In Continuum.

Hvarf/Heim



At long last, Sigur Ros has finally released a new album - well, sort of. The 2CD set doesn't actually include new songs, but rather older songs that are being played acoustically in front of a live audience, and tracks that were previously unreleased. But I guess as beggars - or fans - we can't exactly complain about the lack of new songs. This album however, is quite a freshing release amidst a barren land of bad release. We have the horrendous release by the half-insane Britney Spears, yet another album from the lukewarm Backstreet Men, and I heard that Spice Girls are trying to spit out another album, trying to sell more records with their old saggy breasts. The music industry is going to hell, as you can see.

I know, I know. A person who calls himself a fan shouldn't even be downloading their albums off the net, a week before the official release of the DVDs. The problem is that I'm not even sure if they are going to sell it in all major record stores in Singapore, because record companies overseas tend to miss this tiny red dot on maps all around the world. The problem is that it attracts a lot of mainstream bands, not so much about bands that are underground - bands that make music which truly matters. Which also explains why bands like Death Cab for Cutie, Radiohead, and even John Mayer has bypassed this country a dozen times over, flying from Tokyo to Perth and forgetting all about his group of fans, carefully tucked away in Southeast Asia. Asia is a great place, but it can suck really bad sometimes.

Anyway, to review this double-CD album, perhaps we should separate it into two, Hvarf - which contains the previously unreleased tracks, and Heim - which contains the acoustic versions of songs we have already heard before. For Hvarf, you start to wonder why these songs never made it to the actual albums themselves, because they are yet another series of Sigur Ros masterpieces altogether. The sound scape is once again, vast beyond imagining, and it takes you to places in your head you've never thought to exist. To be fair, I feel that this half of the album feels like a sequel to their previous album Takk, which may have been why the tracks were left out. I particularly liked I Gær, because of how the song managed to portray a sense of masculinity amidst a sea of childish innocence. At the beginning of the track, we are sort of treated to the kind of music you would hear when you step into a toy store at night, and there is a little magic box in the middle of the room waiting for you to open. Then the box opens into a full orchestra of drums, of bass being plucked, and a cello bow ran over the strings of an electric guitar. The music explodes into your face, like how the contents of the box might if you were curious enough to open it.

Other than the particularly mentioned track, the four other tracks on this album are equally as good. Von successfully brought back the kind of mood the () album managed to give the listeners. I've always imagined this ice world with snow all over the place while listening to that album, with that hint of hope in the world of hopelessness. Von gave me the feeling of driving over the edge of a cliff in a little Volkswagon Beetle, crashing into a frozen lake only to find a frozen city underneath. That was the feeling I got when I heard the track. Like the sinking car, the song takes you to deep places that you've never thought possible with music.

If Von represents the descent into the icy world underneath the frozen lake, then Hafsol - the last track - represents the surfacing. You just discovered this beautiful ice world, and all you want to do is to surface and run home to tell your friends and family. Hafsol provides a vivid imaginary of the car surfacing, and you jumping out from your car to run home on foot. The chilly winter wind in your face as you run, with so much hope before your moving feet. Von took away hope, and Hafsol gave them all back. A very uplifting, and fitting last track indeed.

Heim is mostly - in fact completely - songs that we have already heard in the previous albums. The band took some of their best efforts from Takk, () and Agætis byrjun, and turned it into musical magic all over again with their live performances. The title - in Icelandic - means "Come home", and the album was basically recorded in a small cafe back in their hometown in front of a bunch of friends and family. It is always nice to hear an acoustic twist to a song you have heard a dozen times over, and it was rather surprising on my part to like some of the versions even more than the original. Vaka - from the album () - no longer gave me that sense of sad hope, but rather a rejuvenated life, like the trees that grows from a field of ice. Agætis byrjun sounded drastically different this time around, and the acoustic version stands alone with pride, because it injected new life into the song and gave it even more depth than ever before. I was a little disappointed that the band did not add Hoppipolla into this side of the album. But then again, I suppose we have already heard that song in a dozen commercials and move trailers. It was a disappointing move, but a smart move that cannot be blamed.

All and all, I love this album as much as the other studio releases the band has created. Sigur Ros still remains the king of the post-rock genre, unrivaled and undisputed. No other bands are able to take me to such wondrous places in the short span of six to seven minutes, save for Sigur Ros. They are also the main reason why I'd like to visit Iceland in the near future. I'd like to see their music frozen in the landscape, visit the country where one of my favorite bands received their inspirations. Two thumbs, way up for this album.

Hvarf
1. Salka
2. Hljomalind
3. I Gær
4. Von
5. Hafsol

Heim
1. Samskeyti
2. Staralfur
3. Vaka
4. Agætis byrjun
5. Heysatan
6. Von

Me, The Shoe Designer

Woke up cold one Tuesday,
I'm looking tired and feeling quite sick,
I felt like there was something missing
In my day to day life.

Cheryl is right, she really is. I remember her telling me that the obscene amount of school fees we pay aren't really for the lectures and the classes, but for the grades at the very end. Of course, you can always argue that the lectures and the classes do amount to a good grade at the end. After all, if you do a random survey of the relationship between attendance and results, I am sure you are going to realize that they are positively related in every case. However, there are times whereby you just cannot concentrate in class, and you feel that you could work better on the floor in the lecture hall - which was pretty much what I did during UGC lecture today, about ancient African empires. The truth is, Angelica is a really nice lecturer and everybody knows it. However, she isn't a very good lecturer in terms of bringing her point across, because she just isn't a very interesting lecturer. Which is quite a surprising considering the narrow age gap between herself and the rest of the cohort, but I guess some lecturers just have that vibe with the students while others don't. Some students acknowledges her kindness and shuts up in class, while others just cannot care less, most of the time.

Personally, I can't be bothered if others can't be bothered. I do not intend to yell to the class like a certain individual, for them to shut the hell up halfway through a video presentation. I'd rather retreat into the corner and study on my own, and not contribute to the surmounting noise level whenever Angelica is trying to speak over the sound system. She doesn't have a very booming voice to begin with, and it is not helping that half the lecture theater are being complete idiots most of the time. Anyway, I couldn't take the sights and sounds of those ignorant schoolmates of mine today, which was why I left my chair and sat on the floor with my back against the side of the lecture theater. I studied there most of the time today, with earphones plugged into my laptop and Sigur Ros' new album played at full blast. That was the only way to keep myself from screaming some random vulgarities at the crowd of inconsiderate schmucks - though at the same time, I do not wish to commit social suicide, like how somebody else has already done in numerous lectures everywhere.

So I quickly opened the wardrobe,
Pulled out some jeans and a T-Shirt that seemed clean,
Topped it off with a pair of old shoes,
That were ripped around the seams,
And I thought these shoes just don't suit me.

You see, from where Angelica was, it was impossible for her to spot me. I sat with my back against the wall, left side of my body leaning against my bag and the laptop on the ground. There I was, hidden from sight and minding my own business with a pile of PSY101 notes that I borrowed from Pao. I figured that I almost never listen to her lectures, and I am still doing pretty well at the subject, so I might as well try to focus on something else, more productivity involved. Besides, this week is quite a week for everybody, and every second counts for something. At least I managed to gallop through both chapters that are going to be tested this Thursday, but at the same time I managed to observe a couple of things around me that were worthy of the next blog entry of mine, which is this entry you are reading right now in the comfort of your own home, I reckon.

I guess not a lot of people actually takes not of what other people are wearing on their feet, or even their feet in general. Girls are always sitting around coffee tables, comparing their fingernails, and guys are usually eying each other in the urinals comparing something else entirely. Nobody ever really takes note of other people's footwear, or anything below the ankles. I do know of guys who take note of girls' ankles, because they believe that even ankles can be sexy in their own special way. I do not share their enthusiasm in the subject at all, but I found it a rather interesting sight, seeing those legs dangle all around me like a dozen Christmas decorations, albeit a little strange to behold. It'd be rather disturbing to see a bunch of legs dangling from the trees on Christmas, and certainly not something I'd want to see danging from there for this coming Christmas either. Then again, judging from the pathetic decorations in the past few years, perhaps legs might be a welcoming change after all.

Hey, I put some new shoes on,
And suddenly everything is right,
I said, hey, I put some new shoes on and everybody's smiling,
It's so inviting,
Oh, short on money,
But long on time,
Slowly strolling in the sweet sunshine,
And I'm running late,
And I don't need an excuse,
'cause I'm wearing my brand new shoes.

