In Continuum.

It is a tradition of the Chinese to do spring cleaning when a new year on the lunar calendar arrives. It is a belief that by doing so, bad luck and fortune would be swept out of the house as a way to welcome the new year. Similarly, perhaps this should have been done a long time ago, when I actually had so many opportunities and reasons to do so. My cellphone contacts are pretty overcrowded, an observation I made after running through from A to Z. There are some people whom I hardly remember there, and numbers belonging to people whom I don't even know. I don't know why I have Adrian's ex-girlfriend's phone number there, nor do I know why I have Carol's phone number there either. They were probably just numbers I picked up along the road, and became too lazy to delete them as a result. It is that mentality inside of me, the voice in the back of my head that goes "Who knows? You might need them". But really, I really don't need them now, not anymore. 

It's funny how a few buttons on your cellphone guarantees the complete erasure of somebody from your life. Certainly, those people mattered to you enough in the past for you to take down their numbers, they must have meant something to you one way or another. But here's another evidence of the witch doctor's (if you remember who he is) prophecy coming true, and it sucks to have him being right all the time. I found myself trying to remember who was who in my contact list, and I realized that most people there were people that passed me by, people that were important to me for a single purpose and then left as an entry in my contact list in the form of eight digits. To see those people being reduced to just eight numbers in my life is a little sad to witness, but then I guess neither of us made much efforts to create a deeper impression. 

Sara told me how deleting contacts on her MSN list is therapeutic, and I guess in a way I can say the same about erasing phone numbers from my cellphone. It was a very quick process, and it didn't require too much brainpower to do so. Select the name, press "Cancel", select "Yes". It became quite a routine when I got to the names starting with C, and I almost thought I developed some kind of talent by the time I reached "M". As easy as sounds to press those buttons, those people were gone - just like that. And it makes you wonder how scary technology is sometimes, when we depend so much on it that we lose the function to remember phone numbers with our brain. There are numbers I still remember, especially those numbers which I used to call almost on a daily basis before I acquired a cellphone. Krishna's home phone number, Alvin's home phone number, Samuel's home phone number, Cliburn's home phone number, and it's amazing these numbers have turned into crystalized memories in my head. They cannot be erased, there aren't a set of buttons to press for you to forget the shape of their numbers. But everything is digitalize now, isn't it? We take the capacity of our memory cards for granted, and deleting an old friend from your life has become so disturbingly easy.

The idea of such a complete erasure never caught on, never appealed to me. It's the idea of it being so definite, so irreversible that scares me the most. There was always that nagging feeling in my head, telling me that I might this person's number for emergencies, or I might need that person's number in the future. The truth is, I haven't even called most of them before, and I don't suppose I'd be moved to call any of them, anytime soon. They simply mean too little, and it pains me to say something like that. As much as I would like to think that every individual that came and went in my life have been important and special, I don't suppose they think half as highly of me as I hope to of them. They have probably deleted my phone number a long time ago, so it would be rather silly for me to place so much hope and faith on the possibility that perhaps I made some sort of impact on somebody else's life whom I barely even know. It's like a break-up, you always hope that your partner is in an equally sad, equally depressed, equally broken state as yourself. When in truth, he probably can't be happier that you are gone, like a wisp of wind. 

I do not believe in such a blind faith in people who do not have the same kind of faith in me. I do not think that it would be smart to leave those people hanging around my contact list when I know that they cannot wait a second more to erase me off of their lives. A contact list should consist of people who matters to you right now, or people who thinks that you matter to them dearly. It is the easiest way from me to them and from them to me, like the shortest distance between two fixated points - a straight line. All I have to do is to dial their numbers to show that I care, that I give a shit about what is happening in their lives. Similarly, all they have to do is to dial my number and find out what is going on in mine. It is that reciprocal care and concern that I appreciate the most, and how short a distance we have between one another no matter how far away we have come on our own separate ways. The numbers on our contact lists are the shortest distances to the friends that matter, and I have vowed never to give in to my own ignorance of their presence any longer. 

Do you need me, I am here
Can you ask, can you be clear
Yes you need me, I appear
Now you are me, I am here

I deleted a little over a hundred names if I counted corrected, names that I hardly remember anymore. There are actually people whom I have zero recollection of their faces, not to mention those numbers I got only to threaten my friends with. Brought back memories of the time when I threatened Krishna that I'd call his crush from school, and it ended up with him chasing me around the school and wrestling me to the ground. I guess, more than just the people those numbers belong to, I am also deleting these little pockets of memories that I have of the past. Not a complete erasure of course, but I guess it is just less likely that I'd be reminded of that incident, with that phone number of his crush permanently erased. Faces that I don't remember, somehow I wished that the phone numbers would be like binary codes, piecing together an image of those faces that I have forgotten over the years. But they don't work like that, life doesn't work like that. What has to go, got to go. And those hundred names and numbers were gone in under five minutes. It's scary to think about it but, that's the way it is now.

It reminded me of that other time, when I made up my mind to delete the folder in my old computer. The folder had a whole bunch of pictures the ex and I took together, the pictures that we took while we were out on our numerous dates. Quite a big folder with a whole bunch of pictures, and I figured one night that there wasn't a point leaving those pictures hidden somewhere in my computer. So I took a deep breath, prepared myself for it, and pressed delete. It didn't take long for the pictures to be completely erased, and surprisingly there wasn't a moment of regret, or guilt, or any feelings that may have came along with such a definite act. I think there is still a folder in the backup drive with all the pictures in them, but then it's not like I am using the old computer ever again. It is probably going to get older and older, rust from the inside out, and the information inside are eventually going to be inaccessible even to the smartest hackers out there. With time, everything just fades away. Memories in your head, and physical memories in hard drives - just everything. Like your phone number which I deleted last after much struggling, life didn't feel any different the moment your name disappeared from the screen either. I am still living, still breathing, and the only difference is the smile on my face after it happened. Sara was right, and I did the right thing. I really did.

If you trace my phone number on a keypad, you'd notice that the shape looks somewhat like a fish. It's true, it looks somewhat like a fish folded from a piece of paper, like in origami. Cliburn's home phone number forms a straight line in the middle of the keypad, and the tone of his number, when heard from the receiver, sounds like "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", I am not kidding here. There are some shapes that I will never forget, some tones that I will always remember. Even if I have deleted your number, I don't suppose it is going to be erased from my mind anytime soon. I have dialed that number countless of times, in the day and in the night, for happy reasons and for reasons that are better left unsaid at this point in time. 

