aaawwwwwww.............

hello all...

i've been quite busy lately at my new job which is basically selling jewellery at Tangs...

so i'm a retail executive for the Charles Winston line of designer jewellery at level 2 of Tangs..
so cool right.

suddenly i'm all high up and hoity-toity.

but seriously, i do like the job a lot... i like the chance to talk to so many different people.. i like the fact that i'm faced with pretty shiny things everyday...

yar i know so shallow..

but basically i can think of many worse ways to spend my time..

so things are good.

well as promised... more on the trip...

so in addition to prague we also went to two other towns in Czech Republic: Kutna Hora and Cesky Krumlov.

Kutna Hora was in history the centre of economy, owing to the fact that it was the site of the largest and richest silver mines.

But before we get to that there's this building in Prague that's particularly interesting.




This used to be the headquarters of the socialist government in Czech Republic. Since the fall of communism it has become the headquarters of a radio station that specialises in broadcasting to nations that remain under fascist rule. Owing to this, military presence is always felt around the complex to protect it from any threat, especially relevant after terror attacks escalated worldwide.





Saint Barbara is the patron saint of miners. This is Saint Barbara's Cathedral in Kutna Hora. The architecture is in the New Gothic style, with high windows and spires. Apparently the trend during the New Gothic period was for higher windows to let in more light, but as a result of those high windows the walls were quite unstable. Thus we have those buttresses that you see rising from the outer spires to support the main body of the building.
We sang in here!




The Town Square in Kutna Hora. Decision making used to be centred around here, and now it's a silver museum and also a musuem on the history of the town.

A notice like this one has been outside the door to the parliamentary chamber since 1595.










And I bought this bracelet at
Kutna Hora!






Cesky Krumlov is a town that sits snugly around the meanders of the river Vltava. The name of the town, Krumlov, derives from a word that means crooked, and refers to the winding river, and as well as the architectural facade of the village that has over the years evolved to accomodate the river's turns.

These are the sights that I saw for two mornings when I woke up. The Hotel Dvorak is situated right on the banks of the river, and faces directly the castle of Cesky Krumlov.

It's a fantastic way to start any day.















A monument in the town square erected after the Black Plague in the 16th Century.










The summer gardens of the castle. It doesn't look like much because it's winter now and all the greenery looks rather drab and the sculptures are boxed up as to protect them against the elements.










Right in the middle of the gardens is this amphitheatre that was built during the communist era. It stands as a point of contention between the UN World Heritage and the government over whether or not it should be destroyed and the area restored to how it would look 200 years ago.




The castle grounds have always been home to bears. This was due to the fact that bears represent power and might, and as well as being family symbols of the Italian noble family of Orsini that the Rosenbergs, historical rulers of Krumlov, thought they were related to. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad to have a bear named after you., even if you were once Queen of Austria ruling on the Hapsburg throne.

One of the bears. We all thought that bears hibernated through the winter but this one actually came out while we were around. It also went on to poop before retreating back to wherever it was hiding before.

ah it's good to be back...

but then and again i must say that i've been to so many extremely beautiful places..
i wanna go again!

haha...




Christmas market at the Old Town Square in Prague.




And that's me!
Just round the corner from the square.
















Wenceslas Square, one of the major shopping districts in Prague. Not really much of a square, really, more like a boulevard. Christmas markets open here too, along the long stretch in the centre separated at intervals by small, pretty gardens.








Strahov Library, in Strahov Monastery. It's been standing since 1143 and it is today still a library, and as well as the Musuem of National Literature.




Church of our Lady at Strahov Monastery. Mozart once played the church organ there. That's actually not saying much since in Prague and the surrounding territories Mozart played a fair lot of organs that are still around today.





Look all the way down past that huge chunk about who built it to see his name. It probably just says he played in
there in 1787.


The gates to Prague Castle. The castle is the largest castle complex in the world, and also one of the oldest, built in the 9th century. It has been and still is the seat of administrative power in the country.














Charles Bridge, named after King Charles IV, with 30 statues along the length of the bridge. At the pedestal of the statue of St. John of Nepomuk there are two well worn images, of the saint being thrown into the river and the other of a dog, that was said to have come to the bridge to follow its master to death.








If you touch the saint and make a wish it will come true, as long as you tell no one what you wished for. If you touch the dog, a symbol of loyalty, you will one day return to Prague.












The highlight of the entire trip - Gold in the International Festival of Advent and Christmas Music.










And together with it a special mention for the outstanding performance of one of our songs.






and more to come soon...

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

hello there...

well well...