A shoe designer is going to tell you that what you wear and how you take care of your feet, define you. It'd be rather sad if you take that for a fact, especially if an accomplished artist or businessman has bad looking feet, or a bad taste in shoes. My father doesn't have very flattering feet to boast, in fact he has been plagued with what we call "Hong Kong legs" for years. Then again, it's not like he uses his feet to sell barrels of oil, unlike shoe designers who live and breathe shoes pretty much everyday of their lives. I don't suppose I am going to fully understand what those warped Italian or French designers are speaking of when they talk about your shoes and feet defining you, but I guess today was a great first step to FET101. Today I attempted to put myself in the shoes of a shoe designer, and examined personalities through the way people cared for their feet and the kind of shoes they wore. You might be wincing in disgust now, or closing the browser to go on to a more pleasant blog entry somewhere else. But rest assured, I did not smell anything in my process of observation.

(Names have been removed to protect the identity of the shoe wearers and feet owners)

Let's begin with those sitting closest to me today. D is pretty careless with his shoes and feet, not giving too much attention to them most of the time. They seldom fidget throughout the lesson, one foot atop of another while the rest of the body worked on something else most of the time. But judging from all the untrimmed toenails of his, it is not hard to imagine those toes crying out for help underneath that nice looking shoes of his, begging for a good cut every once in a while. P's feet is a little rounded on the edges, and doesn't have a great relationship with her slippers at all. They are arched high most of the time, with the balls of her feet touching the slippers while the heels lifted high, as if she was wearing an invisible pair of high heels. The bloodshot bottom of the feet might have been the reason, because they might have been uncomfortable wearing those pair of feet. I guess those fifteen minute walks home from the bus stop has finally taken its toll on her feet, and the feet is pissed off at last. With its face turning bright red, it is protesting against the uncomfortable and worn out slippers.

Woke up late one Thursday,
And I'm seeing stars as I'm rubbing my eyes,
And I felt like there were two days missing,
As I focused on the time,

In the brief time that S remained in the lecture theater, it wasn't difficult to realize that he has walked miles upon miles upon those feet of his. Worn out soles with dead skin, he probably never gave much attention to those pair of things anyway. But then again, he wasn't giving too much attention to anything in his life these days, except perhaps those expensive camera lenses and the photographs he is taking, supposedly making him a hefty sum of money outside in the working world. Nonetheless, he has given up his current life to pursue on something on the outside, which isn't the smartest move from out perspective. But then again, it is not hard to tell why he is caring so little about the things that are important, and the people that he should be holding dear. Like the people who truly cared for him, and the person that gave up her dolled up life just to be with him, they all ended up at the bottom of his feet as just another patch of rotten dead skin.

DO's feet are too pale for his own good, almost ghostly in comparison to others. Come to think about it, it seems to be the trait for the rest of his complexion as well, as he sits there at the back of the lecture theater with his soft, radiant glow. Gentler and perhaps smoother than most feet of males, his slippers were in the way of their uniqueness, almost like a sore thumb sticking out from a palm. Sitting right next to the pair of shoes his current girlfriend was wearing, they already looked like a great pair together. His girlfriend wore a pair of worn out shoes that has been worn perhaps one time too many, but still intact enough to be worn out as a fashion statement. They reminded me of a pair of Siamese sisters, always staying close to one another and never leaving too far apart. Her feet stayed close together most of the time, as if they were afraid to be separated somehow. And that slight tilt towards the pair of pale white feet that belonged to her boyfriend's, reflected a young and innocent love like those in the eyes of a child. It was loving in a way, but a little repulsive to observe such human emotions in human feet, I suppose.

And I made my way to the kitchen,
But I had to stop from the shock of what I found,
A room full of all off my friends dancing round and round,
And I thought hello new shoes,
Bye bye them blue

If there is a way to outshine your wardrobe with your shoes, then K has done it pretty well in her own special way. If there is a more successful marriage between the owner of the feet and the wearer of the shoes, I'd like to see them with my own pair of eyes. Because K probably has the most fitting pair of shoes to her personality out there, fitting around the edges of her feet like a roll of polyethylene wrap would around a piece of chicken breast. Like the careful hands of a mother feeding her child, the edges of her shoes fitted well with her feet, as if to tell them that they would take care of her through rain or shine. A comforting thought I guess, and the checkered patterns sure tells a lot about the wearer of the shoes. A little wild, a little crazy - yet the subtleties prevail in their mysterious ways.

J's feet hates their slippers, and they fidget like a monkey bound to a wall by chains. They never stopped shaking throughout the lesson, leaving the slippers to hang by the gaps between his toes. I guess it reminded me of the owner's personality as well, always looking for something to do and always for that excitement around the corner. They never kept still enough, always rotating in a certain direction or the other, and sometimes up and down in a dizzy manner. My mother used to tell me that shaking my leg would shake my wealth away, just another one of those lies parents would tell you as a kid, just to have you stop doing a certain thing that pisses them off immensely. I guess his mother never told him about the shaking leg bit, but then again it doesn't seem to affect them at all. After all, wealth and money isn't even part of his concerns as a person, but rather a fulfilling life that is full of excitement and entertainment. Down with the materialistic needs, he'd say. Bring on the roller-coaster ride - without safety precautions this time.

Take me wandering through these streets,
Where bright lights and angels meet,
Stone to stone they take me on,
I'm walking to the break of dawn.

KE's feet gave up on her shoes completely. The darkened marks in her heels point to a long-term discomfort, like the constant arguments between a married couple. The worst thing about this marriage is that a divorce would be impossible, unless you intend to go about the world in bare feet for the rest of your life. KE's feet hates her shoes, leaving them aside in the corner without giving much care and concern, and that has been the trend observed by me, as she would sometimes stick both her legs up onto the chair next to mine out of her own comfort and convenience. It is almost as if her feet are saying that their lives has been too stifling, too hard to breathe in the confines of her shelter. There are times whereby they just want to get out of the routines of their lives, just want to be out there without a care at all. It is nice to be around nice and new shoes sometimes, because they always make you look that much prettier and more recognized. But then when you are not faced with people who are judgmental, you just want to let loose sometimes and scream your heart out, all the while with those pair of shoes left far behind at the back of your mind.

I know, that I disagreed with the words of those shoes designers in the beginning of this blog entry. But after blogging about the different pairs of feet, I guess it does say a thing or two about the owners. You might argue and say that I've been looking too deep into things, or thinking way too much when I should have been studying PSY101 instead. In actual fact, I have been studying while I observed, and it doesn't take too long for somebody like me to derive in those conclusions mentioned. Besides, I don't suppose I am known to others as somebody who "thinks too little". I am merely living up to my name, so who can blame me for reading too deeply into their shoes and feet? The most trivial of things, the most minor of everything - that is a motto a writer should live by, and I am trying desperately to catch up with that.

Hey, I put some new shoes on,
And suddenly everything is right,
I said, hey, I put some new shoes on and everybody's smiling,
It's so inviting,
Oh, short on money,
But long on time,
Slowly strolling in the sweet sunshine,
And I'm running late,
And I don't need an excuse,
'cause I'm wearing my brand new shoes.

Take me wandering through these streets

Ligatures and Ligaments

In light of how my sister has been leeching my knowledge of the environmental crisis, I've been forced to think about the various pollutants that our environment is so vulnerable against. We are speaking of pollutants here, gallons of waste and untreated water being poured into the ocean day in and day out, as if the problem with the oceanic temperature rising isn't already a serious threat by itself. But this entry isn't going to be about how humans are destroying their own environment, or what we should do to save our good Earth. This entry is going to be about one of the pollutants that I jokingly mentioned, but made surprising sense in a senseless sort of way.

The pollutant I referred to was religion, which may come as a surprise to most as we've all socially agreed that religion is a form of belief, something that brings people with differentiated backgrounds together. While I do agree with that aspect of religion, I cannot agree with how many people have come to distort the truth behind religion, and turning them into their own interests. Any issue can be easily solved if we just put our minds and hearts to it. But whenever an issue involves religion or politics, it becomes too sensitive to resolve all of a sudden. They are like pollutants on the already polluted sea, and this fact is not stopping any religious extremists from pouring their own beliefs down the throat of others. Personally, I am not somebody who has a religion to boot, but that doesn't mean that I have to put down the religion of others, like a certain individual would at school. I guess in the process of opening up their minds to the world through religion, these people have in turn narrowed their minds to the size of a pinhead.

In an effort to encourage discussions and interactions in class, our UGC lecturer decided that we should be grouped together every week, and forced to discuss a topic posed days before the actual lesson. This is how it is supposed to work: Ten students would be chosen during every lesson, while another ten would be their observers. These observers would take note of how their partners are doing in the discussions, and give points to examples cited, elaboration given, etc. The speakers on the other hand would be speaking of various issues faced by the world today, in relation to a certain topic we are studying in world civilizations. Everybody gets a chance to speak, nobody whether you have an opinion about anything at all. This week, we had our discussion on whether it is possible to separate the church from state, and the mentioning of the word 'church' almost guaranteed that classmate of mine to speak out about his own opinions about Christianity. I don't have a thing against that religion, or any other religion for that matter. But it is just a little coincidental how extremists in my social circle are almost always from that religion, and they are like pests that roams every inch of our lives.

