Sunday, October 24, 2004

i sit here in the living room on a drizzly october night simultaneously typing this and watching joan of arc, feet twitching aimlessly about in anticipation of milla jovovich's burning at the stake. i am restless, chewing upon salted peas which my father brought back from raffles hotel, i don't understand why people even like salted peas, i don't understand why i'm even eating them, they give me gas. having two brothers equals no instant food left in the house. my parents aren't even the stingy sort when it comes to food, it's just that my brothers are too good at scavenging all the instant soup and instant noodles and potato chips.. in other words, junk that i'd so love to be able to eat at this time of the night, especially with 3 essays weighing heavily upon my back.

just came back from the theatre studies dept's production twilightofthegolds, at fort canning's black box. my dad asked me how the play went, and i replied "oh, it's about the same old issues", and you know what, it is! perhaps it's too difficult to attempt the fantastic in plays. hmm. there's a thought. anyway. it was about abortion and homosexuality, coupled with the rapid advancement in genome technology. what would you do if you discovered that your unborn child would be a homosexual, but in all other things remain perfect and even, perhaps, be superbly sensitive and intelligent? (hmm sounds like quite a few gays out there ;P) would you abort the child? (aside: maann... john malkovich seems to be REALLY good at playing the twisted bad guy) seriously though, i don't know. i happen to think i hold quite a liberal stance on homosexuality, but it may be a different situation should the person in question be an immediate family member. still. i don't think i'd abort, unless the child is going to suffer from both mental and physical defects, or a debilitating disease.

my thoughts of late have been getting increasingly scattered. i have deemed myself the lowest of all my french classmates, i'll be lucky to even scrape a D. i smell french fries in my enclosed cave of a room, where the last food-like substance to ever enter for the past few days has only been cups of water. my right hip aches as if it's been dislocated and the joint is trying to get back into its sore socket. last night i dreamt of envelopes. everyone got a big one each. i dreamt of jumping from shifting coloured box to coloured box as if in a computer game, dodging hurtling trolleys presumably carrying more mail. i love my agility in dreams. and i don't dream in black and white, either. the thing is, i dreamt i got the envelope from PSU.. so clear my dream was, that i held multicoloured A4 sheets of paper and i remember one page had columns of things to sign for, and that the leftmost column was already signed by the authorities from over there. and when i woke up, my first thought was to call norman and tell him that i'd already received my package and did he get his too? until i realised that it was all but a dream. perhaps this comes from constantly sleeping at 5am.

i am doing this in denial of the essays that i am supposed to write. back to blasted microsoft word i go!
serial dreamer had time to talk trash at 1:36 AM


Thursday, November 04, 2004

For the past few nights, there has been a water-skater of sorts dangling on the inner wallsof my bathroom sink. it can’t be the same one, for each time i see it i flush it down withcopious amounts of clear water, followed by toothpastey water, followed by facial-washey water. Unless, like a sort of multiple-legged Indiana Jones, it surfs agilely on the vertical flow, finds a grip on the inner part of the drain-stop and there it clings, underneath the shelter of its shiny umbrella, safe from all the corrosive fluoride and garniér foam beads i can possibly throw its way. Or maybe it takes exactly 24 hours to climb up the pipe from wherever my torrent of water’s flung it, only to reach the slippery gray walls of the sink to meet my merciless gaze and the turning of the tap. Hmm. And then i go outside to take my nightly red cup of water from the marble bar countertop, for a brief moment imagining Norman Bates hyped-up-on-acid with his psychotic eyes and bloodstained sharp knife arising slowly from the murky living room beyond that marbletop to stab my hands as i reach for that plastic cup.

What can I say. It’s a kind of ritual, for these nights at least.

and then i think about the fact that there's three months (janfevmars) looming ahead, where the frost will probably gather upon the screen that i'm staring at now, the water in my cup frozen into ice, that i won't be able to use a cup at all, but a thermos, perhaps. yes, i'm going to pennstate, managed to get my package last week, felt like it was christmas come early. and so now i'm itchy-fingered, typing out my thoughts as they come. borrowed two anthologies of short stories (so good for toiletliterature) from the central library, one by muriel spark and one on jazz short stories(!). it seems to me so many have forgotten the actual pleasure of going to the library now, given the fact that most students go there for research purposes and not to borrow light reading..anyways. i digress. my flight's been booked, i fly on the 29th of december, at 1030pm, on korean airlines (yeah this may induce raised eyebrows but i don't care, apparently it's a limited seat period). so you heard it here first, don't say i never update you people. *winks at yanny* i shall spend new year's in new york city, am meeting karen and friends there. i expect the days to be transcendent, full of glittery-snowflaked bliss.

