yours truly, in haste

i'd originally planned to write about colours, but mmmm.

hl mailed complaining about cute christian girls, and asking why 'must y'all be so cute'. i don't know the effects, but i could offer my sympathies (: that, and also because i don't know how else to reply.

i chopped open my first durian today, hurray. i came home hoping there'd be, and there was. only, this one wasn't cut more than a crack. for my mommy to inspect, i suppose. so i took the biggest knife i could find, visions of chopping thumb off, mentally positioning myself in anticipation should the cleaver separate from the handle, etc- it's hard to open a durian! in the end i took the stone thing- i don't know what it's called locally, but they use it when making som tum-and banged my way through. was rather proud of myself when everything fell apart, 1101e of surviving on a desert island, and all that.

so i'll be an asset on durian island, all i need is a knife and stone. let's go.

"rachel and work are like two diametrically opposite notions"

- j's initial disbelief to news that i've been working for awhile

not that i think it's true; what was funny was his reaction. there were other things i said i'd remember, but somehow i didn't or else they lost their flavour and this was the only one absolute enough in excess to be memorable. some kind of humourous.

my toenail paints are taking ages to strip away, and meanwhile they scratch themselves hoarse. soon enough i will take stacks of paper and a black pen and exhaust myself of words and events, then sit and stare at pomogrenate vines till they turn into fireflies. before that happens though, i am going to eat durian. i had an awkward car moment yesterday.

i don't know why my knee's taking so long to heal this time; i think i am properly scared now and will not run long-distance again, i have joined the club of clanking bones. :( but at least there's the swimming pool, if i ever get down to that. knee, please heal soon- i cannot walk until you do.

thrown by one, meant for another

today my netball training came in handy, as i deflected a hurtling textbook before it reached its intended.

in other news, the clouds have been strange lately, calling me to stop and captivate. today they were almost alive, set against the wide white-blueness-

five

low-lying,

huge, silent, sitting

cloud sheep

awaiting their shepherd.

mass of thin runny clouds,

egg-white spread over a pan.

canyons too near to touch

base without beginning.

citadel of cities,

mighty and compelling,

glorious light so bright.

tired by tears

i thought my reaction (i teared) at the results of GE 2011 last night was mega, but i should see myself now.

many things could be said of Singapore's elections this year- if we gathered all the words written and spoken, commented and discussed, perhaps we would drown.

winners and losers, gracious defeats and arrogant presumptions. a man's character never meant so much: weighed by deed and fleshed for all to see.

dancing between the drops

abcde,

let me pick my way slowly through the pieces. the past four, almost five months have passed in a blur; it's unfair that happens because each day comes so vividly, they shouldn't get mashed up together like they didn't matter or have individualities, they did. i have gone from amused to novel, to blasé, to worn, to a hundred places in between. some days it feels like i stand in a white room while jigsaw pieces rain down upon me, things are breathless and piling up, the clues the obstacles, my hair loose falling down my back.

these months are for waiting, waiting is not so hard anymore. i sit sometimes, stand sometimes, move around like a stop-motion video. where i am has desks and chairs, cupboards and screens. the world is stopping for the weekend. i don't move as much as skirt, navigating between metal cages and books, glares and growls. now and then the clock breaks down and i am left dangling in space, leaning against the wall. sunlight fights for space with me and i lose time. everything is yellow and outside the glass panes are tiny men constructing a river from soil.

memories that flash have cheated, vietnam, mongolia and new zealand. impersonable, i have found the word. today i tried foreign, distant, past. i wonder why, and if it is because they wandered to other ports of call. the flavour is gone out of them- they are a stranger's memories. or perhaps i am the stranger, and these are someone else's memories seeking refuge in me. she keeps the flavours, i the chronology. once you were gone/it was never an honest world

there isn't really much else to say, except i think of the present and future all the time, and impassively of the past. i find hearts and size them up, sit on buses and lose myself. this is a time of waiting.

1) while waiting under a bus stop whose roof leaked, holding an umbrella over me i heard a fat man whistle, whistle a tune, whistle a hymn.

2) i have four letters scattered before the keys; one bound for australia, the other new zealand, one for bristol and one for home.

3) and yes hl, i can drive. why do you ask?

perhaps he's right

me: ... and at three i have a meeting-
j: yeah i'm going for it too
me: (stares for an inordinately long time while mind flashes various tables and people around tables trying to find j's face in one of them) oh... that's right.
j: you're in too many committees la

our newspapers are torn for space

g said that this year has been simply tragic, and she is too right. i still have no words for the 20th of march, and how a and m are still grieving. what does it all mean?

and then there's the new phase of life i have entered. i couldn't sleep last night, and got to thinking. news of a trip to yogyakata that i will not be able to take leave for was demoralising at midnight, and triggered waves of missing i had near forgotten. things that have changed since three months: thinking, time and community. i have been held under by this environment for too long, and have too many responsibilities out of it. what this means is there is no place and no space to think. and then i miss the ifg people- they're the home i left too completely too suddenly, i don't see them anymore.
i can't stay where i am too long; water will burst my lungs.

