a home for troubled cats
believe it or not, i carried a cat (kitten) for the first time in my life today! well, it's a big deal considering i'm so not a cat person and have no inclination whatsoever of giving them any portion of my undivided attention.
but i had no choice today. and it surprisingly felt, nice.
well, all the girls had gone for their run and i was busy speaking to one of their moms when the one they call "wang wang" kept cosying up to the mom. the mom was somehow totally freaked out by cats and refused to let us continue the conversation until wang wang was far far away. i tried to make funny sounds, snap my fingers, shake the chair, stamp my feet. the mom ran from one corner to the other. wang wang thought it was fun and started charging towards the mom all the more. sigh.
so i actually picked it up with my bare hands and brought it to the other end of the canteen. i could feel its heartbeat, its legs were swinging, trying to feel for ground, head turning about curiously. it must've thought the game had only just begun because as soon as i put it down, it ran all the way back to the mom with a dead-set purpose.
i ran after it, mom was still freaking out over the mischievous furry thing. again, with the same sense of "oh no..." in my heart, i picked up wang wang, brought it all the way to the front of the home, and prayed it would become curious about other things, or sleepy. those seem to be the only two ways to occupy a cat.
but just so you know, it really wasn't so bad. their moods, curiousity, stubbornness, uniqueness, playfulness, sleepiness, living as though they will never die (or have nine lives); sometimes i can't tell the difference between the girls and the cats (all 41320989182 of them).
***
update: ok just got back from the doctor. broke out in really bad rashes all over my face and body towards the end of my run just now. the only new thing i did today out of the ordinary was well, carry a cat! now i know why i instinctively avoid them. oh well!!!! all that previous gung-ho-ness is now but a flat tyre. oh well.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Saturday, April 03, 2010
valium in the sunshine
wow i feel like i've just gone around the world and back in the last 12 hours or so. at about 2am, whilst swimming in a whirlpool of memories, i chanced upon an email to a dear friend and discovered that once a upon a time, i had fallen in love with a musician and conveniently forgotten about him. i had spent the last 2 hours before that restless, itching for new music to blow my mind and the search bore fruit, very tasty ones, in the most unexpected way. how do i explain this? whenever i come across really good music, i really do feel like i'm in heaven, like i've found the most valuable thing ever. you don't know how happy it makes me. so, allow me to introduce you to...
Maps.
i really am not a fan of electronica, most of the time, and no, i'm not a music bigot. i'm just prejudiced towards the good ones. you know? but my, my. Maps' music is some kind of beautiful, really. and totally underrated.
i finally went to sleep at 430am, equipped with a kick-ass soundtrack for my dreams. oh my dreams, don't get me started. that was another adventure on its own! and for the record, there was really music in my dreams and i did feel like i was smiling! all rudely and abruptly halted by the phone.
i feel generous. how can i not share this especially? i'm going to leave you with some Maps tracks to savour through my ridiculous head-bobbing ninja player at the side! enjoy!
wow i feel like i've just gone around the world and back in the last 12 hours or so. at about 2am, whilst swimming in a whirlpool of memories, i chanced upon an email to a dear friend and discovered that once a upon a time, i had fallen in love with a musician and conveniently forgotten about him. i had spent the last 2 hours before that restless, itching for new music to blow my mind and the search bore fruit, very tasty ones, in the most unexpected way. how do i explain this? whenever i come across really good music, i really do feel like i'm in heaven, like i've found the most valuable thing ever. you don't know how happy it makes me. so, allow me to introduce you to...
Maps.
i really am not a fan of electronica, most of the time, and no, i'm not a music bigot. i'm just prejudiced towards the good ones. you know? but my, my. Maps' music is some kind of beautiful, really. and totally underrated.
i finally went to sleep at 430am, equipped with a kick-ass soundtrack for my dreams. oh my dreams, don't get me started. that was another adventure on its own! and for the record, there was really music in my dreams and i did feel like i was smiling! all rudely and abruptly halted by the phone.
i feel generous. how can i not share this especially? i'm going to leave you with some Maps tracks to savour through my ridiculous head-bobbing ninja player at the side! enjoy!
