Saturday, March 31, 2007

100

The most painful feelings, the most piercing emotions are also the most absurd ones - the longing for impossible things precisely because they are impossible, the nostalgia for what never was, the desire for what might have been, one's bitterness that one is not someone else, or one's dissatisfaction with the very existence of the world. All these half-tones of the world's consciousness create a raw landscape within us, a sun eternally setting on what we are. Our sense of ourselves then becomes a deserted field at nightfall, with sad reeds flanking a boatless river, bright in the darkness growing between the distant shores.
The Book of Disquiet, Fernando Pessoa

A little tennis game with Jie Ming is squeezed into the middle of the day, but the rain thwarts our plans. Half way through the game, the court gets too slippery so we sit down in the rain listening to Mayday, and dreading the the university replies (update: both rejected!). On my mind is the meeting with R later, and I sort-of dread it more than.

But it is a dream. The ohm from Concave Scream is left over, so I am calm when I face him. When we hit Changi Coast Road, we're chatting like old friends and I dont miss him anymore. Planes roaring overhead drown out our voices and the Manic Street Preachers, but we're part of the road, so we just listen harder. At the beach, it's disgusting and packed, so we stand a little, staring off into the Straits.

There is something about two boys - running barefoot, chasing each other, tossing a frisbee, swimming across the river, skipping rocks, smashing fish, climbing railings, scaring ghosts - that is so incredibly exhilarating and athletic, the serotonin high still lingers inside. At the end of the night, chatting in the car at R's carpark, just like years ago on the taxis, I know we're friends again. Not hundred dollar friends, and we both know it, but something more. And a night like this, not hundred dollars, but something more.

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Friday, March 30, 2007

Hush

So, Jie Ming and I, both Espy virgins, go watch Concave Scream's Hush together. Somewhere, ten seconds into the first song, I get the shiver-shake moment that "Safari Pete" speaks of. Whow! And really, isnt this whole night just a huge shiver-shake moment? Except it's a really quiet moment, not so loud, like Concave Scream promised at the beginning of the set. This is meant to be a huge weekend, one filled with disappointment, healing, resolution, driving, exercise, food, party and farewells. But tonight, the first night, if anything, has been inspiration and hope.

Back in 2005, Jie Ming and I went to the Mayday concert which was loud, emotional and buzz. That was the punctuation for Central-BOC. Now, to punctuate this weekend, we go to Hush, and it really is that, quiet, sweetly nostalgic, and comfortably emotional. Perhaps that is the way it is as we turn 21, everything starts being less Love and Hate, and more Give and Take, and we start to settle down into our small quiet lives. Maybe once in a while we will go mad at a Cure concert, but in between these wild breaks, we'll all be a little more comfortable in our skins, nicer to ourselves and inner ears.

Tomorrow, I will see R, and it has all been settled in my mind. Just pack an eski, frisbee and some stuff into the car, and the land and water and sky will take care of everything else. Same goes for the future.

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Thursday, March 29, 2007

Tummy Mouse

The thing about ex-friends, people who used to be so close but are now strangers, is that they are not alone. From way back in secondary school, six years ago, I had began to lose sight of myself. The same also for parts of JC, which meant that these buddies had only made friends with an approximation of myself, a projection. That is why, now, it is so hard to go back to Huan Ling, for example, and get nostalgic. Because I do not know very well, or remember, the person that they knew and remember. For that matter, I am my own ex-friend, and that's why if you're an ex-friend reading this, you're not alone. But it's getting better now, we're getting chummier.

It seems to me that the toilet has bore witness to many changes of mind and realisations. Appropriately enough for the venue, my mental tempest can only be paralleled by my bowel movement, or there lackof. It all started in 2001 when things began to go a little crazy, and when I got the first bout of tummy mouse. Over the years, it's come and gone inasmuch the same way as I vacillate between personalities. Many a time, I get stressed/ nervous/ frightened, and I can feel the constipation right there in my tummy. One day, past all these purgings, everything will be clear, completely detoxed. Oh, what a day that will be.

