haha this is like the dunno-how-manyth time i'm saying this, but, "I'M BACK!"

just got back to school finally, dunno whether to be happy or not. my journey back here was horrendous, for starters. the airplane food was nauseating, the longer leg of the flight had no personal entertainment thingy, and for that flight too, there wasn't a single air stewardess. not that it was a totally bad thing lah, cos there were 4 air stewards. the two who were in charge of my aisle were pretty effeminate, and were an interesting sight to behold. esp the way one of them closed the overhead compartments. wah. of course, i'm not saying this to ridicule or anything, cos it's not like i'm extremely hunky or masculine either, in fact i think the feminine nature is a lot more attractive than the masculine (haha dunno if that's a duh comment or not). really, i can't think of anything very cool about being male. i mean, just think of male fashion: the only real variations are length of sleeves and colour, and maybe thickness of material. whereas girls have such a wonderful spectrum of attire to choose from! they can even pull of male clothes! it's just unfair lah i think, that society has decreed the male gender to be utterly boring.

but anyway, the good thing about being back here is the weather! i really dunno how i'm ever going to survive in singapore when i'm going to have to start wearing long sleeved shirts to work man. and tie summor.... wear t-shirt already want to concuss already! anyway it's really beautiful now in ithaca, though i guess the temperature is going to start plummeting soon. nevermind though, cos it's still good now!

played a bit of gunbound back in singapore, just before i came over. my little sis made me download it in exchange for her doing her work, and i ended up playing matches for her cos she was shooting all over the place. anyway i realized that everyone there is still as vulgar, and also that my skills haven't changed a bit! i'm still stuck at slightly above average, which, i guess, was quite reassuring. but because of that, i very soon got bored again cos i wasn't getting anywhere, and so gunbound is now out of my life once more. :)

ok have to go for structures TA meeting now! will update real soon!

played beach volleyball today! note to self: never take an afternoon nap before volleyball.

wah my reflexes so blardy slow today man.... my brain is probably still playing the game right now. gosh, i need training, i need miss poon to make me run around the track 5 times so that i can get my idea straight! but it was fun still... great weather today for sand court! i kept digging my feet into the sand just to prove to myself that summer was finally treating us well.... hopefully this spell of good weather will attach itself to me when i return to our SUNNY ISLAND SET IN THE SEA!

ok qn. is that line refer to the sunset context, or did it mean something like setting a diamond onto a ring? i remember being very perplexed as a child, that our sunny island would be setting/sinking slowly into the sea, sending crabs and prawns swimming past our front door. i was pretty safe then tho, cos i lived at the fourth floor!

When I'm Tired

New song! i really need to record all these soon man, before i forget everything...

When I'm Tired

Take me
To a place where night falls early
A place where moonlight blankets our minds
And steals the day away

Hold my hand
And walk me through this maze of thorns
That surrounds my heart with quiet wounds
And steal my breath away

Find me
When with my eyes I cannot see
When shadows try to reach me
Take me far away

Want me
For there's nothing else that pleases me
More than giving you my every song
My every hope
My every dream

thoughts about architecture...

what is a membrane? ok... first passes at the word conjure up images of thin, transparent sheets, flexible, elastic. the transparency varies of course. ok here's what i got from wikipedia.

A membrane is a thin, typically planar structure or material that separates two environments. Because it sits between environments or phases and has a finite volume, it can be referred to as an interphase rather than an interface. Membranes selectively control mass transport between the phases or environments.

selectively controlling mass transport. biological membranes are generally semi permeable, letting in some molecules but not others. some components of these membranes also change the properties of things passing through.

what can architectural membranes filter? light? people? but why would there be a need for separation? maybe the membrane is two sided. discovery. translucency is a mechanism for enticement. but how do we get through? if gaps were so big that individuals could fit through, would we still recognise a membrane? unless of course the scale of the environment is proportionally increased, to a point where we can imagine ourselves to be little molecules in a giant cell. what if a membrane could give way? movable screens, flaps, could membranes be immaterial? like, what if it's a mesh of light or laser rays, that form a visual boundary but not a physical one? i'll have to test that out i suppose. of course if we think of a visual barrier, it would lead us to the other senses as well. what about a barrier of sound? white noise that increases towards a particular area, which then becomes the boundary. that boundary would then give a sense of discomfort, or disorientation, or it wouldn't be a barrier would it?

ok so what if we can't pass through... maybe the surface could be flexible or pliable, but nevertheless impenetrable. some laboratories or workshops have gloves attached to screens or panels that you can use to handle object across the barrier, but which keep you from being directly exposed to the contents beyond. could have applications in museums right? i recall that when i went to the MoMA, there were guards all over, tall, dark, suited monsters that screamed at you not to touch that chair, or that kettle, etc.. what if there was a whole gallery of touchable displays that are nevertheless sealed off from tarnishing or contamination? of course, we'd still need security cameras. can glass be considered a membrane? i don't think so. i think a membrane has to yield somehow, and not only to light and sound.

damn, so much to think about, so little time.

sad thing about this world is -- there's always one more thing you can do before you start doing work...

anyway, because i hardly did any work today, there's nothing much to talk about. summer's supposed to be fun man! where's the fun!? oh oh remember liao. watched shaman king today with my summer housemates. damn fun. i realize that there's a lot of pleasure to be derived from having 4 people crowding around a tiny laptop and groaning/shouting/laughing etc at the characters on the screen.... sometimes even better than watching movie! plus no need to pay 8.75 as long as bit torrent is still alive and well. so yah this shaman king series is an anime about little kids who can summon spirits, and we've just reached the climactic last 8 episodes. really wanted to finish watching, but i'm glad i stopped cos or else i'll never finish any work!

so yah, talking about movies... heard singapore's cinema prices are creeping closer and closer to the 2 digit mark! so weird, not as if the cinema screens are getting better, or the seats are getting softer....but then again i'm in NY so i dunno.... who knows right, maybe they have waitresses going around the cinema to serve people food liao....

"excuse me sir, do you want drink?"
"ok wait first ah i see finish this part...."
"oui! sit down can or not! your tray blocking my face!"

actually it might be a good thing to have waitresses/waitors moving around... then all those pirates can't film properly liao.... but then again that might not be such a good thing, come to think of it.

i think animes are so cool....you can almost feel the creative juices of the artists and writers solidifying in front of you....it's really amazing how the cartoon medium allows for so much freedom, and those jap folks really throw in everything they've got! and japanese is such a cute language! esp if you don't know what the heck those people are talking about.... :)

currently addicted to this game called ohm busters, one of those music games where those little bars drop down from the top of the screen and you have to hit the correct key when it reaches the bottom. damn fun... parents should let their kids play this man, confirm they'll be damn good at piano after that. james is like the champion lor.... i can't even follow him when he plays the game... yizhuan just press all the keys at once, hoping that something will hit. but everyone should try... it gives you the most wonderful headache after that... along with the feeling that everything around you is moving upwards. cheap way of getting drunk, without having to get drunk :)

i just wrote another song! wow... i'm in a song writing mood lately. this is way brighter than the song about fanatics i wrote a few days ago though, so violent people don't be disappointed ok?

title is I Love Charlotte Very Much

and it goes like this:

I'm looking at you
Looking at me
Wondering what it is that you see
Wondering what exactly you found in me

Cos if I were you
I'd go find someone new
Someone with money
Or someone with shoes
If I were you I wouldn't be stuck with me

But since you're here
Well there's nothing to fear
Cos I'm just a boy
And you're not a beer
And I'm sure you'll be happy
Cos I've always been happy with me

And we'll grow old together
Like mold on a loaf
Till we're covered in spores
Or turned into toast
But I'll never let anything take you away from me

And one day you'll find
That songs stop to rhyme
And guitars are on sale for a nickel or a dime
And i hope you'll be glad for this song in your memory

It goes
Kenneth and Charlotte sitting on a tree
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
Are you M-I-S-S-I-N-G
Me?

eh? oh i'm still here! haha just finished one round of blog stalking.... read on mrbrown that nkf having this little 1 on 1 with sph. sounds cool man. next up, lky v lhl! ok nobody knows what that means right.... anyway, it's kinda sad that my knowledge of current affairs in singapore is limited to the little bits and pieces i read from other peoples' blogs. you know, if only Straits Times didn't decide to charge us kiam siap singaporeans for the Interactive, then.... actually no difference also. want me to read news must stuff in front of my face with accompanying death threat or else forget it. and if anyone from temasek holdings reads this, i'm just joking ok. no need to take everything seriously wan. i am actually very good at current affairs. i just don't like to tell people about it.

ok really back to work.

woohoo! taking a little break from architecture to do a little bit of slacking! i mean blogging....

anyway had an epiphany today: cornell architects have this little tradition of throwing toilet paper on top of the trees in arts quad, the night before Dragon Day. i've just realized how unknowingly cruel this is.... not only for the engineers who have to endure one whole day without toilet paper, but think of it. imagine you're a tree. some guy chops down the tree next to you, grinds it up into powder, then processes it into rolls of flimsy white paper that is then gleefully draped all over you.

or say imagine you're a pet mink, whose owner has just graciously bought you a cute little mink coat for the winter. warm and cosy under the skin of a (hopefully) distant relative.

or say....

ok enough morbidity for the day -- must be all the glycerin fumes i inhaled today man.

anyway lots of pre froshes in the freshie studio today. i've also realized that the older you get, the less time you spend in the studio. might not be a good thing.

i've realized that the longer scars stay on you, the less they seem like scars, and the more they become just marks on your skin, things that make all of us unique. well, of course that's only until people start pointing their fingers and giving you stares.

i've also realized that there are so many places to hide in cyberspace. man's 21st century solution to overpopulation.

