You say hello, inside im screaming i love you.

2011-04-24T01:42:00.001+08:00

Truth is, babe, I love you too.

2011-04-03T15:39:00.003+08:00

Sometimes I walk out the door with a smile on my face and I forget what I'm looking for. Other times I tumble out with a frown and know exactly the kind of love that I've found. Sometimes I feel like a king, and other times I feel like a pauper with a purple suit on display, hand stitched cotton that can't be seen above the waist. Sometimes there's too much of a fear in me to stand my ground, plant my feet and open my mouth, sing the words straight from my heart and not think about what would happen if..
Other times when i think I know I'm where I'm meant to be, turning stiles of a hundred different fake smiles flooding the corridor of insanity, I look down and see scuttling feet of thinning faith and absent esteem.
What do you do when you're lonely? When the fake silicone eyes turn away from the shadow of your own refrain?
You could buy your freedom when you're older, there'd still be no answer though spirits are bolder. Meld the key with the lock of your desiring heart and strain the insides of your vision to hold the doors apart, unchanging with the tides is the stone at the centre of all eternity, falling for the voice from your mouth that calls out to me. Nothing's for certain when it comes to her mind, chessboard turning with each move of the hand that left the pieces of the puzzle behind. It's not too late to hold your hand now, but it's too far away to shout out loud, when there's another beside you by your lips there to touch you to tell you he loves you and would never forsake you. But it's far too much to bear and I cannot love what I've lost in despair, maybe it's better for everything we did not say to lie by the broken pieces of yesterday and be covered by your silent smiles, even dust settles in after a little while.
You should know the finger never pointed at you, so move the crossfire away from your consciousness and take your time to fall away from my arms.

2011-04-02T03:37:00.003+08:00

Moments are a lot more real than what you make them to be in your head. Speculations of emotions and outcomes can only satisfy that burning desire to experience reality ever so slightly. I'm done with thinking; I've thought so much that I'm not producing legitimate deductions anymore. And maybe it's for the best anyway. Maybe it's better than everything that's left unsaid remains unspoken and we part without a conclusion; not every story needs an ending. I know you'd be able to live with it as long as I can, so let's just pretend that I'm alright so you can get some peace of mind. If that's not a conclusion then I don't know what is. Why do I find it so hard to look away from you and walk in the opposite direction when I know it's just the right thing to do. Maybe you only feel this way when I start to walk away, when there's a chance you might lose me. But that's not how things are sposed to work. You aren't meant to love only when you're just about to lose. So it's not worth it, for either of us. Your eyes, as we said our goodbyes, that's something I'm gonna have to hold on to for as long as I'm still me. But that's all now, so goodbye.

2011-03-31T00:40:00.002+08:00

Only when you can separate the mind from the heart will you find inner peace. Because things in this world are too transient to weigh down our minds. Because people are just people, the same as you and the same as me, how they wish to walk their path on this earth may cross with yours but it will never be of more worth. So detach the heart and it's influences on the mind, peel away its persistent covering and you will see that there is more to the world out there than you. The world spins whether or not you're on it; there is not trying to be larger than what you really are. The chase of happiness and perfection in between are too temporary. Feelings and emotion, they clash with the logic our minds try to enforce. The bane of all human contradiction and heartache. Stupid things walking this earth who let their hearts get the better of them, there is no telling why or how we chose to fall. Time may pass and though your body is slow and weak, your mind is powerful enough to remove the feeling. Minimizing the weight of the pain and the ache until it is only a very small feeling, smaller than an itch and less significant than an urge. People come and go like waxworks in a museum, there's almost no point in trying to hold on to them. I brush the dirt from my soles and feel the dryness of the wood resting beneath the warmth of my heel, life and all it encompasses almost doesn't seem like a very important factor in the playing of the game. Fires rage in my body and in my mind, there is no peace that I can find that has you in it.

2011-03-24T02:24:00.002+08:00

Life is becoming a day old chewing gum that's gone cold and stale in the centre of your mouth. I'm so tired of this relentless battle against everything, love, life, success, I'm so fucking sick and tired of chasing it. Tired of trying to figure out what's happening and what must happen next, nothing seems to make sense anymore. I'm done waiting around for secret boyfriends to appear like an unwanted answer in a magic 8-ball. I'm through with all that bullshit the world enjoys twirling around in your face, ideals of relationship and notions of peace and harmony; that's all just a bunch of fucking lies. The foul shallow stench of good-looks and surface traits inhibit my entire being and I can't seem to migrate to any place that doesn't stink of it. Putrid behavior, human beings are so easy to figure out sometimes, basal wants and needs, lust, desire, reads loud and clear on the surface of your skin. You, and you and you, all of you, just a bunch of animals and I suppose this world is your cage, primal beasts and beings at the mercy of your own inability to think or to observe. Layers of deception cannot shield you forever. Because face it, at the end of the day, you're just looking for a good body to fuck and clearly, I'm not fucking fit for the cause am I? Because all you can ever think about is the looks, for shit if someone has good character or the ability to make you laugh. To hell with those cos they don't seem to stand any chance against a man with a chiseled torso and long flowing hair because you'd so prefer it. I don't know how anyone in this godforsaken planet can wake up every morning with a smile on their face, foul rotten minds turning like clockwork to begin the new day's new desire, chaining chunks of shit together in the pits of your own decaying mind. None of this is noble and there isn't a single soul left on this planet worth saving. Not even mine. We're all doomed to get shat on and god knows we deserve it. Every last one of us, disgusting creatures with nothing close to a heart for love and peace. Those are just ideals created by pop culture and surged through the market by consumerism; freedom, truth and love are dead. The death of bohemia is a tragic one but yet again, this day and age prooves to be apathetic and indifferent. I'm done with trying. I'm done with wasting precious hours and days labouring my mind over you. I'm done with holding on to you even though every day I wake up thinking things might change, things might be different for once. Who the fuck am I kidding? I am a fat sod and I am destined to die a fucking lonely death in the middle of fucking nowhere because oh yes, the shallow little bumfucks that scowl the surface of this shallow planet don't care for one such as me. You all want adonis, perfection and beauty beyond all comprehension. Well this world is a shithole and one day all of humanity is going to drown in the own regurgitated bullshit it now swims in. There is no such thing as compassion, or heart or love. All of that is dead, what's left on the surface is the pure lust and greed that plagues the human heart. So excuse me if I don't see the point in continuing with this life any longer, excuse me if you don't agree with what I'm saying or if you think I'm going slightly insane, excuse me for I'm telling the truth. The ugly fucking truth of humanity and this is the state of dissent and death we're all going to be subject to. No one's worth a pretty smile nor my efforts to create one. Selfish greed and personal desires; this world can fucking burn for all I care. I'm done trying to fix it and I'm done trying to fix myself.

2011-03-19T01:13:00.003+08:00

The world has too much to say sometimes. Every individual too full of themselves to let things slide for just a little bit, and so riots form so casually like sipping coffee from a paper cup. Maybe what I need is that 2am quietness to do the thing I love the most, sit with you in the middle of nowhere and watch as they tear the buildings down around us. Maybe it's no longer my place, and now that you seem to want to inflate these growing barriers between you and I, it doesn't even feel necessary to try anymore. This whole mirror in the face of oppression thing just doesn't seem to cut it, I need something stronger to burn off the leeches stuck onto my back and in the side of my brain.

2011-03-15T18:00:00.002+08:00

It's starting to get dark now and the world around us is crashing and burning. Sounds you never thought you'd hear passing through your ear lobes and teasing your mind into a world of endless sensation. It's time you tried looking at things form another angle, my love, this one's only going to drag you away. I'm whispering into your ear but you're not listening to a thing I'm saying. I didn't think I'd care for so long, but I do. I know it's not ok with you but just hide your eyes until you start drowning in your mind that won't stop skipping back to the past. And take my heart with you while you're at it.

2011-03-05T13:00:00.002+08:00

The heart is thrown into a free fall and the very liquid within its core begins to solidify into ice cold rock, sounds stop all around and you can only hear the steady pounding in your head that threatens to split your entire being apart, feelings go numb and you begin to lose sight of all but a pin-point of a focus in the centre of your vision. I have never felt anything so warped and so strangely numbing before in my life. Time drones on like honey slowly cascading down a small slope but eventually a thousand chairs scrape the floorboards and rubber soles shuffle slowly along the back aisle with as much reluctance as a dead man walking about to be hung by the neck till dead. It feels about the same and suddenly the noose around all our necks tightens ever so slightly. Then, a flash of a piece of paper before our eyes and we are cut lose. Some begin to fly, others fall on their knees and weep, and some stand in the middle of the killing field with nowhere to go, half torn between what must happen and what did happen. I look down at a sheet of pink and all I can do is smile. I just wish everyone else were as well. Words can only do so much. The truth of the matter, the reality of life breaks apart the weight of the verbs and nouns and nothing seems to work at dissolving the hurt that wraps itself around your entire body.
There is absolutely nothing anyone can say to the people who can no longer stand. Anything you say will only make it seem a bit more painful to think about. This can only be a poor imitation of a novocaine that you'd like to push deep into your veins, inject it constantly until your blood flows out and only numbness runs through your system. Disappointment has many names and faces but this probably takes the cake. It's only a feeling and no one deserves to be torn away from existence by it.
So here's to the hurt and to the inevitable crush that lingers on in all of us; breathe in, breathe out, and walk on, cos I know for a goddamn fact that no piece of paper is going to fucking define what kind of person I've been for the past 19 years, nor is it going to pin down and pave a way for the person I'm going to be 19 years from now.
The effort does not define the result because the effort has already defined you. The blood, sweat and tears you put in is enough to tell you what you are and what you're worth, whether or not a fucking piece of paper is going to agree with you, because at the end of the day, when everything in life comes full circle, you'll look back and smile and see that it was always worth the fight and realize what all that time was for. And nobody, no matter how impressive an academic qualification, can stand in front of your face and take that away from you. Don't lose the heart you have cos god knows you deserve to hold on to who you know you are.

2011-03-03T13:07:00.003+08:00

I've pictured that moment before. About one year ago, I sat at the back of a crowded hall overlooking a mass of nerves and apprehension, bodies no longer fueled by anything human, motivated by a higher purpose or a higher cause, whatever faith you put your trust in. A year ago, I knew when it came to my turn, I'd find it so supremely difficult to even look at myself without throwing my entire state of mind into dissent. That day, I saw confident men cry, strong women weep and young adults turned into infants even just for a few hours. We're all the same when it comes down to it all. No amount of confidence or bravado we place on the surface of our faces can mask the inevitable fear that makes us all together in this fight.
Try to hold a sheet over your frown and block away the world but I wish you'd realize that I'm just trying to care for you, and it hurts when you try to kick me away. I'll be wherever anyway, if you want to join me, you know what number to call. I'll sit by a stone staircase with a coffee and a cigarette in my hand because I've given up trying to care and I think I've fallen to a hole I can't climb out of.
Sometimes you need something more than you want it and it's that conscious acceptance that is going to save you from yourself at the end of it all.
The clock ticks away louder than any happy encouraging message anyone can send no matter how near. Constant, non-changing, steady and deadly precise, droning on in your head like nails digging into the side of your skull, inch by inch until you can no longer think or feel like you did before. It is impending and it is imminent, stares you down like a wolf in the dead centre of a forest, cold eyes locked onto yours and you don't even know what to think to comfort yourself.
About a year ago, I thought I knew what to expect, I thought the feeling would be easy to dissect and break down like the contents of a pencil box, pull away and apart to minimize the incredibly persistent nagging at the back of your head. But I was wrong. I don't know what to expect and I don't know how much worse off I'm going to be come 2pm tomorrow afternoon. Call me crazy but I don't want to be alone. I'd like to be with all of you. Maybe you don't think the same and believe in solitary confinement to cope with the dizziness, but well, it'll be just like old times, wouldn't it? Us against them. Except this time, the scales have changed and we're facing a much bigger enemy than before.
So sit and wait on the edge of all existence as we watch the tables turn in front of our very eyes, pieces of paper that could upturn worlds and upheave paths once well placed and held down by dreams and faith, judgements passed that could mean the end of an old dream or the start of a new one. The jaws of the best are mighty and fearsome, but so is the will to survive and the want to dream inside us all, we'll see in time that we're bigger than anything they could say to us, bigger than the alphabet and the number, bigger than the doubt and the insecurity, bigger than anything we could say to ourselves.
The war drums sound and we come together one more time. Don't hold your breath cos you won't need it.

2011-03-02T01:34:00.004+08:00

Hero. You think you're getting somewhere, slim, but you're not moving any inch closer to the dream. Every step forward is another step back in time to come. Yes you'd feel like a bloodhound confused, jumping at leads that leak from all corners of the view. You'd think it's worth it because they might mean something but stop drowning yourself in your own ego and face it. You're replaceable and you're not invaluable to anything or to anyone. That's just a poor illusion you created for yourself a while ago when you thought everything was going great for you. Maybe it's karma, or full circle, retribution or whatever you want to label that bullshit with, doesn't change the circumstance. Doesn't change the hurt you know you're feeling in your chest because you're not wanted or because someone is just preferred over you. It's common. Mandatory. Essential, almost, to seeing this dirty rotten world for what it really is; the biggest shithole anyone could ever fathom. Stop trying to cover them up with excuses, they didn't want you there and that's that, no amount of maybe-it-wasn't-the-right-time thoughts can substantiate a cause that fits in with this logic. So just throw it in and throw it away, superstar, you're not who you think you are and no one actually cares whether or not you sit in your room for hours at a day working at your guitar, your vocals or your song-writing. You think you're the only one in this world with a passion for your music? You'd die for it? So would others. It means as much to you as it does to them, that's what happens when you start swimming in bigger ponds. There's always going to be someone better. No hard feelings and no room for sympathy here, just the cold hard truth. So here we go, the great commute back to yesterday's inabilities and insecurities. You're no different and you know it. So why don't you guys just go ahead and do what you have to do without me, I understand completely, I'm not worth enough to be in the circle. Thanks for letting me in for a few minutes anyway, it was fun.
Maybe it's the medicine talking, or that extra cup of coffee I had just before getting into the shower. Maybe it's just this time of night when I start to think a bit differently, when I become overly emotional and where every little thing starts to blow up like a balloon in the water. Maybe it's the truth of how I feel and the side that really needs to scream loudly and deliberately in all of your faces. Maybe I think too much for my own good and I let simple trivial events fuel my paranoia more than I'd like to think I can actually control. Whatever it is, it's stuck and it's not moving. It won't listen even if you scream or shout. It won't care. It just sits there and waits till you go completely mental. Just sits.

2011-02-24T16:24:00.003+08:00

Stand in an empty carpark filled with tired ghosts trying to catch falling leaves in the half light of the pouring rain. The middle of the day proves once again to be the epitome of boredom as I sit on the rough cement pavement, I feel the cracks on the surface beneath my fingertips and I trace them with closed eyes wondering where they'd take me if I never left off it. Maybe it's too early to be thinking about things that won't leave my troubled head alone but as I sit waiting for you to reply my texts, the feeling is involuntary. Another song comes on and my neurotic attention span shifts ever so slightly into the direction of wherever the song will take me.
I need something to shake up my system. Like taking a bus to the airport and buying the cheapest plane ticket to anywhere in the world and just for fun, I'll ask if you want to come along so I can put myself in a whole other situation filled with suspense and worry. Me and my stupid mouth.

2011-02-21T23:43:00.002+08:00

Hiding behind dirty trash cans and alleys that smell of violence and sex, bloodstains and bullet shells alternate themselves around my feet. Frightening sounds all around me, screaming children and shouting adults, verbal war in front of me, words turn into weapons before my eyes and the glow of the moon isn't enough to illuminate the pathway to destruction. Emotions are high and on the surface, every tiny trigger is blown up into catastrophes in my mind, a world of inner conflict and yet still I sit hidden beneath sight lines, below the line of fire and hatred. Voice begins to croak and crack, hoarse like a sandpit grinding itself into a black hole of noise, iron bolts thrown into a blender drown out the sounds of little children screaming from the abattoirs beneath the bleeding earth.
Tasteless pudding being fed to me through a plastic tube that I pushed slowly into my arm with a rusty needle, there is no one around me and yet it sounds like I'm in the middle of a market on fire, people spinning round and round spewing their innards out like a sprinkler burst open at the pipeline.
I cry to myself on two different planes of existence, I wake up soon enough to a warm pillow and the rattling sound of an air conditioner blowing slowly above me. I'm awake and alive but the nightmare doesn't stop.

2011-02-18T14:10:00.002+08:00

In the bright of day, sitting in a room full of locked doors and dying from the unquenchable thirst of desire. It is not morning and it is not yet evening, events come to a dead standstill as the world waits for itself to turn a new day over and an old one anew. Stuck in an anti-gravity neutral that doesn't seem to make much sense to me. I know what I must do and what should be done but I'm just not moving. Watch from behind a poorly dug trench as the people around me get sucked back into a mind-numbing routine. Breaking rocks on a chain gang in the middle of nowhere. So few left alive, free to kick and scream and sing songs of our freedom. Nothing to hold us back, nothing to push us forward. The not so glorious part of liberty is the question of motive and continuity. Where do we go from here? Start from the beginning? That just seems counter-intuitive and muddies the subsequent joy of the freedom. If I'm going to start a career helping people deal with their mental unsoundness, I might have to start grappling with my own first.

