hello everybody..

i'll be away in Prague from 29th November to 9th December..

more when i get back!

the bus ride back home from choir rehearsal today was reflective and in some ways, very sad...
and this explains why.


'... I washed my hands at the ornamental spring, but even rubbing at the marks with soap wouldn't get them off. They were stuck fast on the skin. It was most odd. I showed them to Uncle Shigematsu, who said, "It could be oil from an oil bomb, after all. I wonder if it was an oil bomb they dropped, then?" Then he looked at my face and said, "Or it might be poison gas -- some sort of substance like mud, but more clinging. Perhaps they dropped a poison gas bomb." He looked again, and said, "Or it may not be poison gas, but something that sprayed out of a Japanese ammunition dump that blew up. Perhaps a spy or someone set fire to an ammunition dump. There may have been an arsenal for storing the army's secret weapons. I was at Yokogawa Station when it happened, then I walked back along the tracks, but I didn't see any black rain. I expect you've been splashed with oil."

If it's really poison gas, I thought, then this is the end. I felt horrified, then awfully sad. However many times I went to the ornamental spring to wash myself, the stains from the black rain wouldn't come off. As a dye, I thought, it would be an unqualified success.'



'... The boy's face was swollen up like a football, and was much the same color; his hair and eyebrows had disappeared. He might have been anybody.

"Ichiro, it's me. Me, your brother!"

He looked up into the young man's face, but the young man made a wry expression as though unwilling to recognize him.

"Come on, tell me your name then," he said roughly. "Tell me the name of your school."

"Kyuzo Sukune, first grade, second class, Hiroshima Prefecture First Middle School."

The young man drew back, suddenly on his guard.

"I see, but Kyuzo -- yes, Kyuzo's wearing puttees. And he's got a shirt made from a cotton kimono, with dark blue spots all over."

"But the puttees got blown off. And the spots have all gone into holes. It all happened when the bomb flashed. Ichiro, you must know who I am!"

The shirt was indeed covered with holes, but the young man still seemed wary.

"But... yes, of course -- I could tell Kyuzo by his belt!"

"You mean this one, Ichiro?"

Swiftly, with raw, burned hands, he pulled out his belt and showed it to the young man. It must have been made for him from the leather strap used for fastening a wicker hamper, and it had a crude ring of the same color encircling it by the brown metal buckle.

"It is!" The young man's voice choked. "Oh, Kyuzo..." '

- Black Rain, by Masuji Ibuse,
translated by John Bester

well, so here i am.

this new week marks the beginning of the end of this period of life that has went on for two years. strangely enough, with all the performances and rehearsals and preparation going on in my life right now, the end of such a momentuous era in my life seemed to be sorely lacking something, specifically, recognition.

ergo.

not too many days ago, in anticipation of this time coming, i had flipped back to the dusty pages of my archives and read and re-read all my previous posts; on graduation, on army, and on life in general over the last two years. and quite unabashedly, i'd like to say that it has been, well, good. good, because over the past two years, whether borne of good or bad, i've learnt so many things and grown in so many ways that when i cast the mirror back and look at that floppy-haired guy from the past i can hardly recognise the reflection.

it seems that everything has gone on a long, winding, but ultimately eye-opening journey. now, stopping to look back to see how far i've gone it doesn't seem far, because i'm back where i began, pursuing passion and laughing like a child and letting love and life take their own inscrutable ways. that was exactly how things were when i left civilian life, but in the days in between the then and the now, i've let passion slip away, trying to convince myself that i could live a lesser life, and shed tears, and veiled laughter. but after it all, i'm still back here where i began.

and thus, having suddenly set all these previously unnamed, undefined and therefore non-existent thoughts to life in black and white i seem like that boy again, facing an impossibly huge world and future. but then, at least now i have the knowledge that i can, after losing sight of everything, find it again.

because i've done it before.

i so want to write mounds and mounds of words like i used to but nothing comes to mind...

so i shall just mindlessly ramble on until i come to something...

swimming somewhere around my consciousness right now are three unfinished pieces of prose... as much as it puts me to shame to say that one of them i'll probably never get round to finishing, i will have to tell the truth and say...
well, i suppose no one's ever going to find out what happened to Lord Graine the night he was murdered...

how sad.

now let's hope that i can finish the other pieces so that i don't seem to have no backbone whatsoever and that i have no perserverance to finish what i start.

so the past few days have been spent at home, practicing and watching the telly and going out to run errands and all that stuff that seems to be so inconsequential but when you look at the time half the day's gone.. in an hour of boredom today i started folding paper airplanes from a stack of paper that i had meant to throw out and before i knew it i was five again, and indulging in the endless, childish, yet so innocently pleasurable cycle of throwing, watching in amazement, rushing to retrieve the paper, and throwing again.