If It Ain't Too Much Trouble

There is a song
Someone sang for me
Pierces through my heart
It brings me to my knees

And it calls to me
In a thousand voices
Calling me back
To a place I used to know

I want to be near you
But I'm so far away
I want to be there for you
But there's an ocean in the way
So if it ain't too much trouble
To wait till tomorrow
Wait for me

There is this face
At the back of my mind
It's black and white
It's yellowing with time

And it calls to me
In a thousand voices
Calling me back
To a place I used to know

I want to be near you
But I'm so far away
I want to be there for you
But there's an ocean in the way
So if it ain't too much trouble
To wait till tomorrow
Wait for me

There is this room
It's built for two
It's waiting for me
And it's waiting for you
And it calls to me
In a thousand voices
Calling me back
To a place I used to know

I want to be near you
But I'm so far away
I want to be there for you
But there's an ocean in the way
So if it ain't too much trouble
To wait till tomorrow
Wait for me

Ode To The Fanatics

Ode to the fanatics

Oh won't you come and take a look
At all those lives your vengeance took
Oh won't you come see for yourself
And if you're sorry please don't tell...

Does it matter if they're counting up the dead
Does it matter if they bow down in despair
Does it matter if you're winning all the fights
If you can't close your eyes in the night

Will the righteous lift the stone
And cast it gently upon your throne
And if it cracks don't say a word
In case the others haven't heard

Does it matter if they're counting up the dead
Does it matter if they bow down in despair
Does it matter if you're winning all the fights
If you can't close your eyes in the night

Do i know you
Have i seen you
Have i held your hands
Or kissed you

Do i miss you
When you're leaving
Do i wait for you
When you're drowning

Does it matter if they're counting up the dead
Does it matter if they bow down in despair
Does it matter if you're winning all the fights
If you can't fall asleep in the night

you know what gives me a headache? maths. and wondering what goes on inside the minds of terrorists, like the ones who bombed the london subway just a few days ago. i guess if you're fighting a war, it's both about self preservation and self gain, and so *mian qiang* still can get away with it. but killing innocent people for the sake of a principle? oh well... i guess rationality doesn't apply in the mind of a terrorist. or on the other hand, maybe its that warped, sinister kind of rationality that drives them to commit such horrific acts... anyhow, my heart goes out not only to the victims and their families, but to this poor society that we live in, which day by day grows increasingly numb to the violence and hatred that threatens to pervade this entire planet.

i've got this national geographic map beside me, and looking at it, i'm just amazed at how intricate it is, filled with coloured border lines, textured terrain, cities, states, capitals, wind directions, currents.... such a beautiful piece of art. and zooming into the island of Great Britain, you'd never guess that somewhere within that small pinkish region lie torn-up bodies, broken hearts, and a community reeling in shock. and a bunch of tortured minds dark as sin.

to be misunderstood is to have your intentions or words misread by someone. it's horrible when that someone is a person you love and care about with all your heart. but there's something worse than being misunderstood. it's the pain of being perfectly understood, and yet being refuted and trodden down as if your words are trash, as if they have no consequence in the scheme of things.

if you were a lieutenant leading your soldiers into the jungle, and got ambushed, at least you can die knowing that if you had fought face to face with the enemy, you might have given him something to think about. but if you were facing your enemy and he promptly felled you with nothing more than a snigger of dismissal, then there isn't even room for any regrets or what ifs. you know you're beaten without anyone having to break a sweat, just like that. trodden all over, left for the crows.

i know now why my parents get angry with me. because good intentions are like little coupons to life -- they can buy happiness, or they can be torn up and thrown into the wind, to be lost forever. and very often, good intentions come with a price.

to my housemates yongchuan, sera and lydia:

i love you guys!

why? because you all eat so little! wah today is monday and our groceries are almost gone... for those of you who don't know, my summer housemates are all guys and hence we eat 3 cups of rice everyday (which isn't really enough actually) plus lots of other stuff that always seem to disappear all too soon!

so please come back my dearest housemates, i miss all of youuuuuu!!!! plus i'm broke.

sera i want an update. oh many thanks to you and lydia for the bday card! wheee.... and to my dearest harmoc friends too... haha sorry i haven't been talking to anyone recently.... no excuses lah actually, but i hope everyone is doing well! val and yilin and julie, when are you guys going to actually start work? must save up dim sum dollies for me to come back and watch with you guys ok? and wq, hope you're still as fit as ever! i can't wait to return home actually.... can't imagine spending more than one year away from home....

oh major realization: all parents talk the same way to their kids, and all grandparents (esp grandmothers) talk the same way too! eg. (mum) cook for you still must beg you to come and eat dinner! (dad) listen to your mum lah (grandmother) boy come and eat... food is getting cold liao, cold then not nice liao.... come come... good boy...

i want to be a grandparent! can be cute and nice and be loved by all your grandkids... so fun! new year can give ang pao sommore....

okies enuff for now... tata!

just last week i saw what my sister wrote about my dad, and it honestly made me tear up... it wasn't just another touching article about family -- it made me realize just how much i let what's happening around me draw my attention away from the people who are the most important in my life. so in mitigation, and in the light of the weather being too hot to do homework in, i will write this little essay:

my sister

my sister will be 22 years old 4 days from now. her name is jasmin, without the e behind cos my parents wanted to be hip and happening, just like not putting our chinese names in our birth certs. she just graduated from UPenn, and is in MIT doing a 2 year masters course in one year. She was in the national netball team before college got the best of her favourite sport, but while in college became the president of the upenn ssa, worked 2 jobs, got attached, broke up, got attached again, got into badminton and basketball teams, found God, got an econs prize, etc etc.

my earliest memory of my sister was when she bit me on the arm when i was 3. according to my grandmother (who remembers everything about her grandchildren), i was playing with this cute penguin game where the penguins would go up this escalator and then slide down -- very fascinating for a 3-year-old. my sister, meanwhile, fascinated herself with plucking the penguins off everytime they reached the top of the escalator. That didn't sit very well with me, and soon the little competition for the future of the penguin colony escalated into a battle that ended with my arm being bitten, and all questions of physical superiority answered.

we used to have a sticker book each. my sister, being a girl, naturally had more (and nicer) stickers than me. when things went well, we would trade stickers. when things didn't, she would say "i take back my stickers ah" to quell any hint of resistance.

my sister is one year younger than me. which means that for the first 18 years of our lives, she got all the precious testpapers, sample essays, completed homeworks, not-to-be-made-again mistakes that any competitive schoolkid would kill for. and consquently did a little better than me in school every single year.

we fought all the time. over:

who gets the front seat in the car
who gets to practice piano first
who has to play piano first when the dreaded piano teacher comes (i still have nightmares)
lights-out timing
story endings when we played acting games (one of the most hotly contested events in our growing-up years)
which channel to watch
which station to listen to
who changes the bedsheets
who hangs the clothes
who gets to use the internet (parents, please please buy two computers, or three if you have 3 kids, even if it's going to kill you)
and many more....

