do you like taylor swift?

do you ever find yourself getting bored by the sound of your own voice and then quickly trying to finish up what you're trying to say because you don't even know what is the point in what you're saying anymore and if you've lost it, what more the listener/s? i think i just lost you there and yet, proved my point.

so....

martin says: (AM 01:19:53)
do u like taylor swift

Shireen says: (AM 01:20:02)hmmm
Shireen says: (AM 01:20:05)ok la
Shireen says: (AM 01:20:12)i mean, neutral (trying to be polite, just in case martin likes her)

martin says: (AM 01:20:16)have u heard of this guy called victor wooten
Shireen says: (AM 01:20:27)no but he has a cool surname
Shireen says: (AM 01:20:37)who's that?

WHO'S THAT??? well, someone less boring than i am! just watch this!


and all done on a bass guitar, mind you.

and then, i found all these! (where have i been???)

one guy, TWO guitars. faint.




two guys, ONE guitar.



as for this next guy, in the words of a youtube user:
"Flagged for making all other youtube videos look like shit."





i apologise in advance if the above videos (and related ones) have reduced your productivity for the day due to you sitting in a shell-shocked state infront of your computer screen, wondering whether those fingers are really fingers and whether you should quit playing the guitar, or even bother learning, if you haven't started yet. :|

p.s.

Shireen says: (AM 01:54:45)and why the hell u ask me abt taylor swift
Shireen says: (AM 01:54:49)then ask me abt wooten???

martin says: (AM 01:55:02)learn pop songs is to bluff girls one

Shireen says: (AM 01:55:14)lol!

martin says: (AM 01:55:16)i wanna see can bluff u or not hahaha

i am the most confusing person you'll ever meet 

if you ever took a walk around my mind, you'd find me there right smack in the middle of the most monumental tug-of-war you'd ever see. maybe then you'd understand how anyone could be so...so quick to hate, then, so much in a hurry to love. so easily angered and moved to tears, then, so impatient to forgive. so hasty to drop everything, then, so eager to pick them up all over again. so, and so. 

but that doesn't matter because you only need to know one thing:

the only side that ever wins is the good one and i never really give up, even when i break down.

my technicolour streaks of lightning amidst a vortex of swirling grey clouds. :)

yes, i actually did it! took the photo above with my e71 and bad room lighting since 2 bulbs have blown and i'm ever the procrastinator! ok shireen, you cannot be blaming the lousy camera or the bad lighting for your shoddy painting skills!
(look, i did say that i'm no picasso, so you were duly warned! and are only allowed to say nice things.)

goodnight!

falling in love with the most unlikely subject

all said and done, i would still choose to be me if i had to live my life all over again. the flipside of those woeful emotions that befall me is an amazing richness and depth in the way i experience beauty, love, joy, faith, magic, peace, passion, life....and i wouldn't trade that for anything (well, hopefully with a little more self-control on the angry-sad-hate side). it's really a package deal, take it or leave it. but just so you know, i love myself, i love being me, and,

i actually don't think there's anything wrong with that.

hey, what's going on?

my mind seems to have taken a vacation this week, alternating between thoughts of running and whether it is a form of laxative and the word "endure" in as many languages as i can think of, aeroplanes and trains, romance, and/or the lack of it, ugly betty, plans to paint technicolour streaks of lightning amidst a vortex of swirling grey clouds, fantasies about goodbyes and heartbreaks at the thought of them, reno, my little cottage in the future with trees and swings strewn all over (please don't ever use the words "hdb flat" in your sentence when you are asking for my hand in marriage, nothing against hdb flats, everything against practicality when it comes to eternal love), mental disorders, etc, etc. you know, normal stuff.

i guess we are all moving on with our lives and being all adult about it now.

