i have to thank leonard for everything. and kenneth for staying up. and knanaki for that stunning display of her magic with words. and zat. and weiman.

i'm just speechless now.

but thank you so much.

i don't know where i'd be without you guys.

thanks.

i have this to say...

blogthings.com is a serious threat to my blog's reputation of verbosity and serious writing...

kudos!

You Are 50% Boyish and 50% Girlish

You are pretty evenly split down the middle - a total eunuch. Okay, kidding about the eunuch part. But you do get along with both sexes. You reject traditional gender roles. However, you don't actively fight them. You're just you. You don't try to be what people expect you to be.

How Boyish or Girlish Are You?

two lines here do not go well with me...

you are an eunuch.
you are split down the middle.

ow.

Your Sexy Brazilian Name is:

Fábio Pera

What's Your Sexy Brazilian Name?

say my name...

ah hello everybody...

my stuff is all coming apart it seems...

first it was the flute... then now my phone is at the repairman's...

and now even my chair...

i was fiddling around with my flute when i was rudely shocked when my chair upset itself with me sitting in it...

you see i have one of those office things with wheels at the bottom and somewhere around a few days ago one of those wheels decided to come loose...

so now a wheel sits forlornly on my table... bereft of its four other wheel-friends (one of which seems to be coming loose too!) and the floor...
and i sit around with the constant danger of being tipped out of my chair...

i must say that it's quite an adrenaline rush...

ok i just posted this to rant...
haha... am done ranting now...

i also wanted to say that i think i'm a vampire...

the inspiration for this declaration came when i took a nap and woke up at dusk...
and it seems i've never felt more rejuvenated...

bwahahaha...

do you think i'd look good with fangs...?

i was intending to cuddle down to the sofa and watch tv when i turned it on and saw our local Channel 8 actors clipping bicycles and all other sorts of random bulky stuff to themselves and trying to lift them like weights and i got turned off immediately...

i wrote that all in one long sentence to get it out of my mind as fast as humanly possible...

i mean seriously... can't those people like go and sing songs and put up skits to raise funds...
every year the fundraising charity shows get closer and closer to Ripley's^TM Believe it or Not and Fear Factor... and that's not a good thing...

i think that when we say that our local tv programming should aim to have quality content like international stations we don't mean it this way...

but never mind...
i'll just shy away from the tv these few hours...

oh yes i had a performance yesterday with the Orkestra Melayu Singapura (Belia)...

not bad lar... quite fun...

and as a result now i have an endless stream of malay songs that are replaying over and over in my head...

and tragedy of tragedies...
on the way to the place yesterday morning i slipped and fell...
it was in the washroom at Kallang... so when i fell i whacked my flute, in it's case, hard on the floor...

so i got up... and left... not thinking much about it..

later i found out how ill-designed the case is... it's actually bigger than the flute... and when i fell it actually went knocking around in the case and now there's a dent where the flute rests on the holder...
and one of my keys is stuck...

how immensely irritating...
grr...

i will now have to send it for repairs...
which will cost a fair bit...
grr grr...

ooh... quizzes...

i'm so shallow right now...

You Were a Spider

You tend to be the master weaver of fate - both for yourself and those you know. A creative force, you tend to work from divine inspiration.

What Animal Were You In a Past Life?

Your Kissing Purity Score: 69% Pure

For you, kissing isn't a casual thing Lip to lip action makes your heart sing

Kissing Purity Test

Your Hawaiian Name is:

Mamo Mauli

What's your Hawaiian Name?

Arty Kid

Whether you were a drama freak or an emo poet, you definitely were expressive and unique. You're probably a little less weird these days - but even more talented!

Who Were You In High School?

Your Inner Child Is Sad

You're a very sensitive soul. You haven't grown that thick skin that most adults have. Easily hurt, you tend to retreat to your comfort zone. You don't let many people in - unless you've trusted them for a long time.

How Is Your Inner Child?

You Are Chunky Monkey Ice Cream

Truthfully, you're too spazzy to be chunky - you cheeky monkey!

What Flavor Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Are You?

Your Brain's Pattern

You're a simple thinker, and this is actually a very good thing. You don't complicate matters when you don't have to. You look for the simplest explanation or solution, and you go with that. As a result, your mind is uncluttered and free of stress.

What Pattern Is Your Brain?

well well it's been a while since i really wrote anything that's really important here...

and this means that this is another post that people don't really read but skim through cos of my loquacity...
but then and again i suppose this is for myself to read...

and it's been a rather long year now and it's drawing to an end...

well there was the A's last year... but that all seems rather far away now... i remember vaguely still how it felt like to be studying... and i remember how it feels like when it all seemed so lost...

and of course there were the carefully snuck in card game and ghost story sessions in between studying...

it's really weird now when i look back in retrospect and see myself struggling through all that... it's not that i think that i'd rather it be any other way, it's more like i can't see that in me now... this year has been so... dramatic... that i really don't see that guy in me anymore... that guy with the messed up hair, steel specs, and trousers too short...
i like to think he was cute... in a goofy sort of way... but then there were times when he recessed into his own silent world, despite all the life and colour he could also present... so i suppose he had his own baggage to carry around and was trying to cover up for it but didn't realise he should have just lived with it...

so this year's good cos i've let it all go and started to live with it...
which, really, feels kinda good...

then there was that man passionately in love with music and dreaming always of pursuing it with only his life and the shirt on his back... i think i can still identify with that part of me... but it seems that the longer i dally here in my current occupation the lesser i think i should go there...
i really have no guts to carry through with all that... and it does take a rather huge lot of courage, nerve and hardwork to make it as a musician...

or at least the kind that i want to be not the kinds i see sometimes...

it's kinda sad that i'm thinking of giving up on this dream... i've been nursing it since i was a kid and it's really the only thing i've thought about seriously... i remember once when i was conducting a concert a friend said later that that was the one time i looked really happy... i still love the way it feels when i create beautiful music... i still want to be that kind of artist...
but it's also a kind of cartharsis to be able to look at my future without having a sort of veil upon it...
so now it's like i'm a kid again and i can be almost anything i want to...

which isn't all that bad...

then there was that unexpected boon... that happy surprise of my A's results... it's really for me an eye-opener to see how much we humans can be so terribly greedy...
i remember i was once happy with just scraping a pass... but then now we're all aiming for scholarships and special programmes and all that...

it's not a bad thing to strive for better things... but it seems funny to forget all too suddenly that not too long ago that was all a laughable dream...

i don't deny that somewhere along the way when i was failing specttacularly i was also harbouring fantasies that i would do how i finally did in my exams... i suppose it's a way of telling myself that dreams do come true...
it's a funny thing to say... and i suppose even funnier now you're reading it...

but funnily enough... i believe in it...

and then not too long ago there was army and Tekong and all that horror...
and the light at the end of the tunnel...

Tekong was just one unimaginable terror... and when i sometimes say that i've clean forgotten about it, as a defence mechanism so i don't break down, sometimes i really mean it...

i know that a very close friend of mine who might be reading this now has gone through what pretty much makes Tekong a holiday in Malibu... but this is my life... and to me it is how i really feel...

some people take it as a rite of passage... as a mark of manhood... until now i am tempted to write volumes in high heroic prose to show my utter indignation at a race that can take the opening of young men's eyes to violence and warfare as a mark of maturity...
but i won't... i'll just let it go because i've seen how totally useless it can be arguing against this system...

but then i got it easy... i'm now spending my days in a vocation that i really enjoy... despite what my colleagues say about it...
i'm really happy where i am now... i've met people that i really don't think i could have met anywhere else and these people have made such a difference... and i'm really glad for it... it's not to say that all there is to it is fun and hahas.... there's also a lot of discovery and growing up... a lot of stuff that i've learned here...
there's all the colours and life and vibrancy of this place... i suppose there's also a fair bit of politics and gossip... but i can deal with that... it just takes the right perspective on things...

suddenly there's a lull in my mind... there seems to be a lot of stuff that i want to put down still but i don't know where to start or how to say it...
but then and again i think this is enough for one night...

and i really wonder who really reads all this... like seriously reads...
haha...

10 years ago I was: thinking i was an overachiever and aiming to get into the Special stream. what a joke.

5 years ago I was: crushed that i couldn't do Lit cos they decided it wouldn't be practical to start a class for two students.

1 year ago I was: done with my A's and totally exhausted. soon going into Tekong and totally crushed.

5 snacks I enjoy:
1) chocolate.
2) chips.
3) fried stuff.
4) sweet stuff.
5) biscuits. the rich type.

5 songs I know all the words to:
1) Misty.
that's all i know seeing that the song is so short. people sometimes say i don't stop singing and that's quite true but it's always just bits and pieces all over the place.

5 things I would do with 100 million dollars:
1) go shopping. like duh.
2) buy a nice house that's just right for two.
3) study everything i ever wanted to seeing that i don't have to work.
4) travel the world.
5) invest the rest. the broad, conservative kind of investment that has returns and risks that are equally small.