Brunei was fun... that's about all i can say so far...
as performers for the Sultan's birthday celebrations, we were treated like VIP wherever we went...
that means police escort everywhere we go...
including to the shopping malls...

so there's this one day where we have a roadshow.. like a parade round the streets in a place called Kuala Belait...

the bus ride there's more than an hour.. so i just settle down on the bus and doze off...

and mind you there are 3 countries involved in this particular show in this particular district... and so there's us, and delegates from Indonesia and Jordan...
and that's a grand total of about (i can't remember exactly) 5 trucks, 6 coaches, 3 minivans, 2 cars and 4 police motorcycle escorts...

so.
halfway i get up and i have to pee real bad...
so what do i do...?

i stop the coach and find a place to relieve myself...

and the whole entourage of (i think) 5 trucks, 6 coaches, 3 minivans, 2 cars and 4 police motorcycle escorts...

stops too.

i like to think i was doing us all a favour because when the whole chain of vehicles stopped, everyone unloaded (albeit not as harriedly as me).

well that's a bus ride to remember.

well moving on to other things...

the fireworks used were Japanese Hanabi fireworks...
exceptionally beautiful, not like the stuff you see normally...

apparrently, the stuff that we see here every year may be choreographed and designed by French or goodness-knows-where-else artists, but the gunpowder used all comes form China...

these fireworks, on the other hand, come from Japan...

and they are drop-dead gorgeous...

see here.

there's a lot more... but i think i'll wait for next time...

before leaving for Brunei i picked up something to read while i was there...

"... Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved then the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much."
- Cry, the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton

it's really quite good writing...

next next...

these few days at home have been spent watching Carnivale, a miniseries from HBO...

it's about the two stories of a young man with a gift for healing picked up by a travelling circus and a priest with a dark power as he falls away from his faith...
the first season alone details their stories as they come to realize their individual potential and sets the stage for a cosmic battle between good and evil...

the battle between good and evil part isn't all that new... but the show, with it's plot, all the quirky freakshow characters, layered images, is something really well done...

we'll see if i can get season 2...

well that's about all for this very compressed and strung together glimpse of my life in the past half-a-month or so...

hello all!!

am now sitting in the lobby of the Orchid Garden Hotel where free wireless access has allowed me to blog such...

so...

yar that's about it lar...
more updates to come when i reach back home..

and to anonymous...
thank you very much for your kind support but i haven't found the time nor condition to continue the adventures of the late Lord Graine so well...

heh i'm sorry you'll have to wait a little longer...

i will be away till the 3rd of August...

so i was planning on going to the airport tomorrow by myself... despite my mother's quite intense protests over the last weeks that i needed fetching at that early hour...

which i should add is not really that early...
i have to reach the airport at 7...

and before leaving home last Sunday for camp the debate was still not yet ended... and all that she was willing to concede was a rather tenacious "we'll talk about it on Thursday night"...

and then she pulls out the oldest trick in any mother's book.

guilt.

Plath, give me strength.

it's two in the morning... and i kinda think it's a horrendously ungodly hour to be up blogging...
but the thought just popped into my head as i was bathing an hour ago and it's been swimming around ever since...

so here it is... after so long...
the question resurfaces...

when i was posted to my current occupation as a musician i was quite overjoyed because i thought it was a chance that had taken too long to come... and so i fervently plunged into it... and it all looked promising...
all this until about six months later... when quite suddenly, i decided that i should put music aside...

i decided that to pursue music was simply too tough.. and i felt wise and courageous admitting that i didn't have enough courage nor talent to do it...

to most people, i've only told them this first, lesser reason why i decided to give up...
and i don't know if anyone else out there even knows there's a second reason...

something happened along the way that gave me reason to file away my scores... at first for a while.. and then for longer and longer periods of time it seemed i didn't need to go back to my lifelong refuge...

then after a while i just stopped thinking about it...

but as time goes by i hear things in my head again... and it seems that everytime i think about it i see no reason why i cannot do it...
and then i see so many reasons why i can't...

and so i'm stuck here... between what's safe and what's risky...

the perennial dilemma...

to leonard and zat. old and new best friend.
aiyar how liddat?

ps. i'd like to also say that very thankfully the debate and discussion is now very much less angsty unlike posts on this same topic from previous years. this thanks to a few years of life and experience and the subtraction from my chemical makeup, a good dose of hormones.

pps. no offense to my other very good friends for not mentioning you all...

ppps. there's no ppps i just thought it'll be cool to have three postscripts.

Gregory looked around the room with an appraising look at each one of the room’s occupants. Elaine Russell, a tall, dark-haired woman, sat with rather dark rings around her eyes, and cupped in her hands a cup of tea. A man stood in a corner of the room, with an expression of irritation as if he would rather have been elsewhere, and frequently checked his watch. Gregory guessed he was Edward Lowell. A gruff, large, bearish man was heartily eating the pastries set out by the maid, and Gregory decided that that was the explorer, Jason Backworth, Jr. Molly and Baddleton, the maid and the butler, stood in their customary position, almost blending into the dark wooden walls, by the doorway.