I dialed, I never searched for your name in the contacts. Because I enjoyed dialing, seeing the shape form underneath my thumb, the shape of you. To tell you the truth, and I am not exaggerating, while my phone number forms a paper fish, your phone number looks like a black heart on my keypad - because of the black keypad that I have. I don't think I am ever going to forget the black heart, even if the numbers are forgotten. There are only so many permutations you get get with eight digits starting with the number nine that will give you the shape of a heart, and I guess this black heart is a heart that I never should have won, for I would have eventually lost and broken my own at the very same time. 

I don't suppose you are going to check this long-lost mailbox of yours, in fact I don't suppose you ever will. But this seems to be the only way I am ever going to find you all over again. You don't come online any longer, though I do not blame you. It still feels weird, every now and then, when it is ten o'clock at night and you are not at your cubicle, logging on to the internet. I cannot deny that the absence of you as of late has been merely a voice in the back of my mind, because of school and other events happening in my life. I am sure, and I hope, that you are doing great in your school life in Arizona as well, at least that was the last I heard from you really.

It's almost two in the morning and I have classes tomorrow, I don't even know why I am sending you this e-mail, I don't even think you are ever going to read it. I lost that other address of yours, so please forgive me for being such a reckless and careless fool. I guess it must have been because of this music video I was watching, this band called A Fine Frenzy. The lead singer is called Alison Sudol, and I am positive that you'd like her materials by the way. She has red hair like the color of autumn, and her skin is like the backyards in winter - just like you. Maybe that's why I was reminded of your presence in my life, or the lack thereof.

You have deleted both your wordpress blogs, I haven't been able to find out what's going on in your life. I do believe that you are doing fine, and your health is much better than before. I still have the two spaces saved up on my blog for you, the spaces with the links to your blogs in the past. I am just waiting for a day when you might reply this e-mail and tell me that you are OK, that everything is fine on your side of the world. There is so much I want to tell you, and so much that I can't. I cannot believe that I haven't been speaking with you for this long, and for some strange reasons I do feel rather guilty about it.

So this is me, sending a letter to you without ever knowing whether you'd read it or not. I am going to take my chances, have my fingers crossed this time. Chances are slim, but it is worth the try. It is part of my resolution this year, I don't want to lose another friend, anymore. Not this time.

I guess, in a few words,

I miss you, dearly.

Regards,

Will.

There is a person in school who, regretfully speaking, shares the same characteristics as a rodent. It is not difficult to find him in school, because he tends to be circling the same corner of the school all day long in between classes. He disappears from there when he has classes, and then he'd be back in the same spot, just circling and mumbling to himself until it is time to go home. This man is probably the weirdest person I have ever witnessed, perhaps even more so than all the class misfits in high school. The group of us in school calls him Dwight Schrute, the guy from The Office. They have the same glasses, the same kind of hairstyle, and both of them have this strange and creepy aura around them that never fails to freak somebody out. It is that look in their eyes, or those little gestures they do when they think that nobody is looking. Let's just call him Dwight from now on, though he seems to be far less likable than the fictional character on television. For one, I am very sure that this guy doesn't have a girlfriend whatsoever. No-bleeding-way. 

I first noticed this person because of the way I'd meet him at the same spot in school every morning. Here's what happens in the morning when I get off the bus, in the case whereby I don't know where the classroom is. I'd get off the bus at the bus stop, take a walk up to the main school building. Take the staircases that lead up to the atrium and then check out the venue at the electronic board there. For a period of time, however, I'd meet this same guy in front of the sliding doors, and he'd always be there wearing the same thing and doing the same things. He'd be pacing up and down the corridor with his hands usually stuck in his pockets, and always mumbling something to himself and under his breath. Once in a while, you see his hand waving and pointing at something in mid air, as if to calculate something mentally and making mental notes to himself. Then he'd resume his eager pacing up and down the corridors, and that is basically what he does for the rest of the day. 

It is difficult to miss him in school, because the atrium is a place in school with rather heavy traffic. You have people from different schools moving about from one point to another, crossing each other in this very place. The atrium would be like the central business district in town, where all the roads lead to and all the people congregates. So you have a bunch of different people bumping into one another, people from different schools and different wardrobes and whatnot, and then there's this guy dressed in white almost every single day. I am pretty sure he is not some ex-student of the school who hung himself in the toilet or something, because my friends have also seen him wandering the corridors before. He wears white every single day that I have seen  him, he even has the same pair of white pants on everyday. Seriously, at this age and time, who wears white pants?  There is always a white speck amidst the anonymous crowd in school, and that's him - our very own, Dwight.

Today, the presentation group stayed back in school to work on the presentation on Wednesday, and all the seats and benches around the school were pretty much taken up. So we ended up on the edge of the atrium, seated on one of those uncomfortable black metal seats attached to those uncomfortable black metal tables. We were desperate anyway, and it was unlikely that we'd find any other available seats in school anyway. At that point in time, the thought of the atrium being Dwight's territory did not cross my mind, and the three of us basically settled down while Jonno went for his philosophy lesson. We had our books laid out before us, my Macbook opened and the presentation slides loaded on the screen. We were all minding our own businesses when I noticed, from the corner of my eyes, a curious shadow from the other side of the window panes staring down at us. I turned my head to where the gaze was coming from and almost got the shock of my life.

Dwight was standing there with his hands in his pockets, and he was leaning on the metal railings and staring at us intently with his cold and dead eyes. I've never looked at him with such attention and detail before, and the first time doing so made me want to run away home and look for my mother. It was creepy to make eye contact with that guy, because he always looks at people from the top of his spectacles. So you always get a feeling as if he is some sort of wild predator, looking for his next prey. He reminded me of a pedophile visiting a theme park for the sake of little children playing on the roller-coasters. It was a very disconcerting feeling indeed, and I directed my gaze back onto my Macbook. Still, from the corner of my eyes, I followed his white silhouette as he retreated away from the glass panes and disappeared around the corner like a shark's fin disappearing beneath the surface of the water. But like all horror movies, they always return sooner or later, and almost always with something worse to offer.

As expected, he returned a minute later on the same corridors, chanting something under his breath and mumbling to himself all over again. He was pointing at something in the air, and he waved his fingertip around as if by doing so he'd cast some spells or to create fire on his fingertip. He probably paced up and down the corridors for about fifteen times, or at least that was how many times I managed to keep track of him while doing the project. He'd appear on this end of the corridor where we were, then walk to the other end of the corridor before taking an u-turn and then coming back all over again. Once in a while, he'd come into the atrium itself and walk the perimeters like a hyena would around the border of its territory. But other than that, he remains in his safety zone, his own happy place along the corridors. I nudged Naz today to check him out, and we noticed some rather horrific things about Dwight that we've never noticed before.