5 places I would run away to:
1) out into the open. like just go wander the streets.
2) the library.
3) leonard's. this being a figure of speech. i don't run to his place. more like i call him up.
4) my flute.
5) my bed. normally if i cry it's in bed.
i don't really know what this is about. so these are places i go to when i'm down.

5 things I would never wear:
1) women's undergarments.
2) a superhero outfit. my kinda superhero wears normal stuff. not like a cape and bright flashy undies on the outside.
3) shocking pink.
4) bodyhugging stuff. for as long as i'm too lazy to work out to get a hot bod.
5) nothing. that's if i'm out of the house.

5 favorite tv shows:
1) The Simpsons.
2) Oprah.
3) Touched by an Angel. this solely for the weepies
4) cartoons.
5) CSI.
actually most of the time i just channel surf. pretty boring.

5 bad habits:
1) airing my ego.
2) procrastination
3) so i suppose sloth is somewhere here too.
4) i stutter. sometimes.
5) picking at my nails.
i had to think a whole darn lot for this. bwahahaha. thus the first one.

5 biggest joys:
1) eating.
2) hanging out with my close friends.
3) being in "just the two of us" world.
4) playing the flute.
5) singing.
and to this i should add daydreaming. see no. 3 above.

5 favorite toys:
1) my flute.
2) the computer.
3) my discman.
4) pen and paper. to doodle.
5) a piano to tinkle on.

5 fictional characters I would date:
1) Christian from Moulin Rouge.
2) Sita from The Last Vampire by Christopher Pike
3) Rachael from Dicken's Hard Times.
4) Myung Woo from Windstruck.
5) Harry Potter. this threw me into mad fits of laughter. the choice i mean, not the character.
goodness this is such an exercise in bimbocy.

5 people I tag to do this:
1) Zat.
2) the Hedonistic Freak.
3) Ontario.
4) Leonard.
5) Man.

Cheap Rhyme for a Dead Bird. (whose funeral was a rather undignified affair.)

T'was an October evening when first we laid eyes on it,
Dead, first and foremost, and also small, black and winged;
In a rather ugly pose it lay, a dead bird in a heap,
We gawked, we gaped, and then together, we all screamed.

We screamed, 'Bloody murder!' and we screamed when it flinched
It looked so ready to squawk all wide and awake.
But it really was just our nerves that on our eyes played tricks,
The bird was gone, finished, and dead.

Still we were screaming for we were beside ourselves with terror,
The sight of Death on our terrace far too much to bear.
At last a voice rang out, 'It croaked! and will squawk no further!
Now quieten down! you idiots with neither guts nor dare!'

Around it we milled like ants bereft of their scent,
No one wanted to touch it, even to just throw it out.
We were lost, confused, and really, scared out of our pants.
And the bird looked ready to rot while around it we crouched.

At last a spark sparked in my brain, and into the room I ran.
I took a book and tore out a page, we agreed anyway it was all trash.
With superior dexterity and uncanny control I executed my plan:
To scoop up the bird and throw it out, its final flight to its rest.

With a little nudging and shifting and coaxing
(I was rather unwilling to touch the creature you see,)
I set the bird nicely onto the page, as if it were just sleeping,
Then I was ready, all set to go, to cast the bird out into the night, finally, free!

And all this time the others loomed over my shoulder,
And had it in their minds to go, 'Squawk!' and set me screaming.
Ha! if only they had tried, for my mettle would see me through with nary a tremor
While they, what they lacked in pluck, they made up for in scheming.

But the story goes on, and I took aim and swung
The bird I hoped would land in Nature's green cradle.
But it seems my eye was rather off, and when it all was done,
'Thud!' was what we heard, not the rush of bushes gentle.

Alas, the creature had greatly suffered;
I had committed a terrible crime
Thrown over the rails, bounced off a shed like it didn't matter,
Like it wasn't worth a dime.

So down at the bird we gawked and gaped
And then started our screams anew.
It was just like when the bird was just discovered
With the stares and screaming 'till we were blue.

But we finally had some order restored,
And down the stairs we tumbled,
Ran out into the night and scanned the grassy floor
And saw the bird, dead (and very insulted).

So we stared at it and in a moment of sheer horror,
I almost saw its eyes cast a glassy gaze on me.
But then and again it was dead and a goner,
So it couldn't have been, but what if it could be?

But to the others it was just a poor creature, just a bird,
And so they rounded in a circle and looked down in pity
While it lay dead and undignified like carrion in the moonlit grasses.
And scorn and accusation, they reseved solely for me.

Now you must understand, that I was rather shaken
So at the back I stood and watched, at a loss of what to do.
Then out of the circle he left, and returned
with tissue, white the colour of mourning (procured from the loo).

He carried on to gently shroud the black bird in white,
And we all watched on as he went on, busy with his task.
It seemed that he had in mind to make my wrong right.
And when he was done he scooped it up and cast it into the shrubs.

When that was all good and done we left, hesitantly laughing,
And I was the butt of a fair bit of joking.

But remember now in the bushes not far below my bed.
A bird lies, after much misadventure and adventure, dead.

i'm on a spree...

You scored as Jean Grey. Jean Grey is likely the most powerful X-Man. She loves Cyclops very much but she has a soft spot for Wolverine. She's psychic so she can sense how others are feeling and tries to help them. She also has to control her amazing powers or the malevolent Phoenix entity could take control of her and wreak havok. Powers: Telekinesis and telepathy Most Comprehensive X-Men Personality Quiz 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com

You are like an Ocean. Mysterious but Beautiful.
You have a wonderful thing inside you and
people will never know everything about you. You
have a lot of feelings but you always know how
to handle with them. You are very calm and
wise.


What random object of nature are you? ( with beautiful pics)
brought to you by Quizilla

ooh i know i just posted but this came up and so...


Goofy


Which DISNEY character are you most like?
brought to you by Quizilla

hello there everybody...
it's been ages now hasn't it...
i've been busy catching up on my non-existent childhood as my teen years now see the beginning of the end...

i have been rather occupied by firstly, Shadowcaster, which was a rather cutting edge game for its time when i was still not yet a teen...

goodness that sounds so long ago...

and secondly... Adagio...
which is Italian for slowly...
but is in reality a space shooter that is anything but slow...

so anyway i've not been writing cos i'm either whacking ugly moles or crashing planes...

but now it's time to take a break...

and so i'm here...

...

and actually i've got nothing to say lar i'm just writing cos i'm quite unsettled at having not written anything for a while... people might think i'm dead or something yar...

ooh yar speaking of writing...

i've been thinking (intermittently between whacking ugly moles and crashing planes) about getting down to poetry seriously... it seems like nowadays i have the urge to write...

hmm...

ponders...

(a totally useless aside: my keyboard has been for a few days rather confused, mistaking and switching symbols about. it miraculously recovered and is now perfectly fine. the most irritating thing about it was that whenever i tried to type @ inverted commas came up instead and so all my email addresses were messed up.)

it seems unjustified to end my post with a totally useless aside so i shall continue to ponder for a while more and see what else swims up to the surface of my mind...

...

ooh yes... how on earth could i have forgotten...
the season of giving this way comes and i shall put up my (drumroll please...)

wishlist!

but before that let's have a look at my last one...
this was just before i sold my soul entered the service...

1) have fun in survive army (i realised the former's pretty idiotic yar...? kinda like an oxymoron...)
tick. like totally.

2) nice stuff to wear... that preferably goes with a buzzcut... ie. draw attention away from hair and make me look
like those Hollywood people who're going bald but lop everything off and call it fashion...
2a) more jeans...
2b) nice shirts... bossini... giodarno... U2... British India...
2c) shoes for all occasions...
2d) hat/cap/anything-to-cover-my head if 4) is unattainable...
tick. i don't have a buzzcut. tick. i have nice clothes. (i think.) i still only have one pair of shoes. not counting of course the ones i wear for work lar. like duh. so i want new shoes.

3) i tell you what ah... money... then i go get all that myself...
[big bout of canned laughter]

4) a buzzcut that won't make my head look like a bad case of fungal infestation...
see above.

5) new flute... ok wait... better flute... Yamaha 500 - 600 series...? ooh... Miyazawa/Sankyo...?
hello? Altus?

6) driving lessons...
too lazy. no time. really.

7) well since i'm at it... car...
8) oh what the heck... house...
yar i just put this in for kicks. but just for kicks let's just bemoan the fact that i don't have my own house and car. moan. ok now let's move on.

9) great good results... (let's not get too smart for our own good here shall we...)
uh huh. oh yeah. uh huh.

10) promising career prospects...
ah whatever lar. that's such a distant prospect now.

11) a job that i like...
11a) preferably nothing to do with numbers...
11b) preferably to do with music...
11c) teaching is acceptable...
11d) but not in primary school ie. no bratty 6 - 12 year olds...
tick. in a way lar. i sorta like what i do. and when i consider that i could be thrashing in the jungle like a misplaced and very grumpy wild boar i love what i do.

