Thanks for calling even though I said no, because you put things in perspective for me in a way only you could, and thanks for devoting so much time to me you ran out of credit. Thanks for being here, even though you're uh. geographically not. haha.

____

On another note, I was quite proud of myself because I spent my first two days of mid sem quite constructively, but then I slid for the past two days.
I had more or less decided that I won't bother about grades, because being stressed is such an unhappy thing but now everyone's working so hard and getting so much done I look around and wonder if I should join the crowd too. Positive or not, I don't know, but it's definitely peer pressure.

Surely the world out there isn't defined by grades? When I'm done with uni, I want to be able to say that I had a memorable time. This was the decision I made when I entered, and as of now I'm still standing by it.
I've been calclulating, and it seems that even if I get a cap of 4 for the next 4 sems straight my cap will still be 3.8+++ max. Which isn't very different from the 3.6 I'm now at so. why slog off so hard, to the extent that I'm negatively affected, when it doesn't make a significant differnce? Again, I didn't mug much the past 2 sems and I'm at 3.6. Even if I mug enough to get a 4.0 cap [which I feel doubtful about anyway] it remains at 3.8ish.
So if I graduated with a cap of 3.6 I'll earn 3.6k a month and if it's a cap of 3.8ish I'll be paid 3.8ish?

Tell me how it works.

I've been stuck at phonetics for some time now, or as stuck as I can be while distracting myself so well I am amazed. I suppose if I grit my teeth and focused I possibly would get marginally more headway than the pathetic state I currently am in -trying to figure out if squealed phonetically transcribed would give me /skwielth/ or well I can't think of anything else and then I look and see that it's transcribed as /skwild/- and to add to my woe I can't for the life of me figure out how chrys mendis wants his engineering essay and I have to juggle the other modules so I have to leave it half-hanging at the back of my head and probably getting nightmares about it, only that I can't remember.

This is one grumpy sentence.

let's all put on white clothes and mourn

I'm afraid I've become ordinary, no more whimsical nor even quaint. It seems all I can lay claim to are a few ordinary quirks, the kinds that, over the years, develop into characteristics of auntiedom. and young children will laugh at me.

I've lost the patience to sit down and dream for hours on end, of adventures and the invariable prince charming who would take my breath away and not only my breath but scoop the whole of me up up and away to neverneverland. And maybe patience isn't the word, maybe it's. ability. With that comes a sadness because then I'm possibly now even more disabled, like I lost a limb of mine.

Possibly. Possibilities. Maybe it was that infinite realm that kept me in peter pan's league, the thought that anything and everything was possible. But now with time I am more conditioned more quick to remember that possibilities are never anything and everything; they come with conditions. That this-and-this can only happen taking into consideration that that-and-that must be present too. I suppose that-and-that would be my nightmare tweedledeeandtweedledum of circumstances. That I could never be a well-known writer because.... I don't have enough ideas, because I don't have the eye for insight like catherine lim has.

I suppose my scope for imagination [as anne of green gables would put it] was gradually cut away by a mixture of reality and stupidity. Of asinine decisions I've made so that I've been irrevocably changed [our choices shape who we become no?] and maybe the fence from from from.
I can't even remember titles now.
What kathy did
Kathy did it

Is her name even kathy?



I need someone to help me remember. I can't tell a story if I don't have the words.
I've lost the first round.

i want a snowskin mooncake please

Second beach ulty training today :)

It started off quite painfully, both physically and mentally. The sun had been burning pretty intensely from eleven onwards, so that by three when training commenced the sand was scorching hot. As in, it was the kind of temperature that creates sand you don't want to even walk on, because it's the kind that makes you jump around just to get out of it. You know. Well if you don't you should try.
And then yeah, my throws were going everywhere but to the correct person so I was initially upset at myself. But then somewhere along the way I found a groove of sorts so it became better. As in, my throws were still barely passable but I cut pretty well and did a couple of Ds and well as any defender would know our high comes from taking game play away from the offence. So yay to rachel on that.

But I really need to get my throws right. Got moved up to bums [blue] so I'll be in competitive league. I'm a little uncomfortable with it; it's my first tourney and I'd rather play in beginner's honestly. After all, it's been two years since I stopped playing ulty. But then again I'm hardly the first to debut in competitive; far from it. So I have to just physche myself up. =Pp

passes passes passes..

my pretty dress :)

I'm happy :)

I bought a dress yesterday at nus' sixth bazaar [for the sixth week running]. Am glad I had the strength to hold out long enough till this one came along; so many times I'd wanted to buy that pretty dress and that pretty dress as each bazaar came each week but always the dresses and I never quite made friends. The one I got, it's simple and striking and pretty all at once, and I like how I look in it. (: I like dresses. A friend of mine asked me on wednesday why I like dresses, and I stared at her for a bit before rambling something about how they're easy to slip on. well which is true enough, but well really I like dresses because

they're pretty, and girly.

