fish underwater

I was reorganizing my room when I stumbled upon a diary I kept in P5 detailing the joys and sorrows of being a tween in 2003. Priceless!

I love this entry:
"Dear Diary, I feel very poorly today. And my head really hurts. I am now writing with my new Parker pen... and it's a fountain pen! I really < 3 the ink. My grandpa bought it for my (sic) because I got 3rd in class! And it came with a really stylish leather carrying case."

Here is another classic:
"Hi Di! The days r getting a little cooler, the clothes r a little more difficult to dry."

And as an echo of a familiar past:
"Today I cut my hair. Not really sensational news but I really miss having messy hair. My mum made me do it. As usual. IT WAS MY HAIR! So not fair! During the hair cut *rolls eyes* I nearly cried. Never have I been so emotional IN MY LIFE! But I didn't cry though. And nobody knew how much I was suffering! I'm NEVER going to let that happen to my child – who will be adopted."

There were some very sad things too, like the time my uncle passed away or my grandmother had an near-fatal existential crisis. These were, however, downplayed tremendously by my preoccupation with Neopet updates and how much life
"sux". I was such a prodigiously eloquent child.

create a font

So lately, people have been asking me: How are you? Are you coping well? Is everything still OK? And trust me, hearing these is a comfort enough for me and I am sincerely thankful for the concern.

However, I feel worse when I discover that I don't feel as troubled or deeply distressed as others seem to assume I am. True, I am definitely aware that this is a grave situation that I am in right now, but c'mon guys, it's not the end of the world. Life on earth is just a passage to encounter God and experience his tremendous love for us, and illnesses, no matter whether they sentence you to disaster and misery, enable us to realise how fragile we are and how the hubris of a comfortable existence has removed our zeal for Life as it is, devoid of ambition and the complications of modern society.

Anyway, in the past weeks, my aunt was diagnosed with cancer in its latest stage, my mum started losing hair after chemotherapy and my grandfather had to be hospitalized after coughing blood. I say this without shame, because this really is Life As It Is, and I have accepted this reality that God has allowed to happen that is beyond my locus of control. I have no idea what to expect in the future – will I still be able to tell my mum about my day while we wash dishes after dinner? Will I still be able to wake up to breakfast that I cannot stomach? Will I become increasingly familiar with the route to the hospital? - but I still can find joy in uncertainty because it's God's will taking place before my eyes. The thought of absence, departures and loss can still invoke sadness, but there is no such thing as an invalid emotion, only inappropriate expressions of that emotion.

If emotion can be inappropriately expressed, then I'm getting tired of dramatic people and their irksome absorption with The Self and how everyone else is merely peripheral to The Self. I want to remind them to be socially responsible when venting online, but suppressing these outlets for catharsis can open up possibly more harmful ways of manifesting emotion into action. Therein lies a grey area that I also have to stoically live with.

Speaking of inappropriate expressions of emotion, I am marveling, with ironic distance, at how my life is starting to read like a bad telenovela. In a week's time, my extended family will gather to celebrate my grandmother's birthday at a far-away chalet by the beach. With three members down with debilitating illnesses, no one can say for sure that we will see each other again during Chinese New Year. Amidst the rolling waves (a metaphor for the ebb and flow of time and other Woolfian ideas yadda yadda) and the setting sun (an image suggesting an end, yet withholding any certain finality), will the family continue to hold on together throughout this arduous journey? (To be frank, however, my sister and I are preparing to bring along materials for revision and self-study.)

But you know what? I'm happy. It's not a happiness stemming from a resignation to what is real, but joy that is active and without irony or sneering cynicism. Yesterday's duathlon (in which Andrea and I came in 20th - yay us!) and today's ice-cream pig-out session with CTITW made me see God's grace in my life. Still, I'm a marginally materialistic individual with a tendency to judge on impulse, but ya gotta have some flaws anyway. (Kidding)

So, thanks for reading this. You may not feel it, but I sure am glad to share this with you.

swim with dolphins

My head is filled with things that make me happy and things that make me sad and things that make me angry and things that make me mad.