12) that the army will actually endow me with a hot bod... woot...
let's just ignore this and write it off as a bad bimbo moment shall we?

13) that 12) will not be achieved at the cost of my mental capacities...
hah. hah. hah. unfortunately entering the army is at the cost of my mental capacities. so there.

so having read that... here goes...
haha...

1) queen sized bed in my bunk. complete with throw pillows and comforter and duvet.

2) mp3 player.

3) since i wanted my hair to not be a disaster in the last wishlist i shall go one step further and now want a do that's actually like really good.

4) cds. like the good ones so that i can really support the people i feel are worth paying for.

5) a new computer. right now i sometimes feel like i'm trying to calculate pi to the thirteen billionth digit using a free-gift handheld calculator.

6) the complete Sandman series. see here

7) nice movies to watch. it doesn't matter where. meaning i don't mind either way going to the movies or getting vcds/dvds.

8) driving lessons, free, stress free, and free from failure.

9) a million bucks. (as in cold hard cash dahling. i already look like a million bucks. trust me i know.)

10) that Rowling will do a damn good job cleaning up the mess in the final Harry Potter book. and of course i want the book lar.

haha... so there... we all know what i want for Christmas and it ain't my two front teeth...

a very exhaustive (in content and to read) analysis of my birthday and name...
interesting...
i am now convinced that i am not alone in my verbosity...

credits go to PaulSadowski.Com for the name and birthday analyses...


Your date of conception was on or about 19 June 1985.
You were born on a Wednesday under the astrological sign Pisces.
Your Life path number is 3.

The number 3 Life Path is one that emphasizes expression, sociability, and creativity as the lesson to be learned in this life. Here we are apt to find the entertainers of the world, bright, effervescent, sparkling people with very optimistic attitudes. A truly gifted 3 possesses the most exceptional creative skills, normally in the verbal realm, writing, speaking, acting, or similar endeavors. The lesson to be learned with a 3 life path is that of achievement through expression. The bright side of this path stresses harmony, beauty and pleasures; of sharing your creative talents with the world. Capturing your capability in creative self-expression is the highest level of attainment for this life path. The characteristics of the 3 are warmth and friendliness, a good conversationalist, social and open. A good conversationalist both from the standpoint of being a delight to listen to, but even more importantly, one who has the ability to listen to others. Accordingly, the life path 3 produces individuals who are always a welcome addition to any social situation and know how to make others feel at home. The creative imagination is present, if sometimes latent, as the 3 may not be moved to develop his talent. The approach to life tends to be exceedingly positive, however, and your disposition is almost surely sunny and open-hearted. You effectively cope with all of the many setbacks that occur in life and readily bounce back for more. It is usually easy for you to deal with problems because you can freely admit the existence of problems without letting them get you down. You have good manners and seem to be very conscious of other people's feelings and emotions. Life is generally lived to the fullest, often without much worry about tomorrow. You are not very good at handling money because of a general lack of concern about it. You spend it when you have it and don't when you don't.

On the negative side, a 3 may be so delighted with the joy of living that the life becomes frivolous and superficial. You may scatter your abilities and express little sense of purpose. The 3 can be an enigma, for no apparent reason you may become moody and tend to retreat. Escapist tendencies are not uncommon with the 3 life path, and you find it very hard to settle into one place or one position. Guard against being critical of others, impatient, intolerant, or overly optimistic.

Typically, the life path 3 gives an above-average ability in some art form. This can encompass painting, interior decorating, landscaping, crafts, writing, music, or the stage, or all of the above. You are apt to be a happy, inspired person, constantly seeking the stimuli of similar people. Your exuberant nature can take you far, especially if you are ever able to focus your energies and talents.

The Julian calendar date of your birth is 2446501.5.
The golden number for 1986 is 11.
The epact number for 1986 is 19.
The year 1986 was not a leap year.

As of 10/22/2005 12:35:20
You are 19 years old.
You are 235 months old.
You are 1,023 weeks old.
You are 7,164 days old.
You are 171,948 hours old.
You are 10,316,915 minutes old.
You are 619,014,920 seconds old.
You are 2.80391389432485 dog years old.
There are 141 days till your next birthday on which your cake will have 20 candles


There are 10 letters in your name.
Those 10 letters total to 34
There are 5 vowels and 5 consonants in your name.

Your number is: 7
The characteristics of #7 are: Analysis, understanding, knowledge, awareness, studiousness, meditating.

The expression or destiny for #7:
Thought, analysis, introspection, and seclusiveness are all characteristics of the expression number 7. The hallmark of the number 7 is a good mind, and especially good at searching out and finding the truth. You are so very capable of analyzing, judging and discriminating, that very little ever escapes your observation and deep understanding. You are the type of person that can really get involved in a search for wisdom or hidden truths, often becoming an authority on whatever it is your are focusing on. This can easily be of a technical or scientific nature, or it may be religious or occult, it matters very little, you pursue knowledge with the same sort of vigor. You can make a very fine teacher, or because of a natural inclination toward the spiritual, you may become deeply emerged in religious affairs or even psychic explorations. You tend to operate on a rather different wavelength, and many of your friends may not really know you very well. The positive aspects of the 7 expression are that you can be a true perfectionist in a very positive sense of the word. You are very logical, and usually employ a quite rational approach to most things you do. You can be so rational at times that you almost seem to lack emotion, and when you are faced with an emotional situation, you may have a bit of a problem coping with it. You have excellent capabilities to study and learn really deep and difficult subjects, and to search for hidden fundamentals. At full maturity you are likely to be a very peaceful and poised individual.

If there is an over supply of the number 7 in your makeup, the negative aspects of the number may be apparent. The chief negative of 7 relates to the limited degree of trust that you may have in people. A tendency to be highly introverted can make you a bit on the self-centered side, certainly very much self-contained . Because of this, you are not very adaptable, and you may tend to be overly critical and intolerant. You really like to work alone, at your own pace and in your own way. You neither show or understand emotions very well.

Your Soul Urge number is: 3
A Soul Urge number of 3 means:
With the Soul Urge number 3 your desire in life is personal expression, and generally enjoying life to its fullest. You want to participate in an active social life and enjoy a large circle of friends. You want to be in the limelight, expressing your artistic or intellectual talents. Word skills may be your thing; speaking, writing, acting, singing. In a positive sense, the 3 energy is friendly, outgoing and always very social.

You have a decidedly upbeat attitude that is rarely discouraged; a good mental and emotional balance.

The 3 Soul Urge gives intuitive insight, thus, very high creative and inspirational tendencies. The truly outstanding trait shown by the 3 Soul Urge is that of self-expression, regardless of the field of endeavor.

On the negative side, you may at times become too easygoing and too optimistic, tending to scatter forces and accomplish very little. Often, the excessive 3 energy produces non-stop talkers. Everyone has faults, but the 3 soul urge doesn't appreciate having these pointed out.

Your Inner Dream number is: 22
An Inner Dream number of 22 means:
You dream of being a master organizer and a builder of monumental projects; of guiding a truly huge endeavor. Your secret fantasy is to think big and imagine what could be done for the world. You may also dream of the huge rewards.

i don't think anyone got here...
i didn't...
haha...

hello dahlings...

i've been beseiged by comments these days that i don't write anything that makes any sense at all...

there's a lot i have to say... about that...

and in general i'm just a talkative person...

but lets just address the abovementioned "about that"...
i talk to myself regularly... and when i do so the dialogue is often volatile and meandering in its myriad topics... this, however, is by no means indicative of a mind entrenched in madness...

my musings here... thus... are just verbatim copies... sometimes... of what goes on within my mind...
more often than not i try to censor and make some sense out of it so that you plebeian people can have a glimpse of what's going on in up-there...

but sometimes i go on a frenzy and i just let loose everything i have to say...

also... there's this little issue of what i want this place for... why i keep filling these pages with endless crap...
it's cos i think that i would want to remember what i was like as a person... so that i can look back and see how i've changed over time...

rather than keep a log of my daily activities...

two things...
uno... i don't have much daily going-ons that are fantastically interesting... if there are chances are i would write about them... work doesn't count...
and duo... if i wanted to rememer what i did... i could always visit the blogs of my friends who might just do a what-i-did-today and carry it off with far more style and panache than i could ever imagine to carry...

like if i did a what-i-did-today it would likely look like the log of a hired assassin who's been tailing me to gain precious information on my habits...

thus rather than tell everybody how i spent the day i think it would be more interesting (to me and only me it seems but what the heck) to write about my current mental state...

then when i come back again in months time it will be like i'm talking to myself from the past and i can see what i was like before... (and now i've done this before and most of the time i cringe when i read what i've written...)

haha... so there...