Before today, he was just that weird guy on the corridors, the same guy that stared intently at Fangxun for no apparent reasons once. We called him the secret admirer of Fangxun, but apparently he stares at everybody for no apparent reason. Today, he became the wandering spirit of the atrium, and that status became further elevated for the fact that he wears white every single day. He has old scars and new ones on the skin of his arms, dotted all over like a chicken pox or other more horrific disease. It must have been due to the frequent scratching spells you'd observe him do every once in a while, running his fingernails over his skin as if his life depended on killing the itch. The worst part is probably the way he'd scratch his oily hair every twenty seconds or so, and then put his fingernails to his nose to smell it. That was observed by Kania, Naz, Jonno and I today, and I can say that we were all pretty amazed and disturbed at the very same time. He'd bury his fingers into his hair, scratch attentively at one spot, bring his fingers out and inspect carefully at the discovery between his fingernails. Then he'd smell it as if nobody's looking, then move on with life.

You should have seen the way Naz's face contorted into the look of utter confusion and disgust. In his mind, he must have been trying to come up with reasons why anybody would do such a weird thing in the eyes of the public. But then again, judging from the queer ways he has been ever since we knew about his existence, the answer to that question is simple: there is no answer to his strange ways in school. He seems to be living in a world of his own, always wandering the same spots in school and doing the same things over and over again. I wonder if he is a student in this school, because he doesn't do anything that'd convince us that he is an employee here. Besides, he carries a black school bag around every once in a while, and he doesn't look very old either - probably around my age, or a little older. And I thought the weirdness of the koi pond girl would never be overtaken. 

There used to be a girl in school who appeared pretty often during our music classes, and she had hair that reached her butt which she'd flick around as if it is a bundle of hay. The problem with her hair is that they are badly tended to most of the time, looking like a bundle of wires growing out of her head more than anything. If she isn't staring blankly into space before class begins, she'd be combing her hair over and over - though it hardly helps really. She is, like Dwight, a loner in school without any friends. She'd disappear after class and then reappear again next to the koi pond, squatting next to the edge and talking to the fishes at the very same time. We have all seen her talking to the fishes before, and it was a pretty strange sight I must say. It became even weirder when she disappeared from school altogether, though the lot of us half expected her dead body to be floating in the middle of the koi pond, with half her face eaten away by the fishes. No, she did not fall into the pond by accident, she merely refused to come to school. When she finally came, her long scary hair was gone. She had it cut short, but it didn't look like she went to a hairdresser either. The ends of her hair was straight, as if she simply took a pair of scissors and cut the rest of her hair off. She doesn't talk to the fishes any longer, they probably had a fight. Or maybe Dwight confronted her for invading his territory, nobody knows.

Whatever it is, it was still a creepy sight to see him staring at us through the glass panes with those deathly eyes. It was weird to be viewed upon like caged animal, when we really are the normal people here. I wonder what he does at home, I wonder if he even has a home. I wonder how it'd be like to be him for a day, then I gagged at the mere thought of it. It was distasteful and repulsive, and I couldn't believe myself for harboring such a thought for even a second. Still, he's an intriguing subject to look upon in school most definitely. And like the rodents in night safari, it's not difficult to find him. 

But at six in the morning, I wasn't too sure about any clinics near my place opening at all. The thought of going to a hospital came to my mind, but the dreadful thought of long confusing corridors and the smell of death turned me off and steered me away from that idea. I woke my mother up, and she started telling me about that other time when my sister had a similar allergic reaction, and how she had red rashes all over her body, like the ones that I am having right now. My sister is allergic to prawns, and those little prawns made her look like a giant human shaped tomato. It was so bad that the swelling reached out to her eyelids and caused them to be swollen too. They looked like they had ping pong balls stuffed underneath those eyelids, not a pretty sight for a girl as narcissistic as herself. So we visited the neighborhood doctor, that indian man who could speak Hokkien for some very strange reasons. He had small talks with my sister and injected her in the waist as she was explaining the subjects she studied in school. A very experienced way to distract your patients while you inject that long needle into their bodies, long and thick enough to kill a raging bull.

Searching through my wallet, I was thankful to find my old Silvercross card with the words "24 Hours" printed on the back. I gave them a call, and the woman on the other side of the phone sounded tired and worn out, maybe it was because of the time of the day perhaps. Anyway, my mother and I made a trip down to that clinic, and it was good to know that at six in the morning, nobody is going to be before you in line and taking up all the time in the world. We strolled in, I gave her my card, and that was as long as the wait lasted. The light on top of Room One lighted up, and I met the doctor who prescribed to me the following: Prednisolone Tabs, Piriton Tabs, and Calamine lotion. Altogether, those pills and lotion cost me nearly eighty dollars, and as I paid the cashier at the counter, the phrase "It's cheaper to die than to get sick in Singapore" drifted slowly into my mind. Even in the crisp morning air at six in the morning, I was sober enough to know that what I was paying was an obvious robbery, a rip-off as plain as day. My mother pays a little more than SGD$10 in Taiwan for a full body X-Ray, coupled with a check up annually. Of course, she also has to pay about SGD$ 30 every year as the national healthcare coverage, but that is still way cheaper than these two packets of pills and a red bottle that looks so shabby that it could have been a bottle used for soy sauce.

On the way home, the crowd around the MRT station was already building up. At six in the morning on a Saturday, you wonder where were all those people headed off to. Whatever happened to the idea of having our Saturdays and Sundays free from work, and just have those times to yourself and your family. That is perhaps something I admire about the Western culture, and how a Friday is a Friday, and a five in the evening is a five in the evening. They don't work overtime, and they do not see the need to bring their work home. They give more respect to their time alone at home than their time at work to earn even more money. It's kind of sad to realize that I am living in a society that lives to work, while other people around the world are working to live. There is a difference, and the latter just makes a little more sense than the former. We are like robots now, like ants working mindlessly in a great hive. As I contemplated and entertained these thoughts, I realized one thing: Valerie's right.