and it really helped that when looking out of the window i could actually see the sky... all grey and translucent and cloudy, promising even more rain...

that was fun...

i received a call a few days back and the caller asked why i sounded so weary.
hmm. i said i sounded tired because i was.
(that day being the day that i had to go down to get my phone serviced. and i'm one of those people they talk about in the papers who when the phone breaks down they just get depressed because they've developed some reliance on the phone. which is pretty weird cos i don't use the phone much anyway. but then and again maybe i'm secretly, unconsciously afraid of being alone and the phone allows me to, without actually being in contact with anyone, be in touch with the outside world.)
but thinking back upon the last few days it seems that my mood nowadays swings from a victorious and triumphant conviction that i'll succeed in doing what i want and this depressing, nagging feeling that i am going to, after all the trouble, have to go walking, head held tensely up, brow hardened, into NUS, to matriculate like everyone else.

i so do not want to be anyone else.

and surfing around i chanced upon this:
Pronoia: "The delusion that others think well of one, the unreasoning belief that his superiors think him to be indispensable, that his colleagues adore him, and that he is doing brilliantly in his work."
a word coined by Fred Goldner, in an article in Social Problems (1982)

and this so succinctly sums it up.

i swing between pronoia and self-doubt.

and so it seems that rambling along i have come to a reasonable length..
nighty then..

yes very abrupt i know.. but then suddenly the urge to write just dissipates into thin air.

which is a good thing, actually, since these urges to write come mostly when i feel less than perfect...

so life has been terribly busy these days, because amidst preparations for myriad events and performances i also have to make even more important preparations for the future...

but first the performances (which i would be ecstatic should i see some familiar faces):

Saturday, 25th November, 8pm
Raffles Hotel Jubilee Hall
Kim Seng Wind Symphony in Concert
tickets available at $10 each

18th November
Earshot Cafe at the Arts House
(which i shall be an accompanying pianist for the evening's singers)

and i will be flying to prague for over a week following these performances... this next event stresses me out to no end but is at the same time so exciting..

so that's what's up with my life.

and in the middle of all that i have somehow come to decide that i should at least take one long shot at trying to do what i really love doing... there have been countless cycles of vacillating between hormone-induced, adolescent despair and acceptance that life is bleak...
but the status quo now stands at acceptance that the lesser alternatives (which i have already secured) are not at all unbearable, but they are lesser nonetheless, and the chance to heed passion and pursue what i really want makes these lesser alternatives seem a lesser life, pale and muted...

at long last it seems that now that i'm trying my best for myself the angst and despair have melted away, and all i have is a quiet determination, and quite weirdly, peace.

or maybe the paranoia just hasn't set in.

hmm...

shamelessly ripped from leonard, who ripped it from zat...
you can rip it too!
at http://colorquiz.com/


Your Existing Situation

Acts calmly, with the minimum of upset, in order to handle existing relationships. Likes to feel relaxed and at ease with his associates and those close to him.


Your Stress Sources

Feels that life has far more to offer and that there are still important things to be achieved - that life must be experienced to the fullest. As a result, he pursues his objectives with a fierce intensity that will not let go of things. Becomes deeply involved and runs the risk of being unable to view things with sufficient objectivity, or calmly enough; is therefore in danger of becoming agitated and of exhausting his nervous energy. Cannot leave things alone and feels he can only be at peace when he has finally reached his goal.


Your Restrained Characteristics

Feels that he is receiving less than his share and that there is no one on who he can rely for sympathy and understanding. Pent-up emotions make him quick to take offense, but he realizes that he has to make the best of things as they are.

Trying to calm down and unwind after a period of over-agitation which has left him listless and devoid of energy. In need of peace and quiet; becomes irritable if this is denied him.

Feels that things stand in his way, that circumstances are forcing him to compromise and forgo some pleasures for the time being.


Your Desired Objective

In despair and needs relief of some sort. Wants physical ease, a problem free security, and the chance to recover.


Your Actual Problem

The fear that he may be prevented from achieving the things he wants leads him into a relentless search for satisfaction in the pursuit of illusory or meaningless activities.


thank you very much. i sound like a bad case of neurotic anxiety.

My horoscope according to flooble.com

"Pisces cannot live without lies and treachery. They often get so wrapped up in their own tall tales that they can easily forget which of their stories are true and which are not.