2011-02-17T12:30:00.003+08:00

Cover your eyes and close your ears and blindly lead yourself through this maze why don't you. You're doing just fine with pretending and so am I. I've spent too many nights lost in a hurricane of thought and I think I've exhausted all I had left of my logic until they can no longer support the words coming out of my mouth. As each day passes, even I get the feeling that I'm slowly loosing myself to the spur of the moment. Temporary highs that fill the in between gaps that exist in the mechanical routine. Beckett and Chaplin got it right. Two of the greatest men in this world, geniuses in their own right. One knew life was a pointless tiresome routine of unchanging circumstance and the other knew life was a big joke. No Aristotle or Plato can surpass them in that field. They got it right. Music's the only thing that makes sense anymore. Nothing else seems to tie in with this bigger picture of completion or logic. You and all of these feelings, they're all temporary highs that fill the in between gaps. Tell me why in the hell do I even bother?

2011-02-14T00:17:00.002+08:00

The clock struck and the birds flew. Red roses rested on rusty iron bars and chocolate balls rolled down hills of gold. Boats carved in the shape of swans swam slowly down a lazy river and there was a feeling in the air nothing could compare with. Even for just 24 hours, love overcame all obstacles. On the more factual side, no large bouquet of roses and no cheesy box of chocolates. Not even a loud declaration of love's true sight in the dead of the night, steel strings on wood and fingers desperately trying to keep time with the voice. No spectacular display of affection or wealth, no surge of effort to grow love, keep it alive, keep it from dying. Nothing but a whisper, a quiet understanding vow of love from one heart to the next and louder than any unforgettable number, old blind cupid heard from afar and smiled. 'Will you be my valentine?'

2011-02-11T11:40:00.003+08:00

A game of choice. Two sides to a coin that could pull or push you away from your preferred destiny. A question of logic. What keeps a man from walking across a road filled with fast cars? What keeps a man from placing his neck under the wheels of a bus before it leaves the stop? Plastic barriers can slow down action but cannot prevent a man from jumping into the train tracks and wait for a locomotive to come. One breath or two away from figuring out the answers to the million and one questions that don't stop coming to you in the dead of night while you sit eyes open and stare at the ceiling. Why do we bother with the transient and the temporal? Making your bed, sweeping the floor, taking a bath, it's all gonna get dirty again eventually. Love and romance? Nothing ever works out in the end. Forget about the love stories you've read about all these years. Some talk about everlasting love and theories to support how one man's destiny is somehow or rather linked to someone else's. Comforting, sure. But when it comes down to it all, when you realize that's not going to happen for you, you panic. You look around and see nothing but the foul wasted number of hours you've spent chasing some unreachable dream. Transient. Temporal. What makes a man pursue this notion of love and happiness? What makes a man against all odds fight like hell against his own demons to chase away self-doubt? What makes a man love and what makes him hold on to that for dear life? I can't answer it and neither can you. So why not we stop thinking for a second.

2011-02-05T14:33:00.004+08:00

The conductor bows, taps his fingers twice on the soft side of his palm, the orchestra begins. Curtains. The audience claps and cheers. The harlequin walks onto stage, half his face a smile, the other half a downward cry, his eyes a hollow black that made someone in the third row dizzy with fear. Yet, he stumbles upon a basket of apples and the snare drum goes. Everyone laughs. He turns to his left side; melancholy, slices his chest open with a white hot blade and removes his beating heart from his chest. Silence. The blood ebbs downstage and into the orchestra pit. Prepared, the conductor steps aside and it collects in a pool underneath the stand. The harlequin places his bleeding organ into a box and slides it upstage to the young lady in the red dress. She picks up the box and grips it tight, and in one steady motion, smashes it onto the ground. Blood and wood splinter apart at the base of her feet, staining parts of her dress a deeper red. 'High fashion.' She exclaims. This time, the audience laughs nervously, unsure which part of the comedy this belonged to.
The young lady turns her face towards the harlequin but does not smile. She moves her hand slowly to her chin, feels for a grip then pulls off her face to reveal another beneath it with a different expression. She repeats this several times until her face is just a flurry of changing emotion. The audience giggles as the harlequin tilts his head sideways in confusion. At last, she pulls off her last mask to reveal the face of the harlequin, beauty beyond all reach but burnt to a devilish red on one side.
'Am I beautiful?' He asks with a heavy and deliberate tone.
'No! Siete un mostro!' The young lady replies and turns away.
He grips his chest in a panic and falls to the ground. Orchestra begins to play again, a mad cacophony of untuned instruments. Like an abattoir filled with screaming children. Brass section, wind, strings, percussion. The snare drum tears apart, the tubas bend over sideways, the trumpets melt into hot liquid metal, and the violas snap into pieces. It crescendos in a haunting climax and then stops.
The harlequin's diamonds shine brighter than ever and he wails in pain. The audience laughs but does not know why. Cue roses. Curtain. Fade to black.

2011-02-02T00:28:00.002+08:00

I hear the silence of a generation ticking like a time bomb hidden under the seat of mannerism and conversation. I fear the inconsequence of your deadening smile that thins too close to your lack of words to comprehend without losing sleep. Your good intentions like rotgut concealed behind a paper bag, slowly dissolving into pulp from the condensation. I am the man standing behind the mirror in the monochrome sweater and dirty sneakers you try to avoid with your gaze. I see now what you are and how your game works and goddamn if I stick around to see the end of this tragedy. It's not too late to turn back and so I listen carefully to the warning signs that plague my mind. Sure, I'd be denying myself the possibility of my own happiness, but it's worth the effort. You're not worth what a rat could spit and through all that noise of the silence, a drop of blood on the sleeve of perfection breaks away the barrier and music begins to play again. All is right with this world.

2011-02-01T13:58:00.002+08:00

Walls. Brick and mortar, nothing else. They're everywhere, visible or not, they exist all around us. Walls help keep us in, keep things out, prevent the ceiling from caving in. You lean on a wall when you're tired, punch it when you're angry, place things on it to make it look better, tear it down when you get bored, we do with walls what we want, can and will. Nobody ever appreciates the wall. Maybe in some warped universe or state of existence, walls have feelings. Deep down inside some semblance of emotion and feeling that they use to try and penetrate our hefty exterior, to touch the deeper part of our being. Calling out to try and connect with us, tell us they need us sometimes more than we need them. Maybe walls can breathe too, and every time you walk away from it or go to another wall, it chokes a little on the inside, heart beating a little faster. Raindrops hide tears and so blinded you walk away in the pouring rain as the wall comes crumbling down. Hold on tight to the hand of the man who walks by your side because look back and you'll find that the wall is no longer there, and all that you once held dear behind those walls spill out like a disaster and you'll be left with whatever it is you call love.

2011-01-30T11:31:00.003+08:00

Where did grandpa go? I saw him turning the dial on the radio, adjusting to his old ditties, the voice of ol' blue eyes creeping slowly across the marble floor and touching my cheeks softly, the back of my head still soft and the saliva still dripping from the side of my mouth. I'm smiling because I know he is too. He barely spoke except to discipline me; put that fork down, don't chew with your mouth open, recite for me the months of the year. But the music changed things, he grew soft and maybe that scared him. He wasn't used to it. It got easier for me to remember the months and I stopped spewing food out from my mouth like a broken sprinkler. He would lift me up and talk to me, tell me stories of strange lands and stranger people, the evil that lurks behind every honest smile and the love that pulls this world closer together. Fantastical tales of strangers in the night and things that we can't see. I would be amazed and stare back, eyes wide open, at his bald head and inch-thick glasses, feel the crease of that smile on his face and know that all was alright.
Then one day grandpa left. He moved to another house, one with too many doors, too many hallways and too many crying faces, too many beeps that would scare me, too many forgotten souls waiting by empty rooms for something to happen, too many white coats and charts, gloves, soap bottles and boiled cauliflowers. Grandpa stopped smiling and he soon stopped speaking. His grey eyes still clinging on to the charm they used to have. I cried but no one saw. I guess that's why they always keep the waiting rooms dark and cold, so that anyone who sat there would feel their senses slowly fading away into the walls and would not feel ashamed to cry, even if for a while, grown men would be children at the hands of their withering parents.
'It will happen. It just depends on how prepared we will be.' I heard a priest say to my father, the disapproving doctor from the corner secretly scorning at the faith my family pledges on one man, a mystic compared to his skill and technique in the field. And then grandpa stopped opening his eyes one day and that was all that could be said. No loud wailing or crying, only a cold body and a small metal cross gripped tight, the body of Christ melding into one with a dry clenching palm.
I watch as grandpa walks slowly away from the room, no one else sees, not because they are asleep, but because they're too struck by grief and pain. He turns around and smiles at me, louder than any Hallelujah they can sing, he tells me he's going away.
"Where did grandpa go?'
They look at me and for a moment are stunned, they try to find the best and lightest possible way to tell me that my grandfather just passed away from cancer, theories of going to a better place, of being re-united with God, of the angel of death coming to cradle his soul away, endless amount of tales to beautify the notion of death. None of them struck me as dramatic or uninteresting, to me, he went home. Someone took him by the hand and he took a taxi home. That was all that needed to be said.
A day later, I sit at home watching Hey Arnold drinking some milo as everyone else is at the funeral mourning the loss of a great man. A ginger coloured tabby cat appears at my front gate and stares at me from beyond, I put down the cup and walk slowly to the gate. It smiles at me and licks its paw slowly then sits upright, its brilliant green eyes staring straight into mine. It seemed to smile as I did, quietly I whisper, 'Grandpa?'

2011-01-28T23:16:00.003+08:00

Behind closed doors in the mind lies an infinite combination of possibilities that could take place. What you're thinking and what I shouldn't be thinking about. I'm tired of trying to figure where I am and where we are. I'm tired of throwing my wasted heart around like a beach ball trying to find out the best possible hiding place under your gaze. Your conversations seem too familiar to have been real the first time, and so again I am left in the shadow of your inconstant motion. I wish there was just a book of answers to everything and a button I could press to make it all disappear. So I'm giving up on half-hearted messages and empty thoughts slithering past your consciousness. I'm giving up.
So take me away. Away from now and tomorrow, flush me out with cold water and wash all the unburied bits left lingering in my soul, back to a simpler time when nothing really mattered and the push and pull of fate was secondary to the one and only aim. I'm too tired to think about anything any longer and I'll spend the rest of my known existence plunging forward into a cold sharp piercing pain if I don't turn away now.

2011-01-26T11:50:00.004+08:00

Of cold rainy nights and lonely hearts nursing empty mugs.Of the hours that pass by unspoken verses left to dry and crumble in the steady wind. Of the footprints left hiding behind dark alleys and bloodstained hands that go unwashed in the night. Of the eyes that don't see and the ears that can't hear and how they both find a place in this wide world. Of the million and one different possibilities that don't seem to cross and for those that do. Of the silver thread that holds on to you and to me and somehow holds on to every other person living or dead on this planet. Of missing sunsets in the bright of day and hollow mornings in the dead of night. Someone once told me there's a time and place for everything, that knowing or not, the invisible lines which govern all our fates cross at some point, stray and settle down in a final location in a place only we know, a place only we can go to when all is lost. Everything will work itself out if we allow it. To release and open your field of vision to fate and to remove your hands from the chess pieces of your destiny. Will they eventually move on their own accord without our desperate relocations? Stay, stay for the answer and wait on baited breath for the outcome of all things untouched.

2011-01-25T23:42:00.002+08:00

Maybe it's better that you completely ignore the fact that I even said anything at all. Makes things a lot clearer for me, tells me exactly how you feel and what I'm worth. Great. That's just great.

2011-01-24T23:02:00.002+08:00

It's the 2am kind of coldness that creeps in too early for its own good. The new day hasn't even dawned and thoughts flutter past too quickly to consider. The big low drop that happens after a high is immeasurable and the attempts to try to recreate that feeling is almost impractical. How much of a good thing can one enjoy before starting to hate the very thought that once piqued the tongue dampened by boredom? Unimaginable defeat replays over and over again until the mind-numbing echo begins to settle down into the dust that forms layers in your mind. After awhile you stop caring and I do too. Maybe it's better off that way, for both ends of the telephone line to be injected with novocaine, pin down the vein within and release another capsule. Liquid pleasure that you can only go so far as to mimic with the smell of that old room and the sound of that old drum beating within your heart.
Creaking chairs and clinking glasses being stored back into the belly of the beast as the hour passes on, midnight runs through double doors and grown men turn infants on the concrete. Funny how we once called them our heroes. It's nowhere near that happiness you once felt and not nearly as rush-worthy as the very first jump into oblivion, leaving behind a scared 7-year-old shell.
Pass on and pass out. It's the nature of all things to lose freshness. So we jump away from what once was and into what will be. Nevermind the sirens behind us, they'll get tired and we'll get faster.

2011-01-21T00:16:00.005+08:00

I had a little to drink, closed my eyes and when I opened them, something took me by the hand. It pulled me towards an unknown darkness and a place so cold my eyelids started to become stiff. It's ragged breath the metronome to my own beating heart, its moist grip still clinging to my wrist. I felt small barbs dig into my flesh from behind me, I tried to turn but it only made the scar hurt more. We scaled down a hill made of rotting limbs and the river that flowed dried into a lake of salt in the far distance.
'Tears.' The creature mumbled under its foul tongue and pulled me further along. The ground started getting softer and I could feel something pulsing underneath it. The barbs seemed to dig deeper into my spine until eventually I felt it gripping my chest from behind as we reached the bottom of the mountain.
'In here, there is no hope, there is no point, only effort that is wasted by your own foolery.'
I did not quite understand exactly what the creature was saying nor why it had taken me down here. I knew I had to shake myself out of this nightmare but I felt like I had to stay for just a little bit longer, like there was something worth watching.
The creature reached into the ground and pulled out a small sachet made of a smooth hide-like substance. He pushed a cold finger through it's opening and pulled out from it a small diamond that I could only make out as a glint in its hand.
'This is hope.'
The creature placed it in my palm and clasped it tight to me. It burned white hot in my palm and I screamed out, wanting to let go. But the more I resisted, the more the barbs would twist inside my chest and burn me from the inside. It slowly released its grip and when I opened my palm, the diamond had crumbled into fine dust that fell through my hands and into the ground. There it began to glow like fire, the particles moving about erratically. After a few minutes, it formed a small butterfly that took off into the darkness. The creature began to cry and its tears became diamonds and sank deep into the pulsing underground.
'Where am I? Why have you brought me here?'
I asked, hoping that my hint of an immediate exit was explicitly brought across.
'This, is your heart, and you are a fool.'
The creature tightened its grip on me and looked up from the ground pulling its face closer to mine. I stared back at myself through doubtful eyes and I finally understood. The creature again reached deep into the pulsating ground and pulled out more diamonds.
'This is worthless here. Take it and do with it what you will. Your dreams and your desires hurt me, and so I weep when your mind begins to flourish. Let go of everything. There will be a time and there will be a place. Until then, the hope you create for yourself is false and does nothing but send butterflies to your stomach. Forget about the hope you create, son, forget.'
I start to cry as I watch myself walk away, the diamonds I place in my palm burn white hot again and crumble into dust and explode into small butterflies of a deep dark red. I call out my name but I don't answer. I walk away and I try to stop myself from leaving but I don't care.
I fall to my knees and stop. Not because I can't, but because I don't want to. Things would be so much easier if nothing happened. I close my eyes again and I fall backwards onto my armchair. My blank phone stares back at me from the corner table, I begin to think but stop. Try to stop before it's too late. What I must do is clearer than night, but getting through to it is an entirely different case and point and I'm giving up.

2011-01-20T12:30:00.004+08:00

One just isn't enough, two feels a little inadequate, three feels right but bursting with potential for more, four feels dangerous, five looks you in the eye and smiles as you consume your own destruction, six walks you down the winding staircase into a deep dark hole in the ground, seven turns off the light, eight tells you tomorrow will be a good day to stop, nine shuts the door and ten is the start of a string of tomorrows that will never be as long as today is the comfort of procrastination. Before you know it, you're staring at cold moist grave you just dug and a piece of lead flies through your skull and spills your insides out into it. You're crumbling slowly and lifelessly into a pit and no one will be there to see it. No ring of roses or bucket of pansies to mock the life that once flowed through your now cold veins. Just the dirt, your drifting soul and that lone raven perched by the edge of the rotting tree beside your head stump. Time is fluid and it cares not for the suffering of one's mind, flows like a fresh water of a spring rushing down the mountain-side.
Layers form on top of your bones and a hundred years later, beneath the floorboards of a community college or a boarding house will be the suffocated remains of what once was an exercise in choice that you clearly failed at and the remembrance of one such individual would have been lost to the whispers of the wind; Even they don't pronounce your name right.
Retrace the steps of your in-ambition to the one point you could not have been clearer about. When all the fight left in you was pushed to the edge of existence and formality was splintered apart and thrown away into the ocean, resist. Resist then as you resist now, blockade of hope and goodwill against the raging sea and remember that none was better off in the first place.