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Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Nikhil Dreaming

School's over and Nikhil and I are walking through Ghim Moh towards Buona Vista MRT Station. Nikhil's half-Chinese so we talk about being mixed, and he likes it quite a little. He loves studying Punjabi too - in Punjabi, there are many different kinds of words for jewellery. Precious stones formed from heat and pressure are called this while precious things like gold and silver are called that.

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Monday, March 26, 2007

I Want to Go Home

I decided to continue... until I had got over my pain by comparing it with other people's, or had worn out my own story through sheer repetition.

But continuing, it is too difficult. Two years on, I am having the same jitters as if I had met you just last week. The sadness is too real to forget still, and the reasons are even more apparent, though less distinct. It is the green light on the other side of the river, it is there but it comes and goes and at times it is blur around the edges, though some nights it is sharp and pierces my heart through my eyes. That is why it will never be worn out, it takes different shapes, it is never the same thing. It burns and rises again from the ashes to fly, circling above my head. Home is a feeling I buried in you, so maybe that is why, thinking about you, all I understand is the longing for home, the yearning for you. I'm tired now, off to bed, perchance to dream of a better home.

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Sunday, March 25, 2007

Badger Badger Badger

A little trip to Dharma's new Bukit Timah home (welcome to the club, bitch), meant the scheduled twenty minutes on the cab, and the unscheduled one hour walking around trying to find the place. Well, as Dan says, schedule one hour for mistakes. Getting there, I'm fed heaps of frickin' good South Indian food, not to mention ice water. Mmm ice water...
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Night is Geylang for durians and whores, pretty ones, no less. Karyn and Dan are leaving tomorrow, and I dont want them to go!

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Saturday, March 24, 2007

Where's the Biatch?

The Zoo and the Night Safari! What more is there to be said! We pack our lunch and dinner and are on our jolly way!
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This stupid bird caught a fish it couldnt eat.
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Mmm. Polar bears.
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Mmm. White tiger. Highlight together with the flying squirrel from the Night Safari.
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Dan and I think the baboons are just hilarious.
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We're outside the puma enclosure.
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This warning is outside the puma enclosure.
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This fat lard was sleeping.
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As we're walking past thu puma, we cross paths with four dudes who were whistling "Maneater". We break up in laughter because that song had been stuck in our heads on Thursday. Later, these dudes help us take a picture at the giant tortoises.
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There're simply too many otters!

Soundbites
"No archer fish! There's nothing here! Go home!" - Zoo dude whom we asked for directions to the archer fish. Ok, maybe we made the last two up.
"Again, we're in a zoo.'' Karyn to Daniel and I after we keep discussing which animal would taste better.

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Karyn, Dan and I join in the free buffet at the Panasonic Asia-Pacific Family Day 2007. The magician was really bad.

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Thursday, March 22, 2007

Prang!

Karyn and Dan from Canada drop by Singapore for five days while going through Europe and Southeast Asia. We're all easygoing so it's like we're old chums except we've only met last night. The National Museum has a great exhibition on Arab culture, Living Under the Crescent Moon. Since I'd already planned on going, I invite them along and we all go together.
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Who wants to look at the musuem?

Some parts of the Museum are free on some parts of the day, but we decided to go the whole hog and pay the entrance fee. But boy, the museum was huge, and after four hours, we'd only coverd less than a quarter of it. Too much history and culture to take in at one go, so we fled the museum with our tails between our legs.
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Lunch!
picnic
The view from our picnic spot.
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The boys are a little defective.

My frisbee's in my bag so we decide to get some food and picnic at the Padang and toss the frisbee. That is, until a thunderstorm threatens, and the SCC threatens us too. So we cut short our frisbee game for some ice kachang under the Esplanade Bridge. Next to the water, sheltered from the rain, they're stuffing their face on mediocre ice kachang when they suddenly choke and realise that the Merlion's right THERE. Picture-taking is in order (of course) and we try to bully the other tourist groups (7 & 9).
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Karyn and Dan do their mandatory shot.
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While Karyn takes this gorgeous one.