...and for half my life, i hated her with a vengeance.

when we locked ourselves in the car boot (ok don't laugh) when i was in primary 3, i comforted her while she sobbed and said we were all going to die.

when my parents ran into car trouble halfway up to loch ness with no clue where we were, the two of us played alphabet games to distract ourselves.

when one of my relatives came to our house to kick up a fuss, we hid in our bedroom and read the Illustrated Bible for Children, not because we were Christians then, but because it was me and her reading the Illustrated Bible for Children, in our room, with the door locked.

when i fell sick, she would put cold towel on my head for me. and vice versa.

in rjc, during the study break, when i got distracted and went off to play volleyball, she would shake her head and go "kor, study lah..." How not to feel guilty right?

when her a level results were going to come out, had no appetite for lunch.

when i broke up with kay, not once was she too busy to talk to me. vice versa.

she's been telling her friends that i'm the best brother in the world.

i've been telling my friends that she's the best sister in the world, and nothing will ever change my mind.

someone told me just recently that her friend from upenn told her that jasmin is very nice and down to earth. i couldn't agree more. she's the humblest person i know, besides my parents. she is also more highly achieving than anyone i know personally. my friends would shake their heads and go, "how can she do all these things and still have time to watch nba?"

whenever she messages me on msn and says, "kor i'm very sad..." i feel like the luckiest person in the world, not because i'm not very sad, but because i see a chance to make that tiny difference in her life, to do what a good brother ought to do.

just like she has done for me for my entire life.

there are many things i thank God for. today i thank Him for a friend, an enemy, a competitor, a comfort, a confidante, a partner, an advisor, and a very, very wonderful young lady.

























proud! and jealous too :P



p.s. mummy now your turn to write for me! haha :P

night in shining armor.

so what if i haven't been blogging for one month? doesn't mean that i'll never blog again right? haha ok so i'm back after my 40-day hiatus. been heluva ride man... guess i should have blogged a bit about the vacation i took with charlotte, but it's far too late now... that's what happens when i enjoy myself too much -- i forget about the rest of the world... but no matter, now i'm back with a vengeance!

went to my professor's house with a bunch of friends to celebrate summer solstice. for those of you who don't know, summer solstice is the day when the sun ba long long (takes its own blardy sweet time to) go down, hence giving us the longest day in the year. but the amazing thing wasn't actually the tremendous amount of sunlight that we got. on the other hand, we journeyed to our prof's house to witness the most beautiful moonrise i've seen in my ENTIRE life. actually, i've never ever seen a moonrise in my entire life! so anyway, it was beautiful. we were just getting impatient when suddenly, from across Cayuga Lake, the moon appeared right between Sibley Dome and the McGraw Tower. It was red. have i ever seen a red moon in my life? NO. i was like, OMG. that's why scholarships are good see, they pay for your tuition plus 1350 a month to let you see such wonders of nature.

talking about wonders of nature, i spent a good deal of time this summer looking at fireflies. with charlotte at taughanock falls, with colin and gang at the Plantations, and with my archi friends at my prof's house. i wonder why fireflies don't go extinct. i mean, imagine being an insect with a big red target on your backside. yah. now imagine your backside shining like a blardy lighthouse. how to survive? maybe they're so cute that nobody wants to eat them.

oh big news! i've finally found a way to cope with charlotte's temper!

haha yah right.

i wish ah. but i still love her! don't get angry ok? i just say for fun only.

ok that's all for now, going to try and cook some lousy dinner for myself, before my ribs start poking out.

it's 4am and i can't believe it. in less than a day i'm going to meet the girl i've been missing the past 5 months! part of me can't wait, yet the other part is still bogged down by all the worries and preoccupations that continue to plague me -- my struggles in studio, worrying about grades, worrying about how prepared i am for this trip, being apprehensive about summer school, money woes, etc etc.

i tell myself i should just let go and enjoy this vacation, but that part of me feels guilty even contemplating such a thing. there's no such thing as throwing away all your cares and just enjoying 2 weeks of being in your own world, it says. But then I'm reminded by the death of Dan Pirfo, and i realize for the umpteenth time that life is short indeed, too short for us to waste worrying and stressing over things that are out of our control. i remind myself to leave my burdens in the hands of our Lord, and learn to savour the life that he has provided for us. whatever the outcome of my semester, so be it. for now, life is about seeing my family again, witnessing my sister's convocation, and spending that little bit of my life with the girl who's always in my heart. :)

so at 11am on sunday i was already delirious after spending 12 consequtive hours making 3 grad night videos with a video editing software that i had never used before. and then i realized that the background music was too loud. for all of them. and my studio model wasn't done. so being the rational animal that i was, i decided that if i was going to waste 12 hours of precious studio time doing these videos, i might as well spend one more hour.

so yah. i was telling my prof how hard it was for me this weekend, and he's like, "priorities, kenneth." well, i wanted to tell him, " guess what, i actually prioritize, just not the way you want me to!" but i didn't cos i didn't want to kill my grades even further. but it's really true, studio professors think that for an architecture student, studio should be their TOP TOP priority. and it is, to a great extent. most of the time, relationships, extra-curricular activities, other classes etc etc will fall by the wayside while studio ploughs on like an old broken donkey, but there are times when you have to tell yourself, "dude, you need a life."

i'm proud of having spent time making those videos, and can't wait to show off to charlotte when she comes, but more importantly, i'm proud that i made a decision to do something that i would remember, to take some time off my horrible schedule for the benefit of others instead of just thinking of how that would affect my grades.

of course, i really hope too that my scholarship company would read this blog before terminating my scholarship when the transcript reaches them.

wish i had time to draw more random pictures, but that is (alas) not to be. at least until 10th of May when most of the shit i'm facing dissipates away....

yah when they named this week "hell week" they were not kidding. it's not so much of sleepless nights and stuff, but more of the worrying and stressing out and the accompanying loss of productivity. i'm starting to like my building more though... the more i draw and design, the more i feel attached to it. i think that's what's nice about architecture... with every building you design, be it just for a class or for actual realization, you are adding a piece to that unique city of your mind. one of my occasional fantasies is to design a virtual city, one of those that you always see on sci-fi book covers, only that it's in a 3d programme that you can actually move around in. or to even just picture it in my mind, to walk through it like how George Lucas would walk through that beautiful galaxy that he wove together from those millions of strands of imagination floating within him.

another occasional fantasy is, well, to build a house. that's what makes me proud about studying architecture, that i have this opportunity which most of my peers don't, no matter how slim it is... think of it, how wonderful it is to be able to walk, dine, sleep, work in a house that you drew out on paper... of course if i was a native in Africa for example, it might just be a routine thing, but to live in a city like Singapore and still be able to build your own house would certainly give you a sense of ownership and pride that few can even dream of.

when i decided to study architecture, i was just thinking how nice it would be to see people work or live in a building that you design... but i never really thought of what it would be like to actually walk on a surface that was once only as real as sparks in a sea of neurons.

of course, now it's just: can i finish drawing in time?

Sundance Media Institute -- Night


Sundance Media Institute -- Day

To all those who are experiencing unhappiness, worries, heartache, or if you're just feeling bogged down by everything happening around you, well....i spent 10 min of my life making this for you :)

hope it lifts you up a little!


the unbearable lightness of being

i wish i could live outside time. like go in and out of time anytime i wanted.... just so i could take a breath.

nothing is letting up man... this is going to be in many ways the SLOWEST and yet the FASTEST week of my semester. and i'm seriously doubting my ability to stay afloat for the entire duration.

but other than that, live is fine and dandy, and i even smile sometimes when i'm having conversations. little signs that i'm still sane.

i miss being happy. i miss you being happy too.

semi-wrote a song a few days ago, and i actually forgot about it!

here's a bit of the lyrics:

i pour my heart to you
not all of it that's true
but i know
that you will hear me still

i cry out when i'm down
when the carriage runs aground
cos i know
i'm never far from you

and so on.... haven't finished it yet, but i just wanna post it in case i forget again. it's about my relationship with Jesus. how i try to be a good Christian, but end up always holding back in my faith and praying only when i'm in trouble. and it's also going to be about how He never fails to pour His love back onto me no matter how disappointing i am.

how often can we say that about ourselves? how often do we take all the injustice/unfairness/anger/spite/etc thrown at us and turn them around into love and patience? i can't honestly i've achieved that, though i profess to be trying.


on a side note, someone chanced upon my site when he/she typed on Yahoo: how turtles mate. sorry buddy for misleading you... ka4 sa la already man. this is not nationalgeographic.com or discovery channel. it's canuf.blogspot.com which has no affinity to mating turtles whatsoever.... ok except in one random post lah. hope you enjoyed it tho, whoever you are. :)


we all wish for people to say nice things to us... to be sweet, sincere, kind... so do I. especially from the people who occupy the biggest spaces in my heart. the larger the jar, the more it shatters right?

friends know not to cross certain lines. you can't go around shouting at your friends, cos what if they don't friend you right? but it's often different for those you love, and whom you know love you as well... that's why we shout at our parents, our siblings, our loved ones, cos we know that they are always going to be there, that they won't just throw in the towel and leave the ring. but why tempt love? why test its resilience? why assume that love can endure all sorts of abuse?