2011-01-18T23:49:00.002+08:00

Anticipation speaks a lot louder than actuality. The weight of imagination pulls you down so much faster than the reality of circumstance. It's what you can't see that will stab you in the dark. You can spend a whole life wishing on a well but you'll never get the movie ending and happy little goodbye song you've always thought about. It's just an unauthorized imitation of what you'd expect it to become.
There are a million and one ways in which our paths can cross tomorrow or the day after, each one a different nightmare; or at least, it can become one if you want it to. There's very little one can say at this point of time to make anything better or worse. Our fate is like a rock in the middle of the milky way, nothing can happen to throw it on or off course.
I guess I could spend too long a time searching for closure, much more than is needed. A war can wage on for as long as it needs until clarity is found and all the doubt exposed by the clashing tides will finally subside so that only the flesh is left. Worn out and away, the first step is the hardest after all.

2011-01-16T01:16:00.003+08:00

Your guesses cannot be further from the truth but then again it's not like your correct ones would mean the world to you anyway. I just wish you'd actually understand. None of what I'm thinking or worried about should matter if you think about the grand scheme of things but it's the bare buck naked truth that died first in the bloodshed. Ambiguity shields but it also blinds. Nothing ever seems real enough to fit through the cracks of this mind anyway, so what the heck, let's throw it all away.
There must be some kind of way through this whole mess but there never is a clear answer. You'd waste a lifetime looking for a manuel on how to grapple with life's headache and still get no respite. I am a house cat staring at the image of a mountain lion in the mirror and it's never been clearer to me where I'm going or where I want to be. It makes the world of a difference if you could just snip apart the guidelines of insecurity that form a lattice around your head. There's a beauty in your imperfection that makes you perfect to me in every single way and there's very little anyone can do to change that; there's very little I can do to change that. Don't get me wrong, I wish there was something I can do to change all this to make it easier on you, but whatever makes you happy. We can glue this pin to the grenade so it never explodes and throw a cage over the seeming 'truth' we both speak of and pretend it doesn't exist, the world around us can stop and burn for all I care.

2011-01-12T00:59:00.003+08:00

And so it will happen, slowly but surely, what must be done will be done and like it or not you will begin to fade out through the exit doors and the ghostly ballet of life continues. No words, no more words. Enough now.

2011-01-11T01:35:00.003+08:00

What do you do when there is an option? When there's more than one path to take along a dusty road, when there's a choice between the right and the wrong? When both of your choices have equal weight on both sides of the justice scale? Either one could harm you, hurt you, or lift you up like nothing ever has. Ships silently sinking in the dead of the night with a million voices calling out with no one to save them, who's to blame for the passing? Where was the choice they had or could have had if they were alive? There was a magic in the clouds that transpired whenever we looked up into the skies, the heaven we thought would linger in the simmering ashes. Sure, there's wrong and fault in what I could do, but find me something to do that doesn't have a negative side effect. I'm not validating the sin, I'm just questioning the judging of the sinners by sinners themselves, blinded by the light they shine from their own crooked mouths. You know what must be done and so do I but justice is easier said than done. You're like a cigarette addiction forming into a habit I can't kick. There's too much good I see in this that can't pull away the bad from choking the potential out from my mind. I see worlds form around us and it gets trippy sometimes grappling with it but it wouldn't be complete without a little bit of imperfection. There never was a sensible explanation to all this and I guess there never will be. How much of a bad thing can one take before turning to a saint's path is an entirely different question; will you take my hand and pretend everything beyond that which we can see doesn't exist on the other hand is something with an answer I'd like to take on, even if it's only gonna be me. But this is turning out exactly like what I thought it would, complete with the doubt and the insecurity. I can live and learn with whatever god given right is thrown down at my feet without an instruction sheet but it's easier to flip it away like a bug. I could take it all away like a fairy tale stuck on a replay that can't be controlled. Delay the feelings and pull apart the truth for just one moment and see that it doesn't take that much for things to fall into what they could be without me thinking too much into it all; You and I both.

2011-01-03T23:13:00.002+08:00

Things you would do because you can incomplete because you can't get over that tiny little insecurity. I don't know if I'm wrong but I know it feels right to me. Spend all night singing about romance because the world isn't listening. As they clink their glasses with french wine and toast to their selfish desires, nights injected with small talk and feverishly sickening dialogues made of air. I watch from the window on the other end of the envious scale, the man takes centre stage with a mask painted white, his clothes crumpled and torn at the seams. What makes him tap his foot on the floor and what makes him pull his hair away from his eyes, he doesn't know. Lovers indeed, you're the one who makes it worth the fight, makes it feel as if I should know. But I don't. Ask me the questions you've always wanted to, I'll sit by the side of the wall and listen, fingers tapping the brick wall that we're leaning on. The man shifts his weight back, throws his hand in a flourish and sings 'Quand elle joue avec moi! Et je pense que je l'aime des fois!' The bullet he holds back with his fear sears through his heart and the moment stops. No blood, only smiles. The audience scurries away and you tuck your hair behind your ear, your eyes look but they don't see. I'm only half understood but I've only just begun. The mask falls apart but you don't see, words you whisper into my ear run away slowly but you don't bother, and neither do I. That's only half of what you're saying. I know that smile and I know that face, we sit closer and i can smell your lip gloss. The point of all existence that could either cripple or lift hugs us both together, closer until our lips almost touch. But logic wins and yes, you've figured me out. I gave it away. Don't look away and don't feel bad, but know that I'm hanging around too and I'll do whatever it takes to make it work, even if I have to walk to the ends of the earth and back. You know I don't lie.

2010-12-31T10:56:00.003+08:00

As the years go by, it's inevitable for anyone to feel some sort of nostalgia, a sense of regret that some things happened and relief at the same time that they did. Every little mistake along whatever hedonistic and individualistic aim we all pursue has two sides to it. Sure I've lost some old friends along the way, lost some good times and lost a part of myself I once used to take on the world, a shield on the inside I could always rely on to get me through the day. But things change, skins shed and shields fall, new ones form in entirely different templates, you think differently, react differently, grow some balls you never thought you had, say the things you never thought would say. Sure, it's part and parcel of growing up, but it's always when you're somewhere along the middle of the road that you look back and wonder how you got there in the first place and what things would be like if you had taken another path, slipped down another side-road, climbed up another ladder instead. Feeling glad perhaps that everything is as the way it is now but uncertain at the same time, thinking maybe this isn't what the 13-year-old me would have wanted.
Ignorance is bliss but it's also the same indifference that quakes the foundation of continuity, you'll spend your whole life stuck in a limbo if you feed off nonchalance. To move on, to know just where courage will get you, you'd need to brave the unknown, eyes closed and heart beating like a clock.
New perceptions and new philosophies unearth new grounds for comparison. Old ones thrown aside like a wet sock; useless and worthless. Thought a more calmer notion than before, a wider and more intelligent overview of the grand scheme of things without a moment's hesitation. Rebels calmed into pacifists but not silenced into conformists. You can put a mask and a chain over the destruction but you can never destroy the bohemian within.
In that sense, I'm really just the same boy I was a decade ago when all I wanted was to make people smile and laugh. It's always been my one and only goal in life and I guess that is something that's never going to change. Sure, these days I write differently, think differently, feel more intelligent towards things unknown. It's a scary world out there but at some point we all face that breaking point, the definitive moment where you just know this is the right place for you and for someone else to be, cutting out the noise of the world like the edge of a packaging; The contents within spilling out like beans.
There's a love in the air that transcends all that we know (or have known) of ourselves that tends to come only at this time of year. I'm glad for what happened and for what didn't happen. The differences that have been made were caused by the very nature of fate itself, the push and pull of our own circumstance in the midst of each other. Paths cross and tangle but also stray further than the opposite poles of the earth.
I can't remember what I resolved to do last year nor the year before, probably (hopefully) because they've already been accomplished. This year? I can only wish and hope that everything I do becomes everything I want it to and that I keep who I am now, for at least as long as I can still recognize myself. I'll be all that I can (and more) for you and for myself and I'll try to never forget giving peace a chance.
So here's to you, love, and to me, for all that we've been through and for all that we will be going through, for the months that passed and the years that will, the hours spent (and will be spent) laughing, doing absolutely nothing, for our very own insecurities that wait on the edge of the world for the biggest plunge into oblivion while the rest of us watch, for the words that slipped out of your mouth and mine, for whatever the hell it is you call love and for whatever the hell it is we've both seen the world to be, for nothing and for everything, here's a happy christmas and a bloody new year to all of you.

2010-12-28T00:28:00.002+08:00

Because every time I close my eyes to sleep, a little bit of the memory fades away like a sandcastle being pulled apart slowly, grain by lonesome grain by a dry wind, until all that's left are gaps and small attempts to patch up what was once there. Imagination fills in for memory and things start to warp further away from reality. Things fade and ebb away unbearably quickly, hours reduced to moments stamped out on a larger piece of paper for some other pair of eyes to see and to judge. There is no compromise, only what must be done. So fade you shall, and remain what forever will be the most perfect. That which could have been that could have gone bad cut short so that only the good remains. So goodbye, smile, turn, walk and goodbye.

2010-12-27T09:56:00.002+08:00

Every last word from your mouth picked me up and pinned me down on a cold hard ground, shook me up, spit me out and sent my heart flying like a bullet heading straight for a brick wall.
'If you never try you'll never know just what you're worth.' I know now. I know exactly what I'm worth.
But the world spins on like a bad movie. So pick yourself up, boy, strip your consciousness away from your inabilities and realize that the bigger world out there moves on, with or without you.

2010-12-26T22:13:00.003+08:00

I like where we are. I like where I am and where you plan on going. I want to and I'd love to but it's a gamble with a con bigger than a pro. I'd like to, but I don't need to. The most part of my happiness comes from what we have right now, the other bit is the anticipation of what we could be. You enthrall me. Really. And sometimes, I close my eyes and think of all the things you don't need to say to tell me how you feel. You're an enigma and a confusion but it's something I can't stop being thrilled by. Some things needed to be said and some didn't, some needed to be meant and some were better off as a lie. But the truth never really unfolds like a prediction; I don't know and neither do you I reckon. I should go collect my thoughts in a book and sell it on the corner of a street for a meal, that way, It'd actually be of some use. Till then, I'll keep thinking about you and every little bit of our conversation that drives me wild and dizzy at the same time. If it's not too late, I'll meet you in 10 and we'll go out there and do absolutely nothing worth while; I know it'd mean the world to you.

2010-12-26T11:38:00.002+08:00

Hi yes I'm his son, haha yes I just finished my A levels in Acjc. Yupp, enlisting for the army next year. Haha yes you're the 21st person I'm speaking to tonight and i can't for the love of god remember what the hell your name is and quite frankly I don't want to know. Yes haha what a strange policy. Yes i read about that in the papers too haha. Yes how dangerous it is to be out on the streets these days. Yes what lovely log cake haha yes very nice. Oh did you make it? Oh ok watch me nodd and not give a motherlovin shit, that's nice. Oh really? Yes but i don't plan on becoming a lawyer, engineer or any of the professions you just took 20 minutes of your life describing but thanks for wasting time at this party, you'll be glad to know that in the time you were speaking I was not listening to a thing you were saying, in fact i was imagining what it was like when you were in school with my dad 500 years ago and it's quite difficult to picture; Someone as stuffy and boring as you, I'm incredulous to think you were once young at all. Oh yes haha i went to Acjc, I just told you that less than 20 minutes ago, clearly you weren't listening but I'm returning the favour so don't feel bad. When does school start? No school doesn't start, I'm done with school. No I haven't applied to any university yet, I'm still waiting for my results. Yes I just took my A levels for god's sake. Yes i'm going into the army next year. Yes probably a local one. Why? Oh cos my father has always drilled into my head the fact that NUS is the world's best school and every school in the world is rubbish compared to it. Yes I am a bit on the heavy side, I happen to notice that everyday. But don't think you know exactly what I'm capable of, buddy, I'm a lot healthier than you think. I could take your lawyer ass and throw you right through that glass door if you want some evidence. Yes i know the log cake looks really nice. YES i'm his son- geez go talk to a tree.

2010-12-20T20:59:00.002+08:00

Large lungs, a streamlined body and a powerful backstroke. You could have all three topped off with years of experience as a swimmer but none of it amounts to anything substantial in the face of the ocean. The cold water numbs your body and your brain, the choking sucking currents pulling you closer to the bed where death slumbers, no mind games you can play with yourself that can stop the panic from running through your veins. Powerful precise strokes turning into offhand attempts when you're fighting off the current. I honestly thought i was going to die yesterday.
No sound. Just the ocean's enticing call and the sound of newspaper reports on my untimely death circling my head like a hawk. I could see them staring from afar, getting smaller and smaller with each wave that pulled me back, they must have been screaming but my ears heard nothing but the alluring call of the ocean. It was my own folly. Try to cheat death and the ocean and it will let its full force be known. I felt a voice in my head threatening to crush me under the currents like the ocean was speaking to me, warning me to stay away. I could not feel the bottom and after 5 minutes my legs went numb, my body slowed down in a horrifying decrescendo. I spoke to God again for the longest time. I don't even remember saying anything, only that my head was in a flurry and words no longer made sense to me. And then a wave spits me back to shore, my legs dug into the sand and my fingers grasped on so tightly to the intangible grip that kept disfiguring itself in the ground.
I turn behind me and there was a lady in green standing by the water, she looked at me and said 'This time, we will let you go. But try that again and you will be a slave to our music, you will know nothing but cold and fear and the very depths of your soul will be filled with the sand and the rotting corpses of fools like you.'

2010-12-15T15:03:00.003+08:00

Assumption will be the very downfall of mankind. The day we begin to think that we know the way the world turns and how the people in it think is the day we will realize our safe walls start to crumble into the very dust that settles onto our skin and bones as we wait for something better to happen. Respite is not mandatory, neither is balance essential or predominant in the grand scheme of things.
Prediction and trust, oddly linked aspects that can swing either way, a sign could tell you the most important thing in the world and force you to react to it, or it could be literally nothing but a figment of the world's imagination, you, nothing but a distant echo of a thought. Insignificance then calls for the greater convergence that snowballs into a disaster. The straw that broke the camel's back? The secret is the million other straws beneath it. Thought, like the straws, break minds, escalate one's state of mind into assumption, deadly disease that spins out of control. I don't know what you're thinking, no words from your mouth should be taken to mean anything more than small talk.
This assumption will be the very death of me, but there's a little part of me that really doesn't give a damn; I could hear you talk for hours and still be smiling.

2010-12-13T01:13:00.001+08:00

It's difficult to fall asleep when every day becomes more exciting than the one before. I haven't unpacked from Bali and i need to pack for the chalet and Bintan. Maybe tomorrow before we leave.

2010-12-03T23:22:00.002+08:00

This freedom tastes like nothing I ever would've imagined, more tantalizing than anything I have ever experienced. Finally we're freed of a cage that once held us back like dogs. Now, unrestrained, the world is ours for the taking and there isn't a phrase in the world that can stop us from doing what we want to. Count down from 10, strike a pose, run and cannonball into the water, just because we can.

2010-12-02T16:48:00.002+08:00

Like a man with a parachute about to jump off a plane in the air, the split second before the flood gates of a damn burst open, the long hours before a man can receive a diagnosis over the medical state of his liver, the helpless free fall of a rock in space before getting pulled into a planet's orbit. The anticipation is diabolical but the freedom is imminent.
Tomorrow, the 3rd of December at 11am, we shall be free men and women. There has never been anything more exciting that I've experienced in my life.

2010-11-28T22:45:00.004+08:00

So much war, so much violence, so much death. We sit here in our quiet cafes sipping coffee from a cup while a hundred miles away, a man buries lead into another's skull. While a man presses a knife into a girl's throat watching the slow drip of her blood form patterns around his feet, we're laughing at the world as it goes by. Killing, in the name of who? In the name of what? You'd create that false illusion of peace and harmony, the understood balance of peace and violence when the latter brings about the death of the former. Find me the point and you'd find yourself the reason why we're all ships that pass each other in the night that neither acknowledge nor recognize each other. Slaves to a rhythm that programs us to live free for ourselves, even at the expense of someone else's freedom, but our crave for that taste of liberation and respite is what traps us in this collapsing palace. We're all suspects in the same interrogation room and every second we waste keeping our mouths shut is another second of our lives being drained slowly away by the faceless guilt that stands behind our chairs, always looking, always watching. Slip away into the nothingness of your own state of mind and see for yourself, in the end we are all heartless bastards and the world is our playground.

2010-11-25T15:28:00.003+08:00

Friendships work in cycles, a series of peaks and troughs that take place over time. Sometimes you're close and sometimes you're not, it's the nature of all friendships to rise and fall unpredictably. It's human nature, inbred within us all is the sickening habit of, well, getting sick. We get sick of people, too much of their voice, too much of their conversational patterns, too much of their annoying habits, too much of everything, so we drift, naturally. But once that happens, we start to miss what's not there. Within each peak and trough exist genuine emotions, you could hate somebody one day and love them the next, it's not anybody's fault, it's not special trait of some extremely inconstant person, it's within us all. And those who don't show it are merely safe from the branding of the name 'hypocrite' when really, deep down, we all are. Each and every single one of us are hypocrites.
If that be the case, where then lies the special negativity associated with the word? How can you put down a person who shows traits of said 'sickness' when everyone has it? Much like castigating another person for contributing to global warming when we all really do, unless you're a respirating tree.
Human nature is contradictory and sickening.