Her family is moving out of Singapore, but not anytime soon. She has to clock a minimal of two and a half days in America every year to make herself eligible to be an American citizen, or something like that. Technically speaking, whenever she is not studying in Singapore, she needs to be back in the States, she is technically speaking an American already. I used to think that staying in Singapore should be a great thing for her, even if her seismologist dreams are going to be shattered here. But in retrospect, I probably said those words because of how much I didn't want my friends to leave this country, instead of how I genuinely thought that things would work out here if you want to be a seismologist. Seriously, it'd be pretty cool if you can be a seismologist without ever stepping out of the borders of the country, but what are the odds? Moving to the States just seems like an obvious choice, and I am beginning to agree with her. Just look at the rate at which the inflation is crushing us like ants here, it's stifling as it is suffocating here, and you can feel that even in the bills you pay at the counter of a clinic at six in the morning.

I can't help but wonder how it'd be like to be like the people we've met on our trip to Krabi, Thailand. I can't help but wonder how it'd be like to tuck away the life that you have grown so comfortable and familiar with, and to put yourself in a foreign country just because it seems like the right thing to do. In western countries, a long trip to a foreign country for an extended period of time is almost like a sort of ritual one must go through to adulthood. In Africa, some boys are still forced to have their hands bound in between two plastic baskets filled with fire ants, while the girls are still forced to have all their hair plucked out by hand as a form of growing into adulthood. Other tribes in Africa has the ritual for boys that requires them run across a row of cows over their backs to and fro, while the girls have the whip themselves silly by their side. Different countries have their different rituals to adulthood, and it doesn't matter if you agree or disagree with them or not. I wonder what is our ritual of adulthood, if the eastern culture has such a thing or not. Some Japanese do practice such a ritual, and one of them would be to hold on to a cannon filled with explosives, all the while with fireworks shooting out from the top of the cannon just centimeters above your head. Singapore doesn't have such a culture, simply because - like the man in the bar at the Banyan Tree - we work too hard, man.

We are ushered into the education system which doesn't allow the students to breathe, and it robs the kind of childhood that a normal child should have, and then dominate their lives with textbooks and examinations which are supposed to dictate their lives - though it really isn't the case. That happens for ten years, then you are forced to go to either a polytechnic or a junior college, because any other options in the society would promise you a dead end in life. Then you go to the universities, and then after that would be to find a job straight away. That job is supposed to last you for the rest of your life, and you are not supposed to have fun because fun is an absolute waste of time. We always hear about out caucasian counterparts, taking a year off after college and just enjoy life in a foreign country. Working and living, and working for living. I think our government knows about our shortcomings, which is why they have a very well established system to make our citizens think otherwise.

I was just reading an article this morning after the incident in the papers, an article about how great Singaporeans are at customer service, a sentence which I read with utter disgust and surprise. The writer of the article is actually a Singaporean student living in London, and he was stuck in the London Underground station one day when he realized that he missed the friendly faces in Singapore and their excellent customer service. Though, in truth, I don't see Singapore being synonymous with good customer services, not unless you have white skin and a wallet full of cash. Interestingly, this article appeared in the papers a few days just after somebody else wrote in to complain about the customer services of a certain shop in town, which just made me wonder how much the government paid that 'Singaporean student studying in London' to write a letter to the press like that. That is not to mention how the Taiwanese healthcare system was utterly thrashed in the Chinese papers a week or two ago, a few days after a Singaporean in Taiwan wrote in to say the exact opposite. That article mentioned how Singapore should learn from the national insurance policy in Taiwan, and the following article criticized it by saying how flawed it actually. Well, I have done a research paper on the subject, and the truth is every system is flawed one way or another, even if it is going to be free universal healthcare. At least we are not paying eighty dollars for medicine we use just once. 

So the rashes subsided along with my anger and complaints. The rest of the day was spent trying to stay awake and trying to stay in bed. The medicine I took in the morning knocked me out cold, like being shot by a jet of sleeping gas at point blank. It has been a while since I slept that long and that much, and it certainly felt good to be all lethargic all over again. At least for once today, I felt like I didn't need to be a robot of our society, an ant of our giant ant hive. I was able to tell myself to be myself if I wanted to, to take a vacation in my dreams as I floated back to the beautiful beaches of Krabi all over again. Seriously, if not for the school I am attending now and the friends that I have here, it wouldn't take more than a blink of the eye for me to pack my bags and get out of here. Anywhere outside of Singapore, a new frontier for me. And all these thoughts, because I had some bloody rashes in the middle of the night. Go me!

Atonement is a period drama set in the warring days of World War II, when the rich stayed in the comfort of their mansions at the countryside, ignorant and unaware of the going-ons in the outside world. One hot summer, young Briony Tallis witnessed a scene that she did not understand by the fountain that involved Cecelia Tallis, her sister, and Robbie Turner, the servant of the house - played by Keira Knightley and James McAvoy respectively. In her mind, Briony conjured up a false truth that framed Robbie as the sexual predator in the family, and falsely accused him of raping her cousin Lola one night in the bushes. The misunderstanding occurred when a letter written from Robbie was misread and misunderstood by Briony, who purposefully read the letter without Cecelia's permission. So Robbie was arrested that very night and thrown into prison, the two lovers of a forbidden love torn apart by concrete walls and iron bars. He had a choice, though: To remain in prison or fight the war. So Robbie elected war in hopes to return to Cecelia one day, all the while living the consequences of the lie a little girl made up five years ago.

In terms of pacing, the film was definitely a breeze to sit through, save for a few minor hiccups in the middle of the movie when Briony grows up and becomes a trainee nurses at a hospital to help out the wounded. The film is essentially divided into two main arches, with a minor epilogue at the very end that involves an old Briony to tie up the loose ends. The first part of the film was intriguing to sit through, taking the audience into a believable story set in the past, though the events that transpired were more than just forceful and tried. Everything from the incident by the fountain to the letter being accidentally placed into the envelope were just too dramatically driven, and it almost seemed like the director was trying too hard to convince us that the events did occur, that the characters really were that stupid to believe that such things happened. But once I looked pass those aspects, the first part of the film became immensely enjoyable. Joe Wright's treatment of non-verbal cues from the actors were phenomenon. Much of the film's strengths came not from the words spoken, but the words that were not. A brush of Cecelia's hand on the back of Robbie's, from the way they'd stand in front of one another in embarrassment. The treatment of those scenes were done with such care and precision, that it became hard to take your eyes away.