gail told me on sunday that i shall have to break tradition with my christmas present opening. i never thought of that before. but she's right. i always open presents one a day at a time, just so's the pleasure's prolonged. the same goes for birthdays. that way, no matter how dreary the day is, there's always a present waiting for me. like a light at the end of the metaphorical tunnel. and so i continue opening my presents into september from august, and into january from december. it's a fun ritual, but this time the cold crisp air i shall breathe will just have to tide over my days.

i just read this line."the greatest literature is the occasional kind, a mere after-thought... life, is the important thing." the seraph and the zambesi, muriel spark

amazing, that. i've always wished to be able to capture the essence of things within a single sentence, like the way i've told many how the body shop scent oceanus can bring back poo-caked paris to me immediately, like the way proust's tea-dipped madeleine brought his own memories flooding back (see, i DID learn something from university). i guess i've got a long way to go. that sentence, it summarizes what i feel about words i suppose. they've a sort of immortality about them, it's perhaps why blogging seems to take so much out of me. it's a chunk of my mind laid out here for you. it's not melancholy, i try to be subjectively objective (hehe now i'm just talking crap), i really DO believe that life's the important thing. that's why, though being melancholy sometimes feels quite nice (heh), self-pity CAN turn into quicksand, or a drug. it becomes a safe sort of feeling, an anchor, the bed that you don't want to get up from in the morning so that you'll have to face the day and its inherent dangers. but hey darlings, it's all part of the phenomenon called living. so wake up and take great delight in smelling the shite in singapore, because they have poo in paris, the same sort of dung in dubai... okay. you get the idea.
serial dreamer had time to talk trash at 3:23 AM


Monday, December 06, 2004

haven't blogged in quite a while, don't know why, perhaps i just felt sick of collating my thoughts and making them sound normal. been suffering these terrible headaches for some time now (the worst was the night before brit modern period) but it's been reduced to mild pressures, nonetheless i sense i'm still tired and some weird circuitry within me refuses to let up on the reading despite knowing i ought to take a rest and knowing (after a checkup today) that my right eye has increased by 75 degrees... what is IT with me anyway. can't stop reading. after brit mp i hiked over to the central library for goodness' sakes, and took home 5 thick tomes... haha well happiness is curling up in bed with a book and knowing that i can sleep in late tomorrow.

today i got my influenza and meningitis vaccinations done for my US trip, amazing how two pinpricks in both shoulders can make you feel sleepy and thirsty and trollish, by which i mean some huge thing with oversized arms. went to watch the incredibles with my family after that, and boy is it funny! i feel the movie's quite well done with very real human reactions and gestures (except all that superstuff, you know our lives are too drearily dull and don't include all that), and jack-jack's so cute!! haha. though violet's powers are probably the best.last night we came home from a long weekend at KL... last minute sorta trip but rather fulfilling... the day before we left i booked our accommodation online, yeah, THAT kind of last minute. well the accommodation turned out to be pleasantly surprising, perfect in every way (if you're not the fussy sort, demanding four-poster beds and renaissance art thingies) and i was extremely comfortable, we even had the disney channel and star movies (which we don't get at home). went shopping till we dropped (literally. my legs were screaming) and came to this unanimous agreement that in kl the shopping malls may be fearsomely huge but the toilets are so damnably small and are all of the infernal squat variety, meaning that m'sians must have very strong legs (to squat with), either that or they hold it all in during shopping and only release in the spaciousness of home. seriously... they even charge 30 sen for eensty cubicles that stink and all that... i just end up washing my hands to make it worth the cents. bah. sorry for my unhygienic rant on lavatories of the kl variety.

ooooh.... speaking of which, my bro and i invested in a whoopie cushion... it's totally hilarious... a different tone of fart every time! the first time daniel sat on it joshua fell down with laughter... i think i prefer the whoopie cushion fart... loud and long but odourless. HAHA.. XD oh, and we also opened the Xbox today, shoulda seen joshy's face! he couldn't believe it! it's christmas come early to our house in the shape of halo 2 limited edition.

yes... well, anyway. it's december already, how time flies! so many things have happened that i never imagined would have, things done TO me and things done BY me and things THOUGHT by me in the course of the entire year. worth it, all these perspectives changed, a little wiser about people, a bit more cynical (and j-j-j-jajaded) and therefore clinging ever tighter to the only solid institutions in life: family and God, yes, nothing else is stable or trustworthy, always watch your back for the snikt of unsheathed claws. and still, and still. made closer friends with more girls this year, how surprising. it seems i've shifted the loyalty of the thought that guys make better friends than girls. i change my philosophy after experiences this year... stuff that's made me disappointed in other people as well as myself. hmmm. suffice it to say that i'm so, so glad that at night when i can't sleep for nuts and my head is pounding fit to burst (with cartoonish birdies wielding mallets and thumping my temples spasmodically) i can crawl into my parents' laps and seek comfort... don't know what i'd do without them, seriously. i admit i'm still young and immature that way. can't be helped, i'm savouring every moment i have with these two (though they sometimes have SUCH shrill voices) until i gotta leave...only 22 days left to flying off day! meanwhile, call me up for coffee and buy me a book voucher if you want to make me contentedly happy, like a warm puppy, for awhile. oh, and get some of the holiday cheer here!
serial dreamer had time to talk trash at 11:18 PM