“I’ve seen the scene of the murder and it seems, at first sight, that the Lord Graine was murdered in the night, less than twelve hours ago, by a sword taken from one of the two suits of armour that are along the corridor outside the library. The sword was, of course, ornamental, and it was used as a blunt weapon rather than what someone more melodramatically inclined might think.”

Gregory paused for a moment here as a mild draught worked its way around the room, lending an air of uncertainty to the already very uncertain circumstances.

“So,” he continued, looking around disconcertedly, “no Shakespeare here.”

Baddleton, in the slight pause that had shown itself into the room, spoke, “the sword was taken in the night, just as the murderer was about to do his dastardly deed. I dust those suits regularly, and I clearly remember seeing the swords at their rightful places. And incidentally, those suits have been in the family for over a century now, and -”

The detective shot down the rest of his speech with a rather sharp glare, as he recalled the thick coat of dust that the suits had gathered. He made a mental note, quite unprofessionally, that although noisy and pretentious, the butler was plainly harmless.

“And I’m not sure if any of you here know that another crime has been committed. The reason why you all are here in Graine Manor in the first place is the auction that was supposed to be held today, to sell off the Backworth Opal.”

The draught that had seemed to settle itself down worked itself up again, but this time the detective was determined to carry on talking.

“The vault was broken into in the night, and the opal stolen, the details of which you will know in time. All I can say now is that Graine was very likely murdered because he knew who the thief was.”

The draught that was winding around the room abruptly stilled, and a profound, inexplicable sense of sadness settled on the room’s more sensitive inhabitants.




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

After Molly left the library, with far less grace than she normally possessed, I followed suit, and decided to haunt the hallowed halls of my manor. Detecting was a rather faint prospect in my mind, and I was more preoccupied with exploring my home in that new state of being. There was a dull crash at the end of the darkened hallway, and a streak of pity immediately ran through me, for Molly was always such a swan, skimming around the manor, and I have to admit that I was rather fond of the girl and her mild, quiet ways.

Floating around the manor, I found myself perusing objects that in my previous days held far less a portion of my attention. Strewn all around the (sprawling, I used to boast, but it really was rather modest) mansion were all the marks of my being, my life; my unanswered letters, still-open books, tables yet to be cleared and half-finished wine all reminded me of the life that I had, quite literally, left behind. For the first time in my short-lived, ethereal, experience I felt a real sense of loss, one that I thought anyone who really cared for me would feel too. Death, up to that point in time, had not bothered me much, as I was still very much able to experience the world, albeit far more restricted in my interactions with it, but looking at those effects of my life left unsettled, I was suddenly clearly aware that I was taken, while not at my prime, close enough after it that I still had plenty to live for.

Wandering as such, the night snuck its silent way onwards and I soon found Baddleton, looking thoroughly displaced at the prospect of having to manage the house through a murder and having no employer to rely on, heading out of the main doors onto the lawn awaiting some arrival. I followed him out, carrying onto the lawn the same sense of wasted worth that I had slowly gathered in the dark depths of the night.

A black car finally drove up and out came a man, a detective, from what I could hear passing between them. From what I could hear passing between them, however, I also decided to place myself in the parlour to wait for the meeting to begin. As sudden as morning dew evaporating, my mood had lightened considerably at the prospect of seeing the various guests of my household all assembled, and beginning to find (for the purposes of justice, not revenge, I reminded myself, as the vague promises that had stood in my mind suddenly recalled themselves) my murderer.



The various personalities that occupied Graine Manor on the boring night of my murder slowly made their way to the parlour, where Molly, despite her having to deal with the shock of seeing my dead body not too few hours ago, had somehow managed to set a few light pastries in the room for the detective and the inhabitants of the manor to enjoy over the meeting. Looking at the assortment of my favourites that she had gathered, I was thrown into confusion not knowing whether to feel jealousy and irritation or gratitude over the fact that she had prepared such a spread of my personal favourites.

Shamefully, I decided that the latter response was a far fairer one, the decision greatly hastened by some vague memory of pettiness being ill-tolerated in heaven surfacing in my mind.

The occupants of my manor had, during the course of my inner turmoil over breakfast pastries, gathered in the parlour, and I saw each one of them absorbed in their own little spheres of thought the way people do when they encounter great shock. (Or when, as I remarked to myself remembering that some assembled there might not have been too shocked to see me dead, when they just get out of bed.)

Baddleton entered the parlour at last, followed closely by the detective, and I theatrically settled myself down on a wooden chair, and thought to myself, allowing some of my vanity to return, that the investigation was about to start.




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

Gregory James Miller was jolted out of his sleep by a ringing telephone that lay by his bed, but to him, the sudden displacement might just have been brought about by a curtain-shaking scream as much as the jarring buzz of the telephone at his side.