2010-11-24T20:37:00.003+08:00

People change, things come and go, worlds re-arrange, sometimes we know it and sometimes we don't. You can put as much paint over a scratch on the surface as you want, it's still going to be there underneath it all. But it's all the scratches, bumps and dents you get along the way that make the journey worth while.
I need to sit down for a while and just stop thinking.

2010-11-24T13:51:00.003+08:00

Time really does fly. No matter how much we may say it drags on for a lifetime when it's happening, you don't really realize how quickly it's gone by until it actually does. Infants turn to children, children to teenagers, then to children again and then finally to adults. Then everything goes downhill from there as you just wait for your life to melt away and die. Maybe Becker was right, we're all just trying to deny the notion of death for as long as possible. Only thing we have on our side is time. Time buys us that freedom of another day, another hour and another second more on this earth.
I was taking the evening bus yesterday on the way home from the econs paper (which went fantastic) and again was caught up with the evening work crowd. My 2 hour bus ride takes me to exotic places like the CBD area and downtown Tanjong Pagar which is basically the corporate district of Singapore. I was feeling adventurous so i put my ipod on shuffle and the next song that came on as the bus hit the first stop at the Subway beside Central Boulevard was Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now and quite incidentally, a whole bunch of office workers boarded the bus, one middle-aged pot-bellied beast of a man struggled up to the second deck and was barely breathing right as he squeezed into the seat in front of me. Robot after robot, they came like a swarm, all dressed in shirts and pants, blouses and briefcases, make-up masking their un-smiling faces and eyes that were so beyond dead it scared me to think these people operate on a daily basis as human beings. The only thing crossing my mind was: These are adults. 10-20 years down the road i'm probably going to be one of them, i'm going to be taking a bus back from my boring ass office job in the middle of a stuffy old city with as much excitement as a medicated housefly. You always hear adults saying 'it may not be the best job in the world, but i love what i'm doing.' If anyone sitting around me had told me that i would've laughed in their faces and handed them a name-tag that said 'bullshitter.' It got me thinking, how long have they been doing that? A year? 2 years? 3? It must feel like forever to fall into this continuum of routine, this ridiculous tedium that they're all subjected to. As always, my mind started making comparisons with my own life (a common trait for people like me who up to a certain point are as unconcerned with the future as an elephant is with the small fly resting on its head) and it brought me back a few months ago to when I was still caught in the routine of school and rehearsals.
730-4, brain damaging school work, 430-9, insane rehearsals for multiple shows sometimes all in one night. I remembered then a train ride back with Fee and Mich one night when we were talking about basically nothing, silence was the subject topic and a closed mouth was the only action going on. As they both slumbered on the moving train (a handy skill i need to pick up one day) i thought there and then that that was what working life would feel like, but i was completely ok with it. I had those two and a whole other bunch of guys who were right by my side feeling as worn out and exhausted as i was and i felt so confident that I'm ok as long as i've got all of them with me.
We'd eat together every now and then, I'd say or do something completely stupid like i was under medication and we'd all have a laugh, then we'd start whining about our lives, making witty remarks at our dictatorial fuhrer(s) and eventually we'd all be breaking down into spasming bodies of laughter by the end of the night at our regular Subway joint. Friday nights were the best.
If i could, i'd capture those moments and those feelings in a bottle just so i never forget how it feels like, and 10-20 years down the road when i'm stuck in an office job being and pertaining to the very definition of sad and bored, i'd open it up and look inside to remember how it felt. No Criss Angel or David Blain/Copperfield can ever re-create that kind of a feeling. It's a kind of magic that you tend to lose as you get older.
I guess i'm just worried that at some point, I'm going to lose that joy myself. The past 2 years have been the best of my life and i want every year from this one on to be bigger and better than the one before. How? I've no clue. But i have a feeling that we all live on in each other, a little part of us grows together with the next one and just when you think every thing's lost, you can look back together and see that it's not.
I don't want that to happen to us, I don't want to drift away like seeds in the wind, I'd like to be able to take the bus back with a couple of friends from now and still feel the same way.
I think i'm scared of the future, and there's just no way of stopping it.
Shit.

2010-11-17T14:35:00.002+08:00

Every word you speak clings onto me like a handcuff. Every verb, every noun another turn on the key locking your state of mind to me. I wish i could just ease into a world of endless thought with you but that green button holds a lot more fear and hesitance than you'd think. Not so much of a nightmare anymore, the feeling gets more comfortable with every downfall and babe i think i'm on my final corner. At least until i start to realize a whole new perception of this sense of reality. It is to me as a changing flower is to that old tree outside the courtyard. Colours and symbolism, i'm glad to be done with that novel. Posed nothing more than a headspin to this already tumultuous train of thought.
The music floats in and suddenly it's like i'm Sinatra with you waiting round the bend with our huckleberry friend. There's so much to be doing when this is all over, an entire lifetime it seems of things to do, worlds we need to see, people we need to talk to, roles we have to play, there's no brochure in this world big enough to fit all that. I'd like to write a draft of everything and mail it to the office of the lonely planet publishers just so they'd print a copy of 'Exploring Freedom with Andrew and-' But then again, that's just me, and us is a concept not exactly in its perfect stages.
We all need some sort of obsession, something to occupy ourselves with when the time comes. Offers being thrown before me on gold-rimmed plates with honey drizzled on the top. It's almost painfully arduous to resist jumping head first into it all without a second thought. But repercussions. Repercussions make this world go round. There could be a thousand and one things you did and didn't do and that would have made all the damn difference to you when you look back through the looking glass at the rest-stop of your race. Some things just don't apply anymore. I'm not a great magician though maybe i used to be, back when the world was simpler and time was not an imaginary friend, but looking at you seems to transport that magic back into a part of me i thought i'd lost. I've been looking for myself all this while and then you find me. You found me.

2010-11-12T22:57:00.003+08:00

And just like that, 3 days are down. 3 papers have ended and 5 more to go. Feels like there's an eternity waiting at the end. I don't think my brain is actually registering what's happening. It could just be another mock test that i'm taking, but thankfully, the best mock tests i've ever taken. Papers have been incredibly kind so far. The moment my foot taps into the sterile floor of the clinical hall my brain drops straight into this hyper mode of consciousness. Literally like a superhero where everything just becomes so clear. The breathing patterns of the people to my left, to my right and to my front, you shifting your hair behind your ear while tilting your neck to the left ever so slightly, their rustly jacket zips tracing up their figures, corpulent from neglect, the tap their fingers make when they grab their specs and place it on the table, the clicking of pen caps, the smooth slide of dry skin on the paper as it turns, my own heart like a raging king kong injected with an overdose of novocaine, bashing at the corners of his caged constraints.
It's a mad rush but i love that feel. Incredible how powerful your mind can make you feel. I need to learn to make it stop. That hysteria carries on in my head all the way. I've forgotten what it feels like to fall asleep, to feel tired.
A few months ago, sleep was the best thing in the world to me, an escape i could drown in for just a couple of hours before i'd have to wake and face the bullshit world again but now it's just another chore. Sleep to wake up to do more work. Vicious tedium. Sometimes i just don't want to fall asleep cos i don't wanna wake up to do more work. I mean what more can i do? Even studying has a limit. The syllabus can only do a lapdance around my head once or twice before it starts to lose its freshness. Like sucking the bleak out of a stubbed out half-bud of a crappy menthol cigarette that's been lying in the gravel for days.
I don't feel tired and that scares me. I want to close my eyes and be able to just click shut down without having to go through this whole process of 'falling asleep.' It's putting alot on the line if you think about it. If someone was tired, they'd just fall asleep immediately. But if you're not exactly tired but know you have to sleep you have to go through a process of falling asleep.
Closing my eyes and sitting there won't help. Thinking won't help. Getting worried that you can't fall asleep won't help. You need to somehow block out your own thoughts and feel so tired that you eventually dip into a state of calm where you ignore all the little details of your consciousness and eventually just fall asleep. It's a tough process. Worst part is, i think i'm getting more comfortable with the process of sitting for an exam than falling asleep.

2010-11-07T19:03:00.002+08:00

The clouds come quick like thunder,
The thunder breaks the sound,
Inside the children slumber,
Thout' a smile to be found,

Slowly walls they crumble,
Fall into settled dust,
Soft simmering gravel grumble,
Drowning in lice and lust,

Distant war drums strike,
Like bullets through the air,
'Stay calm, you'll be alright,'
The children start to stare,

Like mice inside a church,
A noise could chase away,
The eagles mound and perch,
Eyeing us, their prey,

Beaten into soldiers,
We held our hands and marched,
Weight too much to shoulder,
Our throats are torn and parched,

Blood drips down our foreheads,
In darkness with no light,
But hands we hold our pain we shed,
We'll make it through this fight.

2010-11-02T21:59:00.002+08:00

We hold our hearts. We hold our hands. We hold our breaths.
Wait, wait like a lion stalking an already dead deer, cold and stiff
Ebbing away at the corners of our hollow souls till nothing's left,
Teeter on the loom of a whole other world, shouldering weights we couldn't lift,

Closer, and closer, days and weeks flying by at the same
pace we make conversations, hi, hello, you ready? I'm good. You?
3rd, 4th, 8th, 35th, 152nd, 230th, closer like the shadow
getting bigger as we walk towards a brick wall, closing
in the distance until suddenly it seems as if distance was
like fading air, dissolving dust in decrepit pits of blood filling
up a hole in the ground, deep wells mean well but don't
quench thirsts. Some far off corner of a crumbling building
Robin shoots a quiver of speed at my head but the
apple is not there and slowly i feel the world around me
shedding like the skin of a snake, hair falling off a dying body
in a cold room, the cement of the morgue greets my teeth
as i grit them, hard onto the ground like a sack of broken
pots collected from a forgotten tomb in the middle of the
desert.
Insignificant. I wake up.

We stand in a court full of high priests. Blind relics waiting to laugh at our faces.
Their hands reach into deer-skin pouches and scoop salt out, scattering
them at our blistered feet. We scream but we have no mouths.
Silence like a fallen tree in an empty forest. Who's to hear it?
One bye one, we are reduced to alphabets. A, C, D, D, B, A, A,
D, C, C, C, A, U, Struggle to not cave in to the weight, knees, joints
muscles, advance, retreat, advance, retreat.
Sick and tired.

I'm with you. Signs. Indicators. Codes. The root of
all assumption. We made them so we could feel
intelligent, so that we could tell when something
was happening, about to happen, or not happening,
everywhere. Low GDP indicates weak growth in a
country's economy, an unusually high exchange rate
means that your country will most probably experience
a dip in your export revenue if Marshall's condition
doesn't hold true. A word like fuck or shit indicate
the author's disjunctured state of mind, aggression
breeding from deeper emotional states of discord
and chaos. Effect? To invoke catharsis and pathos
in the reader. Signs are everywhere. Stemmed from
paranoia. Feeble attempts to instill order on our
already chaotic lives, signs to trigger responses
to make dealing with a situation quicker and
easier.
I'm tired of following your signs. Your face like
a flipping coin, inconstant. I can't tell, i don't
know. Don't use that word on me, stop trying
to make it seem as you don't know that i care.
I follow your lead like a jumping dog responds
to the flick of another being's wrist holding a branch,
eager to catch for you.
Eager to run with a bucket to catch your falling tears.
Eager to give you the warmth you want.
The warmth you need.
Pluck you out like a thorn in the side of my arm, cut you off like a hang nail digging into the side of my toe, unplug you like a heart moniter dug deep into the drum beat of my heart until all that i hear is a constant beep that drowns out all the other sounds that you're making until i'm erased away by a bigger hand and my dust is blown away into the winds of time and time itself stopping so that my existence becomes the very dead thing that centres the core of a frozen rock buried in a mountain of solid ice.
Don't wake me up. I'm tired.

2010-10-26T20:46:00.003+08:00

It's a Tuesday and it feels like a Thursday. It took me 5 whole minutes to remember what day it was yesterday and what i did.
I'd like to look at my schedule to plan for tomorrow but i don't want to. I'm becoming increasingly myopic. I feel for the moment these days. What happens right now and right here is what i treasure the most.
There needs to be a big fast forward button we can press to escape what's about to happen. Even for a second, just escape into the seemingly oblivion future away from the discernibly faded past.
6 weeks.
You count down to the start but i'm counting down to the end.

2010-10-22T23:42:00.003+08:00

Grab a straw hat, a new pair of sneakers, some new jacket from some shop somewhere in town, a new pair of jeans, a new shirt? What's that gonna do to help? Follow the crowd walking through the avenue of some new movement, the new 'In' thing to be caught doing in the eyes of the public, a new way of talking, a new acronym or a new catchphrase, a new tv show that everyone's hooked on? So what? What's that gonna do to move my life? Art, music, creating. Given the chance to touch the world with the most powerful medium this world could ever be thankful for and out comes some trash out of some wired up bass-booster system. It's like eating chalk dust, licking off the bits of plastic that crumbles away from the edge of a rusty desk, tasteless and worthless. Words fall flat to the ground talking about love, loss, sex, drugs, smoking, this whole idea and image of being popular and famous. Shallower than spit on the ground.
All the great artists go through a stage in their career where they realize that at some point, the music they make can actually make a difference, not in the top 40s billboard charts or on the VH1 top 100 list of the year, but make a difference to a life. Bob marley believed that music could literally heal people. Spreading it like an infection throughout the world could heal people.
The Beatles believed that they were small. Despite being one of the biggest pop culture icons of the 20th century and having so much fame, money and popularity, they realized that they are small and life goes on within them and without them.
Jason Mraz, Bono, Ryan Adams, the list is endless. All the greatest artists in the world at some point stop giving a damn about how popular they are, throw away the distractions of the camera and the screaming fans and get down to the real essence of it all that started everything in the first place; the music. The real music that can feed your soul, words that can speak straight to the inner rings of your heart, melodies and rhythms that can seep straight into your bones and become part of your body even if for about 3 minutes; real music can set generations of people apart, bring them together, speak to a thousand and one deaf people, touch a hundred or so blind people, and free a million or so slaves trapped behind the cage of oppression. It's everything. It's the freedom we all search for.
All this conformity to the latest trend, the swallowing of the bitter pill that the 'hip' and 'cool' try to force down our throats, cultivating the mind like a corn crop, programming one by one like a room full of robots.
I salute the artists who dedicate their lives to making a difference, who now and forever realize that there is a greater world out there worth fighting for, some higher power that transcends any kind of temporal desire; the force of a million hearts beating as one drum, the wind produced by a thousand leaves falling in the same direction, the sound of a hundred pebbles rolling down a mossy mountain side, the vibrations on the ground of a dozen or so children running through the fishing villages of Ghana praying one day to be free, and the voice of one person, speaking straight to the depths of your soul, touching every nerve and every sense of your physique, until you realize that the beauty in life, the rich essence of our world lies so far beyond what we can see with our own two eyes. Unforgettable and unmistakable. I dream for that one moment when i can see.
We take too many things for granted, sometimes all we need is just a reminder of the reality that sits behind this facade of aesthetics we've created for ourselves, reminded that in some place and in some time, the spirt and power of music can move mountains.

2010-10-20T17:44:00.002+08:00

10 minutes to closing, the people file out slowly. One by one by one, until the draft of the air con seems lonely. Sweeping down onto my face with barely anyone around. It's funny. Takes me back to the time when my grandfather was in the hospital and I'd stand outside his ward at the visitor's lounge and munch on the crappy biscuits my grandma would throw in my hands. The air cons back then were crap so I had cold gusts of dry air freezing my face up and my lips would crack and bleed. But I loved it. It was my favourite spot. Now everytime I feel cold air in my face, it's like I'm 7 again.
I don't wanna go anywhere. I don't wanna move from this spot. Shuffling chairs and creaky door knobs as the people signal for me to get out. They close at 6.
Give me a minute while I plunge backwards and free fall into nothing. The music can change a whole lot of things. I'm counting down the days till the end, babe.

2010-10-18T22:10:00.003+08:00

There's this thing called a line. Don't know what it is? Look behind you, you just crossed it.
Mind your own, boy. Soon you'll receive the biggest come back you never would have even dreamed of and you'll spend the rest of your inconstant life feeling sorry for what you're doing now. You're not the Queen of your own game, you'd do yourself good to keep that little known fact in mind.