I walked the village at four o'clock

It was raining then, I remember. No, wait,
the rain had just exhausted itself, spent and lame. But
the sun-baked ground still wanted its
deception of softness, and called back the sulphurous spirits
of just-dead rain, clouding, mulling, till the ground was
a lake, shimmery, misty. Those silent twirls screamed at their
steaming resurrection.
And just beside this open ground,
newborn mice lay limp on flower stalks,
lost in bushes. They had skin like petals, pregnant
with fur; they were content consumed by
lidded oblivion, their eyelashes slivers like sickles
guarding the gates to those full round orbs of wonderment.
But they were sleeping, but they were sleeping. And I walked on,
and saw the buildings around me all shut up and
huddled, like galaxies, light-years
between each cluster, and
I was there in the middle. Even in their groups each building
was a star, apart from another at a distance
only stars know, and I was there, the
lone hut in the village. I was cold, the wind was
mourning the dead rain. But even then its death-dances were
lifting those very spirits up. It will rain again, and then the mice will
awaken and their eyes, beautiful eyes, will gaze in
lovely wonderment.

User advisory. The following material is highly unstable, the product of a mind of questionable sanity. Proceed with caution and the author takes this chance to indemnify and absolve himself of any guilt that may arise out of harm, mental, bodily or in any other form, that may befall the reader in the process of, and as a result of the perusal of this document.

(cheesy opening music)

ello everybody...

goodness i'm in so many moods today...

like i'm bimbotic one moment... then i'm quiet and thoughtful... then i'm just plain mad...
then like i'm hyper... then paranoid... then i'm moody...

then i'm...
then i'm...

the echoes of my person shimmer across my memories...

and of course at some point or another i'm just totally melodramatic...
and to bad effect...

like now...

anyways...
i've just realised...

like seriously just...

just realised just right now that i used...

err what was it now... oh yar right...
that i just used "just" more than five times in the last few lines...

eh wait no...

oh yes...

i just (see! just again!) realised that i use "anyways" so liberally that i should just (and another!) use a line... or numbers... to mark where one bit of my ramblings start and another begins...

like before "anyways" just starts to rot and fester from overuse...

anyways...
(argh!)

i just (ding!) realised that i ramble incoherently and get totally sidetracked and flit from topic to topic with the attention span of a butterfly that had goldfish for parents and grew up watching too much tv...

and oh did you know that goldfish don't really have short attention spans it just (oh well i just (grr.) give up.) seems so cos we all they think that they'd get bored in their little bowls but actually they do focus and they can actually remember their owners and will swim expectantly for food when they see their owners approaching...

and seriously... i really wonder why...

wonder wonder wonder...
(wonder why i ramble so much... not wonder about goldfishes' attention spans...)

anyways...

since i had an "and oh did you know" moment i might as well go on an "and oh did you know" spree...
so...

and oh did you know that "cobweb" has its roots in the Middle English word "coppe" meaning spider...?

oh and did you know that "coppe" is short for the Old English "attercoppe"... from "ator", meaning poison, and "copp", meaning head...?

yes maybe the reason i ramble is cos i'm just writing to pass time...

and cos i don't really abide by writing about how i spent the day... not anymore... i remember i used to... that was like so yesterday... and so tacky... but basically not many days nowadays have much interesting going ons for me to write about anyways...
but i love reading about what goes on in other people's days (the juicy bits of course)... it's always so much more interesting than my life...

and so as i was saying...
i ramble is cos i'm just writing to pass time...
and thus... you... my loyal reader...

you have to suffer my intolerable idiosyncrasies...

(talk about melodrama...)

(dramatic pause.)

but nana-nana-na-na i don't care!

i'm so gonna get murdered one of these days.

hello...
top of the news today...


Heart of Glass


What is Your Heart REALLY Made of?
brought to you by Quizilla


ooh...
i have a heart of glass...

and at risk of sounding terribly cheesy...

once broken considered sold...
aww...

fawn fawn fawn...
over me me me...

goodness... i can be such a bimbo at times...
i should really stop now shouldn't i...?

well nighty then...

courtesy of leonard's blog, which was ripped from corrie's blog (which was ripped from dawn's)

Seven things that scare me:
1) being loveless (which, as i must point out, is far different from being sad and single.) ie. not loving anyone and not being loved by anyone.
2) slugs
3) stepping on snails (i think snails are cute. just not getting crunched anywhere near my foot.)
4) that the entire universe might just be a completely random occurrence
5) becoming an apathetic, ignorant person
6) being lost
7) waking up one day and finding myself deaf and mute, or paralysed, or mentally incapacitated

Seven things I love the most:
1) love (yes you read it right. i love love. in all it's myriad forms.)
2) music
3) God (yes God, though not necessarily in the religious sense. in the sense that there has to be someone in charge out there)
4) chocolate
5) hugs and kisses (fine. go ahead and laugh.)
6) singing
7) stars (the ones in the sky.)

Seven important things in my room:
1) paper and pen
2) telephone
3) books
4) flute
5) computer
6) bed (oh yes. i'm a veritable pig.)
7) hi-fi

Seven random facts about me:
1) i talk to myself (or at times it seems directed to various plants and animals but it's mostly just me)
2) i let people trample all over me (and that's quite fine by me. i can live with it.)
3) i dislike it when people say i should stand up for myself (i do. i stand up for my right to help others at my own expense.)
4) when i'm all witty and talkative deep inside i want to be quiet and introspective (and vice-versa. fine i have identity issues. but i can accept this duality; people should embrace the fact that we can never have just one persona.)
5) in formal situations, i'm particular about the quality of English that i read and hear
6) i procrastinate when i don't particularly fancy the task at hand (and yes i'm ashamed of it.)
7) i look at people when they aren't looking and think about what they're thinking

Seven things I plan to do before I die:
1) study music professionally
2) fall hopelessly (and hopefully mutually) in love (i'm such a sap.)
3) see the aurora borealis
4) get someone to show me all the constellations in the sky (seeing that i'm totally lost by myself and all i can see are Orion and the Southern Cross)
5) do something creative, something that isn't superficial (if someone publishes my blog it's one off the list. publish as in Penguin or Heinemann. not Angsana.)
6) get a house
7) write a will (the kind that tells people what i want them to hear after i'm gone not the kind that divides my fortune.)

Seven things I can do:
1) play the flute
2) write (both creatively and critically)
3) sing (or at least i think so. whatever.)
4) laugh, or at least smile at the smallest things, when i need it most (that God for that.)
5) cry (oh yeah. you should see me at the movies. sappy ones of course.)
6) dive (as in scuba, not blindly)
7) make a complete fool of myself (at times completely unwittingly.)

Seven things I can't do:
1) draw for nuts
2) handle written Chinese (yes i'm such a shame.)
3) stay angry
4) get over sadness
5) like sports
6) talk about sex without euphemizing (i'm such a prude at times.)
7) math (like totally.)

Seven things I say the most:
1) hello
2) nighty (this only when messaging)
3) huh? (i realise i do this to make people repeat themselves even when i got what they said the first time. don't ask why.)
4) okayyy (spoken with an upward lilt. can be used in agreement or in patronising someone.)
5) tsk (almost a standard when i'm cornered in an argument. or when i'm being insulted)
6) the name of the person i'm talking to and unfortunately irritated with (spoken with narrowed eyes, used as a sentence, with a pause after it.)
7) like

ello all...

quick note #1: i have turned on word verification for comments my blog... this is after i've received comments telling me how interesting my "articles" are and how i should pop by to such-and-such a website to check out their latest discounted products...

which are anyways of a rather unrespectable nature...

so from now on when you want to comment... please humour the computer when it plays that three year-old kids' game of asking you to type out exactly what's the bloated, distorted nonsense word in the little blue box...

at risk of lying to everybody by having quick note #1 ramble into not-so-quick note #1... i shall conclude it and go into today's post proper...

hello there everybody...

ooh everybody please go listen to The Last Time by Eric Benet...
me listening to it was like placing sweet, dark chocolate to bask under the warmth of the sun...
and melt...

...

there was a moment of horror there...

i've been sitting on my rump (and well in other less glamorous positions) reading Stephen King's Desperation the whole day...
the image of melting chocolate... when applied to people... didn't have the exact effect i intended...

but i suppose it's just me...

moving on...

i've realised that i'm hopelessly butterflying around when it comes to university courses now...
well i know what i'm not going to do... but heck...

i don't know what i want...

at times like this when i'm so deeply entrenched in what i'm doing at the current moment... university seems so far off my fickleness becomes laughable...

and poetic...

somehow... i think so...
maybe one of those people who are really studying now and have a better idea of what's poetic can tell me if it is...

moving on again...

goodness i'm on a streak tonight and i'm just going on and on and on...
i'm moving through what i've got to say so fast i can almost imagine some anonymous teacher-figure marking out huge chunks in red ink and writing develop this point! in huge underlined scrawls...

much like my essays back in school...

anyway i was just going to say that sometimes i go on so fast and write so much that i just feel that i'm banging my head against the wall...
much like the metaphorical tormented artist...
metaphorically speaking...

and finally... i've run out of things to say... and so i've saved this for the last part where i hope people who skip this entire post just to come to the end will at least read this...

well actually there's nothing else i have to say...
bwahahaha...

gotcha...

ello!

whee i finally have material to blog about...