He picked up the phone with a mumble of acknowledgement that, at that hour, was the most he could muster.

“Well err… Good evening, Detective. We have a situation at Graine Manor and -”

“Yes, yes,” he interrupted irritably, “I understand. Get the car over in a quarter of an hour and I’ll be ready then.”

“Very good sir. Now this time it seems to be a murder; Lord Graine, owner of Graine Manor has been found dead, apparently -”

“Take the docket, get your rump off the operator’s chair, go to the machine, and I will expect a copy of it on the front seat of the car that will undoubtedly be disturbing my evening in -” he paused here, struggling to remember, “fifteen minutes.”

A car drove off into the night with a tongue-clicking driver at the wheel, and a red-faced detective in the back seat, approximately three quarters of an hour later.



Detective Miller was welcomed to the once-stately Graine Manor by the portly butler, Baddleton. At first sight, the manor could be dismissed as another house falling into disrepair, almost in a state of neglect. As he left the car and walked across the modest lawn into the building, however, minor details impressed themselves into him, like the tended garden and the well-trod paths across the lawn that led to the garden shed and the garage. A sense of shame crept over him, a guiltless shame almost like pity, as if he had seen a man abruptly robbed of his prime and sentenced to a state of forgotten half-existence.

“Detective Miller,” Baddleton paused here for effect as much as for emphasis. If any of the other inhabitants of the house were there to hear his emphatic exclamation of the detective’s surname they would have thought he paused expecting Miller to immediately warm to him and offer his first name. “Are you quite sure you’re feeling fine today? You look under the weather!”

“Yes thank you.” Gregory replied with a slight shake of his head as if to clear his thoughts. “We’ll head in now, thank you. And please gather everyone somewhere convenient where I can speak to them.”

Baddleton, perhaps peeved at the detective, offered as dignified a grunt as he could muster in response.

Stepping into the main hall, Baddleton began his patter that, although he had memorised by heart and gave hundreds of times, still sounded fresh in all his enthusiasm. While the butler was expounding the history of the manor and the most noble house of Graine, Gregory had already begun to mildly dislike the man. Plump, but thankfully not unhealthily so, Baddleton had the affected mannerism of an over-zealous servant, but not one that shied away from subtly expressing his displeasure at his master. It was as if he believed that he was doing the best job he could if he, under his upturned nose, stealthily shuffled his master in whatever direction his undoubtedly sharp butler-mind thought most prudent.

Gregory, by the fourth sentence about knights in the fourteenth century and modern reinforcements that, while hidden, still preserved the classic façade of the building, had unfortunately lost patience with the butler.

“I’m not looking to buy the house, you know.”

Without skipping a beat, Baddleton delivered his next line, “the guests have been called and will be in the parlour, ready to meet you, in,” he paused with a glance at his wrist and a flare of his nostrils, “fifteen minutes.”




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

ello...

i went for surgery yesterday to remove long-ago-mentioned lump in lip...

now i have 2 stitches on my lip that the doctor promises will dissolve in a few days... no matter actually... preliminary tongue explorations indicate that sutures have texture similar to uncooked spaghetti and thus will become part of my lunch if in a few days the sutures still haven't dissolved...

mwahahahaha....

and in these 3 days i have at home i will be writing madly (am currently juggling two screens) to get the mystery going... haha...
currently it seems that my notes run into more pages than the prose proper...

but since i'm at it...

the surgery was quite.. well.. boring.

it comprised an hour and forty minutes of waiting and about 15 minutes with the scapels and needles stuck in me..
probably the most interesting thing was having a nursing student in my theatre learning the ropes of handling surgery and being mildly alarmed at the fact that the nurses were talking to him like he was a 5 year old (don't touch! those sheets are sterilised!)...

second most interesting thing was realising that when surgery starts you stop being a whole being to the doctors and surgeons as their attention narrows in onto the involved parts of your body ie my lip...
after being covered with the aforementioned sterile sheets my torso became a handy place to put basically anything from unused to used operating instruments and as the surgeon was stitching up my lip she used my nose as an armrest while manoeuvring the undoubtedly complicated stitching up of my lip...

i responded with a vehement snort.

I wish, right now, that I could at least say “’twas a dark and stormy night,” but when one is dead, and sitting around on a rather ethereal rump waiting for that vague promise of salvation to fulfil itself (and of course half-dreading that equally promised damnation), keeping up images and telling lies seem far less important. So I shall be truthful, and say that the night I was murdered was, well, a quiet, uneventful night; it was a boring night. Sometimes (not that I’ve had plenty of time to think it over) I almost wish that I had left the mortal plane with at least a scream or even a hoarse shout to stir the night, but all it took was a thump and a rather ungainly gargle at the back of my throat, and I was left there, floating about and staring at my own bloody neck.