It was generally agreed upon that there is a gray area in which the church cannot be separated from the state. That is to say, you cannot fully separate religious laws from governmental laws, simply because they are complementary of each other, very much like coffee is to cream and vice versa. There is no black or white in this matter, and that was a sentiment shared by most speakers - which inevitably caused the discussion to be rather dull and predictable. At the end of our discussion, the lecturer asked the opinions of the observers on what could have been improved, and what points were left out from the discussions itself. Due to the fact that the topic involved the sensitive subject of religion, the extremist spoke up as predicted by all, and stirred up quite a cloud of dust in the process.

The extremist's argument is that we forgot to touch on the topic of morality, and how that has a great tie to the separation of governmental laws and religious laws. He argues that religious laws are important - and in some cases more important than the state laws - because they instill values to the believers. He cited an example of the Vikings, and stated how their laws never saw 'murder' as being wrong, or unrighteous. To the Vikings, killing is all part and parcel of their culture, and therefore it stands above all rationality. Then he proceeded to talk about how religion has a part to play in instilling certain values into people, and he was speaking in particular about Christianity as usual. He implied that people who have a religion would then have the right mindset for values, and thus see murder as being wrong in our society. Whereas those without a religion - like the Vikings - did not have any values and thus, saw killing as being a part of life. That statement stirred up a few voices in the crowd even after the official discussion ended, and here's why.

I think it is preposterous to assume that people who do not have a religion, are in turn without values. There are a significant number of people in this world who do not possess a value, but at the same time they do not go around killing people just because they feel that it is right to do so. There are also people with religion killing others for a multitude of reasons, and it is clear that these religious people are not following their so-called religious laws. The extremist clearly forgot a part of the human history that involved the bloodshed of a million Muslims and Christians, known as The Crusades. I am sure those people had a religion, and they killed also in the name of their religion. So where is the line drawn between the right and the wrong, when you are carrying the banner of your religion and slaying your enemies mercilessly?

I do suppose that it is unfair to make a sweeping statement like that, while possessing the full knowledge that there are people in the audience without a religion. Then again, I suppose it then becomes justified for us to take our our pen knives and stab him in the throat, if we are really as valueless and barbaric as he claims us to be. But in truth, we are still people with values, and we know how to differentiate between the right and the wrong, not because of any religious interferences but rather the existence of a social agreement. I suppose the values that we possess as of today, is merely an agreement by the majority as to how we should act and how we shouldn't act. The nature of a murder does not depend on what your religion tells you, but rather what your mind tells you to belief as a right thing to do. And what should be the dictator of our minds is the agreement of our society, rather than words that are religious in nature.

The irony is that the extremist devotes a large proportion on the teachings of the religion, which was based on the teachings of ordinary humans. Of course, nobody can deny that the Bible was actually written on humans. I believe that anything based upon the acts of humans cannot be flawless or correct in every way, and that claim extends out even into the field of religion itself. The truth is, I feel, is that the truth is merely relative, and that it is dictated by the winners and not the losers, very much like history. The winners tell you what they want you to know, and what they want you to believe. The authors of the Bible were merely the winners in an arms race, and they came out on top and managed to write a book that convinced half the world that they are right - that they are flawless. Of course, the essence of the book is to tell us to do good, to love one another like how God loves us. But people - humans - have the tendency to take anything beautiful and manipulate them into their own interests. Even religious laws were written based upon an agreement by humanity as a whole, so I don't suppose a person without a religion should be equated to as one without humanity.

To me, I do not have a religion, although I do believe in the existence of a superior being. That makes me agnostic, but at the same time does not guarantee me a ticket to Heaven when I expire. However, that does not necessarily mean that I have to get a religion right now, just in case the tunnel of light opens up to the gates of Hell. I do agree with Alan Moore - one of my favorite writers - in his ideas on religion. He states that - as you will see in the video below - religion has the same roots as the words 'Ligament' and 'Ligatures', which means 'to bind'. He thinks that if we are to believe that every individual is unique in our own ways physically, mentally and emotionally, then it would be rather disturbing to have us be common spiritually, a point which I strongly agree. Then again, it is not like I am going to pick up his religion of Glycon anytime soon.

In any case, I do not like the idea of being bound to a certain belief with anybody else, and certainly not how some people might attempt to shove their beliefs down the throat of others. We are still cool with each other in school of course, but we do have our disagreements when it comes to the subject of religion, which I try to avoid from time to time. He does things with good intentions, but his executions may require more care and attention. With all due respect, do shut up in class. We know your beliefs, and we know that they are strong. But we have ours just like you have your own, and do respect that about us. We are not savages just because we do not have a religion. We are humans, only humans.

Alan Moore shares his ideas on religion and Glycon.

Broken Crayons

I think you know
Because it's old news
The people you love
Are hard to find
So I think if I
Were in your shoes
I would be kind

There are times when a certain object of the past comes back into your life like a pleasant surprise. Such encounters are what make spring cleaning just a little bit more interesting, and gives you that much motivation to clear out all the old items in your room and sort them out on the corridor. Once in a while, a ticket stub from the past, or a note you wrote to a friend of yours in class may roll out from a random drawer or cardboard box, and you ask yourself," When was the last time I saw you?" It is nice to visit the past every once in a while in such a manner, without actually being there but mentally, living that life all over again. To me, it happened last night when I stepped in my sister's bedroom, with large pieces of drawing paper sprawled all over the floor, almost becoming the carpet of the room altogether.

My sister is doing her designing degree this year, and working overnight just to complete a certain assignment or project is just part and parcel of things for her. She complains a lot, but she does so while trying to work out different designs for her work - pretty much like how I get through my own academic issues at home. Once in a while, she'd ask for my opinion on things and see what kind of solutions I can provide, and there have been cases whereby my ideas have been put to good use - which I am glad. This time around, my sister and I are co-operating on this project of hers, in which she has to raise environmental awareness amongst the children under ten years old. Neither of us are really experts of children these days, but we try our best to work around the problem. I wrote the introductory essay for her report, and I am also the self-proclaimed adviser to her designs. Last night wasn't a night for me to take a break from work, but a night to help her out in her own. And there I was, sitting on her bed with her blanket tucked before my chest when I recognized the familiar box that stuck out from under one of the A3 sized paper.

I look out for you
Come rain, come shine
What good does it do?
I guess I'm a toy that is broken
I guess we're just older now

I squatted down on the floor and lifted the paper that had scribblings of various designs of the superhero my sister intends to include in a full-length book. It was a box of crayons that I haven't seen in ages, with most of the crayons still pretty much intact, and the smell of them attacked my nostrils. Even my sister forgot where she found this long lost box of crayons from, but she told me that she needed crayons for her work and was reluctant to buy a new set. So somewhere in the depths of this house, she managed to dig out this little piece of my memory, from those early years in Singapore when the family desperately tried to fit in, amidst the novelty of things. I guess in a way, the box of crayon was the way my mother attempted to fit th two of us into the Singaporean way of life, and those thirty-six colors were more than just crayons, but a vessel that bridged two cultures in the past.

I remember when I first came to Singapore, everything was so familiar and different at the same time. I remember asking my mother why some people had darker skin, while some had even darker skin. My mother told me about the Malays, the Indians, and the Caucasians living in Singapore alongside the Chinese, and how Singapore is a multi-racial society unlike Taiwan. It was interesting to go through our everyday lives with people from every different country, and that was how I felt connected to this foreign land somehow. My childish mind told myself that there were so many people just like me, coming overseas from their homelands for their studies. That gave me no reason to be depressed about leaving my own friends, because everybody was doing the same. Of course, my mother never told me that most of them were born and raised in Singapore ever since their births, but she declined to tell me the truth because a little lie goes a long way, sometimes.

I want to stay
Another season
See summer upon
This sorry land
So don't dust off your gun
Without a reason
You understand

This is what my parents planned when we first came to Singapore. Have them come to Singapore right before the school starts, and they figured that mixing around with children at my age is going to help us fit in better. So they packed up their things in the early months of August seventeen years ago, and decided to come over to Singapore to make it in time for the new school term in September. You see, Taiwan follows the education system in America, and their school term usually begins in September rather than January. My parents found out about that only after we've moved our luggages into the new home, settled down and made some phone calls. It also translated to the fact that we had about three months of holiday before the new school term actually started, and that was when my mother decided that they should do something about their two children.

So my parents sent the both of us to drawing classes, organized by the community centers nearby our homes. I remember the first day of stepping into the community center, situated next to the Serangoon bus interchange today. Back in those days, that area was where the people of the neighborhood gathered, and the drawing class which my mother signed my sister and I up for was merely the tip of the iceberg. There were calculus classes, English classes, maths classes, dance classes, piano classes, violin classes, and pretty much anything that can be taught by a human to the other. I joined the drawing class, probably because my sister was good at drawing. To me, I was never too good with the paint brush, and my sister was the polar opposite of me, the child prodigy who wielded the brush like a brave warrior would wield the sword on the battlefields with much gallantry. As a child, I was better at lying on the carpet with my toys, and imagining story lines that involved those toys of mine. Imagination was my only weapon, and I was a child with little talent beyond the boundaries of my mind.