Next stop, Raffles Hotel's Long Bar for the Singapore Sling ("How colonial"). We get a little lost, oddly enough, and my credibility as a local is cast into doubt. In my defence, we were underground. It's true though, that until now, I havent really explored my own city, and all this outings with travellers are making me feel like even I'm on holiday too. Grrreat. This is like the extended summer vacation-December/June holiday-spring break-block leave-gap year. Wicked!
25SGD
25SGD cocktail. We all share one, and we're the colloquial bums to the bemusment of the business types in the Long Bar.
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We try to make it look like Karyn's throwing peanut shells while drinking her Singapore Sling.

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Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Onwards, Life

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Tuesday, March 20, 2007

R Dreaming

It's been too long and R asks me to come out, so I do. On hindsight, I'm surprisingly calm, without any of the palpitations or constipation I'm so familiar with. The smoke's too thick to breathe, but his proximity is apparent. After two years, he finally says what I'd been holding my breath so long for. His arms are around me, and I'm feeling like a foetus. It's as if I was never alive until this moment, and now everything's coherent, it all falls into place, and I can let go of this cosmic sigh, the first breath that gave life to everything.

For real now, R has really asked to meet me, though I know that this time, I'll need to breathe a little first. And know that there isnt any point, really, in holding my breath anymore. All in a dream, all in a dream

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Monday, March 19, 2007

Klaviertastenreinigungsmittelfloschen

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With a June Bug in our hands, KM8 to ourselves, I realise that over the past month in Singapore, I'd come pretty close to a routine.
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Eric from ConFest comes by town on the way to Phnom Penh from Cochin. It's a pretty good idea to meet up again to spend the day together, so I pick him up at his hotel room, which is unfortunately Hotel 81 Princess. (Yea...) We cheat our way on buses to get to Vivocity, only because everyone has been talking about it, and we both went to get a bit of consumerism in. Dont know what the fuss is about really - it's just like every other mall we've never been to - so we just slide along, singing songs from Rocky Horror and talking about Jim Sharpman, his ex-flatmate's brother.
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Im tempted to go look at the new Sentosa Express trains, and since it's so cheap, we've nothing else to do, and the musical fountain's closing, we decide to get in.
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Now, the musical fountain's something really special. It's a horrendously tacky show that gets all the Indian and Chinese tourists ooh-ing and aah-ing in genuine glee. But for the very fact that I've been wanting to go since, I dont know, six, it was huge for me too. Plus it's free. Would've been better with a joint, we agree. Back at KM8, we realise the routine's been broken, so it's onwards, life.
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Sunday, March 18, 2007

Gunshot Dreaming

Well mates, I've a gunshot to my right foot. It's frickin' painful but really please dont call the ambulance or anything, it's only a gunshot. Someone nearby says let's all go have the operation now! But no, really, thats quite a bad idea, because i'm so tired and all i want to do now is to go to bed. And yet the wound will prolly get infected right? Maybe if i sleep this way. Or that. Tomorrow I'll go to the doctor's. I promise.

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Friday, March 16, 2007

A Day Off

Actually, more like a week off. No work left for the rest of the week until Sunday. So whats there to do except to sit around in the pool?

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Indigestion

"Stop it, you're giving me indigestion!" Thats for the kids of CCHY, who'd been so obnoxious for the past three days. Grrr. Only 120SGD over three days wouldnt cut it normally, if it were not for the great outdoors - sun, high elements, the sea - and the good company from the other camp instructors. Cute boys and cute girls, not the students please, and everything's a little better.

Maybe I'm a little elitist, maybe I've high standards. But when kids cant form a circle when told to, cant reply to "How're you?" and bring soft toys to a two-night camp... My, my, what future is there?