When I thought about my last memories as a living, breathing, human being all I could remember was being desperately thirsty for a drink and fumbling into the library where I thought I had left my unfinished glass. The next moment there was a thump and a terrific pain surfaced at the back of my neck. When the dizziness cleared and I looked up, all I saw was what a dastardly job the labourers had done with my cornices, and reminding myself to tell Baddleton to get it fixed first thing in the morning. Then there were hasty steps and I saw a silhouette leaving the room and slamming the door, and looking around, right there below me, was, well, my own bloody neck.

Now, I know that most would think that I would have pursued my murderer relentlessly, moaning, flinging sheets about or perhaps rattling windows in their frames. Truthfully, however, (in consideration of my current circumstance favouring quite more virtue in my character) I was rather content sitting there and waiting for some pinprick to appear so I could see the light, or perhaps there would be some angel to behold and I would float gloriously through that ill-decorated ceiling. But none of that occurred, and so I parked the abovementioned rump in a rather plush chair (and this I know through memory rather than real sensation), and just waited.

I’ve always thought ghosts were beings accustomed to waiting, (and I do believe in ghosts – it comes with a fear of the dark and all things unknown that, in keeping with telling the truth, all shallow, self-centred people have in them) but to me the prospect of simply sitting and waiting for something, if anything at all, to happen was simply unbearable. Finally, I gave the chair up and tried to leave the room, and the most frustrating thing happened - I simply could not open the door. My hands grasped the knob and just lamely slid around the globe like dead jellyfish sliding off a rowing boat’s paddle.

“Good lord,” I said aloud, “I’m stuck in the library with the broken bottle of wine that killed me and I can’t leave!” And with a huge sigh that (I hoped) stirred the curtains a trifle bit, I said, “I must be in Hell!”

At which time the door promptly opened and in came Molly, who, with a determined expression, looked as though she was headed straight for the bookshelf. Undoubtedly, she was diverted, in course and in thought, by a rather bloody scene. Then she screamed, and this time, without a doubt, the curtains shook.




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

Birds

I wrote some words but the sheet was consumed
by the wind, a paper bird caught in a gale.
But I have the words, the thousand nestlings
that now silently gape, bereft of their mother.

Those are words that bear meaning too heavy
for their stroked bodies. So now they will buckle and die,
hungry and gaping, but their spirits will remain,
resting in my memories, and haunting my words.

These ghosts trail like phantom ducklings behind me,
but I will lose them one by one, the pain of loss expected and sharp,
and slowly, carefully, I will set them to forgetfulness,
birds born in the palm of my human hand learning to fly into the clouds.

this is for those people out there who are totally kookoo about Sandman.

http://www.stahl.bau.tu-bs.de/~hildeb/sandman/annotations/

hello everybody...

i am here to exclaim that life has a really kooky sense of humour.
like big time.

so today about an hour or so before we knock off my boss announces that he's headed eastward..
and that for me reads homeward bound..

so happily i get a free lift back home...

so you see after we do knock off i rush down to the bunk so as not to keep boss waiting... i grab all my stuff and stuff it into my bag and then off i go..

so now you see the funny thing is that now... 4 hours later..

i realise i've lost my chain and one side of my nice brown suede shoes...
the left side to be specific...

so i was telling my friend who had my boss' contact: "gawd that has to be in the top ten most stupid things i've ever done."

"hope you find your shoe"

lovely innit... i'm just tickled pink..

so as a result of something like that happening i have to very embarrasingly call up my boss and it went something like: "err hello sir.. it's me.. i hitched a ride in your car today and i just realised i lost a side of my shoe.. yar just one side.. if you could check it out for me and gimme a call can..?"

and so he's in the middle of something like a rehearsal or a lesson cos i hear him tell the pianist tinkling in the background to stop for a while... and i have to go through the whole thing with him again..

*dramatically thrusts hands skyward and looks in despair at the unforgiving heavens*
*lights dim and spotlight on me and me alone*

it's one of those days.

the bored boy to blogthings went lest his brain went bananas from the day's banality but unbeknownst to him blogthings could be actually very badly addictive...

You Are Rain

You can be warm and sexy. Or cold and unwelcoming. Either way, you slowly bring out the beauty around you. You are best known for: your touch Your dominant state: changing

What Type of Weather Are You?

You Should Be a Musician

You have a rare combinations of talents: an ear for music, nimble fingers, and the willpower to practice. You could master almost any instrument you choose to play (if you haven't already!)

What Sort of Artist Should You Be?

Your Hair Should Be Purple

Intense, thoughtful, and unconventional. You're always philosophizing and inspiring others with your insights.