"I close my eyes and see a flock of birds. The vision lasts for a second or maybe less; I do not know how many birds I saw. Was its number definite or indefinite? This problem involves the existence of God. If God exists, the number is definite, because God knows how many birds I saw. If God does not exist, the number is indefinite, because no one could have kept count. In this case, let's say I saw less than ten birds and more than one, but I did not see nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, or two birds. I saw a number between ten and one, which is not nine, eight, seven, six, five, etc. That integer is inconceivable, ergo, God exists."
- 'Argumentum Ornithologicum' by Jorge Luis Borges

this courtesy of Yvonne who showed me this problem to me from her Analytical Skills assignment...

and so i was like:

Regarding the first part of the argument, on counting. Counting and definition have no real connection to the existence of God. Whether or not God exists, there will be a number to the birds; we cannot say that if there is no one to count, then the number is indefinite, because it is not. It is indefinite only to us.

The second part of the argument draws a connection between God and the inconceivable. It is common to link God and religion with the inconceivable as both are acts of faith, faith being belief in that which cannot be proven. So it basically argues that if one saw birds, of a certain number that does not exist, to us, or in our surrent system of logic and thought, it is inconceivable, and thus proves the existence of God.

And this is where the argument fails. If it is inconceivable, is it not also indefinite? We equate an indefinite number with the non-existence of God do we not? Therefore, the two arguments, in being nestled so closely in theme and subject, are in conflict with with each other.

well well... it is after all the Argument of the Birds...

that was amazingly refreshing...

but of course my dear friends swimming through the peak of their academic careers now would all choose to disagree... they're all saying it's hectic and it's tough... and honestly...
i'm freaked out too...

moving on...

i think i've figured out why i've put written poetry to be put up here...

it's 'cos i, as a person,

let's repeat that...

it's 'cos I, as a person,

need to create... and since so far i've always been writing music... i can't put it up here and thus i can satisfy that sick need i have for approval... so i find other ways to have people fawn over me...
by writing...

i'm so damn screwed...
but aren't we all now...

bwahahaha...

anyways...

The Rosewood Sofa

I grew up within its arms so cold, so hard,
but blood-red, precious blood-red. Blouses with
chrysanthemum and carnation, proud and blooming,
but always thornless, clothed its cushions.
Mother-of-pearl inlays faced my back as I grew, and

I think they were beautiful, faces that showed pine and mountains, fishermen and
old villagewomen. I can't remember now.
Now, when I look back I see the wood's rose-hue aged and
blackened, wrinkles where grains of deep blood ran.
Old, enfeebled, it now hardly holds my weight; and I'm like

a springy shoot off its majestic trunk, a sapling from its fruit.
I am its love. And I will see
it age, its cushions tatter, its body break, and
die eventually,
and mourn.

The Castaway

I trod onto the hard sands, castaway but not lost.
Flung like a rock out of a mean kid's catapult, useless
wishbone of brittle twig,
I found my way to where I was to go:

away. My ship has changed its course but it doesn't matter. I think
I will be back aboard: I can swim, I can craft a ship;
in this place that is the wake
of that ship;

this place that can hold possibilities like hearts
hold dreams. Letting go only in
passing waking
but never freeing.

On this island
perhaps I will rest first, maybe not.
There is actually much to do, things to make,
fish, birds, trees, rocks. Slowly

this island will become a port of call
and the ship will come and I will board
again. But maybe I'll rest first, daydream,
the seas, after all, were rough going.


Maze

This maze is huge, I have walked here
all my life but only now I see the marble walls,
the floors covered in aquamarines
so bright they cut my soles, the air thick
with bees and their honey-tinged stings.

So painful. But I walk, knowing, naked; searching
for my clothes and shoes, and smooth salve like a blind
beggar thrashing through thorny undergrowth.
There is momentary respite: sometimes I find
rags and dirty water.

I am lost, but I know that it's only for now
and I will reach where I have to go like the
compass will point North eventually. But I
have no compass and I can only
wander. And believe these words

that I say to myself. In the maze
I am hapless but when I'm finally done
with it I will be beautiful, a child resting far away
from this maze so huge
it is the distance between two lovers' hearts.


in these recent days life has been rather boring and i have been rather bored... thus for some reason i need to create, to write, and this is what i've come up with... it's an urge, a whim i have...

i think it's here to vindicate my existence...
or something like that...

sweet nostalgia...

that's the reason for my latest flight of absence from these pages...

i remember how some games used to entertain me to no end as a child... how i would stay up far later than what my parent's liked to endlessly immerse myself in those realities...

well they're all back... while surfing around one day i found www.the-underdogs.org and there i found those games that i used to play as a child...

(there are some that think i am sophisticated beyond the act of enjoying computer games.
well.
some people are mistaken.)

and thus i have negelcted to write... my adventures in a faraway galaxy have proved to have a great hold on my attention...

and still there's more to reminisce...

i remember how i used to read endlessly... and now it seems i'm at it again... i sped through Stephen King's Misery... and now i'm lost somewhere in Kafka's Metamorphosis... and to top it all off...

i just found out that good 'ol national library actually holds the entire Sandman series...

well in other words it may come to pass that i don't write at all for some time to come...

well well well...

school's open again!

well for some of us at least...

have fun everybody... you all must come back and tell me what's the entire university thing like...

i mean like if everybody has been saying that's what we should be doing and where we should be headed for then it must be something right...?

err... right...?

anyways...

i have read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince...
and you all have to finish with it fast so i can blab it all out of me...
and we can all bitch about the latest developments...

hmm... there seems to be nothing much to talk about nowadays...
i mean... like the most interesting thing that happened to me (or that i think i should be writing up here) concerns my journey home from work one saturday evening....

so i walk into the elevator... which happens to be the penultimate obstacle on my ardous journey home from work...
the time... for the record... is somewhere near eleven... pm... and i have spent close to two hours and a half on public transport...

so i walk into the elevator... and peer into the cracked mirrors that are the walls of the elevator and that the designers must have rather erroneously thought added a touch of class to the decor... and scrunch up my eyes and peer into the shards trying to make out my own reflection...

and i realise that my hair has been a veritable mess all the way home...

oh another thing to blab about in my rather plebeian life...
i have rediscovered my penchant for reading (which was last seen being thrown rather unceremoniously overboard somewhere near September last year...) which has seen my devour Brave New World and other books in the last week...

did someone ever tell me that Brave New World was funny... i thought not... it was thoroughly disturbing... brilliant, but disturbing nonetheless... it evokes a sense of fear in me... something deep and foreboding... in that vista of the future so incredible yet frighteningly an utter possibility...

Terry Pratchett was good though... it wasn't ha-ha-fall-on-the-floor-clutch-your-sides-laughing funny but it was good... giggly good...

then there's Stephen King... which is just... well...
plain disturbing... on an epic level...

looking at what i've written so far... i'm must say i'm rather surprised at my lack of endless, mindless chatter...

it reminds me of something i saw in someone else's blog...

"I want me back!"

i remember my writing used to be at times thoroughly cheesy, irritatingly whiny, divinely inspired, not-so-divinely inspired (meaning the result of desperate scrabblings for something else to think about during night study sessions), mindless, or sometimes just plain mad...

but it used to be pretty interesting...
(i like to think...)
and i got a kick out of writing...
(now that i know for sure...)

(well actually i still do get a kick out of it but it comes sort of delayed now... like only after a few bad spurts at writing then do i get the kick of it and then it all flows...)

(like now. )

(well it seems "like now" complete with period wasn't at all a good choice... i'm stuck...)
(ok let's just assume i'm writing the conventional way, and you can just skip all the stuff in parentheses and carry on... so as i was saying...)

and i got a kick out of writing...

and it seems now i'm quite stuck into a corner, parentheses or not, and i think i'll just call it a day...

not bad a length... actually...
come to think of it...

hello...

well i was just watching the Oprah show on The Desperate Housewives (not the desperate housewives that she searches all America for) and i just realised that Plath, in so much of her poetry meditating on women and post-marital life, was so far ahead of her time and society...

like wow...

i imagine that she too was once the picture perfect desperate housewife... a veritable celebrity in English poetic circles married to the wildly successful Ted Hughes from America... in a crumbling marriage and utterly trapped between the committments of her as a mother, wife and poet...

and she took her own life too...

i do well believe that the series will aid in the understanding of some issues... and in other circumstances lead the reader to interesting questions and discussions on the concerns of Plath... but since i'm writing this i might as well leave a warning to anybody reading this... that the similarities drawn between Plath and The Desperate Housewives are dangerous hypotheses to postulate... something that i in my currently non-acedemic employment can do with reckless abandon....

so if you're actually studying... well exercise caution...

and in the New Paper today...