I look out for you
Come rain, come shine
What good does it do?
I guess I'm a toy that is broken
I guess we're just older now

We were given a topic every week at the drawing classes, and most of the children around us were accompanied by their parents. I don't remember my parents being there most of the time, but that didn't stop us from enjoying the classes - well, at least my sister enjoyed it immensely. I remember one of the topic of the class was the zoo, and having just been to the local zoo a few weeks ago, my sister got down and dirty with the paint and paintbrushes, while I pretty much just sat there for the whole time. The idea of getting my hands dirty with paint wasn't appealing, and I had no idea what a zoo should look like with all the animals inside. I had problems with the drawing topic, because I wanted all the animals in the picture at the same time - though it was wholly impossible. So I sat there with my eyes to the blank piece of drawing paper, imagining all the animals and the people visiting them, the imageries going beyond the four sides of the paper and all over the table.

While my sister painted ferociously on her own drawing paper, I watched the drops of paint twirled and swirled in the cup of clear tap water. They looked like cigarette smoke, dancing in the water as the nature beat its drums. That was when the instructor came to me and asked why I wasn't drawing anything on my paper, while my sister already had half the animal kingdom drawn. I told her that I was drawing it with my head, and she asked me to try using the box of crayons to draw an elephant, for starters. I remember that transparent bag of mine that I carried around with all the equipments inside. Everything from brushes of various sizes to a palette, and boxes of crayons and color pencils for us to kill time at home. So I took out the box of crayons that I had and started drawing my very first elephant, which resembled more like a dinosaur - since I was obsessed with those prehistoric animals. But then again, who could have blamed me for the atrocious efforts? I tried my very best with the elephant, all thanks to the box of crayons that my mother bought for me. And armed with those, I managed to get through the days before school started, and made 'Getting Used To' a lot easier to bear.

Who says the river can't leave its waters?
Who says you walk in a line?
Who says the city change its borders?
Who says you're mine?

Today, the box of crayons remain pretty much intact. Some of the colors are broken in the middle, and some colors are obviously missing from the collection. But it is quite a wonder how time failed to take away the smell in the box, with the familiarity still pretty much in existence. I guess most of the equipments in that transparent bag of mine have been thrown away over the years, leaving just the crayons for me to savor on the past. Then again, who knows? One day, I might stumble upon an old set of color pencils, or a palette still stained by the paint of the distant past. Anything could happen with such old items, even if we are speaking of time traveling in your mind. Drawing wasn't my thing, and still isn't really my thing till this day. My imaginations materialized into words, taking my talents to a whole new different level. But I guess I should never forget my roots, how it all began with a drawing class and an instructor who asked me to draw an elephant that turned out to look like a dinosaur.

I guess the next time when spring cleaning comes around, I might be a little more enthusiastic about things. Who knows which part of your past the time machine might decide to take you to? I suppose, there is a time for growing up in every person, and there is a time for leaving the past behind. The point is to always appreciate and treasure the past, making the best out of the present, and leaving everything else to the future. We can't help if we are going to grow older, but we still have the ability to tear a little over our past, even if it is just an old box of broken crayons.

Lars and the Real Girl



Once in a while, a movie comes knocking at your door like a pleasant Christmas surprise. It is a little less than a month to Christmas, but I guess this film is indeed an early present from the great world of films. I'm not sure how this movie came into my knowledge in the first place, but I guess it was one of those movies with a really interesting poster and a name to begin with. Besides, it has Ryan Gosling and Emily Mortimer in the film, what else can I ask for? Admittedly, I had my doubts when I first saw the trailer for the film. Let's admit it, when a movie speaks of a relationship between a grown man and a blow up doll, you are going to expect the movie to be half filled with slapstick jokes, and the other half with just lukewarm jokes. These are the kind of comedies that they usually make in Hollywood nowadays anyway, but definitely not in the case of Lars and the Real Girl. This film is a true gem, and deserves every inch of that 8.4 rating on IMDB.com. Here's why.

There is something tricky about liking Indie movies, because they are shown in very limit screens around the island, and at very strange timings as well. More than strange timings is the fact that Indie movies do not usually receive as much publicity as mainstream movies, no matter how bad mainstream movies can be. How many times have we seen posters of horrendous films at bus stops and MRT stations, while Indie films don't even get a decent space in the morning papers. Today is the opening day of Lars and the Real Girl, and I don't even see a single picture of it in the newspaper, which is quite an insult since The Seeker is taking up the other half of the page. Nothing against bad films, since I believe that even bad films can be loved by people - somewhat. It's just that it is frustrating to see so little recognition for a film that is so good, in relative to everything else that they are showing in the theaters. Seriously, most of the people are going to flock to the cinemas to watch The Seeker, simply because it has fantasy themes and a lot of explosions. To me, any movie with a boy in the middle of the poster is enough for me to judge whether or not I am going to see it. Besides, it has a 4.8 rating on IMDB. Trust me, it sucks.

Anyway, let's begin with the review. The story of Lars and the Real Girl revolves around - no prize for guessing - Lars, and his 'real' girl. Lars is what we call in our society, a loner. He stays alone in his brother's garage, and lives a very secluded life other than his daily routines. The wife of his brother, played by Emily Mortimer, becomes worried for Lars' welfare, while his brother Gus brushes his wife's worries aside most of the time. That came to an end when Lars brought his new girlfriend whom he met on the internet over for dinner one night, and the two of them were shocked to find that the 'girlfriend' Lars was referring to, was actually a blow up doll he bought from the internet. The problem is, Lars thinks that the blow up doll - called Bianca - is a real girl, and the town has to somewhat play along with him in order to fix his delusions.

The premise of the story seems absurd, and completely ridiculous on first look. In fact, it even sounds like a movie made with Adam Sandler or Will Ferrell in mind. However, director Craig Gillespie managed to take this comedy on a different route, and managed to inject a jet of warmth throughout the movie, without losing the humor and also emphasizing on the underlying meaning behind the film. I was pleasantly surprised at how the director - the same one as Mr. Woodcock, surprisingly - paid such fine details to his characters and the plot. I mean, Nancy Oliver's script is one thing, but the directing in this movie was almost flawless. The humor and the drama blended so perfectly together that it becomes hard to differentiate which is which in various scenes. Yet, the director was able to capture the essence of every scene, and not allow the focus of the audience to falter towards any of the two genres present in this film.

Arguably, the funniest part of the movie was when Gus and Karin first meets Bianca in their living room. Very soon, the rest of the town comes to meet with Bianca, and bend over backwards to make her feel like home. Even the new girl at Lars' office tried to make her feel at home as well, and I thought this is where the movie truly takes off from all the other movies from its genre. It tries to be different, and yet it doesn't try too hard to do so. It's script is off beat, and in a way ridiculous as well. However, the subtle take by the screenwriters as well as the director managed to take the story to another level, one where others might not have reached with their normal Hollywood-styled single-mindedness.

I've only seen Ryan Gosling in several movies, and most recently in Fracture with Anthony Hopkins. He received his first Oscar nomination for his role in Half Nelson, and it is not difficult to understand why. After all, this actor is the same actor who held on to his candle, while starring opposite somebody like Anthony Hopkins. Seriously, it takes a lot of guts to do such a thing, and I'd say that he did a pretty good job in that film. In this film, Ryan Gosling does yet another stunning performance, this time with nothing over the top like he did in Fracture, but the kind of subtle performance which I love. Ryan takes the greatest of emotions and puts it on his face with the slightest move of a single muscle. That alone is enough to bring out Lars as a character, and make him come alive on screen. Lars is not exactly the kind of character you would want to root for in real life, because he is the kind of odd ball that shuns away from the society as we know it. However, Ryan Gosling actually does such people justice and brings home a stunning performance. We saw his anguishes, his sadness, his frustrations and his happiness, all through very minor and seemingly trivial changes in his expressions. A lot of respect for that guy, indeed.

In supporting cast for this film is extremely strong as well. Emily Mortimer is as beautiful as ever, and her acting is flawless as usual. The great thing about this film is that although the focus is on Lars and his blow up doll, the director never fails to bring our attention back to the people in the town as well, and what they are going through just to make Bianca feel at home. Paul Schnieder does a great job, and had his moments throughout the film. I thought Kelli Garner did a good job with Margo, and really made the audience love the girl next door, who might have been a little too strong with her liking towards Lars. Patricia Clarkson was electrifying on screen, and she arrests every single moment she appears on screen, not just with her looks but her voice as well. The other relatively unknown casts really supported the storyline well, and kudos to the casting department for that.