What a jaunty little rhyme!

I don't know if I will be in Poland in a month's time.
I'll trust in God's plan.

Inner states are in flux again.

The CCL is disappointing.
The MRT is disappointing.
Disappointments are part of life.

Today we forayed into pure mathematics and non-euclidean geometry during KI. I sat mesmerized.

Inner states are in flux again.

Inner states are in flux again.

InNeR sTaTeS aRe In F L u X again.

flirt on the train

Things to do:
1) Buy a bag of chips. Or popcorn. Whatever.
2) Go to www.imheremovie.com.
3) Watch the film.
4) Die inside.
5) Repeat.

stage-dive

So tired. But things are starting to look up (albeit a *teensy* bit, but it's better than stagnation). 26 days left to the big day!

I really want to go to NYC this June. I've been aching to step into MoMA, visit Bloomingdale's, check out Columbia and NYU, have a picnic in Central Park and endure the Plane Ride Of My Life, and suddenly this all becomes available to me, and I'm dying to go on this trip that it's almost having a numbing effect on me, like this is a dream and I'll wake up after finding myself in an airport the size of my primary school, carrying a Jurassic Park backpack with wheels and unable wipe ketchup off my passport. If I do go on this trip, I'm going to have religious experiences all over the place - already I couldn't contain the tide of Overwhelming that gushed out from the shinkansen as I stepped into Tokyo - and my spontaneous breakdowns will surely make me the most annoying 18-year-old in the state. I'll cry when I see the UN headquarters, kiss the grounds of Columbia U (origin of the East Coast Beats e.g. Ginsberg) and bring myself to a state of hysterical rapture in the middle of the Guggenheim.

I just want to buy into this mythologizing of NYC's allure. It's like a fairy tale.

see the northern lights

The audio in this video cracks me up.

go to the opera and listen to the fat lady sing

(Old, taken from my drafts:)

So, I'm turning my room into a hipster's den. Check out those mock Wayfarers!



I am fiercely protective of my Agatha Christie collection, by the way. Also, my CTITW homies and I are very into framing up the worst pictures of ourselves.


Also, all the cool kids paste photos on their walls, and you should too.

That's all for now. There's still more to come, once I find real estate on my wall to paste the giant Where The Wild Things Are poster that came with my DVD. Esther and I have still not agreed on what colour to paint our walls next.

Today: Read The Secret History, got distracted and looked it up on Wikipedia, accidently spoiling the plot for myself. Saw doctor and was awarded 2 days of MC. Bought zucchini, not knowing what to do with them. Analyzed my A level exam timetable.
Tomorrow: The Tempest! I even read the play this afternoon in preparation for tomorrow, clearly indicative that the nerd within me is on speed.

be an extra in a movie

Sigh, I am filled with ennui and thus will write a poem with a rigid rhyme scheme:

great ambivalence has marred my joy.
but sometimes things exist in binaries, boy.
I think I am just a toy.
For someone else's ploy.
I should mingle with the hoi-polloi,
now that for my name, none shall employ.

*cue panpipes*

But I am nobody's man,
it wasn't in my plan.
Even though my heart is as big as a van,
I would give the sea to save this old hen.

Yeah, y'all can go kick this can.



*Anyway, I'm titling my posts from a gift I received this year. Try guessing the category these statements fit in. (So cool, it's just like the Pyramid Game!)

Add enclosure link

It is oddly comforting to log-in to MSN (a rare occurrence) and find that people are still using the same display names that they have used since forever, when we walked in Perth past the train tracks past the tea tree bushes into caves that led out to the sea. When we sat and talked about our still-small world. When we could only write bad surreal poetry and daydream, bleary eyed, about the future. I could go on.

So life's been a screaming bitch for the past few days, conclusions are dangerous, and I'm just one person staring unapologetically down into a dark chasm.

Dang, I want to jump in just to fill my head with the sound of air rushing past to meet infinity.