A school for children with below-average IQ and learning disabilities was subjected to complaints and requests from parents to remove and replace articles that had come in contact with a certain teacher, on the grounds that as a homosexual, and involved in a public indecency charge, he was putting their children were in danger of being infected with the HIV virus. This was after he was issued a warning by the police for an act of public indecency in which he was involved in sexual acts with another man, which he claims was consensual.

i try not to be guilty of media conditioning in the above lines...
it shocks me when i read in the paper that parents "tear down the toilets"... there is clear exaggeration of the extent of aggression and even an implication of non-existent violence on the part of the parents...

When one is charged with a duty as important as passing on information, i believe that one should exercise prudence and caution in not distorting truth and fact. It is saddening to see that for some journalists this prudence has taken second place to writing the perfect attention grabbing headline, replete with alliteration. But I speculate, I emote, I imply, and i exaggerate. But I can; can they?

i have no idea whether the idiocy of parents or the flagrant disregard of journalistic ethics as seen in the paper disgusts me more...

As parents of children who have had the ill-fortune to be born with learning disabilities it is rather ironic, even shocking that rather than maximise their own knowledge to better mentor their children they remain stuck in such baseless and backward assumptions. For some of these children their lives will be lived in innocence, given their special needs; yet it somehow seems impossible, given the perceptions that their parents hold.

and still this human world rends and tears the compassionate bystander... for after all can we blame these people who would go any lengths to safeguard their children in these uncertain times where biological agents and viruses are real threats...?

ello everybody...

i think i'm settled on the colour now...
it reminds me of autumn... i like it...

haha...

i can't write a thing... it's almost hilarious the way i infuriate myself trying to fill up endless rows of empty staves...
but i think i'll take a breather for now...

there's music playing at the back of my head... and i swear one of these days i'll finally get it down... not exactly what's been going on and on for so long... but fair enough...

i remember once arguing to a literature lecturer that the artist will forever be in a state of despair for he will never see with his physical eyes what he sees in his mind's eye... that the artistic process will set, fulfil, and even exceed the expectations of the audience... but will never ever be enough for the artist himself...

that... to me now... sounds amazingly passionate... and hardly true...

i've given up on trying to write down all that goes on in my head... that music which i think is the most beautiful in its utter elusiveness... it's not that i've become less of a musician... i think it's that i've become more aware of a simple truth...

that i'm simply human...

surprisingly... that delights me...

well as you all can see... the place now looks dramatically different...

well leave comments and tell me what you think ok...
and oh yar i drew the graphic myself...

ah... goodness... it's been awhile now hasn't it...

hello there...

a train ride home today saw me watch two kids playing on the train... it was one of those old playthings almost nobody knows of nowadays... a tube of gum... you squeeze a little out onto a tiny straw, and then blow and it inflates into a little bubble...

the bubble's pretty hardy... might last for even a day if you're careful with it... and i used to love the game...

but i got frustrated...
those bubbles lie...

they put up pretences... give hope of certainty when they live not so much longer than their watery counterparts...
i suppose that's the reason why it never lasts past childhood... only in the foolishness of childhood... before one learns that things when lost are painful... can a child play and watch his bubble turn to a sticky little lump and carry on... fortunately and thankfully nonchalant...

i would rather forget those capricious toys... move on to real bubbles...
come from a seeming nowhere and go just as easily... no danger of loss when no bond is formed...

but those bubbles... that you could touch and feel soft in your hands... smell that gum fresh from the tube...
see the colours stretch and dance on their surface...

and soon learn that nothing lasts forever... as you frantically search for the miniscule aperture through which your bubble dies... you helpless as the colours compress like an oil slick after the rain running down a drain... the strains entangling into a knot... useless as a plaything...

then the childish mind forgets it and blows another and another...

but we're no longer children are we...?

anyways...

planning on getting a new flute... i think i've outgrown the one that's been following me for the past seven years...
mildly excited over it...
haha... it seems to open up so much more possibilities...
can't wait...

but of course it's 'can't wait' in a grown up sort of way so there's not going to be any knots in my stomach prior to purchase... no whining and are-we-there-yet's...

goodness it's my own money...
of course i can feel the pinch...

but still...

haha... goodie...
can't wait...

hello there everybody...

i went to watch a movie yesterday... alone...
it was the 9.30 pm show...
and the process of buying a ticket went something like this...

ME: Hi, can I have one ticket for "Infection" please?

UNLUCKY GIRL AT BOX OFFICE NINE-O'CLOCK SHIFT: One?

ME: Yes one... (looks expectantly UGABONS)

UGABONS: ...err... OK.
(UGABONS tries to maintain an even voice and almost succeeds. She unfortunately has less control over her facial muscles as she gapes in bewilderment at ME.)
(UGABONS looks like CHIMP seeing self in mirror for the first time.)
(Hands out one ticket)
Eight-fifty please.
(Thought bubble appears: "Single (obviously!). How sad." ME with superior intuition undoubtedly notices this.)

ME: (While making payment, and deciding whether to salvage reputation or preserve dignity) Yeah, err, thanks.

(CHIMP stares as embarrased ME exits stage right.)

so anyway i go for a walk while waiting for the movie to start...
it was a spur of the moment decision see... so time management was obviously out the window...

so anyway i come back in about half an hour's time... and i enter the cinema...

then i realize i entered the wrong one so i leave looking like desperate blind date guy who's been stood up...

i enter the cinema... the correct one this time... and get to my seat...
i look around and see that it's half filled...
the only people there are a group of boiseterous teenagers... probably all nicely paired up...

and plenty of couples...

now the box office girl's chimpy expression really makes sense to me...

so i sit through a movie i hardly understand in a freezing theatre...
half the time wondering when it's gonna end...
and the other half wondering why there's so much green goo on the screen...

the latter's the former half and the former's the latter half...

go figure...

and nobody is to say i need a life...
at all...

ok let's have a second go at this...

i was writing about how i seem to have difficulty writing anything that's of any worth nowadays...
and i looked at what i had written and got so turned off i deleted it all...

so here we go again...

yes... it's rather like living through a slow onset of dementia... just that hopefully it's a two-year stint that i can recover from...
i wonder what my efficacy with the language seems to have dissipated into... i wonder whether my skills of analysis are still as sharp as before...
and i remember how it felt like to be eighteen, on the verge of the world... and now i'm a year older... and suddenly on the verge of the world isn't such an enviable place to be...

but then i think that as another year passes i'll hit my second decade...
and i sort of like that idea...

i think as i approach the end of my teenage years the infamous teenage mood swings come into full blast again... an encore performance right before a nice blossoming end...

it seems like a weird time to stop and take stock of life now...
but life's good...

i suppose one day i'll be as sharp as i ever was...

can one lar...

hello there everybody...

it's been a while now hans't it... well i've been rather busy... and am now suffering from a minor bout of gastric infection...

thus i can find the time at last to write...
thus i shall launch directly to my latest tirade...

goodness have you seen the latest reality tv shows?

in a recent wave of stupidity unprecedented in the history of television, viewers across the world are being subjected to humiliatingly insipid, vapid and tasteless programmes...

there was The Simple Life, and now there's The Simple Life 2: Road Trip...

thus we come to the conclusion that reality tv directors have take it upon themselves as their holy duty to rid the world of innocence...

and the two girls are hardly anything to look at anyway...

like hello...? do you really think they really mean it when they say that the girls are fashion trend-setters...?
dahling... it just means that you look so bad you stand out from the crowd like a sore thumb...

oops... getting mean are we...

anyway... as a result of sitting on my tushie the whole day at home...
i managed to catch Buffy... all the way when she just moved into Sunnydale...

it's a veritable comedy watching Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanaz when they just started on the series...
i mean... her hair... it still has one of those primary school thingies stuck in... on... oh what the heck... in it...

otherwise known as a barrette...

but seriously... catching the earliest season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on tv makes one feel old...
it's all wistful and nostalgic...
and you realize that unlike tinseltown... you can't just stick the old reels into the player and go back to long long ago...
a tad bit sad yes...

but laughing at all the fashion faux pas on Angel's-still-around, pre-resurrected seasons of Buffy makes up for all of it...

heck... even Cordelia looks like Lewinsky...

and that's no compliment...

but even that's better than the idiots from Simple Life...
like... get a life...

i think it's time to say a few words of thanks...
to a very special person...

and He's right up there now...

this year has been pretty good so far... and i think mere luck and hard work have exhausted themselves quite long ago...

there's got to be more than that at work...

straight distinctions... i know i studied hard... i can well remember now the things that i gave up then...
but still... thank you... i know you did something there for me...

all the best tutors in the school were my teachers...
by chance...?