What's Your Funky Inner Hair Color?

and i swear i never cheated.

ok this is embarrassing...

but who is Anonymous who i'm supposed to be meeting up with on the 15th..?

ok i know i just blogged today but take it as a makeup for not blogging for so long...

i just watched Stepford Wives (and i think i can hear leonard tsking in the background at me for having taken so long to finally watch it.) and after it finished i just had to come here and rant...

ok not that it's a bad show, it's brilliant really...

but.

here comes the long ranting post that i think some will find just tiresome. but well.

For what I see to be an otherwise quintessentially feminist movie, there are too many subtle details that undermine feminism. Major plot movements throughout the movie, while successful in sustaining interest and suspense, are thematically weak and perhaps even contradictory.

In a scene where Joanna confronts the men, for example, although she breaks the mould by going against stereotype and challenging male authority in Stepford, questioning their methods and treatment of their wives, she is ultimately shown to be after all, female, with the classic female weakness in love. The act of her kissing Walter could be seen as her final plea to him to show him that no Stepford Wife could replace her, but ultimately, she succumbs to her love for him and lets him make the final decision. In this alone the man is shown to be in power yet again.

Further down the movie the audience is shown that Joanna has not really become a Stepford Wife and has been merely playing a part to fool the town. However, a subtle statement is made by showing Walter to be in action, instrumental in dismantling the plot, while Joanna distracts Mike, and the movie falls to the standard stereotype of the man in action, saving the day. Although much could be said about Joanna and what goes on that is not mentioned in the movie, for example the exact circumstances leading up to her "transformation", it is ultimately true that she is somewhat reduced to from the woman who could have made a difference to Walter's sidekick.

Even in charcterisation there are minor details that seem to undermine the feminist thread running in the movie. For example, while it seems at first that Joanna is pitted against Mike, ultimately the "bad guy" is shown to be after all a woman. She is shown to be firstly, mad, driven insane by the shock of discovering her husband's infidelity. Then she is shown next to be scheming, planning to spread her skewed plans worldwide. Finally she is again a pitiful woman, whose weakness in love has brought her downfall and ultimately her death.

so yar thus ends my short sojourn back to the days when i could just launch and my pen would devour foolscap and produce 5 sides of essay material in 45 minutes...

i like to think i haven't lost it yet...

this is so saddening...
i've just discovered that a writer i always thought was pretty good has started to recycle her work...

when i first read Mistress of Spices some years ago i thought it was very well done...
and now i read another book of hers and quite disappointingly... it seems like i'm reading the same book with different names and places but with the same themes...

like Mistress of Spices and Queen of Dreams.

go figure...

but i shall not be blindly angry and just slam her...
i still think she's quite good... maybe i'll go pick up something else of her's and see if she's really recycling her stuff...

and i do realise that i haven't been updating these past few weeks...
mainly it's cos i've been watching dvds of a certain very popular Korean serial like a desperate auntie...

so sad right my no-life...

but then and again not to worry since i've successfully plowed through the entire serial already and to ensure that i do not watch it over again i will return the dvd to it's rightful owner...

...

i have minor surgery on the 4th of may for excision biopsy to remove a lump of flesh on my lip...

i know it all sounds terribly dramatic but it's really just a minor irritation that has been hanging around irritating me to no end since...

lemme see now...
january?

as a friend of mine pointed out when i said that surgery was scheduled for may when i visited the doctor in january, "if it's nothing it will have gone away by itself by then, and if it's something you'll be dead by then!"

then of course by now it has very irritatingly not gone off by itself, but i'm not dead yet too...

so err yar.

ah whatever. as long as it's not a) cancerous, b) insect larvae in my lip or c) an alien gestating in my lip i guess i shall not be worried...

i'm kinda tired...
like too tired to blog right now so i decided i shall just take my favourite bits from the books strewn around my room and just post it up here for everybody to ooh and ahh over...
and of course this will not be like those bits of poetry that i sometimes use as a closing for some posts...

"Just so. For as everyone knows, when it is noon in the United States the sun is setting over France. If you could get to France in a twinkling, you could watch a sunset right now. Unfortunately France was too far away. But on your tiny planet, little prince, you only had to move your chair a few steps. You could watch night fall whenever you liked.
'One day,' you said, 'I watched the sunset forty-three times!'
And a little later he added:
'You know, when one is that sad, one can get to love the sunset.'
'Were you that sad, then, on the day of the forty-three sunsets?'
But the prince made no answer."
- The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

" ... I have always loved the desert. You sit down on a sand dune. You see nothing. You hear nothing. Yet all the time something is radiating hrough the silence.
'What makes the desert beautiful,' said the little prince, 'is that somewhere it is hiding a well.' "
- The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

" 'The north wind is alive,' the BFG said. 'It is moving. It touches you on the cheek and on the hands. But nobody is feeding it.' "
- The BFG, by Roald Dahl