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Hey Capoeira!

Capoeira, blowjobs, spankings, mafia, maid abuse. That is why CCSG is so vulnerable to lawsuits, as Mr B and Laura know.

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And finally, next week, a break from making coffee and balancing trays (nampan-nampan). Back to the bush!

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Down By The Water

A day on the river is just chilling out on the lawns of the ACM, and partying with good ol' St. Pat's.

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Saturday, March 10, 2007

Eager Beaver Kindergarten

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Crazy nonsense from the OG box at the bus stop off Victoria Street.

Having went to bed last night still feeling sore and lousy about the messed up interview, I woke up today surprisingly early and perky. Got emails out of the way, feeling better to read the love waves drifting in from the internet from a few corners of the world. Kinokuniya to buy a frickin' awesome birthday present for Kevin's 20th, and to watch The Swimming Instructor with Matthew, which is a terrible terrible thing to watch on a Saturday afternoon when there's lots of other fun to be had. So, things are looking up again after a slight dip last night. Thats the way things are, wickedly random, grabbing you by the scruff, like a shrine dedicated to nonsense in the middle of the city on a hot Saturday afternoon.

Friday, March 09, 2007

You Just Gotta Keep Moving

Those who still bother speaking to me at all will know that yesterday and today were the Wesleyan Interviews. Now, now, no speculations from any quarters please, or halves or thirds for that matter. It's pretty evident to me that everytime something seems to have gone well, it didnt. No reason to break the trend now, and I dont recall having put out any great karma on the world recently, so am pretty certain I didnt clinch it. Well, at least Rachel Chang and Rachel Isserlis will be very glad to find out that I'll go to England now.

It's fucking terrible for me, however, that now in my heart of hearts I know I'm not getting the scholarship. Not because of any particular reason, except my own crazy mind getting ahead of itself, spreading all the bad vibes onto the stars and sun, and damn, didnt the interviewers feel it. And also, if I feel this way about it now, how terrible it will be have it confirmed in April. No, the only way to go is keep to moving.

This afternoon I paid a visit to Parliament House, because, I told Kevin, it's so near. There must be more, no sitting in the dark allowed, no sitting at all, go, go, go, go, go. More, more, more, so my mind can suck it up and not implode for not getting that damn scholarship...

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Letter to MJ

hello ming jing!!!!!!!!!

oh my god i'm so excited to write you now!! ah!!! well, i decided to write you because today in singapore for the first time in so long and i decided to go bedok reservoir to run like we did. except this time, i made use of the new overhead bridge across the PIE, and as i was running across i still remember how i felt back when i ran from bedok reservoir to PIE only to realise that there was no bridge. oh dear, nostalgia.

and what about you? how's Upenn? you're prolly overachieving still and having a lot of fun, or are you not? tell me everything, from how you found a new doctor to when're you going japan? and who're yout there with? now i miss you all of a sudden and i remember when we used to share cabs home and i'd make you teach me math.

when's your 21st? is it over or coming. haha do i sound overexcited? pardon the lack of structure!

yours
ivan

Monday, March 05, 2007

If They Want Me

aidan and i meet after so long and we do nothing but talk at botak jones's clementi kopitiam. we're talking mostly about the wesleyan interviews on thursday, or at least thats all i can remember. actually thats all i can think about right now. oh Damn...

Sunday, March 04, 2007

serendipity

kelvin and i first met serendipitously at karen's home, possible only because she invited me to her class party. in the past four years, i studied for the a's, took it, and got my results. i took TP too, and passed the first time.. kelvin studied for his a's (with a little help from me), took it, and got his results friday. eight days ago, he took his TP and passed it the first time too. now thing's have come full circle, the celestial bodies agree, and we come out at night to celebrate, just like the first night we met at his home. except this time, he drives me home from all the way from jalan kembang melati to lorong kembangan.

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the bright spot in the centre is the moon

4th Div
and..ooh..