The second part of the film felt a little boggled down by the density of the material at hand. Portraying the second world war at its end, it was effective in the attempt but hardly anything ground-breaking. We follow the footsteps of Robbie through the jungles in France, Cecelia's work in the hospital and Briony's trainee days, all the while trying to write a book about the mistake that she made five years ago. This is the part of the movie that is the most important to the entire film, simply because of how it relates strongly to the end of the film where the power of Ian McEwan's writings really shone through, when the tragedy of the story really hits home and punches you in the guts. This is not a movie you should expect yourself to come out of the cinema with a smile on your face. This is a tragedy that is worthy of the word "Shakespearean" tagged to the front, and it is definitely nothing short of that. Any more details told about the epilogue would surely spoil the experience for the readers, but let's just say that the final five minutes of the film made it one of the best of 2007, indeed.

In terms of the technicalities of the film, everything is Oscar-worthy and top-notch here. We have the brilliant cinematography that showcased the brilliant landscapes and the sceneries. The imageries were so beautiful that you could almost reach out and grab them, and a particular shot that lasted for nearly five minutes reminded me of the technique used by Alfonso Cuaron in Children of Men. In this scene, the camera never left the characters for a single second, as they walked through the devastated beach at Dunkirk. The single shot was impressive, though not nearly as eye-opening as the ones used in Children of Men. Nonetheless, that shot transpired the immediacy of the situation, immersed the characters in the situation and transported us from our seats onto the beach with that one single take. 

Other than the beautiful cinematography engaged to tell the story, the music itself was pretty impressive as well. The composer, Dario Marianelli, effectively used the sounds of the typewriter and an umbrella banging against the hood of a car into the score itself. I thought it was a refreshing and bold take on a score, and it was effective how he used the theme with the typewriter to signify the entrance of Briony at the beginning of the film and the middle section as well. Other than the two aspects of the score mentioned, there were also other minor parts of the soundtrack that was flawlessly incorporated into the score, which I found to be quite interesting indeed. 

In terms of the performances, young Briony was amazing for as long as she lasted on screen, which is probably why she is nominated for Best Supporting Actress for the Oscars this year. The other two older versions of herself, Romola Garai and Vanessa Redgrave, also made solid performances, though very subtle and calm for the most part. They were powerful in the portrayal of their characters living in utter self-pity and guilt, and thus the theme of this film: Atonement. The leads had decent acting parts here, with Kiera Knightley playing a slightly more mature role than before, though still a little raw to the part and acting in a period drama all over again. James McAvoy really made the film for me, he is perfect as the young Robbie Turner. I suppose this guy is going to have a lot of good film roles thrown at him in the future, because what he brings to the screen is more than the lines and the facial expressions, but this life that you don't get in a lot of actors out there. He radiates charm when he needs to, and he burns with anger when he wants to. It was a joy to see him on screen, though a little intimidating when he lost his temper somewhere towards the end.

This film is a tragic film, whether you are watching it in the cinemas or reading it at home on your bed. It's a gut-wrenching film that takes you by the heart and squeezes it until you run out of blood and breath. This is an exceptionally crafted film from the beginning till the end, and definitely something I am going to recommend. The revelation at the end of the film is going to hit your heart like a sledgehammer, because you just feel sad for the character of Briony, despite the atrocities she did when she was young. But who are we to blame a young girl with a imaginative mind that wandered to the wrong side of fantasy? You'd find out just how far she has wandered into the realm of her own efforts to atone her mistakes, and how her lies not only destroyed a couple, but her life as well. This is a brilliant film, but it isn't something you'd want to catch when you are in the mood for a light film. This film is anything but, and watch it only when you want to be blown away by the power of cinema. 

No Country for Old Men, the tile itself doesn't make a lot of sense at all. It doesn't make any sense, especially after reading the synopsis of the film that involves a stolen satchel of money and a hired henchman with a air pressure gun as his weapon of choice. It all reads like an ordinary thriller from the Coen Brothers, just another movie with an odd name to boot. But in truth, No Country for Old Men is anything but ordinary, which is a tradition for the Coen Brothers. Normalcy should never be expected from this directing brothers, because their perspectives and their movies are anything but. They are never conventional, never the kind of directors who like to follow anything the mainstream audience would generally appreciate and love. Ethan Coen and Joel Coen have crafted a film that surpasses all the standard genres that we already know. It's a western, but not really. It's a thriller, though not exactly. It's a comedy, but not completely. It's everything and none of it at the same time, which is what makes this film stands out from all the rest.

The story of No Country for Old Men follows the footsteps of three characters. The first, Llewelyn Moss, a retired welder, finds himself a satchel full of money in the middle of a desert amidst a mess of dead bodies, drugs, and a whole lot of bullet shells. He takes the money home with him, thinking that it was a clean getaway without leaving any tracks, until a man whom the money was supposed to go to, hires someone else to hunt him down. This man is Anton Chigurh, a professional killer without a heart to speak of. He kills everybody who stands in his way, even innocent people on the streets whom he decides to steal a car from. He is armed with his air pressured rifle that penetrates almost anything without leaving any evidences behind, and he is a person you wouldn't want to be following you on your tail. Then there's Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, whose main purpose in this film is to track down the killers behind the mess left behind in the desert, since it happened in his territory and on his guard.

When it comes to the pacing of a film, the Coen Brothers do know a trick or two indeed. This film has a pacing that is so tight, that is becomes hard to breathe even as an audience seated comfortable at home. With the unexpected twists and turns throughout the film, the Coen Brothers not only injects a sense of unpredictability, but also a sense of danger around every corner. Javier Bardem plays the perfect cold-blooded killer here. His expressionless face has the ability to creep out any member of the audience just by staring into the camera for a long enough time. He is probably one of the most creepy villain to ever appear on screen, next to Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lector, to be honest. Only, the latter is still a little more formidable, since he likes to bite off the tongue of his enemy and bake human brains for dinner. Javier's character, however, does it so easily on screen that he is the perfect villain for this film. He is crazy enough to be deciding the life or death of innocent people by a coin toss, much like Two Face in the Batman franchise. But scarier than Two Face, this man is smarter and more real than ever.

Other members of the cast give Oscar worthy performances themselves. Josh Brolin does a great job as the protagonist of the story, always trying to remain a step ahead of the killer, trying to run away whenever he catches up. Tommy Lee Jones provides the dark and dry humor that is almost a signature to the Coen Brothers films. Even in a film as dense and heavy as this one, the directors never failed to insert their trademark humor into the story line, and most of them came from Tommy Lee Jones' character and his dry laconic wit. Woody Harrelson makes a brief appearance as the killer after Anton Chigurh. Though he has limited number of lines, he still shines in every scene he appears in, and certainly provided a significant amount of twists to the story itself.