Here is the real reason why Lars and the Real Girl stands out as one of the best films I have seen this year. Spoiler alert, for those who might not want to know the ending to the film, so here's a warning before you continue. Anyway, when I stepped into the movie, I kind of knew what to expect. I expected a comedy about a guy with his obsession over a blow up doll, and how the town handles with the situation altogether. However, I've ever expected a reason to be told to us as to why Lars treated the blow up doll as a real person. I merely thought that we'd be introduced to his mental state, and then that is the end of it all. There is more to this film than meets the eye, and I am glad that I spotted it myself.

Lars grew up with his mother dead at a young age, and his father sank into a sort of depression over the years. He grew up in a rather gloomy environment, and that was what affected most of his character because he received so little care and concern from his father. Due to that, Lars slowly closed in into himself over the years, and locked himself away most of the time. That was until he was being introduced to the blow up doll by his colleague, and he found a place to put that personality. I think that he bought Bianca not to satisfy any physical needs, but an emotional one. He makes up stories that were similar to his own, and tells others to treat her as if she isn't in a wheel-chair, that she is just a normal everyday person like everybody else. In a way, that was exactly what Lars wanted people to think about him, how he wanted people to act towards him. However, that all changed when Karin confronted Lars, and told her that the town breaks their backs to make Bianca feel comfortable, all for the sake of Lars. That was when we see the change in Lars, because he finally begins to feel that he is being cared, and that he is being concerned by other people.

At this point of the film, we start to see his relationship with Bianca slowly deteriorating. They start to get into fights, with Lars shouting at her most of the time. Also, he grows closer to Margo while they went out on a date at the bowling alley, and it was easy to see his internal struggles with each successive removal of his original personality. Love penetrated his life, and he found out that he no longer needed to hide behind the plastic skin of Bianca. Which was why Lars started to date Margo, started shaking hands with people voluntarily - something he feared initially due to the supposed pain - and talk to people in a different manner as well. As the love from all over the town is being realized by Lars, Bianca slowly began to disappear - and eventually died as a result. Of course, she didn't really die when Lars found her 'unconscious' in bed one morning. Still, it was more than just Bianca dying, but the old Lars dying in bed as well. In a way, I suppose Lars was sad over the death of his past, and maybe also a little frightful of the future. It was the first time he received that much attention, and I do suppose that he might have felt a little daunted by the experience.

Spoiler ends here.

So, I am glad that I caught this movie over anything else showing in theaters right now. I'm not sure how the other group of friends felt after watching The Seeker, but I'm sure that trash cannot be compared to the charm of this movie. This film works in an unconventional way, but the point is that everything worked according to the writer and director. This film puts a smile on your face the more you think about it after the movie, and perhaps even a teardrop or two when Lars kissed Bianca goodbye. Whatever your emotion may be, you cannot deny that this beautiful little piece of work, has enough warmth to comfort the souls of many out there. After all, there is love all around us, and sometimes we may be too ignorant to notice them. Sometimes, take a breath. A deep one. Love is everywhere now, isn't it?

9.5/10

Brutal Love

Virtual Muffins

A little over four years ago, my sister came into my room and proposed to me an idea. She gave me the link to a website and asked me to check it out, and the concept of the website confused me immensely. It was a website called Friendster, a clever wordplay but a concept that felt unnecessary and forgettable. She was eager for me the join the website, create an account, and start looking for long lost friends from my grade school and high school. I am sure everybody knows what Friendster is, because it is probably the most commonly owned possession - in a way - just second to a cellphone these days. Everybody has an account, and though the popularity has been taken over by websites with similar functions, Friendster still remains as the pioneer of this concept of creating a six degrees of separation between the people of the world. For those ignorant readers out there who knows not of what Friendster is, here is a little run down.

Friendster works pretty much like Myspace or Facebook, bringing a bunch of people you know and don't know together, and they place your names and pictures on a giant map of social network. Soon enough, it wouldn't take an idiot to see that two of your friends, whom you have met in different stages of your life, might have known each other for the longest time. You begin by creating an account of yourself, a profile with your photograph about where you are schooling, where you schooled, what you are working as, your favorite music and movies, all that jazz. It feels like a little job interview initially, but the fun begins when you begin to add friends to your growing list of contacts, and they even get to add testimonials to your profile. If a person has something nice to say about you, they come to your profile and add a little comment about you, and people who might not know you might want to add you to their list because they find you intriguing. OK, that is highly unlikely in today's context, since testimonials are mainly there to make yourself feel better on darker days of the month. Other than that, Friendster provides a very solid function of searching out old friends on the net, people whom you have lost contact with over the years, for one reason or another.

I basically regurgitated what my sister told me that October night four years ago, translated into English and with a better grammar. I wasn't sure of what to think of the website, because the idea of finding my old high school friends was not exactly very appealing, considering the fact that they were the exact same bunch of people I wanted to avoid in the first place. You see, time has no eyes to see, and it sweeps away not only good friends in the course of life, but also the ones you despised with a raging passion. I have had people whom I hated for various reasons, adding me to their lists just because we were related one way or another in school. But then again, it is not very nice to reject people like that. After all, you HAVE had interactions with that person, and rejecting that person's invitation would be seen as a form of immaturity, since it implies that you cannot dust yourself off and move on from the past. Here is when the concept of Friendster gets distorted, and incredibly tricky.

People started using Friendster for a variety of reasons. The website was created out of goodwill, in the sense that the creators merely wanted a channel in which friends can relate to the old and the new ones. However, the number of friends you are related to became a war over the internet somehow, people comparing the number of friends they have and then boasting about how popular they are in their social circle. Apparently, those numbers next to their profile has the mystical power of making them feel better about themselves. They can be satisfied with their lives just because they have about five hundred friends, and about a thousand testimonials to boot. The truth is, they've probably never talked to or met about three quarter of those people added to their lists. They get a kick out of saying," How many friends have you got?" when they see somebody else with just a little more than twenty friends on their lists. I have such people on my list, creating multiple accounts because they were no longer able to fit in the size of their social circle, which is only possible to attain if you visit a mass orgy sex party every single night that involves fifty people or more. Or, maybe they have. Who knows.

Testimonials became a battle ground for boasting as well. Testimonials used to be a place whereby friends give honest opinions about yourself - or, at least they are supposed to be honest. Anyway, the battle ground where people used to post honest comments about yourself, turned into a damn chat room of sorts. People started giving useless one word comments as your testimonials, and sometimes they don't even have a word at all. A "=)" can replace a testimonial these days, and it's not like anybody is complaining because it helps to boost their testimonial count as well. This in turn makes them feel better about themselves, because testimonials are supposed to be positive things about you, and the more you have of those, the better you should feel.

I began to have strange contacts adding me from all over the world. A random girl from Canada added me because we are both Taiwanese. A stranger from a random high school added me to he sixth account because I am somehow related to her through a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend. I am also related to a middle-aged mother from the Philippines because we both love John Mayer and Damien Rice. People have been abusing the website ever since it was created, and we all just have to play along with the rules. As we have learned in COM101, Computer Mediated Communication - or CMC - has changed the way humans communicate with one another. Which means that it is possible for two person to be called 'friends', even if they have never met each other before, whatsoever.

It is a little sad, if you think about it. In the past, making friends was for the mere purpose of making friends. You guys are joined in the same work place, the same class, the same school, and you guys socialize because that is what humans do with one another, we are each others' company. Like elephants, chimpanzees or water buffalo, we tend to live in groups and none of us can survive in solitary for long. Even Tom Hanks had a volleyball as company on a deserted island, so why not ordinary humans? Making friends used to be a join, because you get to discover what another human being likes and dislikes, what he or she has in common with you or otherwise. It is nice to belong to any social group, and that is why humans make friends - because we have the insatiable desire to connect with one another. That has changed with the ability to quantify friends on the internet.

You see, with the numbers tagged with your profile on the website, people start to make friends not for the sake of making friends, but rather to boost those senseless numbers to a god-like level. I'm sure only God - of any religion - knows so many people in reality, unless those people with ridiculous amount of friends are trying to play God. People are now making friends to show off to others how popular they are, how well-liked they are in their community because they have that many friends to lean on in life. It becomes a little disturbing at times, to imagine a person making friends with you and being all nice and interesting, only because he wants to boost his friends count online. I am sure this kind of people do exist, and I have met people like this in my life. Acquaintance can't even be used as a word to describe us, since we hardly even greet each other on the corridors. But I guess, in the politics of socialization, you just have to keep these comments to yourself. It's not like anybody is going to reject a Friendster invitation and tell that person "I'm not your friend, why did you add me for jackass?"