2010-10-16T13:30:00.003+08:00

I'd like to get out of this country. Get out of this heat and this humidity. Get out of a culture where being different is the closest thing to a sin those close-minded twits can define. Get out of a circle of repetitive feelings where you can never seem to get anywhere else but one direct path of friendship. Get out of the terribly uncomfortable transport system that makes you feel like you're riding a sardine can (feeling and smelling like one.)
I want to go to a tight city place where you can live in an apartment building on the dead end of a quiet street where hotdog stands trail the back alley and where pubs litter the corners of every dodgey street and avenue. Where you could take a 2 minute walk to an underground system that literally takes you anywhere and everywhere within minutes.
Here's putting things into perspective; It takes 45 minutes to get from Kembangan to Buona Vista MRT station, in that same time, you could ride the red line on the subway from 79th/Broadway to Times Square, traveling halfway across New York City. You could criss cross around the big apple within less than an hour and experience different worlds within a day. You could take a beaten old knapsack, throw in a couple packets of gummy bears, a good book and a small ukulele, wrap a scarf around your neck and head off for a gig in downtown Manhattan and swing by gray's papaya on 8th ave/37th st for a chilli dog. No place but New York City.
I need to lock myself in a quiet room for just a couple of minutes and then carry on with this war.

2010-10-14T19:05:00.002+08:00

Today, i sent a message to people whom i rarely speak to, i walked the long way into the hall instead of the usual shortcut i take through the smiley staircase from the back, i sat at the other end of my class's row of chairs facing the front of the stage head on, i sang the national anthem and said the pledge without deliberately obliterating tone, tempo and pitch for the sake of early-morning entertainment, i bought a different brand of green tea from a different vending machine, and today, i graduated from ACJC.
Now we really are on our own, total and complete disconnection from the hands that helped push and pull us along this tiny cramped shaft we're all desperately trying to climb, keratin and flesh scraping against cold iron and cement, digging into every nook possible, pulling and pulling. Our backs locked tightly against each other, bodies sore, bones grating to the core on the verge of crumbling to dust. Clothes soaked in sweat, the air thick with the heavy smell of dirt, blood and tears. Pulling and crawling, inch by inch, up the shaft. The blue gates at the bottom that once seemed so visible now nothing but a transient dream. Once, a symbol of recognition and hope, now a reminder of our fates; the test. But crawl, we will, till the very top. If anyone lets go, we fall. Like rocks down a narrow valley, silenced into dust at the very bottom. So we hold on, for us, for each other, for the good fight.
There is no tomorrow and there is no more yesterday. No looking back this time, further we climb, faster we march to face the hounds of hell.
Frightening. But i've got you.

2010-10-10T21:28:00.002+08:00

Quiet dogs bite hard.
Karma. In case you're not sure what that is, you're about to feel it. Have fun.
It's Sunday, tomorrow's a Monday, the beginning of the last week of the greatest two years; gone by like a sneeze. Too fast to have appreciated enough of, too slow to feel the joy of it passing. Literally seems like yesterday that i walked through those blue gates, and now we leave, on our own to the shark pool. What a way to go, with all the lights and cameras surrounding our feet, lenses fixed on our faces, mics pushed under our lips. Desperate, aren't you? For us to spill. You've always called us arrogant, raucous, boisterous, hooligans. Fine. We're taking your advice and shutting up.
After this, we're all going to split away into a thousand different directions, like a drop of ink into the ocean. The sound of a gun spitting hate at a distant pheasant, its feathers plucking themselves off its body and floating gracefully away wherever the wind takes them. Wherever the wind takes us. But we live on in each other. Stop. Smile. Flashes so the camera can see. We held hands and ran, promising never to look back, now here we are, almost at the end of the road, the loom of another journey. 4 clear directions but a hundred unclear paths leading to it. What now? Who now? Do we move on to some whole new world of our own? Memories of each other slowly fading like the crinkles in a leaf clasped in the eternal grasp of a heavy book? Soon smooth. What then? Pinky promises, someone told me a long time ago that they're more powerful than i think. I'll hold you to that, babe. I will.

2010-10-09T00:59:00.003+08:00

Fucken dogs can go howl all they want, i'm not gonna wear my badge with any less pride.

2010-10-05T22:22:00.003+08:00

I click play, the sitar comes on. George's hand slides smoothly up and down the instrument as subtle notes float out. A feather bouncing on a bed of springs. Ringo and Paul behind the tablas, sitting on the ground scattered with flower petals, strewn by the shaman who left, trailing behind a soft scent of jasmine. The heart, suddenly beating. Hard and soft. Fast and slow. John sings. The words flow out so perfectly, i never realized before how perfectly they click together. Words reaching down into the coldest part of your soul and warming it like a fire, ablaze with emotions. Amidst the cluttered world of noise and destruction, the peace and zen of the music hushes the sounds, blocks it away as if a leaf was stopping a raging bullet.
Beautiful music. Within you, without you.

Influenced Inspiration

2010-10-03T21:44:00.003+08:00

Life is so fragile. Too transient to grasp sometimes. You could have lunch with an old buddy from school and have his heart stop one hour later as he waits for the lift on the way back to his apartment. It's like a snowman, hard effort rolling as big a ball of snow as possible, stacking three on top of each other, finding the perfect nose carrot, the perfect scarf, hat, twigs. Only to watch as it melts slowly before your eyes. It's like two eskimos sliding down a hill on a sledge, skiers speeding down a mountain side. What are you gonna say to yourself when you look down and see sludge forming at your feet, snow turning to water to leak away into a lowly pothole on the side of the road? When the carrot nose dives (no pun intended) straight for the river that forms from the thick slush slipping over each other like careless seeds gathering at the bottom of an old tree, what will your eyes see, snowman? While an old couple chase each other around a cabin throwing snowballs at each other, taking a break every now and then to scribble another line on their bucket list they made from an old scrap of paper he found in his jacket pocket. The same list they wrote their vows on 48 years ago. So they were and so they shall be, coming and going. Passing like a fog. What will your dead eyes see?

2010-10-02T20:40:00.000+08:00

The passing of the flower that makes the white tiger weep for the second time. Rest In Piece.

2010-10-02T00:06:00.002+08:00

I'm scheduling again, for the first time in 2 years, I think. Slipping in and out of an existentialist consciousness. The week has been too long to even think about and yet it's already over and done with. Our lives are suddenly controlled by 20 minutes slots, shuffling up and down that dark stairwell, bodies moving more on pure instinct than anything else, we try to book consults with ourselves sometimes just to do nothing. Write our names down on a piece of paper that's gonna get crushed at the end of the week to seek help from her impeccable form. In and out, in and out of the brain. Information becomes a thunderstorm after a while. Run around a big grass field with a metal pail trying to catch all the water that falls.
My label has changed. Like a document being transfered from useless to worthy. Ridiculous how your one judgement can change the face of everything. Your frown into a smile. Your rejection into a consideration. It's almost as if you're seeing through a visor you made from your own delusion. I've never changed. I write and think the same way now as i did 5 months ago. You see me in a new colour, bathe me in a new light as if I had metamorphasized into the butterfly you wanted. But i'm the same.
Your eyes are different, that's all. But sure, i thank you for the change in perception. I've been waiting for almost too long for you to realize that i am capable. Maybe someday i'll reveal to you that i'm the same flawed and fallen figure you discriminated against for the longest time and then you'll see that it was you all along who had to change to do yourself a favour. Not me.
The gap at this time of night, only Sufjan can fill.
Today, you called my name, i walked up to you and you placed a card in my hand. You pushed open a door i've been trying to keep closed for a long time. Too late now. Choices. The UK? The US? Or here? Choices.

2010-09-26T02:19:00.002+08:00

It's 2:25am on a Sunday morning and i should probably go to bed. Probably. Then again, i could come up with a list filled with things i probably should have done but didn't. Fridays and Saturdays seem like the pots of gold that stand at the end of the rainbow we're all chasing. Once the weekend hits, it feels like nothing else in the world exists. One fleeting moment of joy you could squeeze out of the incredibly bovine week that just passed by. Rapid, rapidly flying by. One Sunday, another, and another, and another, and another make 5 Sundays. That's more than a month. 5 dinners at my grandma's house all add up to more than a month.
The same old conversation at the same old table, my Uncle's eyes seem to droop more every week. Food's the same, so is the smell. But it's moving so fast. Feels too surreal sometimes. As if we're standing on the edge of all that once was and all that will be, teetering on the pinpoint of a platform that rose from the barricade that separates the two.
Yes i know what you mean, don't look at me like that. I know exactly what you're thinking.
Why do you have to be so far?

2010-09-22T21:07:00.002+08:00

It's just one of those counterpoints that meet for a split second in the things around us even for a fleeting moment in time, a quick yet strong equilibrium that just exists so perfectly that nothing can be said to judge it. Like two bullets meeting head on and slipping away from each other the split of a nano-second after they kiss. I'm too caught up in my own emotions to actually go anywhere. This seeming distance travelled isn't actually anything. I'm not getting anywhere with myself here. I need to find a way to change that.
Sure come on over, i'll just say something completely off and unplanned. Changes things though, doesn't it? One word to another and another, like flipping coins over and over again, dissatisfaction. Suddenly realize that we're just trapped in this tiresome routine, 'cyclical and repetitive nature,' yea thanks beckett, loud and clear.
This inability to express myself. I'm trapped in the notion of constantly using unconventional metaphors to tell you all what i'm feeling. I need to expand this notion. I'm sure i could go at least a week without saying 'i feel like i'm swimming in an ocean of germ-infested needles.' If i'm going to pursue a career where words are golden weapons, i need to get comfortable with my own mind.
That rush i'm getting too often now, i need to control it. Sieving fragile test tubes from the swarm of metal shards heading straight for my face. I'm getting better at it. I wish there was some way to capture it like a photograph and let it lose whenever i needed it. This inconsistency is not gonna do me any good.
I find it funny that the school compacts lessons in the morning to let us off the hook, free for self-study, by lunch time. Yet i have not gone back past 8 in the past week or so. Again. Feels just like old times. You, me and a sleepy train station.
I have a long morning tomorrow and math in the afternoon. Performing at the arts house's playden on Friday afternoon, deconstruction of the masterpiece we crafted so affectionately. You could have just left it alone and let us off, but you just had to. Makes you feel like a superhero, balancing the A levels with a performance life in the industry. This is the last time? Yea alright. You said that 3 performances ago.
I want to audition for something. I don't really care what. I want to jump into a university life where lectures are whenever i want it to be, where you could wear what you want, be who you want, live how you want, wake up at 9 for a lecture and head off for an audition or a call back somewhere. I need a change. I want a change. Hurry up and end, year, i'd trade anything for some Christmas pudding and a good long plane trip to the middle of nowhere.
I should probably study right about now. Watch me flop on my bed and watch another episode of how i met your mother and not give a damn.

2010-09-12T09:58:00.002+08:00

It started in my stomach. A slight discomfort or a sharp jolt, almost as if someone has just stuck a 10-inch blade through your mid-riff. Pain. It turns into pain. Like a thousand red ants finding their way into your intestines and trying to tear your insides apart into a million bite-sized pieces. It grows like a skyscraper right before my eyes, the pain gets more intense. I try to convince myself that it's nothing, i'm the man with the iron stomach. How in the hell can anything happen to pure steel? I laugh it off and reach for my bottle of water across my desk. And then, more pain. Hits my arm like a bullet. A chain of bullets. Penetrating into my arms at fist then slowly into the rest of my body. My muscles spasm slightly as i struggle to regain control of myself on my chair. Almost instantly, that feeling arrives. Something i have never felt for years. I rush to the kitchen and grab a pail, messily stuffing a plastic bag inside it to try and cover up for what is about to happen. Useless. I grip the sides of the blue plastic pail and throw out my dinner. I feel like the merlion on a good day. My upchuck flies from my mouth like beam of light. I try to stop it. I try to hold back my vomit but my muscles disobey me. This goes on until i taste bile. The horrid bitterness of my insides greets my tastebuds like a splash of ice-cold water on the face of a new-born child. At last, my body gives up. There cannot possible be anything more inside my stomach that i can hurl. Sweat pouring down my face, soaking my shirt, i feel colder than ever. My head spins uncontrollably. I feel like a snake with a hundred snake charmers all around me playing a hundred different twisted tunes swaying my head in different directions. I feel cold, then i feel hot. I bury myself under my blankets and stare at my ceiling. My sense start to turn against me. With fevers come nightmares, something that hasn't changed since i was a child. Everything around me starts to feel fearsome. The slow sweeping of a broom brush outside my door turns into the growl of a monster. The soft hum of my air-con turns into the heavy breathing of a phantom menace. I close my eyes but i still see. Images of war, hate, blood, death. Screaming, shouting, cursing all around me. My friends and family hold spears and shields, daggers and knives in some medieval fight to the death. But more real than any movie can fantasize. Blood spits from the open wounds of my friends. You, running with a basket of fruit drop and roll down a hill with a knife sticking out from your neck. I scream but no one seems to hear me. I jump about wildly but no one seems to feel me. I pull a knife out of my primary school teacher's chest and stare at the blood turning into ants. My vision stops in a freeze frame and nothing else seems coherent. I put the knife gently into my stomach and pull it out in the most serene way possible. The sharp pain hits me and i wake up. Calm. Silence. My room feels the same way it always does. I stare down at my snow-white palms, my veins blue like the ocean stick out as a reminder that i'm only human. I pick up my phone and dial her number but she does not pick up. I leave a voice mail.
"Mom, where are you? I miss you please come home soon."

2010-09-09T01:35:00.002+08:00

Get out for a bit, you tag along like a leech, we go on to meet her and do absolutely nothing. Best way to spend a Wednesday afternoon, fall in like rabbits to a hop parade, we get shushed twice like vile desolates wandering into a quiet library, walk into another world and listen to one person talk for an hour, spend the next 5 thinking about why we gave a damn, appreciating nonetheless. Or at least, trying. We disperse, like a drop of ink inside a larger pond. You leave. We head out, grab a couple drinks. I down a carlos, fuckin waste of $16. Went down like a shotgun round in thin air. I'll stick to my beer thanks. We wander the riverside like bums, people stop and stare. Underage? Course not. Just, youthful. I'll break that fucking camera if you snap another shot you skank. That's my brother you're putting your hands on, he doesn't need your flack offering so quit behaving like a cheap and lose slut. You can take your tight dress to the other side of town and try attracting some game there, they'd flock like bees to a honey dipped teaspoon and you'd go down like a cannon ball in the ocean. So go ahead, whore, make our day. My motion gets thrown off. One too many lagers. I shake my head to get my focus back. My head feels like a camera lens zooming in and out over and over again, in and out of focus. beeping. Battery's low. Slap my head quietly with a napkin and my world comes back. I thank my size for the large tolerance level. Suddenly i feel myself ebbing back through my body, i pick up my phone and highlight your name on the call list. I'm a little drunk and i think i need you now. But i don't call.

2010-09-07T02:31:00.002+08:00

I am a walking paradox. I feel so extremely terrified when i think about it but so unbelievably confident at the same time. I want to whisper in your ear and pour out to you my world into a teacup but i don't want to. It's like i'm walking down the street taking a step forward and a step back right after that. Like i'm suspended in the middle of space, no gravity to pull me anywhere. I'm just floating in a space. There are a thousand things i want to do, want to tell you, but i can't. I don't think i can.

2010-09-04T01:45:00.002+08:00

Too many years have gone by without you saying a word. I thank god you finally show your world to me. Your mouth opens and words fly out like bullets heading straight for me. I can barely keep up with the pace you're going but it feels good to finally hear you speak. You. Not you behind that layer of insecurity and shadow. But just you. I hope you never forget, Brother, that i'm not going anywhere and i never have now nor will i ever judge you.

2010-08-31T23:29:00.003+08:00

Quit running away, all of you. Just, stop. Stay, please? We're not done yet. None of us are. We've got a few more moments of glory to share and we're not through with this. I know, i'm nobody to stand in the way of dreams but just hold on for a minute for crying out loud. Our futures will come when they come. Right now is a moment that will never happen again so stop running away into your futures. Stop all this talk about University and future careers, life and death, enough. It feels like we're all gonna start planning our funerals soon. Forget about what we're going to become and just try to remember what we were. I'm not ready to get on a plane and fly a thousand miles away from any of you just yet. I'm hanging on to right now, and that's all that matters to me.
I mean i know i'm gonna seem like a hypocrite for saying this but i don't wanna go anywhere anymore. I wanna stay in this damn country no matter how much i hate it sometimes. But it's not any part of this place that makes it worth while. Not some special sense of patriotism or loyalty that's pulling me closer towards this Island city. It's all of you. You made today what it is. Without us together as one, none of this would be the same. My world would be different a hundred times over without you guys in it. So don't go just yet, don't even think about it. Let future us worry about where we're going. Cos i don't really wanna go or be anywhere but right here and right now. I wish you'd see that. All of you.