Friday, April 02, 2010
hope
nothing beats waking up to a home filled with music.
i remember, when i was younger, i'd wake up to ottmar liebert's lively flamenco pieces which would accompany papa's breakfast before he went to work. on weekends, even till this day, as i'd trudge sleepily down the stairs in the mornings, that familiar sense of hope and peace would seep in as the likes of nick drake, enya, george harrison, neil young, pink floyd, etc, greeted my ears and as i saw papa having his morning breakfast and reading the newspapers in the garden outside. like today.
it is good friday. this morning, as i was reading the papers consumed with the strife of humanity, i was filled with, not gloom, but hope, so much hope. for in every article that was choked with suffering, the darling buds of human goodness were also found to be blooming through the crevices of darkness. there are always people who are fighting, raging against the dying of the light, and that gives me hope.
it was maundy thursday yesterday, the night jesus washed the feet of his disciples. the night he gave of himself. that same night, he experienced the depths of human loneliness in the garden of gethsamane. on this night every year, the holy eucharist is transfered to the altar of repose in all catholic churches to signify when jesus prayed and wept alone in the garden that night. it is a catholic tradition to spend some time at the altar of repose on maundy thursday, to "stay awake at least an hour with him."
as i spent some time at the altar, i realised that in that moment, noone could touch his loneliness, his great anguish. the airconditioning was ridiculously cold and i was shivering under my thickest (by singapore's standards) cardigan. i recalled the countless nights when i was in my very own garden of gethsamane, crying alone in the early hours of the morning in a park somewhere, skin all cold not because of the air but because i felt that i had lost everything. i felt that noone could touch my loneliness then. i remembered how i scratched myself to get the pain out and felt contented when i saw the angry marks on my skin.
and last night, as i recalled the moments of how my nails dug into skin, i would immediately have a vision of jesus bent double in agony at the same time, as though it was his skin i had dug into instead. and as i recalled the nights i spent praying for god to just not let me ever wake up again, daring him, challenging him, provoking him, i would instantly see that same image of the tormented christ again. i felt ashamed, that as he carried the weight of sin that night, for me, i wanted to destroy and only destroy, me, the very one he was dying to save.
i marveled at how even jesus had experienced what it felt to pray so hard for something only to be rewarded with more pain. he had prayed, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done." he prayed so fervently that "his sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground." yet, even after all that, he was betrayed, scourged, made to carry the cross, crucified on that very same cross between two criminals.
i had almost missed the point when i was reminded that the crucifixion had to come before the resurrection. i soon recalled the chain of events that transpired last year, at this very same time, that changed the course of my life drastically. it was a painful experience, filled with much rejection, uncertainty and confusion. it still stings, believe me. yet, if it did not happen, i would still be in a sorry state of succumbing to who i wasn't. i shudder to think what that would be like. for sure, i would have been totally off-course in the path of fulfilling my dreams.
totally.
nothing beats waking up to a home filled with music.
i remember, when i was younger, i'd wake up to ottmar liebert's lively flamenco pieces which would accompany papa's breakfast before he went to work. on weekends, even till this day, as i'd trudge sleepily down the stairs in the mornings, that familiar sense of hope and peace would seep in as the likes of nick drake, enya, george harrison, neil young, pink floyd, etc, greeted my ears and as i saw papa having his morning breakfast and reading the newspapers in the garden outside. like today.
it is good friday. this morning, as i was reading the papers consumed with the strife of humanity, i was filled with, not gloom, but hope, so much hope. for in every article that was choked with suffering, the darling buds of human goodness were also found to be blooming through the crevices of darkness. there are always people who are fighting, raging against the dying of the light, and that gives me hope.