"The crickets sang in the grasses. They sang the song of summer's ending, a sad, monotonous song. 'Summer is over and gone,' they sang. 'over and gone, over and gone. Summer is dying, dying.'
The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everyone that summertime cannot last forever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year - the days when summer is changing into autumn - the crickets spread the rumour of sadness and change."
- Charlotte's Web, by E. B. White

"The snows melted and ran away. The streams and ditches bubbled and chattered with rushing water. A sparrow with a squeaky breast arrived and sang. The light strengthed, the mornings came sooner. Almost every morning there was another new lamb in the sheepfold. The goose was sitting on nine eggs. The sky seemed wider and a warm wind blew. The last remaining strands of Charlotte's old web floated away and vanished."
- Charlotte's Web, by E. B. White

so these are the books that i grew up with...

In Moments of Abstraction

In moments of abstraction
the peal of my laugh
dulls and sullens.
Like a bell dipped in water
I become still, but the resonance
of my laugh carries on all around me.

I pick up and carry on,
falling into the rhythm like
a pendulum swinging
and as time passes the peal
sounds again,
but the heart remembers.

hello there everybody...

i have a terribly hurting throat..
and two ulcers under my tongue nestled side by side...

it hurts to talk and it hurts to sing and it hurts to eat...

but enough about me...

let's talk about a certain friend of mine...

so a friend of mine says that everyday at work he makes it a point to check out all his friends' blogs to see what's going on in their lives...
everyday... every friend... every blog...

except mine...

cos according to him i don't blog enough and he knows that even if he does check back it won't be updated...

so now i'm compelled to write something before he throttles my neck...

blogblogblogblog...

ok back to me...

seeing as how i'm feeling so sick right now i want to stuff myself silly with comfort food like chocolates, and chips, and chocolate cake, and fries, and chocolate ice-cream...
but i can't have any of that cos it'll make my throat hurt more...

argh.

for all those concerned this isn't an edvard-munch-the-scream argh...
it's more like a grit-my-teeth-and-narrow-my-eyes kinda argh...

come to think of it actually it's more of an urgh.

so there...

urgh.

well i hit the big two-oh tomorrow...

it's very tempting right now, sitting at my table, to pour out another one of my philosophical, existential ramblings...
but i think not...

somehow when i was a kid and i couldn't wait to grow up this day didn't seem to be like this...
and i do think and wonder sometimes what's changed...
but i can't seem to put my finger to it...

it's not like i don't want to grow up... but i suppose it's no longer like when we were seven and everything was so innocent...

but ah well...

i suppose it's happy birthday to me...
yay...

oh dear...

it seems Knanaki thinks that me...
of all people...

she thinks that i, of sound mind and body, have gone kookoo and wrote the entire last post to create some fictional universe around some fictional character: Commander Keen.

firstly, Commander Keen is not fictional.
secondly, i am not kookoo.

Commander Keen is real. He's a real boy who went from garage genius to saviour of earth by defeating the Vorticons who were not evil, but under the influence of the Grand Intellect.
His bravery and courage ensure that we have an planet now that we can call our own.

if he wasn't real, where on earth do you think the computer game i spent and now am spending so many hours on came from...?

"No one can see beyond a choice that they don't understand."
- The Oracle.

and i was watching The Matrix...

so you see... i still can't seem to move on for so long now because there are so many things i don't understand...
and for all the perseverance, all the determination, and most importantly all that self-knowledge i think i possess there are things that i know i won't come to understand...

that simply is the way of things...

and that much i understand... because i understand that some choices will have to be made regardless of circumstance, regardless of understanding...

some choices are just made... and then that's all there is to it...

this is one of those posts where i talk to myself...

Episode 1 - Marooned on Mars
Billy Blaze, eight year-old genius, working diligently in his backyard clubhouse has created an interstellar starship from old soup cans, rubber cement and plastic tubing. While his folks are out on the town and the babysitter has fallen asleep, Billy travels into his backyard workshop, dons his brother's football helmet, and transforms into...

Commander Keen - Defender of Earth!

In this episode, aliens from the planet Vorticon VI find out about the eight year-old genius and plan his destruction. While Keen is out exploring the mountains of Mars, the Vorticons steal vital parts of his ship and take them to distant Martian cities! Can Keen recover all the pieces of his ship and repel the Vorticon invasion? Will he make it back before his parents get home? Stay tuned!


In our last episode, Commander Keen foiled the Vorticon plot to strand him on Mars, recovering all of his ship's parts back from the evil Vorticons. It was dangerous, but simply a preamble to the terror that follows in...


Episode 2 - The Earth Explodes
His parents think he's asleep, but there's no time for napping -- a Vorticon Mothership is poised above Earth, preparing to destroy every major city with their deadly Tantalus Ray! Keen must sneak aboard the ship and stop their terrible task. If he fails, the Earth explodes! Of course, this will mean he won't have to get home in time for school.... The Earth or no school. Hmmm....

