leaving notes II

well, we scheme and we scheme but we always blow it
we've yet to crash, but we still might as well tow it
standing at a light switch to each east and west horizon
every dawn you're surprising
and the evening was consoling
saying, "see, it wasn't quite as bad as"
dashboard, modest mouse

okay, so maybe i got a little over-indulgent earlier on. it's great to move on. i'm amazed that i even had the will and determination to finish packing this afternoon. my stomache is aching and i know that things are still the way they are. rudy and i have been spending a bit of time together. says that you can still love someone without spending any time together. i'll give 'im credit for that seeing how he's really matured now. i watch him suspend me in mid-air as he sits low on the seesaw. we're chatting like that. we switch to the swing. the night is quiet and the buzz of the PIE suspends our disbelief for a while, as if we dont have to listen too much to what we're saying because of the loud traffic. did i hear him tell me that i mustnt spend too much time with "my man"? things are A-okay. nothing really matters between us, not after tonight. we've really become friends now, and we're even physical, going kayaking and climbing and running and jumping. i tell him i dont know if i can ever fall in love again. after tonight though, i know i will meet the best boy from the other side of the world. after three years, we've resolved most if not all our differences. everything remains a little sidenote now, all contextualised and its magnitude understood. it's all good, it's what i call the australia high. it's confest, new year's day 2007, lena and i come out from our tent. we have breakfast then go looking for the creepy old french dude. she's going for hypnotherapy and i tell her i think i might go too. we're lying on the ground and ants are biting me, but i concentrate on his voice and then i go far away. we bring ourselves back to the world and everything is better now. 2007 will be a great year for us, i told her last night as i leant in to smell her hair and feel her smooth shoulders in my arms. one night she calls me as i'm on the patio with stefan smoking some shit. i hated melbourne that day, but i hear her voice and she tells me about gorgeous byron bay. as i speak to her i notice the moon, and stefan and i spend the night laughing at him again. and hell was this a frickin' good year. back to central fire station again, this time with adzfar, and everything's almost as good as the original times. sure the people are mostly gone, but the workload's non-existent and the calls are still plenty. a rainy saturday afternoon, the alarm goes off while adzfar and i are licking our fingers after lunch. a quick rinse and off we go. packed at the back of the pumper it's as if i never left central. we're going at it like madmen, cutting pieces of metal away to extricate the three men stuck in their cars. we're done and we pack them off to hospital. it's another job well done. back to station. waiting for the alarm to go off again. it's a life on the edge, always on the verge of a crisis. it's the kind of lifestyle to have and keep. now here we go!

leaving notes from a small island

oh, we could've been, should've been
worse than you would ever know
(the dashboard melted but we still have the radio).
well, you told me about nowhere ,
well, it sounds like someplace i'd like to go.
dashboard, modest mouse

my oft-failing memory brings me back to another time quite distinct from the present. i'm in my modified dunman high uniform, secretly gleeful that the metal buttons are finally gone, and i'm walking through ghim moh. it's the first day of orientation and huan ling and i choose to go from the main gate (i dont know why). i'm 16 with a head of floppy hair, i'm a little bit small (i didnt think i was at all back then), slightly nervous, and pretty bummed that i didnt receive a call from my OGL prior to today.

the huge clock in my sister's room approaches six ever so loudly. i'm here now because my attic-room is already empty and has started to get a little dusty. if any of you have been to my place, you'd remember how much effort and pride i took in assembling this domain of mine - a mac as the centrepiece, quiet blue walls and a strong red door. rebecca remembers kurt cobain peering down at her from above. instead, somewhere on another continent, i've been reserved a place with cork walls and fire-retardant doors, assigned to wait for a certain Mr. N. Rook.

one closet's empty now, the other's stuffed full of disappointed clothes. but strewn proud among them are a few pieces of uniforms. there's the water-, fire- and curry-proof uniform, the blue one which i've accidentally turned off-white due to a certain factory fire, and hung above these is the white one that drives girls (and boys) crazy. of course, not as crazy as for the contents of another bag, thick, yellow, and orange, and then white and hard (these are really fire-proof).

tonight is my last night on this island for a very long time. i'm a little bit bigger now (modesty stops me from saying "a lot") and i've went to jalan masjid for my regular butch haircut. i can see the sun wink at the city one last time from the window, it's time to shower again because i'm already sticky and oily. in a while some friends will come, the love club, fariz and the boys, and maybe rudy. kembangan will come alive one last time for me.

my city beats back the night with a stick as she turns her lights on. "a few more hours!" she says, and for these few hours she glows. how beautiful she must look from thousands of metres up in the sky, save for the wrinkles of streetlights revealing how she's grown. i've camped in her northeast feeling ridiculously young and unhappy, i've perspired and panted underground in her western bowels with teh boys and just feeling like i might die, and in her east i've fallen in love with the best boy this side of the sun.

there're a few bags in my other sister's room. most of these memories are inside here, with a bit more. tomorrow morning i leave before the sun comes up again. the indonesians have always held on to the idea of merantau, sons going away from their birthplace for pengalaman. my father left home at 18 for singapore, my great-grandmother from china. my father, to everyone's horror, married a chinese girl. i, to everyone's horror, went to australia, caught a little hippie, and am now going further.

this is history and it's also the present. many people have led my life through the centuries, and i'm sure someone got to live happy to 39. you see, it'll all work out for me. 15 years old and dreaming of Cambridge while stuck in China, many years of hating a place, a few months of loving it, travelling, mugging, saving lives, it all comes down to this. this, is the end of a gap. i'll tell people i took a three-year gap. i did all that stuff and now it's over. off i go, back to school, because we're made for better things than this.

i'm sure i'll be back, rudy'll make sure of that. and oh, one last thing. i dont know how the hell i'm getting to middletown after landing in hartford, but it doesnt matter at all.

dont say never give chance II

harry potter new book. mint condition. never loved. retail price 59SGD. now selling for 40SGD. postage maybe included.

dont say never give chance

"i've early birdie tickets (50 pcs) to womad (one day ticket) 24, 25 or 26 Aug for $48 with no ticket handling charge. aiyah $2 discount but still a saving riiiight...i can even do a free normal postage!"

watching, quitting, kayaking, curing, sleeping