it was maundy thursday yesterday, the night jesus washed the feet of his disciples. the night he gave of himself. that same night, he experienced the depths of human loneliness in the garden of gethsamane. on this night every year, the holy eucharist is transfered to the altar of repose in all catholic churches to signify when jesus prayed and wept alone in the garden that night. it is a catholic tradition to spend some time at the altar of repose on maundy thursday, to "stay awake at least an hour with him."
as i spent some time at the altar, i realised that in that moment, noone could touch his loneliness, his great anguish. the airconditioning was ridiculously cold and i was shivering under my thickest (by singapore's standards) cardigan. i recalled the countless nights when i was in my very own garden of gethsamane, crying alone in the early hours of the morning in a park somewhere, skin all cold not because of the air but because i felt that i had lost everything. i felt that noone could touch my loneliness then. i remembered how i scratched myself to get the pain out and felt contented when i saw the angry marks on my skin.
and last night, as i recalled the moments of how my nails dug into skin, i would immediately have a vision of jesus bent double in agony at the same time, as though it was his skin i had dug into instead. and as i recalled the nights i spent praying for god to just not let me ever wake up again, daring him, challenging him, provoking him, i would instantly see that same image of the tormented christ again. i felt ashamed, that as he carried the weight of sin that night, for me, i wanted to destroy and only destroy, me, the very one he was dying to save.
i marveled at how even jesus had experienced what it felt to pray so hard for something only to be rewarded with more pain. he had prayed, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done." he prayed so fervently that "his sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground." yet, even after all that, he was betrayed, scourged, made to carry the cross, crucified on that very same cross between two criminals.
i had almost missed the point when i was reminded that the crucifixion had to come before the resurrection. i soon recalled the chain of events that transpired last year, at this very same time, that changed the course of my life drastically. it was a painful experience, filled with much rejection, uncertainty and confusion. it still stings, believe me. yet, if it did not happen, i would still be in a sorry state of succumbing to who i wasn't. i shudder to think what that would be like. for sure, i would have been totally off-course in the path of fulfilling my dreams.
totally.
Friday, March 26, 2010
a semblance of an ordinary world
tennis was awesome yesterday. i felt so pumped up i'm not sure why. perhaps it was because of my annoying toothache. or the annoying traffic jam on the way(i hate all sorts of jams! blueberry jam, strawberry jam, silver berry jam, traffic jam, etc).
i felt like a cross between the williams sisters and a viking slaying dragons because every now and then, in between whacking the life out of those sorry green tennis balls, i was attempting to slay those irritating light flies (what do you call them?) with my tennis racket of a sword, swinging and slashing and prancing around. in between, i chased cute fat little frogs about, trying to veer them towards freedom (i.e. beyond the fences of the court). they were really cute. and fat. i was afraid they would end up in a squishy green glob of death.
finally found myself at a dental clinic today after god knows how many centuries. i was utterly shocked by the amount of blood i was spitting out as she polished and cleaned my teeth. bad news is it's only just started. worse news is i have to extract my erupting wisdom tooth in the very near future. good news is...well, i saw the dentist? and she graduated from otago! so we had some nice things to talk about. i really miss otago and my life there. it's one of those things i'm so glad i did. like really, shireen. at least one great choice you have made!!! oh dear, i'm talking to myself now, moving on...
so i'm at night shift now. feels good that i can finally spend more time with the girls instead of judges, officers, principals, reports etc. i love these girls the more i get to know them. they are really awesome, many times in ways i am not, and i hope i can help them all win.
i can smell the weekend already, i love fridays!
tennis was awesome yesterday. i felt so pumped up i'm not sure why. perhaps it was because of my annoying toothache. or the annoying traffic jam on the way(i hate all sorts of jams! blueberry jam, strawberry jam, silver berry jam, traffic jam, etc).