A Pisces constantly contradicts himself, and is always trying to wriggle out of a lie somebody has called him on. He will generally not profit from such fruitless tasks, but that's fine by him - he's doing it for the art.

Additionally a Pisces loves nothing more than to stick his nose into someone else's dirty laundry. Pretending to be a self-taught psychoanalyst he will pry into people's secrets, which he will later manipulate and trade through his own self-styled network of spies.

Incapable of working, or for that matter doing anything remotely useful, a Pisces has no interest for aquiring such abilities. Forcing him to do so is nearly impossible - he will simply wriggle out and disappear."

sweet cosmic perfection.

"Your hobby becomes so absorbing that you look for even more ways to make it a part of your regular, workday life. The stars are behind your efforts. This could become another career for you."

thank you leonard for rekindling that spark in me by trying so hard for what you want, and zat for showing me how simple the solution to my problem really is.

it's at times like this the possibilities seem endless, and all of a sudden i'm reminded of how if i just allow myself the courage and nerve, and dare to dream, the whole universe could be rooting for me.

"the heart asks more than life can give because a dream is a wish your heart makes, and dreams are just too big for life that's why they exist only when life stops when we sleep."
-leonard's words of wisdom

I was in my study looking as my butler cleared away my personal effects when the detective walked into the room through the open door, and stood facing my butler’s back as he cleared my table. Receiving no response, Detective Miller cleared his throat, and looked straight at Baddleton with a rather stern expression as the butler turned around.

“Good Lord! There’s been another murder!”

The detective looked rather put out, and raising his hands to display his notebook and pencil, he said, “sorry to disappoint, but for now, all I have are questions, not bodies.”

“Oh,” and Baddleton paused to recompose himself, “fire away then.”

This peaked my interest for I was indeed interested in finding out what information the detective thought I had about the thief to warrant my murder. Sitting in the parlour listening to the detective made me feel an inexplicable sense of unhappiness, that I had been needlessly killed. So sitting myself down on the edge of the table I, well, eavesdropped on the conversation.

“Firstly, do you know anybody who would have wanted your employer dead?”

“No, not really. He was rich and idle, but not really offensive enough to be killed.”

“So you do think that he was killed for the opal.”

“I never thought about it. Now you mention it, I think I can agree with that.”

“Right,” and he paused as he scribbled (I looked over his shoulder) ‘killed for stone’ and underlined that. (I also stepped away in shock when he called my opal a stone, but I shall try to rid myself of such worldly reservations.)

“What’s the history of the stone anyway?”

“Stone?” Baddleton looked almost comical in his look of ignorance, and when it dawned upon him that the detective was referring to the opal he looked ready to wage holy war upon the man who dared insult the riches of the most noble house of Graine. So in cold, ringing tones (that I was very familiar with having received one of his speeches when I tried to renovate the older parts of the mansion) he told the detective how I had come to own the Backworth Opal.

“The Backworth Opal was found by Jason Backworth, Senior, when he was exploring the Australian deserts nine years ago. That expedition, however, was one of the last he was to have, his family fortune being fast dwindled by his young, rash, brutish son, with whom you have already made an acquaintance,” he paused here to think and as much for effect, and the detective was quite furiously scribbling on his notepad.

“The final blow came when Backworth Junior was one day engaged in a drunken brawl with some other fine, young, and most importantly, rich, gentlemen; gentlemen who could afford to place the brute in a cell. So his father had to sell off the opal for a rather low sum to bribe off his son’s accusers, and thus the Backworth Opal landed in Lord Graine’s possession,” he stopped, and then added, as if an afterthought, “and he was rather fond of it, as I recall.”

With a rather large breath the detective finished writing in his notepad and looked up, and said, “that’s a very interesting account. Thank you very much.”

“You’re welcome, detective. I’m afraid that’s about all I can offer. I don’t know anything much more about the theft or the murder.” He fell silent as he looked at my desk, and then he said, “the opal was bought quite some time ago, when we were better off. Now, the Lord Graine has, well, squandered his wealth, and that’s why we’ve had to have them here to auction the opal off. That was rather hard for him to do, sell off his opal. He may have lost his money, but for it he was a changed man.”

“Well thank you once again. And I’ll be on my way then,” the detective made to leave, but stopped and asked, “by the way, what were you doing when I first came in here?”

“Clearing up; this was his study.”

“Clearing up evidence?”

With a dismissive sniff the butler retorted, “no, not really, it’s just the mess that all rich and idle men leave behind. When they fly off for a vacation, when they leave for a cruise, when they die.”

I was rather cross at that.




work-in-progress~Copyright2006TTH~work-in-progress