i don't know. all i know is that love is like the human spirit -- it can get run over again and again, but always with the assurance that it would stand up wobbling and say, "was that... the b-best... you could do?"

please don't hit me again.


on another note, it's countdown time!!!! 2 weeks and 3 days before i get to see my darling again... everyone here knows that i can't wait for that day to come, and it's TRUE! despite the horrible prospect of finals and gradnight preparations and stuff.... there's always that faint light at the end of the tunnel that's growing brighter and brighter each day! let's hope that it's the light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel and not the light-of-the-approaching-train. ok that was gross. anyway, i'm already suffering from withdrawal symptoms, like the need to keep posting pictures of you on my blog just so i can get reminded. sorry hor. can't help it! :) thanks for being understanding when i'm feeling down, and for being there for me to turn to when i don't know where else to turn. and for always smiling in photographs. :D

come-to-china! advert #1947356

ok i know i shouldn't be doing this, but i just finished this super long essay in preparation for my final paper tomorrow, and i REALLY cannot take it liao. need some avenue to let out my pent up frustrations and all my writing energy.

first, in response to queries about the pointlessness of my last blog, i'd like to say that the phrase was conceived in all seriousness. it was supposed to mean that the more messed up you perceive your life to be, the less you can handle. hence the overturned bowl that can't hold water; the torn up sponge that can't hold water; the bucket shot full of bullet holes that can't hold water; the clogged up toilet bowl that can't hold water... you get the idea. :)

from those infinite possibilities, i chose one that sounded the most philosophical, as well as one that transcended all cultures, race and nationalities (blah blah blah). but just before i began to explain the root of that phrase, i realized that i didn't want to start ranting about my problems again lest my blog degenerated once more into a rut of depression. I then decided to cloak the real meaning of the phrase behind a veil of whimsical musings, in the hope that discerning readers can just make out the poor distressed writer crying out for help.

alas, that was not to be.


.... well, the point is, it doesn't really matter what the logic was behind

"an overturned bowl holds no water".

what it did was to offer me, through writing, a release from my worries, my stress, and my potential sadness that thankfully did not manifest itself. and i would like to encourage anyone reading this that if you make life out to be happy, funny and joyous, it will be. Life is not doled out to us like rationed bread, it is whatever we want it to be. if you're a writer, keep writing. if you're an artist, keep drawing. but always resist pulling depression into your words or your paintbrush, because it will only drag you down and make your real world as dark as the one you're creating.


wah. CANUF is on a roll today.


anywayssssss.... toingee i finished your autograph! just hope you know that your book is running out of space. maybe you should give people a pda next time to write on, or even better, open up an autograph-blog! then you don't have to worry about people spilling coffee on your book, dogs eating it up, people like me getting lazy and taking a week to write etc etc.

talking about dogs, i went out of my house today and saw a cat staring straight at me. black with green eyes. so it's trying to get into the lobby shared by my 2 other neighbouring houses, and i am trying to catch a bus. being the socially conscious person that i am, i decided that catching my bus was more important and so i just opened the door and let it in. (not into my house lah just into the common lobby)

10 footsteps later, i hear a piercing scream from the exact same lobby i left behind just 5 seconds ago. realizing the unfortunate situation that i had unwittingly caused, i let the feeling of guilt sink in, increased my pace, and boarded the bus to school.

teehee.... :)

act cheem line of the day: an overturned bowl holds no water.

meaning: when you turn a bowl over, all the water comes out. it thus holds no water.

unless of course you turn it fast enough and slam it onto a flat surface, thus trapping the water between the two objects. provided the rim of the bowl is flat enough, and that the bowl is not made of glass or other brittle materials.

act cheem line of the day 2: overturned bowl on table with water within causes much anguish to unsuspecting mum/maid/domestic figure of choice upon removal

meaning: if you're 7 years old and want to piss the heck out of your mum, follow the instructions above, taking care to use as heavy a bowl as possible (to prevent leakage of fluids) and remembering to wipe away any spilled water to avoid suspicions. when said parent arrives on the scene and attempts to remove the strategically placed object, chaos will ensue, resulting possibly in rounds of caning, scolding or emotional blackmail. and also the indescribable feeling of accomplishment.

dropped my cellphone on my toes today. and BOY DID IT HURT! as my sensory neurons fired away like machine guns all over my helpless brain, part of it was contemplating in silent, morbid amusement: why the heck is my cellphone so heavy? i mean it always feels so light when i carry it or when i'm throwing it around, but it just HAD to get 50 times heavier the split second before it touched down on my toes...

... unsolved mystery of the universe #23460572645.

and then as the pain started to subside, my brain shifted gears and approached a new topic: thank God it landed on my toes instead of on the ground, cos it might have just split open or destroyed itself, which would have entailed me making that long trip to the mall to have it repaired and being mercilessly placed on hold for hours by the absolute best customer service officers in the world.

and of course this got me thinking about just how often we take things for granted. i mean YAH it hurt so much that i couldn't even start screaming (ok fine i exaggerate) but i'd much rather endure the pain than have to drive/cycle/etc to pmall and watch my life slip past me as the customer service officers sit around and stare and wait for things to happen. right? but at that moment when my toe made contact with the massive titanium chassis of my telecommunications unit, all i could think of was WAH SUEY UNTIL CANNOT MORE SUEY LIAO.

which then got me thinking again (warning: ultra slim connection alert) : when we give thanks, it's usually for the good things in life, but how often do we actually give thanks for the bad things that didn't turn out worse than they did? how often do we wallow in our supposed misery without realizing that life could treat us with a lot more cruelty?

walking along arts quad today, i saw pictures of little kids with ribcages straining to push past skin that had already been stretched unimaginably thin. every minute, 20 children in this world die of hunger. that's one in 3 seconds.

so in the midst of this semester's horrible studio experience, in the midst of my hair falling all around me, in the midst of a relationship that rivals Six Flags in terms of rate of bidirectional vertical displacement...


... I thank God I'm alive. :)

p.s. Hypothesis of the Day: we only scream when there's people around to hear us.

so i've just returned from studio, having NOT watched fever pitch and NOT watched the interpretor, unlike everyone else. So what right? it's not as if i had a super huge crush on nicole kidman ever since batman errr....1? YAH. NOT AS IF.

realized upon plonking down on my chair that i'm so pessimistic about studio that i'm past caring. well, almost. i get my things done, i go home, and i don't worry a single bit. but then maybe it's cos my head is spinning from lack of sleep and my fingers are still frozen from the torturous bike ride home, during which i had visions of me getting enthusiastically knocked up by a car and not ever making it back. ugh. but yah frozen fingers spinning head blah blah and i hear it's going to snow again! woohoo.

reading yc's blog just now and it totally reminded me of those times when i was still semi recovering from the mess of my last relationship. it's really times like these when you realize how precious love is, how every single drop of it can make your day, bring a smile to your face, or just totally overwhelm and surround you in a floating bubble of bliss. and then when it's taken away, how you can just fall crashing onto the ground, unable to pick yourself up or to salvage the pieces of your heart...

i pray i'll never lose you... i pray that love will never ever be a memory.

kr said something to me today about not wanting to be monogamous. ewww. guess it's just something that marks that thick fat line between asians and americans huh. or maybe it's just me! if you were around, i would probably neglect my friends (like i used to do), and just spend all my time with you no matter how unhealthy everyone makes it out to be!

so anyway, she (kr) is really afraid of the whole exclusivity thing, but wants her guy to be totally devoted to her. haha... gone are the days when it's the guys who fool around and the girls just sit at home and weep. nowadays girls don't even call it fooling around. it's just being FRIENDLY. and the guys... well, if you're jealous you're a wimp. if you're not jealous then you don't care enough. so the perfect guy is the .... wait... like that how to have perfect guy? see? no wonder girls nowadays lament about the lack of good guys, cos they make it impossible for the good guy to exist! banished into the realm of fruitless imagination...

but of course that's american culture, which, despite its endless onslaught, hasn't completely taken over our little island of singapore. there's still girls who stick with their guys through thick and thin, and guys who are just totally devoted to ONE SINGLE PERSON.

but must always leave room for nicole kidman! (apparently toingee also leaves a lot of room for her)

just spied the top of my cpu, which sits just beside my chair. and it's FULL OF HAIR! no no don't worry, my cpu isn't coming alive/reaching puberty/infested by aliens. it's just poor ol CANUF shedding like mad! don't really think it's genetics cos my dad's hair is still jet black and very much intact, but then what else might be causing this expulsion of keratin from my scalp?