Friendster's popularity gave way to other similar websites. Amongst those, Myspace and Facebook are probably the more prominent and successful of them all. Myspace works pretty much like Friendster, only it has much more users because it is based in the States. Bands and singers have their own private accounts there too, and they are using Myspace as a tool to promote their albums, their tour dates, or even their personal lives if they wish. However, the problems with Friendster spread on to Myspace, and people are again using it for all the wrong reasons. People start to look down on you if you have lesser friends than them, and they address you as being the loner only because you don't have a three digit number in your friends count box. It is a constant war that wages between the users that cannot be stopped, which must have been why the idiotic Facebook was created in the first place.

In Facebook, it is possible to do whatever you want to another users - everything that ranges from calling him nasty nicknames, or throwing a chocolate pie in his face. Of course, everything in Facebook happens virtually, and none of those actually happens in reality. Which is exactly the irony and idiocy that is involved in the users of Facebook, because they are constantly involved in senseless fighting such as the ones mentioned above, to no avail. I was being introduced to Facebook by a certain schoolmate of mine several weeks ago, and he spoke of the website as if it was a product he was trying to sell to save his life. Like Friendster, I created an account on Facebook in less than five minutes, and tried my hands on the website to see if it is indeed true that the website is "FUN!", in bold and highlighted. Well, lets just say, I gave up in fifteen minutes.

The fact that the user interface can only be understood by an alien from outer space with four brains is frustrating enough. Facebook has a million different functions to screw with the brain of the users. Facebook also provides useless functions which, makes little to no sense to me at all. I have been given nicknames, dared to speak in a fake British accent in school for a whole week, given a "Super Poke", and a cow has been thrown at me as well. The first thing you are going to notice in Facebook is the fact that people are doing online trading of muffins, cupcakes, punches, pokes, and other ridiculous things for no apparent reasons. If there is a place on the internet where you can shout "WHAT THE HELL?" with the most justification, it would be a common account in Facebook. I don't get what the hell they are trying to do, and have no intentions on finding out as well. The idiocy eludes me, and the e-mails that flood into my mailbox everyday from Facebook is pissing me off as well.

So, what do I think about networking on the internet? Not much. It no longer makes much of a sense, especially when people are throwing virtual cars and cows at each other for no reason at all. This is one internet trend that I am probably not going to stick with, that's for sure. If people are going to argue in the future as to how internet has made us dumb and stupid, I suggest that they begin from the angle of how people are now throwing cows at each other on the internet. Yeah, I know. The concept is warped, but people are doing that as we speak, and calling it 'fun' at the same time. Now, back to studying for the quiz tomorrow. It's not enjoyable, but at least it'd make more sense than munching on virtual muffins.

Angelic Angelica

Stitch in your knitted brow
And you don't know how
You're gonna get it out
Crushed under heavy chest
Trying to catch your breath
But it always beats you by a step, all right now

There is something calming about my room at night, something that I love. I remember a friend of mine asking me to describe my room in its current state, and I described to her that it looks like the inside of a human heart. With the lamp turned on at night, the room is dyed into a shade of orange and red, very much like the inside of a heart I would imagine, with all the blood flowing around the veins and everything. In many ways, this analogy does give a very good representation of what I hold dear, because this is where I keep my most beloved things in life. My music collection in the computer, my computer itself, my guitars, the books that I bought, the comfort of my bed, everything. It is my heart in some ways, and the lamp in the corner of the room would represent a glimmer of hope in the dark, the core of my heart I suppose. The life within, even when all other lights go out.

That is what my heart would look like I suppose, if you are small enough to enter the blood vessels and eventually flow into my organs. If you have the time, travel upwards and into my brain and look around for a sign of life there. After the horrendous grades that I have been receiving in the past few days, I don't suppose it'd be easy to find anything alive up there. I picture a war zone somehow, empty streets with vacant rows of houses on either side of the roads. Debris fallen everywhere, the grandeur of a city long gone, after the disaster that swept through the lands over the past few weeks. The people have either died of fled to distant lands, leaving behind a ghost town for the shadows to take over. That'd be the mental image of my brain, after toiling endlessly for the examination and the oil burned in the wee hours, all I asked for then was to have good grades, something to look forward to at the end of the road. But what returned from the distant lands were not the glory and beauty that used to possess the city, but rather the forgotten spirits and ghosts that stubbornly lingers.

Making the best of it
Playing the hand you get
You're not alone in this

My grades sucked. Not in the sense that it tanked, but because I failed to meet my own expectations, and perhaps the expectations others have set for me as well. In the context of an university, I don't suppose it is about how many people are scoring worse than you, or how many are scoring better than you. It is a constant battle with yourself, and how high you can achieve in terms of your results. That's what they always say anyway, to challenge yourself and never those around you, and I truly believe in that as a motto in school. I do not care if everybody scores an A, as long as I score the same then that would suffice. But the case right now is that everybody are not scoring as well as they hoped to, and I am falling short of my own expectations as well. So there, the soldiers in my brain fought a war in which they lost miserably. I'm sure every soldier in a war would like to see the flags of their own country flying in the air instead of their enemies. But there are no flags in this desolated town, no blaring horns to celebrate the victory or the sound of people cheering in the streets. Just the echoes, and the occasional sound of rocks falling from a certain high place. It was a flat out defeat, on my part.

You know how it is in horse racing, there is always that dark horse that everybody roots for every once in a while. Because the dark horse has the odds against him all the time, and you win big when you bet small, and you win bigger if you bet big. Every once in a while, a miracle would happen on the mud tracks, and you see the dark horse emerging through the ranks of other horses and pass the finish line first, causing the audience to erupt into an ocean of cheers. Those are the kind of stories people like to hear, because people like the idea of a miracle. Something unexpected happens, and everybody is going to draw their attention there. Nobody likes to hear about somebody winning a race ten times in a row, or even twenty times. Because we always need that dark horse every once in a while, that hero.

There's hope for the hopeless
There's hope for the hopeless
There's hope

We got back our results today for UGC, and there I was sweating from my palms. I made impressions on the table with my palms, afraid to know what kind of grades I would receive, if the scene in the vacant city is going to continue for the rest of the semester. I really needed a boost, a sudden jet of energy from somewhere as a motivation of sorts. I guess I am the kind of person that works on motivation, rather than goals. A kind word or a warm hug works better than a promised prize at the end of the road, and I needed that warm hug desperately. I've never had high hopes for UGC, since history has never been my forte. I've never understood why the teachers are always telling us that learning history is a way of not repeat our past mistakes. The truth us, humans are always going to repeat past mistakes, whether or not they learn the history or not. A lot of our mistakes are in our blood, it is human nature. Like the mistakes that I have been making throughout this semester, it'd be hard to abstract that from my blood, no matter how hard I try. So there I was sitting still at the table, with a million thoughts rushing through my brain at the same time. On the surface, I was dead calm. But underneath that, petrification.

When the papers were laid on the table in front of the class, I hesitated as to whether or not I should go forward and get my paper. It was a stupid question on my part, because I couldn't prevent the inevitable in any way possible. I had to face the grades, no matter how bad they may be. I did have confidence for my essay questions, but the upset during Psychology was too much to bear. I accepted the fact that things have the tendency to make the wrongest turns and take the deepest plunge into the dark. They become suicidal at times and everything goes to hell afterwards, and there isn't anything that I can do to prevent that. There I was, amidst the crowd of eager student, figuratively wetting my pants.

Cold in a summer breeze
Yeah, you're shivering
On your bended knee
Still, when you're heart is sore
And the heavens pour
Like a willow bending with the storm, you'll make it

I made my way through the crowd and got closer to the table where the stack of paper was. My heart was beating so fast that it must have been caught somewhere in between my lungs and throat. I could feel the pulse in my eyelids for some reason, and it became hard to blink for a second or two. I was right behind Jonathan, hoping for him to fish out my paper from the mess that was on the table then. After a while, he turned back with my paper and mumbled something under his breath which I did not catch. He said something about finding only one paper and not the other, but I distinctively remember only submitting one extra stack of paper, because I wrote the other question on the back of the question paper itself. So there I was with Jonathan amidst the crowded of eager students, flipping through the pagers of our question papers eagerly to reveal our own fates. We didn't have high hopes, or at least I didn't have any for myself. I was ready to accept the worst, and at the same time hoping for the best.

Fifteen for the first question, and then fifteen for the next. I did a mental sum and added the marks, and they amounted to thirty points in total - upon thirty. I looked over at Jonathan, and his face lighted up in that trademark joy of his whenever he attains a satisfactory grade. He must have been thinking the same about the look on my face, because right after we exchanged that emotion in the split second, we exploded in joy and went crazy in the lecture theater. Like I said before, we needed a morale booster fast, and the grades for our essay were truly amazing to begin with. I jumped for joy - literally - and saw living souls coming back into the ghost town all over again. Life, life was coming back to me. There is hope even for the hopeless indeed!