Fire Dreaming

I'm in a fire station, one of those new ones that look more like office blocks. Say, Bukit Batok Fire Station. RJC is located in this building (ie it's a school, not a fire station) and it's about 2004. We're going about our normal school day when the school catches fire, from the parapets to the ceilings. Some Rafflesians escape by climbing over the school fence (post-dream note: ha! how typical!) into the surrounding fields. Me, I'm just standing there, talking to someone as the fire spreads down the false ceilings and classrooms. Rafflesians are still everywhere, picking up books, picking up desks (What? Yes. The kinds we had for exams in the hall). There's a girl on the sixth or so floor walking towards the spot where there once used to be a parapet. She's crying and slowly she just walks straight off it. Everyone stops and screams, the kind of anguish the school felt that Friday morning in 2003. At the ground floor where the corpse is splattered, councillors - I see Lindy's face - are recovering the body and all the other matter. There is a sense that students are jumping because they're trapped by the fire so all the councillors keep looking up hoping they wont get squashed by another jumper. Immediately I tell the person I'm speaking to that I'm going to that part of the sixth floor to stop people from jumping. On the way there, I meet Alina who tells me that, oh, it's not a surprise that girl committed suicide. Apparently she had a huge acne problem and thought falling from height was a better solution to it than burning her face off.

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Saturday, March 03, 2007

Diaspora

The Substation's 2nd Singapore Indie Doc Fest (Independent Documentary Festival for the many uninitiated who had to ask me) is coming your way from 06/03 to 10/03! Yours truly went for 2SIDF's preview today at the espy's library and am already very excited for the main dishes. My favourite of the four was "Colour Wash and Spin", a 30 minute piece by Singapore resident Anna Christin Mallon. Here she discusses the concepts of roots and identity, of what it means to be Singaporea, German, English, Chinese, European, Western, whatev.

Interviewer (the interview is conducted in English): So, if a person speaks Chinese he's Chinese?
Boy (Chinese, Singaporean, about 5): Yes.
I: If he speaks "Indian" he's Indian?
B: (Smiles shyly) Yes.
I: And if he speaks English he's English?
B: (Nods head)

I Want To Go To

Rainforest World Music Festival, in Sarawak's Borneon jungles. W6za and Okeiko have an invitation to go and now i'm invited too. Ah...

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Picture by Sarawak Tourism Board

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Friday, March 02, 2007

Notes from the Past

A little writing on an order chit from CCSG was stuck inside the The Postal Service's Give Up CD case.

Soup of the Day: Tomato
Upsell: IMT and apple crumble
86: maple walnut, ny cheese, choc opera, chix pie

"despair is the sudden calm in the cafe on sunday evening. the perspiration of fear as i see, things will never be... (overleaf) ... it is seeing something and then not, and... then seeing again and knowing that this is the way it will always be... and it is the certainty the..."

God, I needed a pill.

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Thursday, March 01, 2007

Carry On!

It's been raining for the past 48 hours and time to meet "Ron" after so long. This time he's driving and just for the hell of it we go poofta hunting at Ortfay Oadray. Evidently he's been there for, say, physical purposes before, as he's being a very adequate tour guide. There's the carpark where richer ones flash their Beemer headlights at mansluts, theres the footpath where adventurers - like us, but of another kind - stroll along in the dark night, theres Atongkay Arkpay where the family men come down from their fully-paid condominiums for the history spots and boys, and there's the Under-overhead bridge where we get mistaken for a couple but nevermind. For those who think there's no alternative-subversive-underground fun to be had in Singapore, bring yourself to Ortfay Oadray tonight!

Disclaimer: "Paul" means no offence to pooftas by calling them pooftas. Why, he might even be one himself. "Paul's" visit to the aforementioned spots were in a purely investigative (of the journalism type) spirit, so dont be a dirty-minded knobhead. "Paul" does have platonic friendships with people like "Ron", so stop judging either of us.