Here is where the movie might piss a lot of audiences off. The movie does not end the way an ordinary movie should end. While this is a Coen Brothers movie where conventionality should not be observed, even such films should have a proper and satisfying ending. At least to most people, movies should never end the way this movie did, and the decision to end it like that would turn a lot of viewers off for sure. However, I feel that the ending not only remained faithful to the book which it was adapted from(Every line spoken by the character in the last scene is exactly the same as the last lines of the book), but it also amplified the impact of the story itself. It gave sense to the title of the film, the whole arch of the story and the underlying interpretations as a whole. When you come right down to it, you realize that the opening prologue and the ending epilogue are words that summarizes the film in under two minutes. Those two minutes are the reasons why this film is so different, and it is definitely more than just the abrupt ending. 

Not everything needs to be said and shown to the light of day in movies, not every movie needs to treat its audience as passive viewers. This film, while not nearly as vague and pointless as the recent Cloverfield, is vague enough at the very end to make the audience scratch their heads in constant wonder. Yet, there is also a sense of closure and utter realism to it all that you cannot deny. The depth of this film runs deep, and it goes to show the degradation of our society as a whole, how crimes will never be stopped no matter how many good men try to stop them from happening. They just keep happening, and some countries just become unfit for old men to remain in forever. It becomes a vanity as a character tells another in a bar, and that is certainly the truth. This film is more than a cat and mouse chase, but rather a film that talks about the degradation of our society as a whole, and how helpless we are in the ugliness of it all. 

Anyway, a great film and a great cast. This is definitely worth its Oscar nomination for Best Picture this year, a worthy competitor to its other competitions. Other reviews to come up soon enough, and that is a promise to you and myself, this year at the Oscars. 

9/10 

Jenna Fisher as Pam Beesley

This, is Jenna Fischer. Or, more commonly known, as Pam Beesley from The Office. I like Pam Beesley, she is nice. Pam likes to paint with water colors, she hates it whenever a man sings in a high-pitched voice, and she is the receptionist at a paper company called Dunder Mifflin. She has something for everybody, everyone loves Pam because she's just the way that she is. Looking at her, she is the perfect receptionist, simply because of how likable she looks. Everything can happen to you before your day begins at the office. You might have been caught in a jam, hit a lamp post, lost your house keys on your way to work and still be cheered up at the door, because Pam Beesley is there to greet you every morning. It's just nice to have someone like her around the office, and I am sure Jim Halpert agrees with me on that. 

Jim Halpert is a sales representative at Dunder Mifflin, and Pam is his accomplice whenever he tries to pull a prank of Dwight Schrute, the company freak who keeps a pepper spray under his desk and a pair of nun-chucks. Jim likes Pam, and Pam likes Jim. But here's the problem, Pam is engaged to Roy, the warehouse guy, and has been the case for the past three years. I have just given you a rundown of The Office from season one right through the middle of season two, so you should stop reading this entry if you want to avoid any spoilers. Anyway, the spoilers continue. Roy isn't the most perfect fiancee in the world, but he is, after all, Pam's college sweetheart. It'd be wrong to leave him for Jim, but at the same time she does feel something very strongly for Jim. At the end of season two, Jim confesses his feelings to Pam despite the wedding coming up in June, but Pam rejected him due to her responsibilities. So Jim, struck by depression and rejection, decided to take up the job up in corporate, and he left the Scranton branch at the end of the second season. Pam, however, calls off the ending afterwards, but it was already too late for her. At corporate, Jim falls for his new co-worker, Karen Filippelli, and the situation was made even more awkward when the two branches merged and the three of them were forced to remain in the same office space. End, of season three. 

I've always liked Pam Beesley in the first two seasons, I loved the way she interacted with Jim and their little mindless talks to get each other through the day. It was enjoyable to watch them on screen, even though they may be talking about the most pointless things. Pam is likable, because she not only is the so-called hottest girl in the Scranton branch, but she also has that kind of schoolgirl dream that appeals to a lot of guys. There is that innocence, and at the same time a kind of mischief in her eyes whenever she is trying to pull a prank on Dwight, it's a joy to see her really. But as of late, my impression of Pam has changed dramatically, and I've found myself to be rooting for Karen, rather than the star couple of the show whom the audience should be rooting for instead. I can't help myself, I find myself thinking more from the perspective of Karen, rather than sympathizing with the Pam and Jim dilemma. I cannot help it, but I guess enough is enough when it comes to seeing a girl who cannot make up her mind about her feelings. Because I know, I know, that you not only hurt yourself with your indecision, but everybody else involved as well.

She has become really whiny as of late, trying to make a decision about her feelings but never brave enough to take the first step. She is always telling the camera what she should do, but she never actually does it well enough at all. She went back to Roy for a while, then managed to screw things up in the bar when she confessed one issue too many. Then she tries to go back to Jim again, but this time Jim is already with Karen, so things cannot be changed any longer. So she is just like this ping pong ball being hit around the table, bouncing around between two wooden rackets and never really staying still on either side. You understand why she is feeling the way she is feeling, but sometimes it just gets a little tiring to see her always sitting on the fence. This is not a review of the television show, but really a review of how real and raw the show is in the depiction of love in reality. The truth is, there are just too many decisions that cannot be made, and as a result it hurts all the other people involved in your indecision. They always say that love is a deal that is unfair from the very start, but you really don't have to cause hurt and pain to someone else, someone like Karen.

Maybe that's why I sort of prefer Karen more than Pam now, despite the fact that Pam still looks better in my opinion. Karen has that whole office lady package going for her, always in her nice blouses and her green eyes are always so electrifying. But there is always that something missing in Karen, and her character always feels so one dimensional. Then again, perhaps that is why I like her a little more in the later episodes, because she has this one goal in the whole Jim and Karen relationship, and that is to make things work. It's that simplicity in her life that appealed to me perhaps, a simplicity I only hope to be applicable in my real life to be honest. There aren't a lot of people who can make up their decisions and say "I am going to make things work", and actually put effort in doing so. Even Jim gave up on Karen at the end and went back to Jim, which I feel to be terribly unfair to Karen. I mean, come on! She moved from New York to Scranton for him, and he dumps her because he couldn't make up his mind either? Poor Karen, and in a way, poor me.