Running against the wind
Playing the cards you get
Something is bound to give

I guess we still have to thank Angelica, our lecturer, to have marked the paper so kindly. Not to say that I didn't put in enough effort, but I still needed that stroke of luck on her part to make the magic work. I have her to thank in the creation of this miracle, and she is truly the angel in this semester alone. I saw UGC as this subject that I was ready to give up in, the subject with the least confidence. But here I stand, with a grade I am happy enough to boot, and a lot of motivation to drive me further down the road. I am happy with my grades, and that is all thanks to Angelica for her kindness - and more. This is a renewal of forces in me, and I am sure that is the case for alot of people out there. I hope that this boost will help everybody down the road for the rest of the semester, and let's not give up halfway through. Guess who is now back in the game? See you on the other side.

There's hope for the hopeless
There's hope for the hopeless
There's hope
There's hope
There's hope

There's hope...

Revenge of the Fascist Pig

Complication's my claim to fame
And I can’t believe there’s another
Constantly just another
I can’t avoid what I can’t control
And I’m losing ground
Still I can’t stand down
And I know, yeah I know, yeah

You know you hear it from people when they speak of others, they come to a point in the conversation that goes," Wow, I don't think I can speak enough of him!". This sentence implies that this person may be too brilliant, too fabulous, too marvelous, too anything-nice for anybody to give justification. Too many good things can be said about a person, and thus the exhaustion of words used when one tries to describe him. This is, however, not the case for Rosemary, commonly known as Mrs. Irony around my blogosphere. Just recently, I have created a post for that Fascist pig, and the popularity of that entry actually gave birth to a sequel which caused more readership than anything else that I have written. There are just too many things I need to tell my readers about Rosemary, and here is yet another entry dedicated to her. This is the third entry now, and I guess that completes the trilogy. As to whether or not I will come up with three other parts to make this an "Ironic Saga", we shall wait and see.

Rosemary never fails to piss the hell out of me every Tuesday and Thursday morning. It is amazing how this person can call herself a lecturer, when she does no lecturing in classes at all. She doesn't teach, and she doesn't lecture much, but sits on her Hawaiian ass for the most part of the lessons, with her chin propped up by her palms, her glasses sliding down to the tip of her nose, threatening to cut off her airways. She interrupts the class once in a while to whine about how noisy we are, or how she can't understand why we need to go to the restroom every fifteen minutes or so. Of course, in her mind she is cursing the Asian students in class, giving names to every single student with an oriental face and a Chinese name. Being in Hawaii for too long, she obviously forgot about her own heritage. After all, separated from the rest of the world in the middle of the Pacific Ocean makes her superior to all the other races, even her own.

I know you stay true when my world is false
Everything around's breaking down to chaos
I always see you when my sight is lost
Everything around's breaking down to chaos

There is such a thing called an APA reference list when it comes to writing a scholarly article. It is basically a list of sources that you have used to write that article, and they need to be properly acknowledged at the beginning or at the end of your article with a standard, and universal format. To prepare us for it, there was an assignment - upon 25 marks - two weeks ago that required us to do five APA references from any sources of our choice. So my group decided to pick a couple of sources off the net, did a rough work and handed it up to her according to the guidelines provided by our UGC lecturer. The assignment came back on the Thursday before the last, and we saw all hopes of getting an A flying out of the window like the children in Peter Pan. We saw those As grow wings and fluttered out of our bedroom windows, and the person ushering them on next to the shutters: Rosemary.

So the classes begged for her to give us a second chance, and a second deadline was set last Thursday for the APA reference assignment to be handed up all over again. This time around, my group decided to use this program called the EndnoteX - sounds cool, and it is cool - to help us produce the best citations possible. After all, this is the program given to us by our librarians as a tool to do research, it can't possibly go wrong. All you need to do with the program is to enter the necessary data like the publisher, the author, the edition and stuff like that, and it will spit out a standard citation in APA format. We were confident that this time around, we were going to get it right. But of course, the fun never ends in Rosemary's class. Today we had the papers handed back to us, and our asses handed back to Rosemary as well.

It’s hard to trust anyone again
After all the let downs I’ve been through
Haunted by what I’ve been through
Air still trapped while I still can't breathe
And I’m screaming out
Give me hope somehow
And I know, yeah I know, yeah

We did improve, but by two miserable points. We were still three points short of a complete failure in oppose to being five points just a few days ago, and we were stunned by the amount of crosses on our assignment. So you start to wonder how it is possible for the program to be wrong, especially when it is a program we downloaded from the UB website, recommended by the UB librarians, and relies not on the memory of a human brain but the ones and zeros of a computer program. Rosemary did pretty much all her marking based on HER own standards, and she marked according to what she remembers. To her, everything that we gave her on the list was utterly wrong, and it was strange how she dared to challenge the computer program like that. I know APA references are supposed to be a pain in the ass, but is not helping that she is being a bigger pain in the ass. It is like trying to wipe your feces covered buttocks with a piece of toilet paper that has metal hooks on them. She is the piece of toilet paper, the human ass wipe.

Nothing seems to please her anymore, and we were left as a group this time, choking on the dust of our failure. It felt mildly comforting to have four other people on the ground with me, tripped over the rope that Rosemary cunningly placed in the bushes. Like I said before, if I can't get good grades, nobody should be getting anything better than me. At least when you fail as a group, you feel a little better about yourself. Still, it doesn't make me feel any better about this lazy Hawaiian pig that sits on her butt every lesson to hear our presentations, and even more appalling to learn that she is sucking up all our school fees and using them to buy those outdated dresses of hers that she wears to class.

I know you stay true when my world is false
Everything around's breaking down to chaos
I always see you when my sight is lost
Everything around's breaking down to chaos

The problem with her is that she doesn't teach you how to do her assignments. She gives you the course outline and expects you to know how to do it, no matter how complicated it is. She won't remind you to hand something in next week, won't tell you what to do with it in any specification, and if you do not meet her standards - which she is so vague about - you are screwed upside down and inside out. I don't suppose that it is right to require a certain standard from students when you are not clear with your instructions, and we certainly should not be faulted for doing the wrong things especially when you do not even teach at all. I don't even remember the last time she actually stood before the class and talked about anything more serious than the problem of students leaving the class to go to the restroom halfway through the presentations. She has an issue with two things in general: Punctuality and us being Asian. We have but one issue against her: Her existence.

When Juliana was leaving for the canteen to get some food, she asked Naz and I if we wanted anything from there. I told her to get me a kitchen knife, and Naz wanted one as well. I could feel the aura of murder around that man, as he stood there burning with rage. After all, he was the guy that entered the data into the EndnoteX1, and had full faith in the program until we were given those pathetic scores. Still, we had our grades at stake, and we still have the article analysis that we desperately tried to finish last night in our hands. Once again, she failed to go through what she wanted in class with the article analysis, and told us nothing about it prior to this day itself. We worked our heads off last night, trying to get all the analysis of the article in place, only to face her rejection this morning all over again.

Chaos, chaos
I know you stay true, yeah
I know you stay, yeah, yeah, yeah

Apparently, she saw a few mistakes in the APA citations in some of the works handed up by the students, and she'd want us to redo the paper all over again and hand it in on Thursday instead. So for the students who worked their heads off last night - like my group and Helena's, who sold their souls to the Devil for this damn project - gasped in horror as we were given back our article analysis. She could have mentioned something about the citations earlier, anything about us taking note of the citations and her requirements. But no, she did not tell us anything about it and expected us to read her minds. Which is ironic because, Asians are supposed to be inadequate in her standards, how are we supposed to achieve those superhuman things like, reading her mind? I have already come to terms with the fact that being Asians, we are simply not good enough to make the cut.

There has been various setbacks in terms of our results these days, and I desperately need something to boost my confidence all over again. To be honest, COM337 has a giant question mark labeled all over, and I have no idea how it is going to turn out at the very end. I was just evaluating what I did wrong in this semester as compared to the last, and I can't find a single thing that has been different. Perhaps that is the problem, because different lecturers have their own styles of teaching - or not teaching, like the case of Rosemary - and you just got to deal with it sometimes. I have probably the worst combination of lecturers possible this semester, and it is not helping that they are all unreasonable pigs to begin with. But at least with someone like Lih Jeng, it IS possible to obtain a good grade in our English essays - by detaching myself from myself, and being deathly boring in my essays. For Rosemary, it is almost impossible for anybody to please her, as long as you have yellow skin and if you are not from Hawaii. I know Muslims can't touch pigs, but I am sure Naz had the urge to put his hands around her wrinkly neck and squeeze the life out of her. When that day comes, I'd gladly join in the slaughter and laugh in glee as we butcher the racist pig from Hawaii. Until then, it is pure chaos on the streets of SIM, and I am choking dust. Cough.

I know you stay true, everything around's breaking down
I know you stay true, everything around's breaking down

I know you stay true when my world is false
Everything around's breaking down to chaos
I always see you when my sight is lost
Everything around's breaking down to chaos

Amsterdam

Come on, oh my star is fading
And I swerve out of control
And if I, if I'd only waited
I'd not be stuck here in this hole.