1. Radiation from computer.
no no cannot... like that how am i supposed to blog!? with pencil?

2. Studio
yah probably... all the noxious fumes and all-nighters and shitty professors, confirm drop hair wan!

3. Instant noodles.
no way man. msg is good for health! (saw on this van years ago that "MSG IS PRODUCED USING ONLY NATURAL SOURCES" yah just like heroin and cocaine and marijuana and what not. all good for health!)

4. Missing charlotte
me = lovesick! sick = drop hair!

well, now that i've reached a conclusion, i have no idea what to do about it! except to tell my darling that i'm absolutestestly in love with her and missing her lots everyday! can't wait for may 14th to come man...

me *approximately equal to* starving somalian waiting for UN food aid to drop from sky.

By the way, the new MSN Messenger lets you do scrawly things on the screen! how cool right. now don't have to download lousy programs that spurt adwares all over my comp! :) EVERYONE GO UPDATE MSN MESSENGER NOW NOW NOW.

friends in high places

so my darling tells me today that because she was talking to me, she missed a photo-taking session with her church friends... do i feel guilty or what... sorry lah, not my fault that i love talking to you right?

then again, maybe they see you go off then "eh eh quickly take photo leh!"

KIDDING.

hmm...actually this reminds me of my good old times in XXland (name changed to protect whichever identities want to be protected) when my friends would do that to certain ostracized people, just for the heck of it. sigh... all these shameful incidents in my past... i must admit that being really young then, i reluctantly participated in these activities even though i always felt horrible after that. of course my sense of morality has been sufficiently honed with time for me to now abhor such activities with great vehemance. ptui ptui! karma man! what goes around comes around! ...i sure don't want people to say, "whey CANUF zao liao quickly take photo before he comes back!"

of course, here's not to forget our good 'ol Christian values of Love Thy Neighbour As Thyself, which applies whether or not you care about good karma. i've learnt in the past few years that good friends can be found in the most unlikely of people, even if they're dregs of society like yongchuan and toingee and the likes. *yongchuan is right now outside my room gossiping about other people.* see? you talk about other people CANUF will suan you in his blog! haha no lah, my friends are all very nice peeps.

ESPECIALLY charlotte! my best friend and darling and most huggable girl in the world! now that i'm back to talking about you, here's a photograph with you inside, hopefully it can replace the one that you missed out on! see see there's me inside too.... :P (ok no connection)


yashi looking very *liang4*

point is, people we might look down upon at particular stages in our lives may actually end up being there for us when we're in deep s*** with no one else to turn to. and if that really happens, you can live with yourself meh?

"errr... sorry ah last time i bully you cos my mum force me to wan.... really not my fault. i actually *cough cough* respect you very much you dunno only...."

fwah... which brings me to another topic. always blame your mum. especially if you're in secondary school and mums are still ubiquitously recognised as whip-wielding tyrants that kill and torture without remorse.

avoiding irritating friend:
"my mum say i have to stay at home. yah weekends also. yah after school must immediately go home. yah recess time also have to go home."

late for school:
"my mum got diarrhoea cannot drive me to school."

never hand in homework:
"my mum ate up my homework."

ok till later!! :)

sour-grape guide to princeton university

capital punishment

since i'm on the topic of princeton* sculptures, here's one more exciting one. after devouring toingee and reducing our tiny group to just me and sera, princeton's art continues to ravage our doomed expedition. Here we stopped to check out this marvellous sculpture, only to have it clamp down on my neck venus-flytrap-style and proudly displaying its kill for photo-taking opportunities. whew... glad they rejected my application last time. *SOUR GRAPES ALERT!* (sera don't worry we on same boat. too smart to get in)

and guess what, it's not only us humans who are engulfed by the aura of death in princeton...

even the cones kena


*princeton was visited and escaped from during fall break 2004, after visiting my sister at UPenn which was considerably friendlier.

So i've just realized that when things go wrong with my life, it pains me even more to talk about them or even to think about them. I prefer to go through life with the notion that everything is beautiful, that people are just nice to each other and that there's no reason why you'd be malicious to anyone else. Everytime i complain about something or the other, it won't be long before i get irritated at myself for even griping, and i'll end up finding some mitigating factor for that person/thing/event that would then make me feel stupid for being upset in the first place.

I don't know if it's a strength or a weakness to always want to see the good side in everyone. Sometimes it's worked for me, sometimes it backfires, and I don't exactly have the statistics to incline me to either direction. Still, it's my character and i'll stubbornly stick to it even if it's going to kill me.

Oh well.... dinner was good cos i spent the time with good friends who are just great people. Just want to take a little moment to thank toingee for always being that listening ear whenever i have problems with erm... basically anything under the sun. he's going to head back to wonderful SAF really soon to do his part in nation building, so i guess i won't be seeing him in awhile. well, that's why blogging is great, cos you get to look right into someone's life even if you don't have the time or chance to just sit in front of your computer all day and chat. and i definitely don't have the time anymore cos studio is killing me and making me feel retarded.

yep if you missed it, that was my little gripe which i'm too sian to elaborate on right now. back to sitting and staring and stoning my friday night away before i piah for whatever's left in this semester. God help me.

anyway here's a picture of toingee at princeton, where all around you are sculptures that invite death poses. like below.


toingee happily getting eaten

haha thanks terence for mentioning my blog in your blog! quite surprised that my blog is your top referrer since i have pathetic attendance here :P but since we're all into this acknowledging-my-referrer phase, i'd like to extend my gratitude to adeline for being the top referrer to my site! well i guess it's cos my name is right at the top of your list but who's complaining right? :P do consider increasing the font and putting little stars around my link i don't mind too. :)

What we do during blackouts.

Zhenying: retrieves lighter from room, lights candle, disappears into bathroom for romantic shower with nice ambience -- and extremely cold water.

Sera: takes out needle and thread and becomes the epitomy of girlness.

Kenneth: sits on couch and muses idly about love, grilling sera in the process about ideal guys.

Yongchuan: (didn't pay attention so could have been doing anything)

Seems like that's the only thing in my mind most of the time. Love, relationships, blah blah, but nothing wrong with that right? how many people get to say "i'm in love" and not be lying? whatever the case, i'm just falling in love everyday over and over again, with this one girl, and hoping that the same thing's happening to her too...

people try to tell me that life is about a lot more than that, but i dunno... i'm still inclined to think that at the end of the day, what i'd like to take away from this world the most is a bunch of lasting friendships, a loving family, and a girl i never get enough of. :)


who cares about the scenery right

darling!!! everytime you tell me how silly my blog is, it always makes me very sad you noe... :(

but nevermind, as long as you still read it, that's good enough for me!

anyway, everyone's talking about the 2 casinos today. i feel compelled to talk about it, even though i have no access to straits times and my current affairs knowledge is like poop. so yah... i think the whole idea of putting a casino in centosa* (* = named changed to avoid fate of certain PSC scholar) is just a ploy by the govt to make centosa popular once again. ok that was DUH. but think of this: if the aunties all go to centosa to play casino, where do their kids go? EVERYWHERE ELSE. and if they can spend 100 bucks to go casino, the 10 bucks fee for underwaterworld will be NOTHING. so in the end, even if auntie doesn't lose any money (which is highly unlikely), cingapore gets richer by 100 bucks + everywhere else in sentosa that charges entrance fee.

but what about the not so rich cingaporeans*? having realized that cingapore* is becoming casino island, they would probably be influenced and start warming up to the gambling fad. But no money to go casino then how? Go Merlaysia*. It is now clear that Cingapore has also come into an agreement with the Merlaysian government -- Having lured all their tourists, we now offer up our own citizens to Jenting*. Fair exchange man... we get the tourists with all the cash and you get our kiamsiap gamblers who can't afford to donate 100 to the pee-aye-pee everytime they feel like losing money.

In the end, everybody wins -- except us poor scholars overseas who write blogs and then get stoned on Straits Times.

here i am again. after many hours of not doing work, i've decided to continue my unbroken stretch and spend 15 min more not doing work. i'm so screwed and i do know it thank you very much, but right now, i'm so freaking sian about work that nothing anyone does can make me go to studio in at least the next 1 hour. or 2. or 50.

ok what to write!? see i've arrived at this place for the sole reason of avoiding work, but nothing has prepared me for the inevitable consequence that I HAVE TO WRITE SOMETHING! oh oh ok got it. i just sent like 5 or 6 unintentional mails to 3 cornell listserves for Graduation Night '05. all with the good intention of promoting this event for our very wonderful cornell community, especially those who are GOING TO GRADUATE SOON YOU B**T**DS. anyway, they're all nice people so i have nothing against them. cept for the fact that i'm still stuck for the next 3 years in this hellhole that pretends to be inhabitable by having nice scenery and well, good weather once every 323498 days.