2010-08-29T01:09:00.002+08:00

There is nothing more insanely socially awkward than sitting at a table full of unknown people at a birthday dinner of your Dad's old friend who won't recognize your face even if you tattooed your picture onto his eyeballs. Worse when your parents are sitting at another table and you're forced to sit alone with a bunch of dinosaurs who think technology is too complicated for consideration.
I mean it's not like a concert or a play or even a goddamn national day dinner where there's something to talk about, be it the singer, the actors or the fireworks.
But at your dad's friend's birthday dinner there is absolutely nothing to talk about. I mean what in the hell can anyone possibly say?!
"Yea great guy isn't he. My dad's really fond of him. yea. Great guy. Great that he's having a birthday. I mean, don't get those very often do you. Only pops by about once a year. Nice place this is too. Have you been to the toilets? Oh the taps are lovely. Absolutely delightful. Oh yea."
Albeit my segregation, my dad forced me to socialize with the ancients. So I did, and since all of them were either blind, deaf, stupid or everything aforementioned, i managed to convince 3 different people that i was 23, married and worked as a recording artist in Ireland. The other 5 on the table i managed to convince that i was 14 and in Bukit Gombok secondary school. Well it was fun watching them all conglomerate and confuse themselves. At which point i conveniently relocated myself to a different table. A table occupied by (thank god) young people.
Unfortunately, they were having intense and intimate discussions about Starcraft and DOTA. It was better than nothing so i decided to listen in and learn a thing or two about starcraft weapons and maps. I was bored enough to contemplate sticking the dinner forks into my earlobes. The evening ended like all of dad's gatherings normally do; everyone piss drunk and screaming out ballads.
Tomorrow is a Sunday. I say that with full conviction as i know it will be a good day. Prelims end on Tuesday and hopefully we can all hit the beach right after that. Something to look forward to. =)

2010-08-26T23:11:00.003+08:00

So here's a list of things i want to do after i'm done with the A's, things on a regular basis.
1. Boxing course at Vanda boxing club
2. Go for Jazz/Contemp dance lessons at Jitterbugs
3. Audition for the Young Company/ Wild Rice shows
4. Work on short films with Bryant and all to maybe enter the Toronto film festival/Sundance
5. Sign up to be a teacher at the Academy of Rock at HV

And the list goes on. Maybe i'm being too ambitious for my own good, either way, it's better than what i'm doing now.

2010-08-25T20:04:00.002+08:00

It's only close to the end of prelims and it feels to me like the end of the A levels. This isn't particularly good. Papers so far haven't been as bad as i thought they would be, questions aren't tricky to the point of making me want to tear my hair out but they've been giving their fair share of headaches.
I just want to get on a boat and sail off somewhere, or get on a plane and fly to some island, with you, with all of us, we could just run away right now and not give a shit about anything. Stand by the edge of the top deck of a ship, holding a chilli dog in one hand and a margarita in the other, feel the wind try to rip through my body without thinking about anything in the world, dance the night away, talk about your future, talk about my future, laugh at the funny things we've said and done before in the past, sing songs till our throats run hoarse, watch great movies, watch ridiculous movies, get lost in a world of our own. Soon. Soon enough.

2010-08-23T22:03:00.000+08:00

I think i just need you now.

2010-08-21T15:03:00.004+08:00

The lift reaches my floor, i step inside. You're inside, dressed in your sickening badminton gear. You smell of slimy old socks.
I've seen you before. 3 floors above mine, 2 daughters, both of whom have packed up and left you, your wife is nowhere to be seen, you're retired, do nothing much but mill about your house playing ping pong with your wall. Prolly haven't taken a shower since 1973.
You push your broken glasses up the haggled bridge of your nose and stare at me like i was from the set of X-Files.
You open your mouth slowly and mutter "So big size ah?" In the foulest tone i've heard since Hitler's final speech.
I frown, you flinch.
"Yea i am, uncle, i used to be bigger but i'm actually losing weight."
"Orh, you primary what? Or secondary school?"
"I'm 18, (You withering dipshit)"
"Orh orh. Army ah?"
"Soon. Prolly early next year."
"Wahh army ah, you ah big size like that sure die one."
"Yea, but i'll learn how to use a gun. And i promise i'll come back home to visit every now and then. You live 3 floors above me right?"
You look away nervously. Why? Getting scared are we?
You step out of the lift as a mouse would scutter out of box after being shaken with a pinch of arsenic powder.
I mutter under my breath as you walk away, "big size doesn't mean i'm physically incapable you foul nutfuck."
You don't seem to hear me.
You belong to a generation that's fast ebbing away into the dark corners of society. People like you with shallow minds enough only to store the piss you and your rodent friends swim in.
Fat, skinny, big, small, good, bad, capable, incapable, your entire world is in black and white.
Mine's in shades of grey and i will wait for the day your body crumbles into dust so i can go up to your disintegrated face and tell you that i am capable. More capable than you thought, and more capable than you ever have been.
adios, motherfucker, i'll see you on the flipside.

2010-08-20T22:19:00.004+08:00

Let's face it. I've got dreams. We all have dreams. Big or small or medium for that matter, we've all got dreams.
Up till now i was afraid to admit that i've got big dreams. I've been afraid to say it because i know the moment i admit that i've got dreams, i'm never gonna stop chasing it. So here's what i'd like to happen to me.
After the A's, i get into army, get a shit job, work a 9-5 in some camp in the middle of nowhere, save up enough money from all this to finally buy a decent Marshall amp and header and throw out the current Fender Sidekick II hand-me-down from my dad's dead friend, apply for the Berklee College of Music in Boston and get accepted under a scholarship, fly over to the land of dreams, graduate from there with hopefully a decent enough status to get signed by an indie record label in New York, make demos and play at dingy pubs and bars at 2am in the morning and going home to a skyliner apartment in downtown Soho, interview for some tv show or get onto MadTV/SNL as a permanent cast member and scriptwriter, get enough moolah to buy my girlfriend a plane ticket to join me in my life and continue making music till the day i die.
Alright, so that's a dream. Here's the more realistic one.
Get into NUS FASS with a degree in Psych and Sociology and become a criminal psychologist working part time as a singer.
Be me for a second and look at my options.
I dunno, i kinda like Boston and New York.
But i don't want to leave. I like where i am, i like where we are, I'm perfectly comfortable living in this life. I know where everything is, i know where to go to get a decent plate of chicken rice or the next best Starbucks to get a mocha frapp or the Subway that makes the best footlong parmesan oregano BMT with cheese and toasted with everything except the jalepeneos and sweet onion and honey mustard.
I know what i've been dreaming of, but i also know what i love and where i'd like to be. I can't leave even if i wanted to. But this is me speaking now. 10 years is a long time for anyone to change their minds. I could end up being a plumber or a waiter or the guy who screws the caps onto toothpaste tubes.
Could happen. Why not?

2010-08-19T20:29:00.002+08:00

An airplane. It's starting to feel like an airplane.
Stand outside before the gates open checking a little piece of paper, a hundred or so of us. Row 2, seat E.
Go in, place our bags and valuables in the luggage compartments at the back.
Get to our seats with a bit of squeezing, people all around you trying to remain calm before the flight takes off.

"Ladies and gentlemen welcome aboard flight 5032, Economics H2 examination. Please do check that you're sitting in the right place and do not have any un-authorized material aboard this flight. Please switch off all mobile phones as their signals would interrupt the great machinery moving this airbus. In a while, our flight attendants will be coming down the rows and distributing string for everyone, please do leave your plane ticket at the top right hand corner of your desk for attendance. Also note that the seat-belt signs will be put on during the first and last 15 minutes of the flight and the lavatories will be off-limits then. As your captain i am obliged to read out to you a set of safety instructions in a while's time before we take off. If there is anything you would need, do inform any of our flight attendants and we will be with you shortly. This plane will take off at exactly 215 pm on the clock in the cockpit. Once again, we thank you for choosing to fly with us and we hope you have a pleasant flight.
Your time starts now.
You may begin."
And then, we give gravity a run for its money.

2010-08-18T19:41:00.003+08:00

I've been thinking. Probably a little bit more than is good for me. I hate it but i love it. My brain's moving at lightspeed at this constant high. Words are flowing out like an endless thunderstorm into a thin paper cup. Every second that passes, a new thought occurs, followed by a train of thoughts questioning the validity of the previous thought, arguments form suddenly in my head like a raging battle and though i try to calm myself i can't stop thinking. I feel so tired and i'd like to just rest my head for awhile but it won't stop thinking. But i love this rush. Sat through the exam today feeling better than i ever have. Everything became crystal clear. Every thought every idea formed pictures in my head, my brain moved too fast for my hands and often i found myself writing words in jumbled structures. But the ideas were there. Clearer than ever. I understand everything like a big connect-the-dot puzzle forming up into the Sistine Chapel right there in my brain.
I'm losing it.
This is my A levels, and i'm losing it.
I got to bed last at 10 but only fell asleep at 3. My bullet train brain not stopping for a second.

I wait. I breathe, in and out, in and out, through my nose, no, through my mouth, do i normally breathe through my nose or my mouth? Which should i breathe through my nose or my mouth? My nose is a little blocked ok i'll breathe through my mouth. Now my mouth is drying up, i need to wet it. I swallow. Feels better. Wait, do i normally swallow when i sleep? Should i swallow again? How do i sleep now when i'm sposed to swallow and breathe? Ok just try to be calm. Breathe in and out, in and out, through the mouth, now through the nose, no through the mouth for god's sake ok now swallow, breathe through the mouth, now swallow. Ok stop swallowing it's making me uncomfortable and i can't get to sleep like this. Don't swallow. I need to swallow. I feel the urge kicking at the back of my throat. I control myself. Do not swallow. I'm not breathing oh godammit i swallowed. Stay calm, you'll go mad at this rate, just breathe, think of nothingness and just go to sleep. Darkness. Nothingness. Waiting. Just waiting. Why am i not asleep? I'm still waiting to sleep. I'm still not sleeping! Breathe, nose, mouth, swallow- NO don't swallow, i'm still awake for fuck's sake.

It went on like that for about 3 hours before i think i just got so physically exhausted that my body shut my brain down.
The hell is wrong with me.
I hope for my own sake that i don't think tonight. Just don't think.
I need my music.

2010-08-17T21:40:00.002+08:00

The hands on my clock spin like they're about to fly right off the wall and out my window. 9:47, 9:48, 9:49. The minutes pass like the clicking of a pen. Insubstantial and meaningless to the clock, but every minute brings us closer to tomorrow.
To us, to freedom, to victory, to the war we are about to walk into. Side by side, we crawl together through the hell of this earth.
And we will make it out alive. One way or another.

2010-08-16T18:19:00.002+08:00

Some things i've said before that i can't take back. The things that i've ruined before etched like a stigma in my mind. Sorry won't fix anything, not even though the years pass.
Just so you know, you'll always be my brother, i'll always have your back and i'll be sorry the day you can't look me in the eye and shake my hand.
Con l'oscurità, striscio con i miei fratelli per affrontare il sogno impossibile

2010-08-16T01:14:00.002+08:00

It's too big a world out there to try and worry about what's coming and going. Yesterday seems a thousand footsteps away and tomorrow feels like the end of a rainbow i've been chasing. When's the pot of gold ever gonna appear? By some ridiculous bolt of magic shooting out from the night sky probably. My fringe is growing so long it's curling up at the end. And i've got straight hair. It's poking into my eye like a foreign intruder. Feel like cutting it off but i know better than that.
I don't know what i want anymore. There used to be a time where i could tell you a thousand and one things i'd like to do with my life and then do it. I used to be able to write songs and endless stories about the wonders and mysteries of life that i haven't yet discovered, take pictures of beautiful smiles and keep them close to my heart. I used to be able to hang on to things like they were gold, hide them behind this shelf somewhere deep inside my heart so that no one could ever take it away from me.
I don't know where that guy has gone.
Once upon a time, i used to know what "free time" was. Somehow i'd relish the thought of being free and immediately do the things i love. I don't know what i'd do now if i had free time. Hard to even pronounce those words without feeling like i'm telling a lie.
Coffee, paper, pen. My wife and kids these days. Spend more time with them than i do being alone in the bathroom. Write, write, write. The amount of words i'm scribbling out on paper i'd be strong enough to lift my whole weight using my pinky soon enough. They make sense, for a while. Then it starts to feel like chimpanzees giving a whack on the typewriter. "The poem uses diction to suggest the inescapable nature of time." What does that even mean? To you? To me? Why should anyone give a damn? It's just there.
Poems should be like balloons, you inflate it, tie it up, let it go and watch it fly. See it get closer to heaven every second until the sun throws itself into your eyeballs and spits at your soul. Why study it till it pops? Balloons, like birds, were meant to fly. Nuff said.

A hundred years

2010-07-11T12:10:00.002+08:00

8 months of nothing but blood, sweat and tears just got finished in 10 minutes. It feels like we've built a huge house of cards just to watch it get blown away by the wind. So much precious time and effort spent laboring over what, 30% of a subject that can't guarantee a future? A pathway filled with fire and brimstone that leads to an industry where barely anyone makes it? You've either gotta be incredibly talented or incredibly stupid to do something like that. But y'know, i kinda loved it. Every single minute of it. And i think, so did you. And you. And you. And you. We walked into hell together, now we walk out. Kissed ourselves goodbye a long time ago and now we desperately try to salvage the remains of those skins we shed so long ago. So many incredibly different possible ways our lives can go wrong or right from here. Toss your coin into the wind, love, cos i'm closing my eyes and walking back into reality, with or without you.

2010-06-16T11:30:00.004+08:00

I had a dream.
My head was hot but my feet were freezing. The night was the darkest i had ever seen, no moon, no stars, no clouds. I walked down a stony path heading towards an old church.
The ground was filled with glass and thorns and i left behind a trail of red.
There were headless children making snow angels in the gravel in the dirt, i could feel them stare though i know they couldn't.
The wind blew my hair around, tousled like a bunch of leaves. The bell at the top of the church rang and an old man in a suit stood at the top of the bell tower, his finger pointing straight at my head.
He started yelling at me, not angry, but sad. I could barely make out his words. I walked faster and faster towards the church, my feet now bloody stubs as the ground filled up with more glass and thorns. I felt like i was pushing my feet through a thousand pencil sharpeners.
As i reached the gates, the old man screamed and stepped forward. Off the tower and straight to the ground.
The sound of his body crunching the stones echoed across the courtyard and a few birds flew off in different directions. I pushed the gates open and ran towards the man, he had a big black hole where his eyes should have been. His skin was made of leather and his body a shriveled mess of bone and flesh.
He told me he was tired, he said he was giving up. I realized then that i could not speak, my mouth drier than desert sand.
He told me he knew everybody's sin.
The ringing of the bell got louder and louder and the wind got stronger, my hair started flying off my head and my clothes turned into dust, gone with the wind.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a bloody organ. He placed it in my palms and told me it was my heart. As he let go, his hollow eyes filled up with tears and i looked into it.
I saw the both of you. Happy.
Suddenly, his eyes formed into brilliant blue sparkles.
I looked the dying man in the eye and he whispered into my ears, "Dream on till your dreams come true."
I had a nightmare.
I hope i forget it soon.

My Maudlin Career

2010-06-02T22:37:00.002+08:00

It's been too long i must say.
Let me give you an update of the things that have taken place since the last time i posted :
Absolutely nothing.
I know, heck of an update coming up from what you can tell by those two flippin words.
The holidays started about a week ago. Rather, the "holidays" started a week ago. Sure that statement may be along the same lines as anyone of my friends who walk hand in hand with me in hell but y'know what i miss most? Y'know what's the one thing that bugs the hell out of me more than anything else?
I miss us.
I miss the us we all used to be. I really do. I miss our carefree-ness and our fuck-all-attitude that got us through any of this shit in the first place. And now suddenly we're all just breaking down and up into little groups away from each other like seeds scattered in some really messed up wind? I mean yea i know we're all tired and want to just stay home and away from anything living, but hey, it's the holidays! It's not like we're gonna have the chance to have a break like this anytime soon, so i say, why not just fuck all and live it while we can?
Some of you don't even bother responding to my attempts anymore, what happened to that thrill we all had once upon a time to have fun? Good god it's like i'm speaking to a bunch of illness-ridden old folk.
We may not have a lot of time left but we still have time! If we don't seize what we can now we're all gonna walk out of this school at the end of the year and go our separate ways and then what? The hell's gonna happen next? You all still gonna wanna sleep in?
Jeez, i know some people higher than us will always try to break us down and scare the living shitlights out of us with that kinda talk but are you really gonna shy away from life's joys cos of that? Are you really gonna let a broken up rat bastard like that deny us our fun? Come on, we used to be better than this. We used to hang on to each other and never let go cos we'd always go through the shit together.
Godammit. I give up. Truly. So thank you everyone for being such an awesome bunch of party poopers. Just don't come crying when you look back and regret all the times we couldn've spent together.
If we even are a we anymore.
Pfft.

Cause i'm just about to set fire to everything i see

2010-04-17T23:21:00.002+08:00

This is my accident week. First, the fall on the second day of AYLI, then my finger sprain during warm-ups on the first day, then my migraine attacks yesterday and this morning, and just when you think it cannot possibly get any worser, i twist my ankle again today while slipping on a curb on a pavement. Went to east shore hospital which felt like a hotel (costs as much as renting one too) and the prat doctor did an x-ray and found no bone problem. Just a very severe muscle and ligament sprain or something along those lines. He gives me some magic "ointment" and painkiller pills which till now has not killed any of my pain. Neither of what the prat gave me actually made the pain more bearable.
I don't quite know how to describe it. It feels like I just got my ankle run over by a couple hundred ice cream trucks and then used as a baseball bat. Just when this mofo was healing, it just had to slip on a curb and take the weight of my entire body and become this mess of muscle and bone now.
IS prelims are next week. I pray this thing heals by then.
Funny how just this morning i could jump, pirouette, plie and the usual dance stuff, and now, i can barely stand up to take a book from the top bit of my shelf without screaming in pain. I want to sleep, but it hurts to walk to my bed.