stories of loss and heroism are from time forgotten.

but that there had to be stories at all- beggars the mind.
is winged mars atop gaia now, that libya shoots its own people, and civilians prepare for violence? and how, that the catastrophe befalling christchurch should be entirely eclipsed by the pyre of japan. a 'threefold assault of shaking land, swollen water and... poisoned air', as one writer put it.

here, now, the rain falls over our land, beautiful. but no calm to the heart is offered, no ease to the consternation. no answer for the questions inside.
what adds on is the complete disparity of their situation and mine.

what is the response to be offered from one individual to nations, what can be offered at all. what does it mean to rise up to the challenge, this time?

glasses glasses glasses

the above title has to do with a promise i made with one of my kids that i'd "write that in my diary". the one day last week i got too tired to stuff plastic into my eyeballs had funny results; these days i have to negotiate when i'm allowed to wear contacts.

something i've been wanting to say for the longest time: j has ted baker glasses and they are too sexy.

wisdom, i bid thee come- or perhaps patience

this post has been summarised -

time-stressed and time-starved is a lie, and Time need never be my enemy.

am sitting on little sofachair in room typing on little laptop (as opposed to alfredo), with chairlift's bruises playing in the background on groovesharks, a streaming (?) thing ky introduced me to; i foresee it being somewhat of a regular companion on the rare days i have the luxury to laze with feet on yummy rug, like today. the song reminds me of the days with a, and how we got each other through uni. i miss him, and wonder if he'll remember the promise of fleaing together, i didn't get a reply to my last text. although that could really be my phone's fault; as g said, "my phone is the pits".
but everyone's on super advanced phones these days; i'm happy with my old school nokia so ancient some of my students mistake it for topsecret stateoftheart uberexclusive technology. they are so cute.

screaming uno spin, chocolate and drinks treat by winner and loser. being told one day i look sixteen, and asked if i'm married the next. am i eurasian, no. i look japanese with my brown faux leather jacket, and ugly in my brother's sports polo. running down the circular stairs towards the cafe because there's a last-mintue meeting and we can't go out for lunch anymore. why cannot throw things,- because they will get lost, i reply. i think he has won some of my heart but he wanders around and forgets i exist even if i walk past, not until i am in my proper place at the proper time, things work that way in his world and he asks me questions again. gobbling a starbucks chocolate muffin into my mouth because it is his class next and i will need all the chocolate i can get, the drama class, miss j calls them.

maybe monday, we will go play more games, before my second goodbye. there is a third to come. for someone who hates goodbyes, i certainly have a number of them to perform. thoreau said that friends form the langditudes and longditudes of the world; and i don't know why i took so long to echo, i believe so much in it. like, hi, your continent will never be the same again.

my alma mater organised a film screening; there are films i want to watch, but no one who'll still be around seems awake enough.

this post will only be about work

-because i need boundaries.

it's amazing how i can occasionally (on all of two counts) arrive home feeling something like open-eyed conscious (as opposed to the usual walking around with eyes asleep) and telling myself that yes, today i will settle my personal life, but within literally half an hour my body is prodding me for the bed. it's half an hour now.

but i haven't made it this far in many days, so i may as well push myself for another paragraph or two more; otherwise i'll continue feeling stuck with words up to the eusophogus (clearly my spelling skills are dramatically detoriating). well no, it's not as bad as it sounds really, i haven't sold my life to work; but it's been proving true that in the law of three, something has to give. i've been at work and meeting people in real time real life; keeping up with people in the online sphere has all but collapsed.

in the times i do open my inbox, facing a hundred-odd mails each sitting is tiring, as is playing catchup with those who communicate with me virtually. people leaving for overseas, friends i haven't seen for months, important things, then there's the little -but many- things that happen, like photos that are uploaded, commented on multiple of multiple times, etc.

i do like keeping in touch with people in this way, in these little ways, but while i'm still figuring out how to adjust and adapt to this new, long-term life, i suppose i shall continue feeling bad. haha.

it's reaching the 45th minute, i shall listen to my body. in the meantime, i'll leave a photo, of another life, another place. here's one for the kids.

since i'm not doing a post-mortem this year...

let's end with one of those desultory photos. on another note, i'm getting fonder of the really stupid photos i take, those with mis-timed faces and half-grimaces, and also, i seriously need to cut hair.

there are some things i could wish to be settled before the passing of the year, only i don't know if i should or how. sometimes things blare before your face and you can't deny how ugly you are. nope.

issues on my hands, surely they ought to be more than just grey slather hanging between my fingers. but such take time, and understanding.


with the new year comes- so much. i have no resource to envisage a year with asd, news which swept me off my feet but i ought to rise and meet come what may with equanimity. and what of the past? along along with conversations unexpected and information unanticipated. bigger picture, maybe, my God sure does tie me up in knots. hii, am i Your origami?
just, i would love reconciliation, but You know best and i wait on Your timing. You know our hearts, and what we can take. christmas wish Your way.

perhaps we're all just singing along to the same old broken song
come save us from ourselves