ANYWAY. the point is that now i'm cowering in front of my computer terrified about the prospect of some smart alec alumnus who's on the Kopitiam listserve emailing back to say what an idiot i have been to be spamming everyone with my 5 identical emails. and then what if my itchy fingers decide to go out of control and email back saying "I KNOW YOU DUMBO and i'm sorry liao k what more you want me to do? hang myself?" and what if someone starts emailing again saying "so you think you SSA vice president big shot issit? I'm SAF scholar i bomb your apartment see your mouth still so big or not." THEN HOW?

yah thing is, similar events have unfolded before in our wonderful cornell community. of course, there are the HEROS who go "come on lah you all fight fight fight in the end everyone also gets their As and go home and work in some lousy gahmen job and has kids and forgets about all this, what's the point of fighting?" or "she was just trying to be helpful if you say so much next time nobody help you you cry nobody know also" or "yo momma so fat when she..." ok you get the idea.

well, i really hope no one gets annoyed by my spamming and decides to whack me for it. cos i (of course) will not attempt any rebuttal. instead, i will hole up in my room and sulk and be miserable for the rest of my life. or i will write another blog and waste more time. so for the sake of my GPA (which is reaching terminal velocity -- downwards), please be nice to me!

sank yew sank yew

meanwhile, i just remembered that i forgot to return my library books. AGAIN. i am now overdue and fines are going to turn up in my inbox pretty soon, unless of course i quit cornell and permanently switch off my computer, which is, well, unlikely. So my dear fines, i welcome you into my humble abode. feel free to suck me dry and throw me into the longkangs to beg for money. i will not resist.

finally, just a little warning to everyone out there who is intending to solder and glue things in the comfort of his/her own room without the use of any ventilation and without sleeping for 2 days ------ DON'T. not good. will kill you wan. i know. i'm dead already. see? here's my lung i just coughed it out. you want i can sell to you, can use for anti-smoking campaign.

:P

just found out that charlotte actually reads my blog! having been made a happy person, i have decided to commemorate this occasion with a nice photo of us! pure, pristine, unphotoshopped happiness, two wonderful smiles frozen solid (giant thermometer behind with temperature somewhere between char's mouth and chin) for the camera. see yang yang trying her bestest to disturb the two lovebirds? completely unsuccessful. commendable effort though... and with enough practice (i give her 2 years) she will be able to jump right into our faces just as the camera snaps, and succeed in her neverending quest to irritate the heck out of everyone in the family.


girl, 8, caught red handed

sometimes i wish i could be there to watch my sister grow up... by the time i'm back in singapore, she'll be like what? 10? 11? 5 years of absence! every time i see her pictures in my computer, i never fail to get that lump-in-the-throat feeling just thinking of her cute face, her childish confidence, her ineffective tantrums, her awkward attempts to fit into our "adult" world, her laughs/sulks/grins/frowns etc etc... and i'm always reminded that behind all her apparent brattiness, there's a girl who really loves her two older siblings, who respects us and yearns for our company all the time... i just wish that when i'm back in singapore, that part of her would still remain the same! life is such a one-shot thing isn't it? when it's gone it's gone. sometimes it makes me envious of all those people leading less "exceptional" lives than us overseas scholars, who get to be with the people they love and all that. of course, i guess you only truly appreciate things when you're without them -- there's a whole lot of people who take their families for granted anyway, and i would probably be one of those people if i were to stay in singapore.... gosh i'm a horrible person.

anyway... tired now...again... there's such a thing as chronic fatigue right? when you just want to sleep no matter what situation you're in? kinda scary... like if you were a Red Lion

the power of digital zoom

parachuting into the Kallang Stadium on National Day and you fell asleep. before you open the parachute. ok that's a morbid thought... but after's not much better too! imagine flopping down gently onto the soft luscious bed of grass in the Padang, with 55,000 camera-clicking spectators immortalizing your moment of glory as your parachute falls like a warm blanket all around you...

ok i'm talking crap. time to sleep! :) nitey nite folks

ok see i've been blog surfing and have arrived at the inevitable epiphany (oooh big word). that nobody likes a blogger who constantly fills his little lot in cyberspace with cliched and uninspired rantings about how miserable life is and what not. so i've decided to put an end to that and explore the other happy side of my life which is, actually, pretty substantial.

yesterday toingee came over again, confirming suspicions that he is actually not a cornell student anymore and is just bumming around in sunny ithaca until the PAP decides to name him our new prime minister. he's like how free lor. so yah he comes over and brings with him a pack of those Shakespearean poetic magnet thingys that you rearrange to form cheem sounding crap on your refrigerator. why refrigerator? so that every single unsuspecting human in your house will be treated to your miserable attempts at poetry whenever he/she needs ice/milk/ice-cream/yoghurt/fruits (sorry our fridge isn't particularly well-stocked). we sit on the floor painstakingly tearing apart those little pieces, and like the A1 lit students in our glorious past, came up with a poem that would make Ms Janelle Ho weep in pride.

our baby!

due to toingee's poor photo-taking skills the photo looks like it's 50 years old and i doubt anyone can really make out the poem. but no matter, a picture paints a thousand words, no matter how discoloured it is :) anyway sera insists she hasn't read it, even though i'm absolutely positive she has stopped by the fridge at least 20 times in the past day. perhaps because of the objectional nature of the poem (tsk toingee i never knew you had it in you), or perhaps the giant mess of little magnets on the fridge were a little too camouflaged. zhenying on the other hand, took the proactive feminist approach of changing every single provocative word in the poem, thereby destroying every single rhyming line, not to mention its entire structure. kudos for effort! :) yongchuan did absolutely nothing. 10 points to zhenying for her wanton disregard of free speech in defense of the female species.

my dad is in israel, and i hear he's been impressing his israeli aircraft industry colleagues with his Chinese painting skills. testimony to the fact that 1. my dad is amazing 2. money isn't the only way to settle business contracts 3. chinese are taking over the world 4. my dad is amazing. i still remember how pissed i was when he berated me for drawing a swallow flying around a tree. (the swallow was half the size of the tree).... now of course, i draw a little better and my dad is at age 56 about to make a smashing debut into the israeli chinese painting scene. yay! to all my engineering friends out there, who says engineers can't draw?

ok back to my sad life as a struggling architecture sophomore (i always thot sophomore was some kind of choir position, eg alto/baritone/that screeching ah lian)...

1. i just realized today that when i see the name michael jackson, i no longer think "pop star". all i get is a harrowing image of unnatural pastiness and little babies dangling from balconies. ewww!


2. life is a bummer sometimes. studio is getting worse and worse, its degeneration directly proportional to the amount of work i put in. makes me wonder increasingly why i fooled myself into thinking i had a talent. now i'm slowly starting to convince myself that my talent lies in songwriting, but just wait till i go screw that up too :P


3. heartbreak is when you have to fake gaiety to someone who's sticking knives into you, just cos you love the person, just cos you can't bear to see that person upset.

when you sit on your chair afterwards feeling that dull acidic pain course through your body, until even your fingers feel numb.

when all around you, life goes on. and everything seems to be glowing in a warm amiable shade of pink.

when your room door is locked and you can't open it for fear that someone would see you and ask you what's wrong.

when you then realize that you want nothing more than to have someone see you and ask you what's wrong.



4. sometimes i envy those people who don't have enough sense to think that jumping off a building is the stupidest thing to do.


5. if hearts could shatter, at least you'd hear.

untitled

it's morning
and i'm suddenly warm
though it's all black outside the window

and i discover
that what happened just
wasn't too real

that despite how it all looked
you still might love me
and things are still what they were
before the vodka

so i sit up
afraid of what sleep might deal me
or where the blackness might take me

if i could fly
i'd teach you
just cause it's nice to share.

Always Down

i'm peeling
at the edges
i watch
as my flakes spin and swirl
past your face

always down
will they hit the ground
always down
will i hurt when it happens?

maybe you'll pick me up
and i'll feel your fingers
all over me
again

smear me
across your skin
let my heartbeat play upon your lips
a lullaby

let me linger
on your tongue
let our bodies breathe as one
there's nobody here
just the two of us

and if you'll keep me
in your arms
nothing that hits us can take us down
there's nobody near
just the two of us

even when you step out
against the wind
and watch
as it catches me
and peels me away
on those flaying edges

always down
will i hit the ground
always down
will it hurt when it happens?