Where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies

2010-04-11T13:17:00.003+08:00

And after all that's said and done, we finish what we started with 500 people staring back at us. That applause, those cheers and those smiles make every little bit of pain that we had to go through so worth it. It never gets old and i don't think i'll ever stop loving it.
We take part the world we created, leaf by leaf, plank by plank, gobo by gobo, until all that's left is what we started with; just a blank stage. Names on dressing room tables torn off, loving notes stuck onto mirrors peeled off carefully, flowers strewn on tables neatly compiled and displayed. Suddenly, it feels like nothing ever happened to begin with. We spend a good 3 hours just taking everything apart, then we split into a thousand different directions like a drop of ink into a papercup filled with water.

I am glad it's over. All the shit that we've had to go through, the sweat the tears the blood the everything she being a complete fucknut being a tyrant being a heartless biased asshole treating us like monkey slaves working in a sneaker factory dancing over and over and over again perfectly cos she expects it to be perfect no way of even resting until everything is exactly how she wants it having to deal with all the crap people throw at all of us throw at me throw at the world I am going to miss every single bit of it. I really am.
So we lay to rest another show and move right on to the next. Goodbye Shakespeare, hello Dorimu Shoko Jotai.

I'm spending the day at home watching youtube.

WT-mutherfuggin-F. I officially give up playing the guitar. I am not worthy.

I'm sure i've posted these videos before. But, well, just to prove a point.
My current replay song.

2010-04-04T17:46:00.002+08:00

One of those rare days where nothing happens. I used to hate those days cos i'd just sit around or go out with my parents to do absolutely nothing. But i realize now how much i love doing nothing. Amidst the insanity of rehearsals and schoolwork, doing nothing sounds pretty good to me. Jamie Cullum's coming on the 13th of April and i can't go cos of the flippin IS prelims. Just add it to the long list of concerts-i-should've-gone-to-but-didn't. Lisa Ono's coming on the 1st of May, hopefully with any luck, i'll make that one. I would pay good money to see Lisa Ono live, and her bassist, that Tomokazu Sugimoto guy, who is a jazz/bossa bassist with such incredible feel.
We go on stage in less than a week's time for 3 sold out nights and i'm not the least bit nervous. Should i be?

Live High

2010-03-31T22:51:00.002+08:00

Finally, my IS gets approved and given the "stable" stamp. Now you can finally just stfu and get up off my back. Tomorrow will be a good day, long school and rehearsal day with ballet and voice classes, but i look forward to a good dinner at night with everyone, for friday is our much needed god given day of rest.
I realize, my week is pretty much a very cliched definition of a week. Like in those comic strips you glance upon every now and then which say how monday's the worst but it gets better as the week goes along until the end of the week where everything just falls into a slumber, ready to awaken in hell the next monday. Mondays and Tuesdays are insane rehearsal days all the way till 830, then comes wednesday, the piece de resistance. 6 hour dance and text rehearsal, then IS consult till 930. But once that tremendously terrifying shit's over, thursday and friday are like breezes. I live for the weekend. Thank god for it.
Now that this insane day is over, to bed go I before i fall asleep in the toilet again. Oh and iust so you know, I don't need another kind of green to know that i'm on the right side with you.

Samson and Delilah

2010-03-29T22:57:00.003+08:00

Ok so i just wanna update really quickly before i go to sleep cos i feel like it. Just got back home to a lovely dinner after another 10 hour As you like it rehearsal and i am about ready to sleep and never wake again. I am so glad that this production goes on stage in a week's time and i can lay all this to rest after and just focus on getting SYF and IS over and done with. I got a B for econs for terms, something i'm still trying to come to terms with cos i'm not usually very used to miracles. Honestly, it jumped from straight flat out U for every single test i've been doing and suddenly, WHAM! I get a B. I am quite satisfied albeit i must admit i reckon it's all just a matter of writing the right things down at the right time. Meh. I got a new pair of converses yesterday. I don't know why. Mom was showing me this new pair of shoes she bought from this shop and i didn't quite fancy them, it was at that point that my eyes happened to glance over this huge box pile of shiny new converse chuck taylor all stars and i figured, what the heck. I've always secretly wanted one anyway. So i bought a pair, headed over to the stationary shop and bought two new perm ink pens and designed the hell out of them. I'd post a picture of them up but at 11:07pm, the only thing my mind can be bothered with is watching a spinning top go round and round. I had this big plan in the morning to reward myself tonight with a nice mug of horlicks with a shot of bailey's, but i have lost the motivation to do so. Fun-o-rama happened over the weekend, not too bad a way to end off my 6th acs carnival. I love the atmosphere of carnivals and funfairs, maybe i should quit school and go join one of those traveling circuses/carnivals/funfairs that go around obscure little towns in Europe. I quite like that idea. Maybe i'll go find an application form for one of those soon.
My shoe bag broke. :(
I need sleep.
Goodnight.

Wait a lonely lifetime

2010-03-12T10:55:00.002+08:00

Not to self : Update this thing more often.
Today, i finish the term exams that have been going on for about slightly less than a week. It started last Saturday with DEP, then Gee pee, econs, math, lit and today, CLB. Rummaging through my cupboard, i realize that my chinese dictionary broke a good couple of months ago so i am going to walk into the exam hall today, dictionary-less. That decreases my already very low vocabulary power down to about 3%. Essentially, that means that i'm going to write a full chinese essay at the age of 17 sounding like a 6-year-old who only started learning chinese a week ago.
God help me.
So i'm going to take the advice Hannah gave me a while back, that is, instead of writing the chinese word, write down the pinyun according to how it's sposed to sound. But even then i reckon i won't be able to get it right.
Because of this limited chinese vocabulary, my plots and storylines for my essays tend to be extremely minimalistic. Other people with famazing chinese skills are able to write complex stories about how their mother grew up in a province in China and planted tea leaves to get enough money to start a hair care product company with a complicated as hell Russian name like Vishiswaz translated into Chinese that would sound like a headache.
Me? just last week i handed in an essay which required me to write about an interesting event that happened in school.
I didn't know how to say founder's day in chinese, neither did i know how to say Chinese new year/national day/ christmas/ honika. So i wrote about how a teacher stabbed a student in the chest with a pencil.
It was half a page long.
But in CLB, that means a tremendous effort has been put in so well done me.
Rehearsals haven't stopped since it started. A 3 day break cos of exams and bam, we're back in the studio pumping in 10 hours of text and dance. Thankfully, since i've got a paper today, i'm only required to hit the studio after i'm done at 4.
Tomorrow will be a full swing from morning till evening, then we're off to pack for Cambodia for we leave on Sunday morning.
Our flight's at 5:30 am which means i'm gonna have to wake up at stupid o'clock again so i don't miss the flight.
It's going to be a much larger group compared to the 10 of us who went to Vienna last July, this time, we're taking J2s and J1s all the way to Phnom Phenn to perform for under-privileged schools all over, doing dances and songs. Kinda feels like a rock tour.
Speaking of which ,Paramore came down last Sunday to this sad island, and i had bought tickets with Hannah to go, but seeing as how it CLASHED with my exams, i had to forgo the ticket. Which was really quite a regret cos i found out the next day that a good 10 people who took the gee pee paper with me had gone for the concert and still made it home by bed-time.
Tsk.
No matter, Hannah called me at the start and gave me a live audio-feed to the concert so i'm satisfied.(I'm lying to myself) She also bought me a paramore tshirt from the concert! (y)
But since we're on the topic of missed concerts, here's a list of concerts that i couldn't go to that i kicked myself in the head for.
1. Florence and the XX. (Ok admittedly, i only started listening to their music after their concert so i wouldn't have liked them before that.)
2. Boys Like Girls (Dammit)
3. Muse. (I will regret not going for this for the rest of my life.)

Meh. What's done is done.
The weeks have been zipping by like nobody's business. Then again, it's been this way since last year. Last week feels like yesterday, and last month feels like last week. This week is going to pass by really quickl- oh wait. It's friday. It's the end of the week already.
Next week'll be no exception. I am looking forward to it somewhat, leaving for a foreign country with my favourite bunch of people (excluding you and you) to do what i love best: Sing and dance. I even bought a new book to read there even though i still haven't finished reading Sweetness of the bottom of the pie.
There's this really cheap ass book shop place at UE square that me, archanaa, fee, ken, yvonne, ying and rachel went to the other day after studying Proof at starbucks. The first time we went there was after our NOH theatre performance at the SRT and i bought a beatles biography and some book about a red paper clip. I swear everything there is below 20 bucks.
I asked the guy why they were so cheap and he said it's cos they're books that nobody bought. I don't know why anyone would wanna chuck them aside and not buy them! I found the entire star wars medic series and Tess Gerritsen books. Idiots!
Ok, i should prolly get going now. My paper's in about an hour. Guten tag.

Once we said goodbye

2010-02-15T10:35:00.002+08:00

Whoa ok so it's been quite a while since i last posted. I've had too many things to do and too little to time to even start doing them.
But today, on this much needed, god-given day of rest, here i am.
Valentine's day and the first day of CNY yesterday. Something terribly sad about those two things happening on the same day. The magic of the former is ruined by the latter. As a result, i spent what was meant to be the most romantic day of the year in a house with a bunch of relatives dressed in a horrid blood red hearing mixes of "Happy new year!" and "panjang panjang umo!"
But it was good to see all my relatives again, especially my whacky grand-aunt. Sister to my already pseudo-psychotic grandmother. We're talking bout the woman who, last new year's, asked if my mom was my wife and how my kids were doing.
Fortunately, this year, she managed to remember who i was and my relation to her. Unfortunately, she spent a good half an hour asking me about my hamster and how many babies it's given birth to and if she could have some for keeps.
Trouble is, i've only had one hamster in my entire life, it was a male hamster, and it died 5 years ago.
When i told her that i've got a cat now instead, she raised her eyebrows till it almost stabbed her hairline as if i just told her i've impregnated a goldfish.
On the bright side, after the whole hamster/cat incident, she went on to say how much weight i've lost since last year. Which, coming from someone with such incredibly bad memory, is quite comforting.
It's my dad's 61st birthday today. He can apply for a senior citizens card. HAHA. What a joke. I'm gonna call him grandpa from now on. Ok i'm off to do more completely useless things to humor myself till lunch time. Whopee.

2010-01-15T22:14:00.002+08:00

To you, once and for all so i can put it to rest.
You're the single most black-hearted, ungrateful, selfish, childish, sick-in-the-head rubbish dump fucks i've ever had the displeasure of meeting and i sincerely hope, from the bottom of my heart, that you get all the shit that you deserve, in this life or the next. You disgust me and i honestly am convinced that your eradication from the face of this earth would do the world some good.

You know when it's a dream.

2010-01-01T16:44:00.002+08:00

It's 2010.
I don't know bout you, but the past 12 months felt like 12 seconds. It feels like a lifetime of experiences went by in the span of 12 whole seconds. I'm not entirely certain what to make of it all. It's like a sudden clarity that i see the world in.
I once stared into the mirror and saw a 16 year old douche who thought he knew so much of this world that he could conquer. A shoddy machiavellian idiot who thought so little of the world and all who inhabit it.
I have an endless list of people to thank for that person's disappearing act.
It's overwhelming, but i guess at some point, everybody's gotta grow up. And 2009 was graduation for me. Ok so i've prolly got a heck lot more to learn about life, love and everything else in between, but at this point, it feels like i've grown so much already. I can't imagine what i'd feel like next year.
I cruised around a few blogs today and realized how many people are putting up their new year's resolutions. I'd do the same except, i don't have any. I've never had any. I've always lived on a moment to moment basis, whatever happens happens kinda thing. I find pre-planning constricting sometimes. But i guess, giving it a shot couldn't do any harm.
I hate putting things into points, so i'm just gonna write a letter to future self.

Dear Future me,

Hello fatboy. First things first, whatever rehearsals are doing to your body, it's working. So by the time you read this, you've gotta be the size of lindsay lohan's ear lobe. That means, you've gotta always keep moving. Keep dancing, keep jumping, keep running, whatever the hell it takes. And quit the food. You've been doing great on the "i'm not hungry" campaign for the past couple of months so hang onto that one. I've a sneaky little feeling that you're slim now. If you are, then i'm sorry for calling you fatboy. If you're not, then get out now and take a 5 day jog to Zimbabwe you bubbling lump of fat.
Secondly, I hope you're a stronger person. Not physically, no. I mean, in your mind. You prolly would've finished the A levels by now and i bet that was a real kick in the nut sacks. You would've ended your contract with Acsian Theatre and the Comm so you should be breathing easy now. I hope you managed to balance both of those things perfectly. By now, you should be an expert juggler of the stage and the studies. Hope those two have gotten along perfectly and that you're happy.
I hope your IS went well. I hope you didn't give Cassi, Sherlyn or Tim a hard time in your IS and that you managed to "charm the audience" as you planned to do so about two months ago from now. I hope your GS was as funny as ever and that everyone who watched Culminatio went home with a side splitting stitch from laughter.
I hope you stopped looking for someone to love, cos you know damn well that for the both of us, finding love is like trying to catch a fish in big grass field. So let it come to you instead ok casanova?
I hope you get closer to your art. Not just your music or your stage, but i mean the general expression of life through art which you so love to do. I hope Franchessca hasn't broken any strings cos it's a bitch to replace them. I hope you haven't lost touch with your piano and play it at least once a week like you've been doing for the past 8 years. I hope you're still singing every second of your life away. You weren't born to shut up, so don't.
And lastly, i hope you see. I hope you never change yourself just to make someone else happy, i hope that by the time you're reading this, i would've grown more. I hope that you never forget who you are and the people who love you who've made you who you are. You see, future me, i've learnt that the world is not in black and white. Nothing is truly ever wrong. It's all just in shades of grey. Who has the right to define what's red and what's green or what's right and wrong? And it's not always about how good you are at doing something, but it's about how much you love doing it. So do what you love and love what you do, and i hope you never lose grip of your heart. Love is rare, so keep holding on to that big heart of yours, future me.
One more thing. I sincerely hope that you've managed to grow a full beard by now. Like, a real caveman type beard that you've always dreamed of getting. Cos all that i'm shaving off now are pathetic sprouts that surround my lips and cheeks, but i'm sure you know that.
Well, that's all, future me. Don't bother writing back, i won't be able to receive it.
I love you alright? I do.
I'll seeyuh when i seeyuh.

Love,
Present me. (Which is past you to you, future me.)

All i want this Christmas,

2009-12-25T23:55:00.000+08:00

There's 5 minutes left to Christmas, and i've nothing to say.
As the years went by, Christmas stopped being Christmas, the whole magic of sitting in front of a tree with a hot cup of chocolate with the people you love the most, singing till your throat tingles. All of that kinda just, dissolved.
a 6-year-old me used to say that Christmas was the best time of the year cos it's when everyone's in love. No kidding, i wrote that down in a little notebook i carried around with me.
And i guess, i'll never stop believing that.
Call me a fool, a fool who's played santa 3 times in a row now, the fool, who, for one fleeting moment in time embodied the hopes and dreams of thousands of little kids around the world just by putting on a big red suit and going "hohoho." Such a stupid little get up. But hey, it got those kids believing.
I put on a pyramid hat, a red jumper suit that looks like it could've been a careless cardio-thoracic surgeon's OR carpet, and a whispy white beard that looks like a badly glued collection of fur from the pubes of a polar bear. But dozens of kids in a dinky little function room believed i was santa.
Anyone with any sort of basic cow logic would know it's me and would so quickly discard the idea of "Santa."
I dunno bout you but, who's the stupid one here? The idiots who let their adolescence go like a thriving bucket of fish into the ocean and let logic destroy the magic of Christmas?
But i mean hey, we're not kids anymore. Everyone grows up. Everyone knows there's no Santa, or reindeer. (or snow in Singapore for that matter) (and there never will be so we can all just stop hoping for it cos the day Singapore snows is the day we all DIE.)
But really though, i miss being stupid. I miss thinking some old fat guy was gonna jump into my house and throw gifts under my christmas tree. Everyone says it doesn't feel like Christmas anymore, and i guess that is true. With Noh series rehearsals flanking the pre and post Christmas weeks, it doesn't feel any different from any ordinary day. Hell, it could be the month of September right now and i wouldn't feel any different.
Despite all that, Christmas is Christmas, no matter how old you are. No amount of turkey, ham, beef, chicken, mince pie or eggnog can change that. Today was a pretty good day, this was a good Christmas.
I just wish i could've spent every second of it with you.
I dunno bout you, but i'm gonna sit by my Christmas tree with a cup of hot chocolate and sing, at least for the next 5 minutes that's left of Christmas day.
There's 5 minutes left to Christmas, and i think i've said all that i can say.