It's supposed to be a sitcom, it's supposed to be a comedy. It is supposed to be something you watch at the end of the day to get your mind off unwanted thoughts of the day. But I guess there are just times when the drama in these comedies become too real, and you start to think about how the characters' experiences are related to yours one way or another. I cannot tolerate Pam's indecision, the way she broke up a perfectly well relationship because she couldn't make up her mind at the very beginning. There is always that moment, the moment when you tell yourself that you can do this, that you can resist it. But we always fail, and we always let ourselves down by finding out that our will really isn't as strong as we hoped it to be. I bet Pam had that moment as well, the moment whereby she thought that it'd be better to move on in life, to get over things. But did she, really? Not really. She got back with Jim, that's what happened in the show, that's what happened to me.

I'm sorry Pam, but until the writer's strike ends and a new script comes along to redeem you, I don't think I can bring myself to root for you any longer. I still enjoy the both of you plotting against Dwight in the office, but I don't see how I can look at Jim and yourself and feel good about things. There is just something wrong, something unethical about the way you guys are together. Or, am I really just seeing Pam as the ex, and Jim as her new love? Here we go again, here we go thinking too much and too deeply into everything. If only Karen is a real life person in my life, then maybe two broken people can find a life together in the ruins. They always say that disaster relationships do not last, and by that I mean a relationship that grew out of a catastrophe. Like asking for the girl next to you on a crashing plane to marry you if the both of you survive, only to find out that the plane is back on track and you guys are back on thirty thousand feet five minutes later. Such relationships will never work, but at least we are clear about what we need to do, what we want to do. We do not hurt anybody else but ourselves if things do not work out, we do not hurt others because we are too selfish to think. 

I really love you, Pam. I do. I miss you, too. Do come back to the show, do come back into my life. Jim's nice, he really is. But I miss that innocence you had, I miss the way you reminded me of the kind of girl that I'd like to have, instead of the girl that I actually had - nasty thought, that one. I am keeping my fingers crossed for season four, hoping that your relationship is going to crash land somehow and die on the runway. Because that is the only way I might fall for you all over again, then maybe you will come back to me again. Am I being too metaphorical, am I being overly analytical? Maybe I don't need a Pam in my life, just Jan who loves me for no apparent reason, or a Kelly who loves the idea of a long term relationship. At least she'd try whatever means possible to make things work, at least she knows what to do. You didn't, and you never will. I love you, and I hate you so much, so much. Why did you have to leave, love?

Courtesy of Elizabeth's brilliant hands and mind.

I can't believe I am dedicating another blog entry to Rosemary, or Stinkweed, according to April. Rosemary is a pompous witch, and I know some of you out there are gasping right now because of how direct that last sentence sounded. I used to censor her name and protect her identity, but not anymore. I do not think that a pompous witch, like herself, deserves any form of censorship when it comes to blog entries depicting her stupidity. She has become quite running joke between us ever since the semester started, as the whole cohort of BAC students are now being exposed to her teaching skills, or lack thereof. The truth is, it is OK if you are a genius but you haven't got the talent to teach. But it is another story altogether when you can't teach, and talk about mascara and potato chips in class instead of anything else from the textbook. 

It has gotten worse this semester, simply because she has given herself more time to talk as compared to the last. Last semester, she did nothing but to sit at the back of the class to observe most of the time, which also meant that she didn't have to have a lot of talking opportunities. That turned out to be a blessing for the most of us, because this pompous witch is better with her mouth stapled up than opened. This semester, she has carried her habit of not teaching anything substantial over, and she talks about the most irrelevant things in classes every week, the same classes we have paid a truckload of money for. Like I said before, it is completely fine if you are going to be a lecturer like Raja, who comes to class unprepared and cannot do simple math, a lecture who realizes her glaring mistake in calculation about an hour after she has written the answer on the board. It is OK to be someone like that, but you don't have to come to class to educate us about the American politics, or whether or not Indonesian chocolates taste worse than ordinary chocolates. You don't have to take half an hour on attendance alone, and you certainly don't have to come to school wearing tight t-shirts that make yourself look even more obscene than you already are.

Just last week, the rest of the BAC batch who never experienced Rosemary, was exposed to her for the very first time. Instead of teaching anything on the topic of Organizational Communication, the main idea behind the module we are taking, she took half an hour on taking attendance alone. She has the uncanny ability to drift off to a completely different topic when doing the simplest things, like taking attendance. When she came to Antoinette's name, she started going on and on about a friend of hers called Annette living in Arizona(Thus, the other person in the picture drew by the brilliant Elizabeth). After about ten minutes talking about this friend of hers, she carried on with the attendance taking, only to stop once again to talk about the American politics, which has nothing to do with Organizational Communication whatsoever. Sure, the election is an issue that concerns all of us, but we surely did not pay money to hear what you have to say about how much you hate Clinton and how much you love Obama. So that speech about how the Clintons are playing dirty politics went on for about fifteen minutes, which is ridiculous because there isn't such a thing as "clean" politics. It is amazing how she has the ability to weave the grandest tale out of the littlest things in her class, and how much she can talk about other than the content of the textbooks.

Rosemary has a problem, a problem of understanding who she is and where she came from. She speaks as if she is an American, just because she has an American Express card and visits the country frequently.  You see, she spent a lot of time in Hawaii studying, an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Sandwiched between the continents of North America and Asia, she must have gotten more than a little confused about her ethnicity. More than that, she forgets about her own existence sometimes and blabbers on and on about other people's mistakes and flaws when she really is describing herself. An example would be when she was showing a twelve minute video of a bunch of people arguing about the American election, and her comment after the video was how much the Americans like to talk. "They talk and talk and talk, nonstop!" she said, in an accent even less pleasing than metal music to my ears. It was a freaking talk show, and people tend to talk a lot on talk shows! If she wasn't happy with the fact that people talked so much, she could have turned the video off and rid us of those time wasted watching it. Besides, the only person who really talked and talked without any reason and substance was herself. 

As if her mindless blabbering wasn't enough, she conveniently went on to talk about mascara, Jack and Jill potato chips, Indonesia chocolates - which supposedly taste bad, and Taiwanese politicians who like to fight their opinions out. Of course, she forgot the presence of an Indonesian in the audience - Kania, a Taiwanese - myself, and Chelsea when she was talking about how ignorant Americans are. She praises the Americans, then she puts them down in the next sentence in the blink of an eye. Like I said, having lived in Hawaii for too long, she clearly has conflicting ideas about people from either side of the Pacific. Rosemary is like the narrator from Fight Club, both of them like to slap themselves in their faces. The narrator does it literally, while Rosemary slaps herself in the face without realizing it most of the time. She cannot hold an argument against herself very well, and usually end up being the laughing stalk of the class - once again, without realizing it either. Having a "Dr." tagged to her name, she thinks that she is one pedestal above everybody else in terms of everything. The truth is, the only thing she is one up from everybody else is the ability to slap herself silly. 