We Kill Time

darkened skies above
whitewash below
hunched figures trudging through
a swirling alien glow
tyres cutting transient streaks
across a virgin snow

the trees are drowning.

hands pressed onto a frozen window pane
the world coming in and out
of focus
with each breath
my heart cracks
my head spins

and a river freezes over.

a memory dies
or goes dormant, or sleeps
who knows? beneath the surface
hearts pump, creatures dance, oblivious
to an ancient choreograph

we kill time, and time kills all of us.

just a few more days and i'll be home! lots of thanks to the greyhound bus driver and the UA pilot in advance. get me there safely k! got tons of stuff to bring home.... lots of beautiful memories to accumulate again (hopefully) and lots of faces i can't wait to see! tho i really wish it'd snow a bit so i can at least go snowboarding ONCE before i go home. what is my board to do without me to ride it? anyway i'm a really untidy person right now.... it's always like that: i get to the stage when i'm almost about to go home, and i stop bothering about everything. it's that give-up-just-before-the-end syndrome that i can never get out of my system. yah... come to think of it, this is really something that plagues me all the time! when i ride my bike up college avenue, my muscles will always feel like giving way JUST before the slope tapers down to flat land. when i write my papers, i'll feel sleepy right before i start the last page. is it just me?

anyway, gotta go back to my studies before i start dozing off.

1. i wonder if you'll ever read this -- and get to know that part of me that lives through words.

2. my foot hurts from shopping. not feet, just my right foot. sometimes it makes me wonder if i'm limping... have you ever seen yourself walk? next time try walking towards a mirror in a shopping mall and watch your gait. might be interesting. :)

3. i'm going to go to studio i''m going to go to studio i'm going to go to studio -- how many times must i tell myself this before i actually find myself in studio?

4. pray.

you know, it's amazing how they make the future great leaders, politicians, lawyers, engineers and architects of tomorrow work on desks the size of matchboxes. it's so bad that i can't place a book on my desk without having to shift my keyboard. sometimes i really do wish that cornell would come to an agreement with our dear benevolent ithacan landlords to provide better studying conditions in apartments -- i mean, how to think big if everything around me is tiny?

anyway, introductions are always besides the point.

point is, i have a huge pile of white rabbit sweets wrappers lying beside my keyboard, with only one of them actually containing a white rabbit. (not that white rabbits are actually supposed to be cuboid, sweet and chewy, with soluble rice paper around them... but yah) why? i don't know. maybe because i'm too lazy to throw them away; maybe because my wastepaper basket is too full; maybe because someone so special gave them to me that i can't find it in my heart to throw them away; maybe because space is there to be occupied; maybe because a messy table is a sign of genius.... ok the list obviously goes on, but what i'm trying to say is that strange things do happen. to the most normal of people.

and this is also the second time i've written this blog cos the first time i wrote it, my itchy fingers had to click on the insert picture button which cleaned off everything on the screen. the sad thing is that my browser actually prompted me with a "are you sure you wanna navigate away from this page you dumbass??" message which i promptly and most regretfully ignored. so there went half an hour of my time and now, being half an hour older and wiser, i've decided that i really need to get lunch. in a while.

watched band of brothers yesterday with meng aun. skipped the medic episode because i watched it before and i knew it was going to be depressing, and so ended up watching the breaking point episode which was equally, if not more depressing. it's funny how i actually expected 1 whole hour of war to be anything less (or more? double negatives can be so confusing) than heartrending. of course, i'm not going to start with this whole tirade of how movies have desensitized us to the atrocities of war, but really... looking at all the luxuries i have around me -- bite sized table, white rabbit sweets, expensive photo frames, messy bed -- and all those soldiers had were cigarettes, which are definitely LOW on my list of luxuries.

ok now that last white rabbit wrapper has lost its white rabbit. to my hungry gaping maw.

I Don't Fear Rain

It's raining now. AGAIN! can't see anything outside my window except for the reflection from the streetlamps off the black tar road that's now an entire flat world of overlapping circles -- shifting, expanding, vanishing -- with every drop of water from the heavens. It sounds like hail from within my room, but it's really peaceful inside here... so different from what i'd hear if i were outside my door. do i like rain? i don't know. Ambivalence at best i guess....


i love the musky smell
after a morning rain
watching droplets carve out
rivers on the window pane
rivers washing away dirt
and grime
and guilt
and bad memories

i love watching windows
those transparent shields
dissolving raging storms
into a muted whisper

yet sometimes i long
for the rain on my shoulders
for the feel of cloth
clinging to warm skin

and sometimes i long
for that low rumbling roar
for the flashes of light
that tear the seamless sky

and sometimes i long
for a warm cup of tea
for the smile on your face
and a soft, gentle kiss

i don't fear rain
or storms for that matter
for once they start
they're bound to be over

wonder how many brave cornell students gave up their lives to this noble cause...

My Little Tune

I'm tempted to count the number of days since I stopped writing, but suffice to say that it has been a long time. Last I remember, it was summer. Now fall is drawing to a close, and the trees on campus are clinging desperately to the last vestiges of their foliage. I'm in my room, safe from the cold outside, headphones clamped to my ears, the voice of Sarah Maclachlan seemingly emanating from the centre of my head. Yes, centre, not center. The mark of inertia, of a stubborn rejection, of a stoic refusal to melt and dissolve into this (still) strange new culture that we've been thrown into. She says, "So, so moving on to love, something I'm very obsessed with..." Yes it's a wonderful thing. To love, to know that somewhere out there there's someone who thinks of you, even if it's not often felt, or even if it sometimes seems too much to handle, too heavy to hold. If there's one thing to be obsessed with, I'd be obsessed with love. It's the one thing that does not ever change, that lifts you up, throws you down, and spins the world around you just like it has done to billions of people before you. I don't ever want to stop loving, I don't ever want to have to remember those throes of passion like they are a thing of a past. :) Why be afraid of love? Why fear that warm touch, that calming kiss, that dizzying sense of soaring....? Why be afraid to tell someone that you love him, or her? Why wait till you find yourself standing outside the concert hall, back in the cold, empty cells of reality before you finally muster enough courage to shout "Encore!" ?

So here I am, in my room, and I'm thinking of all the things I haven't done since. I haven't played my guitar; I haven't written a single song, cos I can't write a song without my guitar. But I've written a poem, about how much I miss music, and about how much I miss someone. Because she made me want to sing, and write, and play. Because thinking of her makes the words rhyme, and makes the notes fall into place. Even though I doubt she'll ever read this blog, well, that's not the point is it? So here it is:

There's a little tune
That floats in the air
It passes through a door
And settles down to where
I'm sitting all alone
Wishing I was home
Hoping that some wind would bear
On silver wings
Me
To where
The silence sings
Me
To where
Those fondest memories lie
Like quivering flames
That are tempted to die

There's a little tune
That rings in my head
Like a crashing wave
On a barren flower bed
Broken I'm cracking,
I'm yearning for water
I'm searching for my voice
Then sand turns to clay and
I'm soaking, I'm breathing
At last
Those notes
Gently floating
To a place I cannot see
To whereI think you'll be.

... someone give me a guitar, so I don't forget what I was (I guess) born to do.

how 1 summer can change a person's life. watch the notebook, or ask me about my summer and i'll tell you :)

i'd write my summer story here, but it's not easy to do it with one hand... so just wait yah?

how 1 summer can change a person's life. watch the notebook, or ask me about my summer and i'll tell you :)

i'd write my summer story here, but it's not easy to do it with one hand... so just wait yah?

OOOH! long absence long absence.

val says, "you can tell that a couple is compatible when they bring out the best in each other." i think i've heard it before, but only now have i seriously considered the wisdom in this short sentence. what does it mean to bring out the best in someone? it is not about pushing someone to his limit, or having him do everything humanly possible to maintain a relationship. it is about giving each other the space to grow, providing the support necessary to help each other realize your dreams. it is about giving someone confidence, dignity and comfort.

hmm. don't think i'm anywhere close to being like that. :P but we all try our darnedness don't we?

i'm back! ok i've just discovered that frog's legs are really fun to eat.  esp the really spicy ones, cos 1. the muscles are all round and bouncy 2. the my-lips-hurt-so-bad-i-wanna-tear-them-off feeling is just SO exciting. 

for 2 days in a row, i've been having almost zero sleep. as a result, my driving journeys are getting more and more hazardous, as can be testified by toingee.  today, on my way back from bukit timah, i woke up just before my car hit the curb.  ok i'm taking a really big and foolish risk here. if my mum sees this, that's it for me and the car man.  gotta stop typing because i'm also falling asleep now. 

I'm currently at a loss for words because there's things happening in my life right now that i hardly dare to talk about, or think about.  It's exhilarating and frightening all at once, and i've never felt so unprepared to deal with something like this before.  everytime i want to blog, i stare at the screen and edit out all my sentences before they even reach my fingers.... some things are just too hard to face, especially when there's so much at stake and when nothing's certain at all.
 