Just one of those things

2009-12-12T23:52:00.003+08:00

Ironically, i thank god everyday for the friends i have in my life, i literally would be nothing without the lot of you.
I had a good birthday.
Definitely one of those i'd remember for the rest of my life. Thank you everyone who wished me, who took me out, who gave me things. Thank you Joan, Ken, Jiyin, Thara, Cassi, Doug, Igs, Ling, Gerald, Liz, Mom n' Dad, Granpaw and Granmaws, I can't even list all of you cos it'd take me all night.
Spent the 9th and 10th with Ken and Joan hopping around the entire flippin world, buying stuff. Used birthday money to get myself a new wallet from Topman, got some supplies from Body Shop (men's section) and in the night, Mom took me to buy my new Ipod Touch, 32gb. At first, none of the stores had stock, but then on my third check with every single shop looking pathetic and annoying, a staff from Challenger dug real deep and found a reserved Ipod touch 32gb for some bloke named Randy.
Well sorry, Randy, but he sold it to me on the spot cos he was gonna go collect the only 32gb left in the entire chain of Challengers from funan the day after and give that to Randy instead.
God bless that man's soul.
The ipod touch is probably the single coolest thing i've ever owned next to my macbook. If there was an apple fanboy club, i'd be it's creator and president.
On the night before the 11th was ACFF. Kudos to Alyssa and the whole ACFF team for putting together the entire thing, really impressed at how the pulled it all together and made it so kickass. Fire away! Samson was solid gold as usual and Stella Story was pretty awesome too. Spent the rest of the night at the Supperclub for the after party.
Danced and went high on the floor and left slightly after 1. Thankfully, there were empty cabs lining the road so me, Ken, Joan and Audrey grabbed them and sped off home cos we were tired and i was itching to play the games on my itouch.
Spent the afternoon of my birthday with jiyin, ate at some fancy French restaurant and hopped round orchard, grabbed John Mayer's Battle Studies from borders cos i couldn't resist and i still had some birthday money that granmaw gave me left.
Jiyin gave me the best of Sound Stage DVD, a book and a reindeer pen. Jiyin if you're reading this, let me re-iterate and say how awesome you are.
In the night, Mom N' Dad took me out for dinner at the NUS guildhouse. It is the most amazing BBQ place i've ever had dinner at. I need to take people there some day for a good kickass dinner.
Today was Lizday. Spent the day with Liz around Singapore, from Tampinies(god knows how you spell this flippin word) to PS to city hall. She bought me Jamie Cullum's The pursuit. (holy god)
Been putting the entire album on replay the entire night along with Battle Studies. It is too good.
Thieving, talented bastards.

Listen carefully to the double bassist on this one. He is crazy swingy.

Extremely tasty riff.

Hooked onto this one so badly.

Grittier and grundgier version of Cream's blues classic. And i'm loving his SRV type solo he licks in towards the end.

Awesome piano-ing as usual from Cullum.

Classic cullum heart-melter.

I've been hooked on this one for weeks now ever since i heard it off the itunes preview.
Alright, i'm off to go get lost in musicland. Seeyuh.

Memories i'll never find

2009-12-08T23:51:00.003+08:00

Back from Egypt today.
Crazily Jetlagged, my body clock's having trouble adjusting back this time for some reason. It wasn't so bad for Vienna, but this time seems to be worse for some reason, although the time difference for both Vienna and Egypt are 6 hours. :/
Egypt. Well, you'd think it's some luxurious country with gold paving the streets or something, but it turned out to be a third world country type of slum.
The streets and roads are 50% cars, 30% donkey and horse, and 20% dead things.
There were dead things lining the road, blood guts and all. The river looks like a sewage pipe cut open, there were 3 dead cows i spotted overturned in the river as i drove along it, and the water shined in several different shades of green and grey.
And i swear, every single person in that place is a money-faced scheming asswipe. Every chance they get, they'll try to get money off you. The whole place is a rude scam place. Everyone tries to sell you something and they literally pester you to buy something from them even if you say no, and they're aggressive when they sell too. They'll come up to you when taking a photo, pose next to you, and when you take the picture, they charge you money for it. It's a real scary place to be.
And all the toilets have the cleaners standing outside charging people money to enter the toilets, and charge more for using the toilet paper. And s'not like the toilets were clean or anything, you could take a big dump in the middle of the place and no one would notice.
Seriously, if i could, i'd go back to the place with a lightsaber and saber every single person who tries to sell me something. And the service they give is complete and total bullshit. You might as well be served by monkeys injected with several different kinds of brain de-generative drugs.
But all in all, it was pretty awesome to see all the pyramids, temples and what not. And the weather was lovely. Although honestly, after the first few days, everything started to look like nothing more than triangular rocks and sand.
But, i did have fun, so that's what matters at the end of the day, right?
The Egyptian sun left me with this badass tan, and since i was wearing a pair of aviators the whole time, i have a sunglass tanline around my eyes.
I feel like a raccoon.
I've been bored shitless the entire day, and i forsee this shitlessness lasting for awhile.
My stupid birthday's coming up on friday, and i dread it like i do every year. Don't ask me why, i can't explain it either.
Don't get me wrong, i love birthdays, they mean something to me, but it's just that every year, i have expectations for some sort of surprise or at least a well spent day or something, and it never quite happens. Pfft.
And this year, everyone's gone away, no one's around in Singapore. Cassi's prolly got her own plans already, so i guess i'll just go some place and vegetate. Hah.
Been listening to Muse a lot.

Love this one, it's got a nice Jeff Buckley feel to it.

At the beginning, his distortion pedal and overdrive hints of Steve Vai's Bad horsie.

Love their versatility and style.
I'm gonna go find something better to do now.

Le compte de monte cristo

2009-11-29T10:46:00.003+08:00

And just like that, the count of monte cristo has come and gone. I can't say it was an easy journey, nor can i say i've enjoyed every second of it. But it's the people who really get me through the day. For what it's worth, i think i can say everything we suffered for was worth it. All the blood, sweat and shit, all three quite literally, was worth it.
After the show last night, we had to dissemble the set, remove the lights/flybar decor, clean up the dressing rooms and the stage. It was strange to take apart the illusion we built just 7 days ago, after living in that world we created, i felt slightly sentimental towards the platform, the hanging curtains and the 16 large cow sacks i had to lug by myself all the way from some godforsaken place in bedok.
It was like pressing a big reset button, within 2 hours, the entire theatre had returned to neutral, nothing left of the world of the count of monte cristo, only the memories that we carry with us forever. Finally got out of the theatre at 2-ish in the morning.
After three days of the show running, i got feedback from the various people who had come to watch and got the usual break down of who was a better actor than the other, or who was not.
But i dunno, personally, i don't believe there's such a thing as a better or a worser actor, to me, we're all the same. No matter what great or small part we play in the show, nothing could survive without the other. I'm not saying it's evil, but i just don't think it's right to categorize actors/musicians/artists as better/worse.
I mean how d'you even measure the grounds? There are a thousand different ways one can measure the calibre of an actor, so who's to say which one's the most accurate?
People tell me that i have so much talent in acting/music/art, but i personally don't think i am. To me, they're just things i love doing. I don't see how my life can go on without music, art or the stage.
It's not always about how well you do something, it's about how much you love doing it.
Art is an expression of life, what right has anyone have to define who's better than the other at expression? Pfft.
So, last night, we threw away perfection, we threw away perfect timing, perfect pitch, got up on that stage, and let every single head in that audience feel the world of the count of monte cristo.
A play isn't a show people go to watch, that's called cinema, not theatre. A play is a roller coaster ride that both actor and audience take, where the audience feels how the actor feels, and for even that one fleeting moment in time, feel like they're walking in the world that we create that is totally, perfectly and completely real. Or at least, that's what i try to do every time.
I must start packing for tonight, otherwise, i'd get on the plane to Cairo with nothing but a sweater, my script, and a half eaten granola bar in my back-pack.

From the hotel where you call

2009-11-13T23:34:00.002+08:00

I'm becoming increasingly comfortable with this holiday. Wake up, rush for the shower while the water's still hot, shove some scraps of food on the table into my mouth and rush out, heading for a little black box in the middle of ACJC, my second home for the past 11 months, sit in there, dance, act, sing till the sun shines no more, then head out of the compound with the rest of the renegades, occasionally to grab a bite, trudging through rain and darkness. More tired and sore than anything in this world, feeling like we just climbed a mountain or two. Then repeat everything from start to finish the next day.
Yesterday, the much needed god-given day of rest, met Jiyin for lunch and other nonsense we get up to, ended up at the karaoke screaming songs into a dinky little microphone which had the sound quality of a donkey's fart.
Joined Joan and Ken for an awesome fish and co dinner at ion. I can never get sick of that place.
Awoke at stupid o'clock this morning, had a little beef pie and a glass of OJ, and i was ready to face the day.
I just realized today was friday the 13th, and it all went by without a thought.
I sit by my mahogany desk, munching on a cheeseburger and a hot cup of earl grey for dinner at 1130 pm on a friday night. Ryan Adams is on my playlist. Again. Soft reminders of Vienna float into my mind as Political Scientist reaches its second chorus, the quaint rain patters on my air con, almost keeping time with the song.
The ghastly smell of muscle rub fills the air as i slop it onto my neck and shoulders, hoping by tomorrow morning, i awake with no pain. Pfft.
I'm calling you but you're not picking up. I guess i'll just have to wait for your thrilling last minute requests that i always seem to comply with.
Someone throw a brick at my head, please.
I've a thousand things to remember for tomorrow and all i feel doing now is heading out into the rain and running till i see Africa or somewhere.

2009-11-06T21:13:00.003+08:00

I hate to wallow in self-pity and the broken glass from the cup that i threw against the brick wall, and i hate to be reminded that i'm incapable of being involved with any other person in human emotions like love and lust purely because of the way i look, and i hate to sound like i'm sad and "emo" about myself and the way i look, i try my very best to disguise it by making the people around me feel happy, but it gets harder every day to do that when this immense feeling inside of me eats away my insides like a subtle fly to a frog.
I know this may sound weird and strange to even the most normal person, but i need to shout it out somewhere. It's impossible even for myself to keep up with this bullet train of emotions that seems to favour my head as a docking ground.
Maybe all i really need is to shut down and stop thinking for a bit.
The November rain seems to be sweeping in comfortably.
I close my eyes and grip my mug full of hot chocolate and try to think of anything that doesn't have to do with all this bullshit, i stop and realize that everything i do has become part of it, not thinking about it would leave me with, well, nothing.
So i dwell instead in, well, the bullshit.
Therein lies my enigma.
Nothing, or Bullshit?

Under the influence of you

2009-10-31T11:16:00.002+08:00

I haven't felt like myself lately, i can barely recognize myself when i look in the mirror. It's worrying.
Yesterday, i got caught in school for having long hair at the back and was forced to get a haircut from one of the evil immigrant people who were once tea leaf pickers in some province in China who decided to ride a goat to Singapore to cut innocent boys' hair to make a living. So i sat in line with the other dozen or so guys who got caught for long hair waiting to have our pride and joy chopped off by the wonderful tea planters.
When it reached my turn, i told the nice farmer, "Hi, i've been keeping this hair shape for about 6 months now and it's taken a lot of careful cutting by a very expensive barber, so is it possible for you to just trim the back slightly and leave the rest as it is?"
She probably only understood the language of the elves or the plants for she stared at me as if i just spoke French to a Sumatran head hunter.
But i told myself to trust her, after all, the teachers in the school would hire proper hairdressers to trim our hair so we won't look incredibly stupid, right?
With that great expectation in mind, i watched in horror as the tea planter put down her scissors, picked up a comb and a razor and started slicing off my hair as if they were crops.
With each slice, my heart sank more as the back of my head got butchered into this odd carpet grass square box, and as my fringe got cut into a straight line. I felt like grabbing the razor from her hands and lunging it straight into her chest. But i couldn't. She seemed to be holding it too tightly to snatch.
And so, now, my hair looks worse than a mule's arse, but what can i do about it? All i can do to help myself now is wait for it to grow back and then get my usual barber to trim it to its original shape before hacked by tea planters. Pfft.
I'm gonna go hibernate in some corner of my house and think about storyboards for my IS and maybe get out my guitar and pen down a tune or two. The year end rain's been rolling in and i've never felt happier to have storm clouds above my head. It feels like the end of some drought, but it's prolly just the entire year catching up with me. It's been an exhausting couple of months and it's only gonna get worse from here on.
The desi girl dance is tonight, i pray we'll all have enough energy to pump out the whole dance on that stage. Exhausting yet so fulfilling.

JM's new song from Battle Studies.

Images of broken light

2009-10-28T22:54:00.002+08:00

I'm in one of those states of mind where tiredness and fatigue have taken over and where i no longer possess any sense of self, conscious or not.
So as i'm writing this, my eyes shift from the wooden parquet of my floor to the off white of my ceiling trying to burrow into the deepest pits of my mind to tell you my life story that has taken place over the past week or so. Then i realize that the only thing i can tell you is that I've been having rehearsals. Nothing else but that.
Although tiring, the insane combination of both text and dance routines are strangely relaxing. I feel like i'm working a job rather than following a set list of CCA rehearsal timings.
Results were revealed last week. I didn't do too badly this time, it's prolly too early to say but, I've been promoted and have managed to boost my intellectual status from "inadequate" to "decent." But i doubt much can change to divert the direction of my grades. In the end, i think i can say i'm satisfied. Pfft.
My birthday's coming round the bend in about a month or so, and this time, i'm really not looking forward to it.
Every year i have such great expectations for a surprise or some sort of celebration that someone might throw in my face, but almost every year, nothing much has happened except the wonderful love from my family. Besides, this time, most of my closest friends will be in another country while i sit here on this Island, laughing at myself and my decision to shift my Egypt trip to an earlier date just so i could be in Singapore on my birthday to celebrate it. Pfft. Funny how the things you plan for never actually go according to the blue prints.
And like you said, it's also during ACFF, so no one's gonna chose any party i'm holding over that. True. Fine. You win. Ruin my hopes of a party when i went to your ruined one. Get bent you sickening dickweed. Sometimes, i wonder why the dark hands of fate ever put you and i face to face.
It feels like i'm walking through a hall of multi-coloured mirrors, smashing every reflection with hobnail boots strapped to my feet. Every monster that stares back at me, every single monster that you told me i am.
Ok, i shan't digress into that path.
I've got dance rehearsals for HSM, CMC and Desi Girl back to back on Friday. Survive it? Oh sure, why not? Death seems funny to me now after being so used to all this.
Dad managed to grab front rows for the Tommy Emmanuel concert at the esplanade tomorrow. God bless your soul dear father. Best part, tomorrow is rehearsal free. I'm going to the concert to see one of the most skilled acoustic guitarists of our time and nothing even close to a flying truck is going to stop me.

p.s. Does anyone else feel like sleeping in tomorrow and banishing all thoughts of school and work?

Getting ready to leave the ground

2009-10-16T22:36:00.002+08:00

I haven't actually had the time to sit down and do a proper post like this in a long while. But now that the promos are over, i've got a little more time on my hands to spend doing pointless stuff like this.
The past two days have been nothing but bliss ever since the papers ended, finally jumped into the school pool after the DEP paper on Tuesday at night with Pris, Mich, Afi and Archanaa and swam. Went to Mich's house after that for nothing but movies and stayed there for the night.
Woke up the next morning and did it all over again, went home in the afternoon to catch a snooze before Archanaa came over. All of us met again for dinner at parkway after that. It felt like this big holiday trip where we kept seeing each other. It felt like we were on our own little Island where the only people we knew existed were each other.
Yesterday and today was AC games, basically, this huge conglomeration of sports. Like the olympics, with less grandeur. Came out of the games with a tan that left me redder than a poached lobster. I thought it'd be boring and sad like the previous 10 games days that i've attended/skipped. But i actually enjoyed this one. It kinda felt like one huge picnic.
Rehearsals for Monte Cristo started yesterday after the games and lasted till 8, even today.
I was apprehensive about kicking rehearsals back into motion, but i'm getting the same thrill pulsing under my skin whenever i read from that bullet proof script or dance to that ancient music. It's our love for this art that pulls us back every time, like our own little drug to the pain.
As new president of the Arts Council, Yanka chose the ONE campaign for their CIP project and have set up a booth selling ONE campaign support stuff during AC games, and i'm a sucker for these things. So i bought a badge and the iconic ONE wristband. Started by the great Bono of U2. They also held a pledge taking thing today, 300 over people showed up to take the pledge and the straits times showed up with a camera and a reporter so that our voices would be imprinted onto a little section of the papers sometime this week.
I don't know if its the wristband or my natural urge to stand up for causes like this, but i feel compelled to give you this website www.onesingapore.org and tell you to join the cause to stop poverty worldwide.
Michael Buble's new album "Crazy Love" came out in America yesterday. Gonna hunt for it this weekend.
John Mayer's just finished recording his new album "Battle Studies", not sure when it'll be out though.
The holidays start soon and before i know it, Monte Cristo will be done with and then my birthday will zoom past like nobody's business, then Christmas will fizzle in 12 days, and then 2009 would've gone by.
It's amazing how fast time can go without us even realizing it.
I can't wait for the following weeks to come, it's not going to be that free, but at least i won't have the impending pressure of exams or anything. Life in technicolour again.