If I could I'd probably wear a dress everyday. okay maybe not everyday, but four days out of seven. Which hmmm is every other day or summit like that. But I do like dresses, I do.

and a special someone said that "... i can't quite describe it as the nature of our relationship is hard to put and properly expressed in words." well I'm going to try.

You're special to me because- our friendship is simple and pure. We like sitting together, because it's a happy thing to do.
We sit together and then one of us says something funny and then we both laugh.
To each other we show our best sides,
the sides that are trusting and childlike.
We are about making the other smile.
There's no need to bring any of our baggage along to muddy the water that we look into together. Our little duck pond is clear and its waters are sweet.

Recently our lives are alternately roughed up and we went to each other for help. I think we came out of them with a stronger relationship.

And I'm glad you're my friend.
:)

last wednesday

I'm sitting in el class [the better one, at least] and without warning my mind suddenly transmits a different vision- and just as abruptly back to the present again. I was a little dazed- as dazed as one can be while feeling sleepy and not/concentrating at the same time. Then for some reason the place my memory plonked me into for the timebreath of a second became important, and I rewound the reel. to realise that my brain had brought me back to a surroundings of whitewashed houses with the afternoon sun upon their walls. I know the memory. I was in the philippines, and we had just come down from the mountains. We had crossed a dammed river to get to those houses [there was a dam on the river- nothing else], so that our sandals were soaked and I was exhilarated at the mini adventure we'd just gone through.

These days then I think back on the philippines it seems my memories are somewhat sepia singed, a sense of an exotic adventure. Walking along slums along streets hitching rides bouncing on the jeepneys unique to that land. Has my reality been lost.

Another note- more to keep myself awake than anything. Last night when a dear friend said "thanks for missing me" I knew exactly what he meants. You're precious to me and I to you, but it takes a certain effort to step out and say it. for me anyway. Most times I'd rather send mental emails to someone I miss and want to be with, useless because mental telepathy works only when God does it. Still, I'd rather do that because I find it hard to make myself vulnerable.

midnight

it sounds like heavy cement pots are being thrown around. voices intelligble. and suddenly out of that mess-

a young man's voice

stop it la ma ma stop it

broken and crying.



and it goes on. the deep male voice pleading and a fierce woman shouting. His mother, while he begs her to stop.

I'm aching because I spent maybe four hours yesterday on the beach. Body's sore. But it was good anyhow. yay.

I don't know why I bothered waking up at all. Sauntered after a fashion fashionably late into a class that had started forty mintues ago, made alfredo [my laptop] wake up and proceeded to internet surf all the way. shao woke up the same time I messaged her asking her if she'd reached yet, and gim yong didn't bother coming at all. Perhaps I'll acually skip next week, if my ex-teacher mommy has been liberated enough to not feel discomfitted that her baby girl prefers the bed to the bus. It'll be like a test of sorts. ah mommy, your baptism of fire looms.

I really miss staying in hall. It's been five weeks now. The first month was lovely, waking up to a breakfast prepared by mommy and seeing both the parents around. I haven't had that since kindergaten, really. And I bet most of you haven't either. Since primary school we get up at the last possible moment [yet the sun is still dark] and someone else bustles while we groggily fight unconsciousness without quite knowing why [looking back, perhaps we should have just chosen the bed to the bus] and allow ourselves to be bustled. So yes, the past month was the first time I woke up and breakfasted and spent time with the parents.

Now the novelty is wearing off. Waking up sevenish everyday is getting harder and I haven't done that for the past two weeks. And the freedom of hall life is something I miss. Not the greater freedom of time to wake and sleep whatever time I choose, but the perhaps more selfish freedom that comes when the choices I make affect only myself. Going for supper at midnight and returning at two in the morning, events that happen daily in hall but inconvenience my parents who are such light sleepers. In any case I'm half-convinced they don't actually sleep properly until their daughter walks through the gates.

sigh. Another 3 hour lesson later, and nothing to look forward to but more of the same. Sunshine has proven itself economical, and I haven't been the same for a long time now.

i rode the mrt and it was a sunday

Today was pretty good, all things considering. I did go to church and that by itself was a blessing enough. Then al jem and I sat together- we even went up together and for awhile it was like old times again, when things were marvellous between the three of us. Hopefully one day it'll be like that again. The incredible closeness and delightful laughter that defined us. Everytime I think of such ideal relationships my so-called adult self tells me it isn't possible and shows me all the obstacles and hinderances that will prevent us from living the simple happy umpie way again. How al has a boyfriend now, how I quite possibly will eventually go to gardens but jem will remain in bishan. It takes a conscious effort to push that cynical part of me away and remind myself that I believe things are possible and that a better way can come again. I will continue to believe that. Otherwise there isn't much to look forward to but the even shakier thought that better things might come as time passes when I have no clue what it might be. Like how when jan sends what he terms as 'those messages' and it always ends with me feeling like I've failed him. That's a really sucky thought, you know, the idea that I did wrong by a person. And it's even more confusing in a pathetic way when I consider how I think so much of him. It's like, he's right up there on my good people list yet of right now the conclusion is I hurt him somehow. So he's leaving soon to go back to the uk and it seems like we're going to end on this note, that all our happy outings have been negated and he's leaving and I'm left fingering through crumbles of what we did together for more than a year now.