Hmm.... some things are best discussed in retrospect. :)

All The Things

ok great i took forever to figure out why terence said i'm not 21 anymore.

anyway here's a new song!

All the things

And I'm home
I close the door behind me
And I'm finally starting to breathe
I don't think I'll forget those words you said to me
I've lived my life like a big mistake
That was never mine to make
I never had to hold a thought
And let it fade

And all the things that I can't say
Are the things that you'll never know
And all the things that I can't do
My heart is dying to prove

And I'm down
I sink I dream I'm falling
I'm clinging to the edge
Of the road I'm trying to take
I need you to come through
And catch this torch
I'm holding on for you
A candle in the gloom
It's burning still
I'm burning still

You're scared
To go the distance
This journey's not for you
There's no rope and there's no anchor
Are we setting off too soon
But I'll wear my shoes
I will take my chances
There's so much to lose
In your world of choices

saw the sweetest pair of siblings on the mrt today.... this little boy (about 4?) is stroking his sister's neck and his mum slaps the poor kid's hand and tells him not to irritate his sister.  so the boy sits glumly on his seat, and his sister (about 2?) climbs over and pats him on his head.  mum then proceeds to scold the sister for hitting her brother's head, so she switches tactics and starts to sayang his head instead.  soon they're like standing on their seats and hugging each other, and mum's like, "sit-down-don't-talk-stop-playing."  at this juncture, half the carriage was paying rapt attention to the cutest pair of siblings in the whole world, and the other half was staring at the mum with a DUH!?*#^ look written all over their faces.
 
 

omg feels like an eternity since i last blogged. i just realized that there are lots of selfish pple in this world who read my blog but refuse to blog themselves (those bastards).... how can like that? makes me feel like the only idiot in this world with too much time on his hands. sigh.... it's getting harder and harder to convince myself that writing and recording songs is a worthwhile use of time. even harder to convince my parents.... but wth lah, how often does one get 3 months to do something he really enjoys doing? anyway....

my grandma just won lottery so treated me to lunch. YAY! i bet i can win lottery too if i wasn't lazy enuff to make the trip to singapore pools.... :P just like i could be a really good christian if i wasn't lazy enuff to go to church.

i was waiting for a bus opposite my house when i noticed a bunch of construction workers setting up this gate at a factory. (yes my house is beside a bloody industrial estate unlike all you rich kids living in bungalows) anyway so they happily set the gates on their hinges, and when they closed them, lo and behold, one side ended up higher than the other! well, what's the use of gates when the latch doesn't line up right? (then again, what's the use of gates when any 10-yr-old who kicked his ball over can just climb over and get it, but nvm we'll leave that for some other time) so, rather than return to his boss and risk getting his pay docked, the foreman decided to improvise a little with his human resource skills: he got 4 of his workers to balance themselves on one side of the gate, and bounce violently on it so that the gate would bend downwards and align itself. i didn't really dare to laugh cos the people beside me weren't looking and i was afraid of embarrassing myself, but anyway the story ends with the workers somehow managing to get the gate to its right angle, just before my bus arrived, 15 min late.

qn: so how many pple does it take to set up a gate?
ans: 4 workers, 1 supervisor, and the entire factory population trying really hard not to notice.

i think clubbing is a lot more fun when you only do it like once every few months. yesterday night was great man..... even though only 200 over pple turned up, the place was packed and i hardly had space to move about! thanks to vicki, i managed to get a taste of sex on the beach (the drink) and thanks to my vball frens, i realized that if you down a quarter of a jug of tequila coke at one go, you might actually start to like it. tianai tell your fren she dances really well! paiseh that i had to bangseh her halfway cos i went to find my sis :) i want photo!!!!! anyways, it's so nice to see many of my ex-schoolmates there.... pity i didn't really have the energy to chat pple up, but who cares! yay fun fun....

and good that my sister managed to scrape a little bit of profits, enuff for me to get some really nice 'oh lua' (fried oyster)(omg if those oysters can get any juicier, they'd be called oranges). does food remove the effects of alcohol? cos after i ate, i managed to get sober enuff to wipe that perpetual silly grin off my face and act like a decent 22-yr-old. or maybe it's just the 'oh lua'.

anyway, after our cab ride home, my sister commented that the taxi driver probably thot she was a prostitute. i was like, hmm.... double meaning siah.... so are you talking about your bimbo dress or are you talking about my face.....? i did think i looked passably decent....

moral of the story.... taxi drivers' lives can be really interesting.

i.e. watching the world go by in your rear view mirror.

pool is so much more fun than billiards.

somebody tell me how turtles mate. today i went into the bathroom and saw my two terrapins in their nice little whatchamacallit..... bucket? container? whatever.... anyway, female terrapin is sitting on male terrapin's shell, and both of them are looking like the most blissful pair of chelonias in the world. usually they'll scamper around the moment i enter the bathroom either cos they think i'll feed them or they don't like my face, but TODAY things are different. female turtle isn't even looking at me. male turtle is looking at me but with that kind of lazy i-can't-really-be-bothered-with-you-anymore stare, so i kind of figured that maybe they had a happy little romp just before i came in. but upon (ok i'm not a pervert, i'm just scientifically curious) inspection, i realized that i have not a single clue how it is physically possible for turtles to mate. and why do female turtles end up on top?

help? and don't ask me why i have terrapins in my bathroom.

just wrote a blog about how my volleyball juniors are now becoming rather talented at volleyball. and when i published it everything got deleted. so yah.

what if one day ALL my entries disappear somehow? HOW HOW HOW?

avril lavigne. five for fighting. third eye blind.

i have the biggest crush on avril right now.

spiderman was nice! at least he gets the girl he loves. though i can't help but feel that mary-jane's not exactly a good example for girls to follow. to all those guys out there who slog their lives out for the ones they love, well, be glad that there aren't that many superheroes around....plus what's so good about spiderman anyway? empty cartridge all the time.

i need a band. and a better voice. and music that works. anyone out there wants to sing for me?

ouch. it hurts.

in the light of what i'm feeling right now, i'd like to say sorry to my parents for ever saying that i hated them, or that i hated what they did. and to my sister too, for telling her so many times that she's ruining my life, that she's a complete ass etc etc... i'm glad that these three people in my life have an immense tolerance for verbal abuse. as much as i would like to deny this, i have to say that i've taken my family for granted. even now, i still take them for granted. i wouldn't say these things to my friends, cos i know that friends can leave. but i know my family would tolerate me, and therefore i take my liberties with their feelings.

to all those friends that i've taken for granted, i'm really sorry. i'm starting to realize that it's my best friends that i take for granted, because deep down it seems like they will never go away. i'll try to change ok?

all around me, people are having problems with relationships. why? why can't people just compromise, just be contented with what they have, just be free to love each other...? it's really sad to see people who are not in love forced to stay together, and people who are in love forced to break apart. where's cupid when we all need him? or aphrodite? or whoever's in that particular department who's obviously not doing his/her job....?

on a lighter note, i celebrated julie's bday today with my (hopefully going to be) lifelong frens yilin, weiquan and val. once again, another late night romp around the whole of singapore, plenty of schemes, stealth and sweat.... i love nights like these. yilin, i promise i won't put sparklers or any other bright objects in front of my face again. for the record, i reached home at 3am, my dad was in the living room, and I'M STILL ALIVE. that's all that matters: i'm still alive. but you know what, after a while it's kind of boring to keep driving the same route.... next time val goes home first, and yilin will be last. okee? :)

quote of the day: WHO NEEDS LOVE WHEN YOU HAVE FRIENDS???!?!?!!? (makes absolutely no sense, but will suffice for now :P)

Changed

Songs are so easy to write if you just don't try too hard. :) (courtesy of vicki -- with slight paraphrasing)

Changed

Can you see the other side of me
I've changed
I spent far too long inside a dream staying the same
It's so strange
To feel like someone else
To feel good
But I'm sinking all the way

Can you remember what it was
I used to be
Can you remember what it was
You saw in me
You said you love the way I am
If I could only try to change
Why didn't I find a way to say
That you're the one who couldn't understand

And if you feel you haven't left a thing
Behind
Well you're wrong now you're gone
And you can't say I didn't try
Do you know I've lost much
More than you
Can I find myself
Now you've taken me apart

Can you remember what it was
I used to be
Can you remember what it was
You saw in me
You said you love the way I am
If I could only try to change
Why didn't I find a way to say
That you're the one who couldn't understand

But if things were different do you think
That you'd be leaving anyway