Twenty - five years and my life is still
Trying to get up that great big hill of hope
For a destination



aunty just reminded me that she was married with three kids and working in singapore by my age (yes, i'm 25!). i'm a failure.

sleepless beauty

luckily for me, i tend to like, get bored of stuff like, really easily, and like, need to try new stuff, like, after a while.

so all this sadness and being like a lost puppy whimpering in wait for a lucky break like some doggy treats or unconditional love is starting to lose its allure for me and i'm thinking of doing some new...things, today. and hey, it does feel like friday because i was on night shift last night and i'm usually on night shift on thursdays which gets me most of fridays off and i get the rest of today off pretty soon. so what the heck. TGIF!

lets see, i'm thinking of going for a run later and i'm hoping to break the 10km barrier today. i'm also thinking of getting a dress? well, that can be considered. oh! oh! i should paint! i mean, hell i'm no picasso but i bet picasso was also going, "hell, i'm no picasso, but heck, lets do this!" and look at him now! ok, i mean, god rest his soul he's dead but, you know what i mean. how about some spring-cleaning? i confess that my room has been in make-over mode for the past two or three years shame on me but, but, if there's a bustle in your hedgerow don't be alarmed now it's just a spring-clean for the may queen, and as led zeppelin put it so eloquently, spring-cleaning should only be done in may. i rest my case. i need to rest on my pillow case. i apologise for the travesty of a blog post this "thing" has become, it's the heavily disrupted, disintegrated, insufficient sleep talking. shireen has been kidnapped and tied up in a corner by the ants in her head, you can leave her a message after the beep.

oh and ugly betty will definitely get some air time today, as she has been getting the past few days, for successfully nursing my heart back to the colour of ridiculous hope and calm.

come on, look at that crazily optimistic smiling rainbow!

the end.

those girls

there are these girls. the ones the whole world loves to love. they wear the right clothes, everything fits perfectly. they look great in every photo, without even trying. their make-up is just right, their shoes are perfect, they never seem to wear the same thing twice. they seem to float along, everyday, just floating, wondering which club to party at for TGIF, where to meet their girlfriends for lunch this tuesday, which clothes to sell at their garage sales to tame their exploding wardrobes full of glitter and glamour. their boyfriends (and their moms) think the world of them, showering them with gifts, shiny things, flowers, heart-felt compliments, like little boys seeing beauty for the first time. these girls never have to worry about those games boys play, they are too beautiful, too precious to risk losing. their facebook statuses are always about bitchy colleagues at work, a great weekend trying the best food with the best company, some awesome new acquisitions from recent shops-capades. they are not much acquainted with melancholy (it never lasts for more than two days) and sleep well at night. they are beautiful even when they sleep. they never need to try to be happy, it's just how they are at their rest state or equilibrium state or whatever.

then, there's me.

to be happy is like going for a swim in a stormy sea. i have to fight doubly, triply hard, much harder than others, just to be happy, and then, stay happy. the moment i lose focus, the moment i slack on my strokes or my arms or legs grow weary or water enters my goggles and i try to recover, i start to be pulled away by all these angry, vicious, vengeful currents. and before i know it, before i can even try to salvage the situation, i'm helpless. the waves are crashing repeatedly over my head and it's not even about swimming anymore. now, it's just about breathing, fighting for my life, fighting to stay alive. the temptation to give up is so intense, my panicked screams and cries are being replaced by desperate gasps for air. "you brought this upon yourself," chide the ones i call out to for help, and then they go on with their lives. i can't argue with their point though, can i? but why must it be so hard? it's not like i don't try. i try where others don't even need to try. why can't being happy just be as normal to me as breathing is? i don't blame you for wanting to stay away. i would stay away from me, it's like being with death.




i guess there's some beauty in walking on even when your heart is breaking...

into a million little pieces.

"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe."

i know i might get shot for this, especially by all of you who are having nervous breakdowns about exams, deadlines, etc now, but....i'm so ready to study again! to enclose myself in the safety of a library, buried in books, poring over papers, searching for clues and lego pieces to give form, shape, substance to ideas and thoughts, to test and explore, to expand and renew, bombarding and being bombarded with questions to open doors to even bigger questions...aaargh, i can't wait!!

so where do i apply?

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.

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!

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.

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!

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.

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