And now sigh I've almost reached the project meeting place. Don't want to. well. Hopefully ikea later will be a therapy of sorts.

I was looking at my edit posts tab, and I realised that I have at least three unyet published posts sitting around, uncompleted unsettled. But tying up open ends takes energy because I'd want a perfect- or as close as I can get to perfect- knot. It's not very much use tying messy knots if they only open up again. So they'll sit there quietly for awhile more. I don't have the energy needed to deal with them; they're the patient, sad kind of posts. Reminiscents- because I took excursions down the lane of memory of mistakes of missing people. They're posts of hopelessness. And hopelessness is the most impossible sadness of all, because mistakes made can't be undone, memories are past and won't- can't- turn back to reality and the people I'm missing are people whom I possibly will never see again and they're people I love so much.

I meant to go on about how watching hairspray got me wishing I have a perfect boyfriend too, but I don't think I will.

The ride home...

... which didn't turn out as badly as I'd anticipated.

There's something to be said for long bus rides in the dark dusk lit only by the orange lamp posts casting their orange lights onto the black asphalt onto the concrete half-tunnel structure along the highway. Faces and trees whizz past and. since I am travelling at the speed of the bus, all I see is a sudden stillness of every scene before it fades out of the pheriphery of my eyeballs; as though it's chronologically arranged stills I see moving at fastforward speed and not the movie itself playing at real time. Thoughts come quickly then, and I entertain grand dramas wherein I am the author of a critically acclaimed commentary on Singapore politics.

oh, but I left that part of me back when I finished the A levels
so exhausted so beaten I swore never to
punish myself again
to push myself to the extent that I'd
remove my bed from my room in an attempt to stop myself from sleeping at all.

So maybe I won't be an author of a critically acclaimed commentary on Singapore politics after all.

i love these indirect compliments

my student says...

ŞÁIfIe' - says:
hey
ŞÁIfIe' - says:
how r u
ŞÁIfIe' - says:
cud u PLEASE come back and teach us English i hate my english teacher...
ŞÁIfIe' - says:
(the new 1)

(:

i'm going on a photo rampage

because I'm bored at el3000...

sarah and I at clarke quay's bk. Before we made gwen go on the gmax as a birthday present :)



MUDPIE DIEEEEE - the war cry before the mudpie dematerialized. coffee club's mudpies are so simple, but oh-so-sumptious. mmm.


the girls at cafe iguana, after gmax. AND chili tequilia. I wasn't very smart.

For some strange reason my skin tone is completely different from the others.

happy birthday gwen :)

bored

Here I am typing in class.

To be honest I don't see the point of both my el3000 classes. Really.

blue funk nights

Even though it's been four years since we graduated, almost five to the day we stopped playing as a team, the hierarchy remains. It can get rather senseless, really, and teetered on it today. But we got to where we wanted to in any case so there was no difference I suppose. Merely a lesson in humility.
Pride aside, I was glad to see us today.


I need to get myself out of this grey gloom that makes me want to sit down in a corner of my room at eveningtide and miserably brood.

remembering

Happy birthday to my brother, who apparently feels ambivalent about turning fifteen.

That aside, the other noteworthy happening of the day was the sudden and completely unexpected return of immanuel and nathanael tan. I have thought about them now and then, and strangely quite a bit recently but thinking about and actually seeing are very different things. We also somewhat impulsively formed a team for the captain's ball competition which meant I basically spent the afternoon with them.

And at this time of their returning, as was six years ago, I find myself remembering remembering what we were like as children. My mom tells me nat used to call me princess, and that I had the hots for immanuel. well I do remember the latter actually. Remember nursing a crush the size of my heart on him, pretending we were meant to be; me, the awkward primary school kid who thought herself ugly. immanuel and nathanael were always the popular ones in sunday school, the pastor's sons. Somehow I never outgrew that. I remember I tried to feel horribly tragic and heartbroken singing childish songs in the bathroom the week they left [which didn't work at all], and even though it has been eleven years since, today, I still felt clumsy geeky and totally uncool next to these self-assured young men.


on a side note, jerome is back and will be here for a month.

kipyip and I had supper just now, and I'm still sitting contentedly in the quiet delightful feeling that comes after a good two hours of simulating [stimulating?] conversation. We could have gone on, but mommy wanted her daughter home so we said goodbye. Open honest conversation that is comfortablely worked at- it's hard to come by these days, mostly because we're all unwilling to forgo the opportunity cost.