trompe-l'espirit

a cold grey day where the world is blanketed by a soft covering of misty rain and I'm snuggled by my brother's dark red jacket in my room of warm browns and cosy ethnic tones. michael buble's planative voice streams from my black laptop as he sings for home- starry starry night and both sides now have been playing previously. the fan keeps up its soft whirring and the young wind pats everything around me gently, a blissful infant tenderly touching its mother with the chubby, loving little palm. the reason why I write is because for the third time I have heard the blare of a ship's horn from the port in harbourfront yes. I can hear the seasound from my room in eusoff whose view outside my window is a canopy of dark dark green leaves and treetrunks planted against the light so that all I see is black holes of trees -as the paravan from the god of small things would assure rahel and esta with the full confidence of a believer why. can't I remember his name but I can the lyrics. the horn sounds for the fourth time now and I close my eyes to savour the taste in my ears unbelievably it goes on and suddenly something inside me shudders and I. I am alive, I transcend, I am a void, I am a black hole and I sucksucksuck all of eternity inside me limitless and infinite I swallow in gulping desperate gaps I cram I wallow in the moment and all I can say is I thank the muse who inspired the german word augenblick and echo dillard and faust "Verweile doch!" and am grateful I have pilgrim at tinker creek on my shelf.

I'm telling you, cry to the heavens for the augenblick to "verweile doch!", that we may all trompe-l'espirit.
cry. cry. cry.

my kids

So these are the kids who alternately blew my blood pressure and captured my heart in janurary this year.. was it just this year? It feels like years ago... so much has changed.



Look at children.. look how expressive they are.

happy children's day!

Credit goes to hannah for suggesting that we go back to fuchun today to see our former students. It was wonderful.
















As you can tell, my children are unapologetic camera lovers.. [I'd say camera whores but they're still children. (:] 

a child's faith

Where do children get their faith from? Why are things so simple for them? I met hanqi and hanrui today in the canteen; they were sitting with hannah [who was relief teaching today and had a free period] and my cup of tea without which I couldn't function. I only relieved their class once or twice; but we chatted like old friends [yes, even if they were just eight.] As recess was ending, hanrui announced that she was going to call me every friday from now on at three thirty.

Where did she get the confidence from? The confidence that I wouldn't say no? How dared she presume on my agreeability? How did she know she would be welcomed? and the faith? From whence came the faith that we'd still be talking every friday at three thirty pm, world without end, forever and ever amen?
did I ever have the same faith?

I am astounded.. and envious. I would like my world to operate the way hers does.

What's in a name

His no longer means a person in bohemian collared shirts, a living warm body with a smile that tugs at mine heart nor hands that stretch out towards me when he wants me to come, not big hands that don't know how to hold mine so I have to teach him
Why do you hold hands that way? it's so awkward. Here, it should be like this. see. don't you know how to hold a girl's hand?
No; I haven't held many girls' hands.

shrug.
His means an achy feeling I get now and then, the feeling of missing someone. Not necessarily him; it's just a different pull at the heart. It's a feeling I get on the bus, on my travel en route somewhere. It's a feeling I keep for awhile because it reminds me of a happy time, even if it hurts somewhat. It's like fiercely hugging a soft pillow that has one thorn placed near the heart.
There'll be other guys.



On a side note, I've given up on belief. To explicate, I've stopped believing in words. So many I've had promised me, from different mouths.
"We're going to sail on my boat, check out drains and have a chocolate day. We have our hols planned out. Lovely."
"Oh yeah, that one's pretty good. We'll do it sometime."
-and the one that hurts the most.
"There will be a next time."

words words words. they're all we have to go on.

taking the time...

If my lit teachers ever read this, this is me taking the time to say a very very big THANK YOU for teaching me what you did. It's wonderful using words like "sacrosanct" and "grotesque" in class, and seeing the teacher getting all excited because they were precisely the words used in the correct context. The nitty grittys between horror and terror, and all that.

I don't regret going to pic, never ever. I've had opportunities I wouldn't have had elsewhere, and a thoroughly enjoyable gp + lit studies by awesome teachers. Your openess and training are things I will always appreciate deep inside me, though unexpressed. I loved your styles of teaching, and how you always brought out the best in me. Never giving up on me, even though I did myself, so many times. We went to school together [miss chua and mr woolhead], participated in qh's and my "guardian of the whiteboard" nonsense [even if you were the hod mrs beh], gave me a lift if evening lectures ended late [mr yeo], and God blessed me with you as my ct [mr koh]. How you guys were my mentors and friends all at once.

To ms tan and mrs wee, two more hods, thanks for being there for me too. ms tan for devoting so much time to my econs... even though up to the end, it was a hopeless cause. The grade I got... is a reflection of your dedication and love for all your students, nothing to do with my ability. For mrs wee, for being the teacher I could talk rubbish with and laugh. Like how we strolled around campus catching up... and all the running stuff.






uncle philip passed away slightly more than a week ago. As with all things I can't handle, I refused to acknowledge. It wasn't until sunday lunch with aunty doreen that cut me. everything we did, from what we ordered to our surroundings... they all had a connection with him. and she would mention each of them, in such a hopeless manner I. I un-numbed myself. her pain reached across my constructed void and grabbed me with both hands- a plea unignorable. What does one say in such circumstances? nothing, I did. the words weren't addressed to me anyway. I'd never known uncle philip very well.



