bad? some people call it the self-fulfilling prophecy or the workings of the laws of attraction, others call it intuition or gut feeling. well, i think it doesn't matter what it's called. if the feeling is there, i'm going to trust it for now. think about it. if it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, and you feel bad about it thereby causing it to turn out bad, would it change if you felt "good" about it? perhaps. but would you be able to change your mind to feel genuinely good about it. perhaps, with the help of cognitive dissonance or something. but i don't really buy that. if you feel bad about it, you just do, because some part of you is screaming no to it. and if that part is not resolved, it's going to screw everything up thus fulfilling your self-created prophecy. you can apply cognitive dissonance tactics on yourself, but you're just bullshitting yourself really. so the other scenario, gut feeling or intuition. well, if it really is and it really works, what have you got to lose? so i say, no point rushing into things, changing your feelings to suit the occasion instead of dealing with why it's even there (it'll come back with a vengeance!). instead, i will just say no when those bad feelings come and deal with them slowly and steadily. even if it means staying home on a friday night or breaking a daily routine.
i think i'm ready to leave my room today. i don't know how it'll be tomorrow. let's just take on today for now.
sometimes, you have this bad feeling about things, but you just do it anyway, and it really turns out bad? some people call it the self-fulfilling prophecy or the workings of the laws of attraction, others call it intuition or gut feeling. well, i think it doesn't matter what it's called. if the feeling is there, i'm going to trust it for now. think about it. if it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, and you feel bad about it thereby causing it to turn out bad, would it change if you felt "good" about it? perhaps. but would you be able to change your mind to feel genuinely good about it. perhaps, with the help of cognitive dissonance or something. but i don't really buy that. if you feel bad about it, you just do, because some part of you is screaming no to it. and if that part is not resolved, it's going to screw everything up thus fulfilling your self-created prophecy. you can apply cognitive dissonance tactics on yourself, but you're just bullshitting yourself really. so the other scenario, gut feeling or intuition. well, if it really is and it really works, what have you got to lose? so i say, no point rushing into things, changing your feelings to suit the occasion instead of dealing with why it's even there (it'll come back with a vengeance!). instead, i will just say no when those bad feelings come and deal with them slowly and steadily. even if it means staying home on a friday night or breaking a daily routine.
i think i'm ready to leave my room today. i don't know how it'll be tomorrow. let's just take on today for now.