Tuesday, December 14, 2004

the doctors and nurses of the state are driving me crazy.

sorry but i really must gripe awhile. firstly, i headed to the clementi polyclinic to get my meningitis vaccination done (and don't know why, got cajoled into getting influenza as well, my body is teeming with billions of antibodies just waiting to punch the lights out of the germies), and the nurse and doctors simply REFUSED to sign the form that shows WHERE i got the jab. oKAY. i can still deal with this. i then head to the health promotion board at SGH to get my history of vaccinations report. it's not ready yet, and they CAN'T sign the forms either. i'm still breathing easy. i THEN head to YIH's UHWC (it's a stupid abbreviation for a stupid name for a clinic and don't correct me cause' i'm in a ranting mood) for a medical checkup which GOES UN-BLOODY-FINISHED because i have YET to take a mantoux test BECAUSE singapore is a high-risk country for tuberculosis.SO. tomorrow i'm going to tantockseng to GET my blasted mantoux test done, THEN off to SGH to get the history of vaccinations report. i am THEN heading to UCC to work for 7 hours straight. i am going to be TIRED. but that's good, because i've come to the realisation that i've been suffering from night-insomnia (note i said night because nothing bothers me from nodding off to sleep during lectures and sermons and bus rides in the day) for the past month or so, and can only sleep throughout the night sans interruptions IF i have had an extremely tiring day. so. besides the insomnia and the occasional period cramps i am a HEALTHY person. why do they refuse to verify me as so? chalk it down to the contortionist health system.

why do i always seem to be doing things the long way around, the wrong way? am i stupid or what? i don't know, but whatever's happened so far seems to point to that statement being true. other people don't have as much problems with these health forms as i do, that much i do know for sure. i just keep wasting time and money. speaking of money, i don't have any. haha! *crazed grin of the near-insane*... i keep spending my parents' money getting stuff for myself and the trip i'm getting embarrassed.. i want to hide in a corner and just say "i'm taking whatever i've got and sod it if my ears and fingers and other appendages drop off if i'm freezing in just three layers of cloth in subzero temperatures because i simply can't bear spending any more of your money, it's hideously shameful.."

but of course i won't. just like the way xiuxiu couldn't shoot her toesies off. (don't mind me.. i watched that utterly depressing banned-in-china-directed-by-joan-chen film in the central library today with baoyi and the mournful plaintive melody of nananaaa is reverberating around in my head like a demented remote-controlled car.. you know, the kind that some kid plays with in carrefour or some super crowded place and it gets snagged up in some trolley or pram wheel but i digress, as usual) anyway. the thing is, i'm sick of how this christmas is ending up to be memememememe. how the insurance costs 1K, how i have to buy a new suitcase because all of ours are too small and above two centuries old, how i need this and that. i'm sick of how i'm so totally broke and it's christmas and i've yet to write a single card for my everlong list of christmas card people, not to mention even THINKING of getting presents because it'll just mean asking my parents for more money and no way am i gonna do that. i am disappointed with december because it doesn't have 50 days, which is what i need at minimum to do all the things i want to do before i leave. i am also disappointed with people i am unable to meet because they're busy and so am i. i am unhappy, and that's an understatement for the way i'm feeling right now.

okay. i am done with complaining... now on to the good stuff

went to watch xiuxiu:the sent down girl and love's labour's lost with baoyi today.. it's amazing how friends from secondary school have endured till now and have become closer people instead of mere hi-bye acquaintances.. it was great talking to you (half of it was about food, what gluttons we are) and just spending time, leisurely talking about life and its mishaps and happy moments in the cool breezy central forum.. i'm gonna miss that.

thanks to my mentoring group for rearranging their schedules to meet tonight. it was a good time of fellowship and catching up that we had, mayfern sylvia jiating and xiuying... especially syl... haven't seen you for SOOOO long! sigh zan (if you see this), thought a weeknight was what you wanted, but never mind. take care at work and don't overstress. gonna miss you all (yesyes reiteration but heck i MEAN it) when i leave.

that's it from my verbal diarrhoea-suffering mouth for now. if you want to tell me you'll miss me (and believe you me it WILL do wonders for my badly battered-by-bad-docs-and-nurses self) just leave a post below. ta.
serial dreamer had time to talk trash at 1:04 AM


  posted by juice.susceptible @ 2:37 AM