i got where i am now... i got the chance... a pretty precious one at that... to pursue my passion and love...
and that i really have to say a big thank you for...
that's really something you know...

there's a total of fourteen of us in there... out of 1600 soldiers...
i really don't think the chance throw of the dice alone could have gotten my name down on that list...

now to the rest of you mortals reading this...
i know that i don't normally come across as a particularly religious person...
i'm not...

religion is a guide... and a human one at that...
it's a device... a mechanism of humans to cope with the unbearability of the unknown...
religion is perhaps as important as schooling...
and God... even more important than wisdom...

i'm not religious... you all know that... but despite that i still know that there's got to be something up there...

i seldom talk about it because it's such a complex thing... so many sides and facets... all so sensitive...

anyway... don't think that i feel that religions are useless and religious organisations are all seriously wrong...
there's plenty of things to be gained from such memberships...

but my studies... all the things i've seen and read and learnt over the years have shown that to give absolute power to interpret the words and intent of the Absolute... that often results in tragedy...
there've a lot of wars fought in the name of religion... many lives forsaken... i don't think that things were meant to be that way...

if someone says that we've got to do something... think a certain way... that some are martyrs and others fools... that an act is condoned or condemned...
we shouldn't just believe him... even if he says that his words come from Him...

ultimately what i'm trying to say is that religion hasn't always been perfect... and even now it's still far from perfect... but that's no reason to reject the supernatural, the omnipotent and, really, what i feel to be the undeniable... that's no reason to discard the essence just because of a flawed vessel...

anyway... for the rest who think that this is seriously weird...

just take it that the real Nachtilera will be back in a few days...

Iranian bloggers denied freedom of expression.

What's freedom of speech and expression to you if half the world still can't critique, debate or even reply...?

Do something about it...

ello everybody...

(oh look i alliterated...
oh well i admit i am a little dotty today...)

thank yous to everyone who gave me a present, called, messaged, or remembered my birthday...
thank you!
haha...

anyways...

bought myself a copy of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (no not Mr. Affable Technicolor "it's what's inside that matters" Cartoon Hulk but the one-and-a-quarter inch Complete and Unabridged kind [and yes the italicization just reeks of upper-class British snottiness doesn't it...? oh well it is, after all, Wordsworth Classics...])

(meanwhile, in the distance,)
QUEEN E. : I find that hardly appropriate! Off with your head!

ME: heh... sorry Queenie dahling... didn't mean to offend-

(and even more distant,)
BLAIR, T. : Shut up! Off indeed! You and that terrorist whatshisname! Whatever Bush says!

(and finally, in a squeaky, mid-adolescent voice,)
H. POTTER. : AVADA KEDAVRA!

All characters referred to in the preceding lines are completely fictional, and any resemblance to anyone living or dead (or copyrighted for that matter), is completely unintended.

legal matters aside...
i got myself a copy of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame from a nice, musty, used book store...

no the books are second-hand, not the store...
well actually...
hmm...

irrelevant matters aside...
i got myself a copy of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame from a nice, musty, used book store...

yes it was really nice and really musty... not in a not-so-nice kinda way... but in a nice kinda way...

duh...

no that's not upper-class British snottiness... that's just for emphasis...
upper-class British would never utter the word anyway...
(yes that... is upper-class British snottiness...)

as i was saying...

i got myself a copy of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame from a nice, musty, used book store...
yes it was really nice and really musty...

what...?

i did tell you i was feeling dotty today...
people never listen... or read in this case... they just gloss over everything...
goodness...

that's why i have to keep repeating myself...

so it was really nice and really musty... kinda reminded me of an old bookstore... something like the one in Diagon Alley...

you'd half-expect an elf to come trodding out from beneath the shelves sweeping up cobwebs...

how very idyllic...

and thus i expect that my nights from now on will be burnt curled up on my bed reading all about a deformed monster and his angelic devotion to a gypsy and the angelic minister with his demonic obsession with the gypsy and the gypsy in love with the captain whose name sounds like a girl's...

Phoebus...

wokay...

hello there everybody...

ahh... the feeling of going out and coming home late and knowing that you can do the same for tomorrow and the day after is one that i truly relish...

seeing that i'm now free of the darn island which for so long had been my only source of blogging material... i shall indulge in what i best remember i did before...

indulge in my ego...

happy birthday to me!

haha... yes now would be a good time to hire an assassin, show him a furtively taken picture of me clipped to some vague documents in a manila folder, and say the magic word...

liquidate.

ah... it seems i'm on to my the thing i second best remember doing...

spouting utter rubbish...

but seriously... i feel really happy now that i'm out... and knowing that in all likelihood i won't ever have to go back...
i literally have nothing on my mind now... i don't have to worry about my studies... i don't have to worry about the next two years 'cos i know that worrying won't make a difference and i have no control over things anyway...

basically i've given up fretting over NS... it's a pointless exercise to me and it's also pointless to waste my precious mental resources on it... so many thing's i've missed out on over the last two years... composing... refining my music... writing... reading... catching all the movies i want to... all that i'm going to try and enjoy as much of as i can before i once again delve into academia...

my music especially... it's no longer about getting a job or going professional... i'm just going to pursue it for as far as i can and see where that brings me... i definitely still want to study it at an advanced level... but if i can't do it now... then i'll do it on my own...

all the practice on the flute that i've lost... i will try to make up for... it's not just about some vague projected standard that i think i would be at today if not for all those hours given up... it's really a somewhere i have to return to...

i remember as a flautist in my secondary school band i practised almost everyday... i remember sounding far better then than i do now... not in terms of expression and interpretation of course... but in terms of technique...

that's what i miss most... for all the interpretation and expression and depth that i can see in a work... it's utterly useless if i cannot articulate all that...
it can be... at times... depressingly frustrating...
but i don't feel depressed now... even after a thoroughly tiring session... and one making seemingly no headway at that...

haha... there's always tomorrow...

and there's composition...
so many thing's i've left unwritten... so many sketches left forgotten for so long that i myself have already forgotten what i imagined they should sound like... and the unfinished works all lying around...
it's not so much that i don't have the time for these... it's more that i don't have the energy to... i sometimes just have a look at them and i see all that has to be done... all the planning that has to be carried out before i write another few bars... all the editing and refining...
and i just tell myself to do it another day...

but now i may be physically exhausted... but i know that my mind will be hardly taxed...

i feel somewhat triumphant now...
this could be from...
1) the fact that i'm 19 and 20's just looming there one year away and i feel invincible...
2) the results, the freedom from tekong and plenty of free time put together...
3) that i'm looking forward to band practice tomorrow...
or
4) an amazing accumulation of sleep deprivation...

somehow i think it's the last...

thus i shall go to see if it really is...

ah... sweet sleep...

hello everybody...

i'm fantastically happy with my results...
haha...
euphoric...? yes...
but that doesn't last does it...?

contentment...

that's what remains...

at least i know that all the work i put in the last two years... all the late night studying... frantic note taking...
all that, i can now truly say, has engendered something i can be proud of...
four distinctions...

it's not so much that i can now say that i'm capable of something... it's more so that i can now rest assured that my plans for my future will be almost totally in my control... unhindered by shortsighted fools blinded by qualifications alone...

we sometimes have to stoop to that level don't we...?

i was having dinner with my folks and i was telling them about the scholarships that i was considering... my dad was glad... so was mom... and they were all for me going for this and that and the other... going to get a nice job at the paper... go teach... go do basically anything that my four distinctions could bring me...

i don't dare to tell them anymore that i still want to study music...

i stop short whenever i try to tell them that As notwithstanding, i still want to carry on with my music... but nothing i've learnt before... not in the last two years... not ever... can help me find the words that say just that...

they seem so happy now that i'm on to something that seems appropriate to them...

yes life can seldom be peaches and cream and i know that people reading this will react...
well...
less than positively...

but underlying all this... it's not just me ranting that my dreams still aren't closer to reality than before...

to all those who think that they've done abysmally badly... dissapointingly... or just slightly underperformed...
results are results... life goes on...
there's more to it than those magic letters that come on a small slip of paper...

and as for me... i'll find my way there myself...

moving on...

i'm now officially out of Tekong... the end of three months of training has been long spoken of as a great watershed in a young man's life...

it's hard to find much meaning in this change... so i'm now a private... moving up the ranks of an institution i hardly have any faith nor belief in...
maybe it's my own doing... maybe i haven't invested enough emotionally in the last three months to reap any significant gains now that it's over... then and again brotherhood and camaraderie are calls to which i hardly respond...

but whatever the case is...

i'm just happy i'm through... as i sit here blogging i can feel life returning to a comfortable normalcy...

of course this too shall soon pass...

but we'll deal with that when it comes...

bliss...

hello people yet again...

and let me tell you about the wonderful people in Tekong yet again...

come come come...
sit and listen...

so we're out in the hot sun... and all blistering our butts away sitting down listening to this guy talk...
he's supposed teach us all unarmed close combat...

salva me...

so anyway he says...
no wait...
he barks...