After much deliberation, Keen decides to save the Earth anyway. Don't miss an action-packed second of this exciting episode in the Commander Keen trilogy!


here's to another priceless piece of my chilhood unearthed and relived...
and to 15 hours of lost sleep...
and many more to go...

the previous post was written and was supposed to be up last week.

due to the sheer obstinacy of blogger.com and my hectic schedule it has seen the light of cyberspace only now...

so stop bugging me to post, enjoy those precious few words and i'll get something up soon...

i think...

i have just woken up...

and it's seven pm now.

it's mildly irritating to take a nap and wake up at 7 cos then it seems that the whole day has been wasted in slumber...
and i don't even feel rested...

but ah well...

i don't have much to say regarding the past few days except that my body is putting up spectacular resistance to me putting it through the rigour of physical excercise on a regular basis...

or a least that's what my thighs, shoulders and arms seem to be screaming...

For you

Listen, just once more, to me,
before you leave, unheeding.
After this, locked and hidden,
I will put it all away,
to hope, to wait, to wither.

It's like clouds before sunset,
tinged crimson like a lover's blush.
Like stars at midnight, till morning burning;
deathless, only hiding.

It's the sail of a small bird on a well-caught gust,
slow, against the streak of a meteor.
It's a meteor that comes unbidden but welcome,
yet fades, brief like wind-flung raindrops on a window.

It's like seeing the ocean after ages of winding road,
and a lighthouse rising from the rocks.
Like a promise of rest beside eternal waters
with a guardian for starless new-moon nights.

It's sweet chocolate shared between a couple,
trifle banter that flits like a butterfly.
It's petalled colour on a lone stalk in a grassy field
standing against a harsh sky.

It's so much, too much,
and I sit, sniffing, on an overflowing suitcase
trying to pack it all away.
But every day it distils like salt crystals forming
and then it seems to get easier.

It seems to be many things but all it is,
is the feeling that is now long gone,
save for when on drawn-out nights
I lie and forget,
that it's an eternal wait
for you.


it's been a month now since that long, long, night...

hmm...

hello everybody...

there's nothing much to say now... i've been walking around and sitting around watching tv in this stupor since i woke up and i haven't really snapped out of it yet...

so maybe this mindless rambling outpouring of words will wake me up somewhat so i can get on to afore-promised this-is-what-i-did-this-week post...

oh yes... this is what i did last week...
or rather... what i didn't do...

i didn't remember to take my pendant out of my pocket... it was there in the first place since i decided it didn't go with my shirt but i wanted to bring it home from camp see...

and so it went with my jeans into the washing machine and all i have left now is pendant sans chain...

so i'll have to go out and get one...

which isn't necessarily a bad thing since i now have an excuse to shop...
if only for a chain...

moving on...

we all have new pillows at home...
that's a good thing cos i now have something else to cosy up to instead of that tatty old thing...

but then the rest of the family doesn't seem to share my enthusiasm in acquiring new pillows so i have four more pillows sitting in my room... forlorn and neglected and still in the plastic bags they came in...

and forever getting in my way...

somehow pillows look a lot bigger when they're not on the bed where they belong...

...

halfway through blogging about pillows i decided to take a nap...

and now i've just awakened...

four hours later...

it seems nowadays i sleep a whole lot more than before...
and i don't see why not...

i can sleep and dream nonsense dreams that i half-remember and wake up feeling all confused...

and sometimes pleasantly amused...


and hungry... for that matter...

i'm very tired now but i actually intended to do one of those boring this-is-what-i-did-this-week posts...

so instead i'm going to rant about the two ulcers on the left side of my lips...
one above and one below...

i sometimes think brushing my teeth is a chore... but now i know it can be an agony too...

haha...

ok i'm done ranting...

this post is here more to force me to blog the actual this-is-what-i-did-this-week post since in it i say i'll do it...

and if i don't i'll have very irate readers...

according to a certain anonymous whose identity i'd really like to uncover...

so do drop me a line... email or something... so i know who you are...

and for the rest of the world you can expect a plebeian this-is-what-i-did-this-week post tomorrow...

or sunday...

i think...

hello...

been shopping for new year clothes... bought jeans and corduroy trousers and red striped polo from topman...

and a bright pink shirt from m-industries...

new pair of shoes from clark...

and a new sweater...
that according to my friends makes me look like a sick old man...

i like shopping...
hee hee...

very extremely late thank-yous for my chrismas present of Sandman issues 1,2,3,5 from Serena, Sonia, sulin and Weiman...

(well actually the present came late too...)

(ok fine so it was partly my fault that i didn't join them on xmas day itself...)

haha...