Guess I'll get to know him better in heaven. We have all of eternity to catch up.

Till the rapture, uncle philip.

my room, attempt #a lot

Okay yes I figured that the video didn't work- thanks to the many wonderful people who msned, told me, and the blaring comment on 'Part 1'.. I'm a computer doob and that's that. =Pp
Anyhow, I got jeremy to do the technologicalgimzmocomplicatedwhatevers [thanks a bunch!] so the (working) video should be up soon. (: In the meantime, I'll just post a few peektures yayy.

Oh by the way. The room layout in this photo is the more recent one. I shifted the bed towards the window wall, instead of the main one. yupp so now it looks more spacious isn't it prettyyy? :))) 

More pictures to make up for the lauyapok video.
This is us trying out kim's mac. Hard to classify us, but the majority are eusoffians :) Hall pride mannn. 

This is the watercolour button function. There are more effects, and some are hilarious, like grossly distorted heads and bodies [think funny mirrors in carnivals] and cool stuff like comic book effects but kim the pongpong hasn't sent them so we'll have to wait.  

On a side note, whilst studying at Maysprings yesterday, I discovered a vending machine that has the absolute cutest snack. Look!

star.fish.shark.star.whale/starrr/star.whale/star.whale.unidentified thing. 

my room, part 1

Okay I took a video of my room and everything cz I wanted to show you guys but knowing my IT skills... =Pp  

my room, part 2

It like ends quite prematurely but then I got tired of talking so much so yeah. Hoping this comes out. (:  

i have a kiwi in my room and i don't know what to do with it

See if you use that as your moniker on msn ["I have a kiwi in my room and I don't know what to do with it"], these are some answers you might get:

Most commonly- "eat it"
Jeremy- "send it back to nz"
an army friend- "use it to polish your boots"
a certain girl went- "SMASH IT AGAINST THE WALL"

These, dear readers, are my friends. (:

to these girlfriends of mine..

Thank you.
The four of you were here for me during the past two weeks in a very real and close way.. One's the first one I told, the other knows the little details that I found so hard to say, the next knows the entire thing, from analysis to reflection, and the last was just here for me, to comfort and reassure.

The two weeks are up.. so.. thanks girls... I couldn't have done it without you. I love you.  

Where my mind wanders..

At least I hope it will. Too long since I've done this. Minds do lose the touch, you know. Maybe I've turned victim to the insidious forces that work to nullify words, that in a bid to be able to do "writing and critical thinking" [a module of mine], I've been irrevocably torn assunder from Mind Wandering. Perhaps the way my mind twists and turns has now been channelled according to the way the system wants my mind to twist and turn.. so is there still true creativity anymore? If I am trained to see things by a specific methodology, a certain system, do I still hold the cards or have I shown my hand? Or have my cards been replaced by something else?

Is this all I can do? Surely not.

chris said hi to me the other day, and in the course of our [msn] conversation, he asked if I was still "spunky". Go check out thesarus.com, dear readers, and type "spunky". I'd copy and paste the results for you myself, except that for some reason Blogger allows it not. For each synoym, take out your paper and pen and put a tick beside each word if you think it fits me. Or maybe, how it used to fit.
chris got me all introspective after that. For one, not having seen him for roughly 4 years now meant that he still thought of me as "cheeky" and "confident" [his own words], and for two, that meant that I realised how much I've changed since he saw me last.

I think this would be mostly for people who have known me for.. 5 years? Or while I was still in secondary school at least. I have changed, I deny that not. at all.

Main entry: Rachel
Part of speech: noun
Definition: Spunky
Synonyms: assuming, audacious, brazen, brash, cheeky, confident, forward, gritty, gutsy, impudent, pert, presumptuous, rude, sassy, saucy, shameless, smart, smart-alecky

There. I typed it out after all, albeit an incomplete one.. because it's what I probably was, out of all the many many words that apparently form a spunky girl, if you put them together.
I really have changed. This realisation is. resigned to the fact that I am. Notwithstanding the resignation, I still feel sombre about it.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a positive demonstration of a convoluted sentence, as I believe my highly exalted [in my opinion at least] literature teachers will say.
Anyway.


Why have I lost- it? The cheerful spunk/grit/gusty/frank nature of mine? Or, has it ripened and matured into..... have I assimilated it such that it is no longer a Characteristic of me, per se, but Me? Narh... I don't really think I'm so openly cheerful anymore.
shrug. These things aren't worth thinking about right. I've been told I think too much. That is, I beat myself in the head when I do. [Source: Mayboo]

It's just that. If I were to redo the above entry, now in year 2006, based on what I've been hearing about me in my presence...

Main entry: Rachel
Part of speech: noun
Definition: Bimbo
Synonyms: chionger [read: clubber], cute, extremist introspecter

Yeahh well. Honestly, these are things that's been said in my presence. See the difference?
Yet, I don't think I'm any of these.

Except extremist introspecter. I mean. Look what I'm doing. haha. Maybe I should stop blogging huh? suggestion suggestion.