i felt like a cross between the williams sisters and a viking slaying dragons because every now and then, in between whacking the life out of those sorry green tennis balls, i was attempting to slay those irritating light flies (what do you call them?) with my tennis racket of a sword, swinging and slashing and prancing around. in between, i chased cute fat little frogs about, trying to veer them towards freedom (i.e. beyond the fences of the court). they were really cute. and fat. i was afraid they would end up in a squishy green glob of death.
finally found myself at a dental clinic today after god knows how many centuries. i was utterly shocked by the amount of blood i was spitting out as she polished and cleaned my teeth. bad news is it's only just started. worse news is i have to extract my erupting wisdom tooth in the very near future. good news is...well, i saw the dentist? and she graduated from otago! so we had some nice things to talk about. i really miss otago and my life there. it's one of those things i'm so glad i did. like really, shireen. at least one great choice you have made!!! oh dear, i'm talking to myself now, moving on...
so i'm at night shift now. feels good that i can finally spend more time with the girls instead of judges, officers, principals, reports etc. i love these girls the more i get to know them. they are really awesome, many times in ways i am not, and i hope i can help them all win.
i can smell the weekend already, i love fridays!
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
spring is around the corner, baby!
i know, i know, i've been all sorts of emoish lately. we'll try to have less of that here, i promise! but every dog has its day and every girl has her...say? i know what you were thinking.
things have been looking up, or at least i have been. as much as my previous post seems to embody cynism, i assure you it is far from it. it's amazing what a sense of humour can do. it's amazing how a decision to just heck it and smilelaughguffaw actually makes you lighter as a person, to be, and to hang out with.
come on, shireen! you're back home "early" tonight! pack your stuff for tomorrow's tennis and swimming, take your shower, cuddle up into bed and put on some LOST!!!!
and i would still like to own a pet dragon.
i know, i know, i've been all sorts of emoish lately. we'll try to have less of that here, i promise! but every dog has its day and every girl has her...say? i know what you were thinking.
things have been looking up, or at least i have been. as much as my previous post seems to embody cynism, i assure you it is far from it. it's amazing what a sense of humour can do. it's amazing how a decision to just heck it and smilelaughguffaw actually makes you lighter as a person, to be, and to hang out with.
come on, shireen! you're back home "early" tonight! pack your stuff for tomorrow's tennis and swimming, take your shower, cuddle up into bed and put on some LOST!!!!
and i would still like to own a pet dragon.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
ha ha
perhaps, in all that haste to turn everything into laughter, i'll find one that's really genuine. you know? the heartfelt kind that makes you feel like you're being continuously punched in the guts and turns on the waterworks? funny how the best kinds leave you in such pain, wanting more of the same. funny how a good laugh uncannily resembles a good cry. funny.
what's that? you're not going to be there again? i raise my eyebrows, shrug my shoulders, sing a tune, smile and walk on. it works. you love me better this way. i love me better this way.
perhaps, in all that haste to turn everything into laughter, i'll find one that's really genuine. you know? the heartfelt kind that makes you feel like you're being continuously punched in the guts and turns on the waterworks? funny how the best kinds leave you in such pain, wanting more of the same. funny how a good laugh uncannily resembles a good cry. funny.
what's that? you're not going to be there again? i raise my eyebrows, shrug my shoulders, sing a tune, smile and walk on. it works. you love me better this way. i love me better this way.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
what i do best
You grow, you roar
Although disguised
I know you
You'll learn to know
You grow, you grow like tornado
You grow from the inside
Destroy everything through
Destroy from the inside
Erupt like volcano
You flow through the inside
You kill everything through
You kill from the inside
You'll...
You'll learn to know
I wonder if I'm allowed ever to see
I wonder if I'm allowed to ever be free
You sound so blue
You now are gloom
You're now so blue
You now are gloom
I wonder if I'm allowed just ever to be
You grow, you roar
Although disguised
I know you
You'll learn to know
You grow, you grow like tornado
You grow from the inside
Destroy everything through
Destroy from the inside
Erupt like volcano
You flow through the inside
You kill everything through
You kill from the inside
You'll...