I am counting down the days to the day a year ago, on a similar rainy afternoon when I played with the thought of canceling the date altogether. The exact date is forgotten by me, and I have no motivation or reason to look through the archives of my blog, just to find that other either. The life that I am living now has been kind to me in numerous ways, despite the frequent traps set by the lecturers in the bushes. I do consider myself fortunate, and extremely lucky to be in the life that I am living right now. To remember the date - that date - is probably the last thing I want to remember in a period of my life such as this one. Everything is perfect in its imperfect ways, and the last thing I need is to have a reminder, a note from the past to tip the balance. The skies have been kind, a little breezy and a little chilly. This is the kind of weather you look forward to, when the future is infinitely high and crystal blue. You start to think about what you want to do, what you can do, the kind of days without a past to remember and a whole lot of opportunities. Then of course, it begins to pour.

The night was young when it happened, like an unwanted visitor who knocks at your door. The claws of the wind reached in through the iron window sills and flipped my textbooks open. The notes came down upon my bed like giant snowflakes, bringing with them the moisture of the rain that drenched half the desk by the window. I don't know how long how long I have been sleeping them, the eyelids were too heavy and too lazy to open up wide enough for the hands of the clock. It felt like a few minutes, five maybe, when I dragged myself out of bed and braved the strong cold winds of the night. It rained last night like an October night ought to, it rained like that night before the rain used to. I came to the window and felt the little arrows hitting my face, tiny archers in the wind attacking me with their blind ferociousness. Something about the time of the month, the time of the night I suppose. A distant memory was picked up by me in the deeps of my brain, of all the times that it could have troubled me, it does so five minutes before six in the morning. I cursed under my breath and slammed the window shut. The sound from the outside was muted, but the imaginary remote control failed to quieten down the screaming inside my head.

Come here, oh my star is fading
And I swerve out of control
And I swear I waited and waited,
I've got to get out of this hole

I felt that I needed to do something a few days ago, when the clock struck at midnight and the numbers flashed back to those royal flush of zeros. I remember staying up in bed that night, waiting for something to happen. A shadow by the door perhaps, somebody on the other end of the line. I had dial tone and mostly just silence, on the midnight where we should have been out celebrating somewhere. After all, birthdays come only once a year, and you only get to turn nineteen once, don't you? I had it all planned out, had it mapped out. I wanted us to hide out from our parents on this day, staying out till late at the pier I told you about by the beach. The one that reaches out into the open ocean like a limp arm, reaching out into the horizon with its opened arms. It'd be quiet in the night, but the winds would be tout. But none of those would matter much, because we would've had each other to hold on to, to gather warmth. I told you about bringing my old picnic mat, and you told me about bring sandwiches and wine in the night. It was a crazy idea, and an idea conceived as we cuddled closely in bed so many nights ago. But it was an idea, and I think we were crazy enough to pull it off indeed. But of course, like an unfortunate fetus, the mother had a terrible tumble off the staircases. Blood poured out from her womb and all over the wooden floor. Before the idea was conceived, it was gone.

You told me you have never seen a sunrise before, I wonder if you already have. It has been a little more than seven months, a little over two hundred sunrises ever since. You could have spared a day, just one day out of the many days to catch the sunrise at the pier I told you about, with that somebody. That somebody new. I wonder if it is right to feel cheated, or robbed, when your old loves take your idea and then recycle them for their new loves. Going to the restaurant we went to, going to the guitar shop that we went to, it's like stealing an unique memory and making it your own. But then again, it's not like it is possible to move out of town in this country, to get away for some time. I guess if it is possible for me, I'd move to Nova Scotia for some time and stay there. Somewhere near the arctic circle where everything would be frozen - maybe even time.

But time is on your side
It's on your side now
Not pushing you down and all around
It's no cause for concern

It is raining again, probably the fourth time today. It is like a bad hiccup that goes away for lunch and comes back after dinner. Just when you think that it is over, it comes back to haunt you all over again. My father bounced down the corridor half naked as usual, warning the rest of the family about the rain. But we've already had our windows closed and the curtains drawn. He wandered into my room casually with his bulging stomach hanging over his boxer shorts, and asked me about the stocks as usual. Then he commented about the rain, then about the storm that happened last year around this time of the year as well. "I remember, Dad." I said, and continued with surfing the net. He then asked one of those questions that I didn't want to answer, the kind of questions that digs into your bones.

"What do you think your ex-girlfriend is doing now?" he asked.

"I don't know Dad," I replied. "And I don't care."

I feel a certain sense of guilt somehow, not telling my parents about the truth. They always tell you how your family are the pillars of your support, that they are the people who are going to stick with you through the thickest and the thinnest. I remember the disappointment in my mother's eyes when I told her that I wasn't ready to tell her what happened, when I told her that it just feels different to tell it to my friends in relative to her. I feel guilt to hide it from them, but at the same time I wonder if they'd understand why I did the things I did. I can imagine their faces contorting into a million different emotions, each emotions translating into a dozen different accusations on why I made the mistake of choosing a person such as the old love, why I hadn't been more alert about her actions towards me. I do feel guilty for hiding such things from them, and I am sure why they want to know why their son locks himself in the bedroom every now and then when he feels like it. What goes on behind the locked door stays behind the locked there, and I have no intentions of letting anybody in, in the mean time. Not them anyway, not on rainy days - anyway.

Come on, oh my star is fading
And I see no chance of release
I know I'm dead on the surface
But I'm screaming underneath

I recall the birthday celebration I had with myself two years ago, those moments before I turned nineteen out in the fields. We were ordered to dig trenches in the ground in a designated area, a place with tall grass and full of embedded rocks in the soil. I spent the whole night digging, and I remember the sparks that flew out of the tips of my spade as I went deeper and deeper into the ground, scraping off the skin on my palms and fingers. It was a humid night, and the skies were clear of all clouds. Leaving behind the clear black skies and a few lingering stars, eager to shine amidst all the city lights in the distance. I counted down the minutes that led to my birthday, as I sat in the middle of the hole with my buttons opened. I was there alone while everybody else was asleep, snoring away into the night like pigs after a long day's march. But there I was, singing a soft tune to myself and wishing myself a happy birthday. What an idiot, you might be thinking right now. But I remember looking up into the sky at the single star, and the little wish that I made to myself despite the lack of a proper cake and candle. All I had were the pair of boots caked with mud and the sparks that sort of acted as the candles in the night. But it was enough, it was suffice. Because in my own special way, I had my celebration.

I am counting down the days to the 29th, the 29th of October. Remember that day, when we picked a random bus off the sign post and decided to take it all the way till the last stop. It was a wild night, but it was a night full of possibilities, wasn't it? The way the skies opened out in front of us, a rarity of an October sky. We ran through the fields and I tested if the grounds were too wet for us to lie on. That night was somewhat like the night when I celebrated my own birthday alone, when I celebrated the birth of myself nineteen years ago. But last year, on the 29th, we celebrated the birth of something, something beautiful, something new. We were silently wishing each other a happy birthday, breathing into each others' faces and whispering soft words into the night. Things were perfect, and even the stars were lined up to resemble everything else. I whispered those words into your ears, and you smiled as you counted down to the time when you had to leave. Five more minutes you said, and then five more when the time was up. You didn't want to go, we didn't want to leave. It was the birth of our love a year ago, and neither one of us wanted to miss a second of it.

And time is on your side
It's on your side now
Not pushing you down and all around
It's no cause for concern

A year from then, a year today. Sitting in my bedroom with my father's plump body leaning five inches from my face, reading statistics off my monitor. My sister is screaming in the room next to mine, about how scary the howling of the wind is and how we are all going to die. To her, Armageddon is always around the corner, even if it is a single beetle rested upon her waist. My mother is in the room reading her book, a typical night in the Chin family. I am blogging about the past, not so much about the future. What is there to speak of when I know naught of what it is to come? I hear the music of Arvo Part playing over the speakers on repeat, the sound of the wind howling through the windows, desperate to get in.

There is that urge again, the urge to call somebody again. I feel like opening the window and screaming out into the window, and hope that my message would get to you somehow. I am too ashamed to message you over the internet, to embarrassed to click on your nickname. I guess my pride is reduced to merely a sound in the wind now, like the howls before the rain. You'd hear it, but not heed it. You'd take notice, but then forget about it. That is my existence in your life right now probably, just a lingering smell, a stubborn sound. I am listening to Arvo Part's soft piano keys, and the sound of the wind blasting against the window panes. Something about the image of that, and the forthcoming rain, is scaring the hell out of me. I feel like I am unraveling.

Stuck on the end of this ball and chain
And I'm on my way back down again
Stood on a bridge, tied to a noose
Sick to the stomach

You can say what you mean
But it won't change a thing
I'm sick of the secrets

Stood on the edge
Tied to a noose
You came along
And you cut me loose

You came along
And you cut me loose
You came along
And you cut me loose