"I DO NOT WANT TO FIND ANY HARD OBJECTS ON ANYBODY! OR YOU ALL WILL GET IT!"

so we all scramble and pat around to see if there's any stray...
hmm... i think that he was thinking somewhere along the lines of bricks or parangs...
maybe he thought that we had stuffed our helmets into our pockets...

coming from a person who, arising out of severe mental impediment, and at the same time causing a gramatically horrifying dangling sentence fragment, has inserted a pause in the middle of his sentence...

i dunno...

anyway patting stops...
barking resumes...

"ARE YOU SURE YOU DON'T HAVE ANY MORE HARD OBJECTS GENTLEMEN? YOU HAVE TEN POCKETS IN YOUR UNIFORM! GO AND CHECK ALL TEN!"

patpatpatpatpat...

most people just need a few pats... not so much that they need to really check their pockets...
but that most people can... ah...

feel...

well i can't say for Mr. I-Have-To-Be-Heard-In-Bold-Big-Letters...

perhaps unlike most people... his muscles have obscured his nervous system from any external input...
yes Mr. I-Have-To-Be-Heard-In-Bold-Big-Letters... it is possible to feel through the fabric of the uniform if there's anything in your pockets...

try it...

perhaps you won't look like you're trying to get rid of mutant mosquitoes in your uniform the next time you prepare for another lesson...

but here comes his tour de force...

"I DON'T EVEN WANT TO SEE TISSUE PAPER! THAT IS ALSO A HARD OBJECT!"

the collective whap of an entire company of recruits' jaws hitting the floor echoes in the ensuing silence...

notwithstanding of course the fact that 'tissue paper' not being a proper noun requires an article before it...

"YOU KNOW WHY IT'S A HARD OBJECT?"

more silence...
alas... the fool's question has stumped the scholars...

"WHEN YOU SWEAT, THE TISSUE WILL GET WET! THEN WHEN IT DRIES IT WILL BECOME A HARD OBJECT!"

and so it was that we came to cross paths with our instructor...

i personally believe that trolls... the kind with exceptional physical strength and humiliatingly non-existent intelligence do exist...

hey presto...

hello everybody...

let me tell you about the wonderful people i have met on the island of Tekong...

argh...

so we're having physical training in the hall...
which... incidentally... is indoors...

now keep that point in mind... it's important...

so anyway... we're all bored and wanting to be someplace else... when this guy turns around and says to me (in all earnestness... bless him...)

"Why doesn't it rain indoors?"

and all i can do is drop my jaws and focus my eyeballs on him...
gape in shock...

good grief...

where on earth do these people come from...? why is it that in my close to nineteen years on this planet i have never ever met anyone like this...

but there's worse...

so another day... i'm heading for the loo...
and there's another guy in front of me...

he then suddenly and dramatically stops short of the entrance and looks down...

so i look around to see what on earth was that for... and i see a sign saying "watch your step"...

now here's a moment where i pause and think to myself... undoubtedly for not the first time...

where on earth do these people come from...? why is it that in my close to nineteen years on this planet i have never ever met anyone like this...

and it get's worse...
it always does...

so as i'm washing my hands in the washroom the idiot turns to me...
and (argh) he starts talking to me...

"I saw the sign there saying 'watch you step', so i looked down to see if there was a trap! But nothing there!"

whereby i just lose track of what's he saying from shock...
and just smile and scramble madly out of the loo...

argh...

moving on to other stuff...

which for tonight will be a short quote...
but profound...
i like it...

"Which of the two powers, love or music, is able to lift man to the sublimest heights? It is a great question, but it seems to me that one might answer it thus: love cannot express the idea of music, which music may give an idea of love. Why separate the one from the other? They are the two wings of the soul."
- Hector Berlioz (1803-69). French composer.

hello there...
many people have been asking if i'm ok-

yes of course you are! now say "thank you" to all those nice concerned people.

yes... thank you for asking... i'm fine...
well i suppose then i have to explain-

the rather alarming spate of depressing posts recently. hmm, yes you do need to explain all that.

you see now...
the very purpose of this place is to talk about my life-

tsk!

yes how narcissistic i know... live with it...
anyways...
the point is that... well...
life's kinda-

sad-

yes sad... i know...

and thus my posts have been sad...
but no... i'm not depressed...

not clinically anyway...
so don't worry...

and i'm not schizophrenic either... really-

really?

would that voice-

kindly shove it? hmm? now is that what you want?

yes. shut up. before i-

ooh. i'm so scared.
please, you can do better than that.

i think.

well actually now, i'm not very sure you-

argh...

i feel off my rocker...
but just for the heck of it i shall continue this mad internal dialogue...

oh. so now we're trying to look like the poor tortured artist soul.
how pitiful.

there comes a time, about now, when you come to the sudden realization that you've been broadcasting the things you've always thought were just your silent thoughts.

sort of like a Homer Simpson moment.

you can say "d'oh" now.

d'oh.

gosh i need a life now don't i...?

hmm now don't you?

shut up...

oh ok!

grr...

grr...

yes as you all can see i'm terribly bored...

i have also discovered i now have a pathological fear of becoming an idiot...
idiot... in the plainest sense of the word...

i don't even think i'll get a chance for idiot-savant...

thus the need to show that unlike most idiots... i possess the mental capabilities required to process complex, multi-layered thought...

wait...

apologies...
i am not "unlike most idiots"...

i am... quite simply...
not an idiot...

how silly of me...

haha...

haha. nervous laughter ensues.

haha...

argh...

i feel dumb...

and mad.

and mad...

yes mad.

now keep this in mind...

now are you sure you want to go there? haha...
don't lie to yourself.

madness and genius...
close enough for me...

haha...

bow down to my genius...

madness.

hello there...

there are some things in life which make me wonder...

yes yes i know violence and arms are some of them and you all think i'm going to write some long, self-righteous essay on it...
but no...

tonight i shall lower myself to more base affairs... it's time to bitch...

tonight i shall talk about the asshole who loves the army...
better known as The Military Freak...

"... the civilian in me never existed, I guess I was born to be a soldier."

somebody shoot me now... oh wait...
why not get him... then he can train to be the marksman he so wants to be...

anyways...

The Military Freak (MF), not to be confused with the Freak, Regular and Freak, Fitness (ha... but let's just say that certain groups do overlap), is a rare inhabitant of modern society. He is often of above average fitness, and his essential character traits may vary as with all other people, but one trait stands out, that of a devotion to the army and all things military (well duh...).
Having said so, however, one must be careful to make the point known that in most (try all...) cases, the MF possesses base and crude social skills. As such, this is often reflected in a penchant for sport, and as well as a rather, shall we say, variegated vocabulary.
Another point must also be made that most male species of the planet exhibit similar traits at youth. This is often but a passing phase and they should not be unfairly labeled as MF.

One overriding trait of the MF is a disdain for a non-military lifestyle,

"...their civilian mindsets, which means, slow, passive, etc."

This disdain stems from a belief in the superiority of the military and it's tenets, and may or may not be seen so commonly in the speech and writings of the common MF. However, one may also make out the case that the reason this view of military superiority is not seen to be held by all MF would be that not all of them hold the thinking and communication skills necessary for the expression of such thought.

(it would seem now that our subject Freak is of above average intelligence... how lucky...)

A moment of vacillation is often seen as a pivotal point in the lives of such people. This can be seen in lines such as that at the beginning, where the subject MF expresses the acceptance of such a lifestyle, as in the lines below,

"Something in me changed the moment I stepped in.....

*peaceful*....

Feels as if Tekong was where I was ment(sic) to be from the start."

Such expressions and desires can be compared to the complex feelings and emotions of the transgendered. They have often been documented to express a sense of belonging to the opposite sex. This is, of course, seen to a different degree in the case of the MF, who express desire to be part of a lifestyle thoroughly foreign to that which is commonly accepted by society. (oh fine so this is subjective and biased on my part... live with it...)

ok i think i've done enough damage...

i think you all get the point...

i dunno why... i suppose it's a vicious thing... but i keep going to his blog to read...
then i shiver uncontrollably and hastily close the window when i've read a few lines...

and oh by the way... none of those lines have been fabricated... it's all straight and unadultered from his blog...

of which i naturally shall not disclose... we should not be poking fun at poor deluded people should we...

i even wanted to get a few lines showcasing his command of the cruder side of the English language but i decided against it lest it taint the sanctity of my blog...

of course there's plenty more to say... but really... most of it is just wordless ravings on my part...

it involves plenty of arm-waving before the monitor as i read his words...
and cringing... there's a lot of that too...

seriously... i really wonder where these people come from... i mean... this guy had some seriously bad experiences in the army... he's dealt amply with that in his posts... yet he still seems to regard it as such a positive experience...

now i understand that negative experiences can be life-changing and thus positive...

but still...
get a life...