You'll learn to know
I wonder if I'm allowed ever to see
I wonder if I'm allowed to ever be free
You sound so blue
You now are gloom
You're now so blue
You now are gloom
I wonder if I'm allowed just ever to be
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
"status updates"
watched cop-out for the lack of a better available movie and i can now safely say i know at least 10,000,000 ways to annoy someone to his grave!!!
have started training at the gym and i love seeing the numbers go down, though it's not happening fast enough! also, i secretly love showing my trainer i'm tough stuff although i'm pretty much jelly and end up sheepishly grinning my resignation.
have finally decided to use ONE day of leave tomorrow (monday). i selfishly hoard my days of leave because i'm terribly optimistic i will be using it for a big road-trip sometime in the very near future.
discovered the joy of a helium can and letting go of heart-shaped balloons into the bottomless sky this afternoon. i felt a tinge of sadness as my very own purple balloon floated further and further away from me into those stormy grey clouds, carrying with it my cry of surrender of the things wrapped around my heart.
realised how utterly confused i truly can be. so totally sure one second, so totally not the next. i'm cool with it. i'm ready for the gunshot. bang!
:), i think.
watched cop-out for the lack of a better available movie and i can now safely say i know at least 10,000,000 ways to annoy someone to his grave!!!
have started training at the gym and i love seeing the numbers go down, though it's not happening fast enough! also, i secretly love showing my trainer i'm tough stuff although i'm pretty much jelly and end up sheepishly grinning my resignation.
have finally decided to use ONE day of leave tomorrow (monday). i selfishly hoard my days of leave because i'm terribly optimistic i will be using it for a big road-trip sometime in the very near future.
discovered the joy of a helium can and letting go of heart-shaped balloons into the bottomless sky this afternoon. i felt a tinge of sadness as my very own purple balloon floated further and further away from me into those stormy grey clouds, carrying with it my cry of surrender of the things wrapped around my heart.
realised how utterly confused i truly can be. so totally sure one second, so totally not the next. i'm cool with it. i'm ready for the gunshot. bang!
:), i think.
wanna put my tender
heart in a blender
watch it spin 'round into a beautiful oblivion
- inside out by eve 6
Saturday, March 13, 2010
the movies
your hand reached down from the abyss out there into mine. the connection whizzed through my entire body and sent a jolt right through my heart. the dead skin, the heavy blubber surrounding my heart, all started to melt away under the heat of your never-changing love. then i could not ignore it any longer. now, it is clearer than ever before and i'm in shock. is this really happening? will i really choose this? somewhere inside, i know i must! but.
so now i've started to reel in my heart strings that have gotten themselves anchored in what seems like the wrong place, for so long. i feel my heart start to beat more easily and my guts relax as i pull those strings in. what an insane, beautiful, excruciatingly painful mess we would all be in if you knew just what made me pull in these strings. what a disastrous, historical, monumental tragicomedy we would all be in if i actually followed my heart unquestionably and completely.
i mean, it only happens in movies, right?
your hand reached down from the abyss out there into mine. the connection whizzed through my entire body and sent a jolt right through my heart. the dead skin, the heavy blubber surrounding my heart, all started to melt away under the heat of your never-changing love. then i could not ignore it any longer. now, it is clearer than ever before and i'm in shock. is this really happening? will i really choose this? somewhere inside, i know i must! but.
so now i've started to reel in my heart strings that have gotten themselves anchored in what seems like the wrong place, for so long. i feel my heart start to beat more easily and my guts relax as i pull those strings in. what an insane, beautiful, excruciatingly painful mess we would all be in if you knew just what made me pull in these strings. what a disastrous, historical, monumental tragicomedy we would all be in if i actually followed my heart unquestionably and completely.
i mean, it only happens in movies, right?