Today, her pompousness reached a new high, an epitome of all pompousness around the world. She was speaking of customer services, and comparing the services they provide in Singapore as to America - once again, as you might have already observed, has nothing to do with Organizational Communication. She started by talking about her experiences in Singapore, how the attendants at various shops in Singapore would check for the littlest of defects in the refunded items before credits are being returned in compensation. "Such things do not happen in America!" she would proclaim, and then she went on to talk about her experiences there. She once returned a wallet to the shop she bought it from, a bag for her laptop after using it for an entire trip in Hawaii, and a pair of shoes she wore for two weeks. All of those, because she discovered that she didn't actually like the things she bought after buying them. 

Now, seriously. Who the hell returns items just because they found out that they don't like it after purchase? That aside, who is stupid enough to buy something they are not sure whether or not they'd like in the very first place? Only Rosemary is capable of such utter stupidity, only she has the cheeks to return a pair of shoes after wearing them for a week because she found out that she didn't like them, what kind of mentality is that? So should we start returning our underwear because they are too tight for our balls, or return our sanitary pads because they are not absorbent enough? Seriously, Rosemary should understand that when you are going to spend your hard earned money(Though she really doesn't deserve a single cent), spend it wisely. Don't throw your money away on something which you are unsure of, and then come back to refund it altogether. That's not being a smart customer, that's being retarded. It works in America because they are nice, but don't come and complain about how bad the  customer servicing in Singapore is when they do not accept your two weeks old shoes. Oh, it gets better. It gets a whole lot better.

She started talking about how a cleaner at the school canteen accidentally spilled food over her right before a lecture, and she demanded to see the manager after the cleaner failed to apologize on the spot. So the manager came and offered a wet cloth, she was unsatisfied about that, and neither was she happy with the compensation of a meal. The manager even offered to drive her all the way back home to get herself changed out of the dirtied clothes, and cab fare for her to travel back home and to school all over again - all of those offers were refused by Rosemary, as she stood there with a smirk on her face, waiting for what other tricks the manager would come up with to compensate her abyss of needs. She was obviously being a bitch and a pain in the ass, but she argued against that claim even though nobody brought it up - well, not literally anyway. You could have smelled the disgusts we had for her in lecture today.

RIP.

*

What a pity. 

He had a lot going for him. 

It was our happy place, it really was. Until something happened, I'm sure you remember. Sometimes I wonder how did everything end up this way, was it me? Was it something I did, or something I didn't? It's too late to think about such things, too late in the night that is. I wanted answers, and I'm not sure why I thought visiting you would be a smart thing to do. But that's what I did, though I did not stay for long. Still, it hurts. After all these months, all the tears. Only you can make me feel this way, you know? You've taught me love, you've taught me hate. You've taught me how to never love the way I loved ever again. You were a great teacher, though however cruel. I just wish, right now, that our lessons would end sometime soon. 

It's so silly, it's so damn foolish. This shouldn't be happening, not right now. Not when it has been so long, right? I mean, clearly, I am being overly neurotic here. It's too late in the night to be thinking about this, too late in our broken relationship to be beaten down like this. You never fail to make me feel inadequate, so sparse and so pathetic. It only took you two weeks to get over me, but I guess I cannot say the same about me. It has been, ten months. Ten, months. A lot of things happened in ten months, and a lot of things did not happen too. If there are medals given out for people like you, people who get over old loves at a blinding speed, you'd be awarded for sure. I'd recommend you too, write you a letter to the administration, if there is such a thing. I will testify for you, tell the world how fast you got over me, because you clearly did, you obviously have. It's ten months, and still counting, for me. I'm moving on, in everywhere else in my life. But when it comes to you, everything just comes to a grinding halt. 

Valerie asked me last night, on the train, if I still hold any grudges. Grudges, I must be having issues if I still hold grudges, really. But do I hold the polar opposite of a grudge, the hope that you find happiness in your life? No to that, either. It's the way I have been stuck in the middle for ten whole months, it's the way a man gets stuck in his car in the middle of a railway track. No, the train isn't here yet. But your doors are jammed, and the windows are thick. You know your death is not going to come soon, but it is going to come alright. It is going to come, unless you find a way out. I don't know why she asked me that question, since it came out from nowhere. But I guess it was her way of showing concern, though it was an unnecessary reminder. Of how fucked up I am, as a person. Telling everybody else to move on, giving advices and being a comforting shoulder. I am like the doctor with dementia, treating a patient with the very same disease. You never fail to make me feel pathetic, you never fail to make me feel disgusted - of myself. No one else can make me feel this way about me, no one. 

I should have been sleeping, but for some reason I went over to your address and read what you had to say, what is going on in your life. For some reason, so little has changed over there. The way you write is still the same as before, what you wrote is still the same as before. Even the loving entries about your new love, still feels the same as before. But the name is different, the events have changed. I do not recognize the pictures, I do not remember being there at all, being there with you. Oh yes, I remember. Everything ended, more than ten months ago. It has been that long, I hardly felt it. When you are broken like that, it's difficult to tell one second from the next, one month from the other. It becomes a long, drawn out wait to heal. It's like the ulcer at the back of your mouth that would heal only if you would only stop tonguing it, but you can't. It's like the wound on your ankle that'd heal if you would only stop scratching it, but you can't either. It repeats itself over and over, and I do stupid things every once in a while to remind myself, how fucked up I am. I am in a self-destructive pattern, I can see it.

I think I should go to bed now, sleeping does not allow me to do any further damage to myself. It'd be easy, if I could just be cruel about it. Be brave, be firm. Start the healing right now, do what you have to do. These are things I should be telling myself, things that I have been telling others. But you always come back, you always do. You are on my bed, you are in front of the computer. You are in the doorway, you are at the bus stop. You are on the buses to school, you are on the buses home. You are in the cinema in town, you are at the table next to the sliding doors. You are in the shadows of my mind, you are in the light of my head. You are in every word of this entry, you are in between the words and in every blank spaces. With every such entry I type, I only hope for a little bit of that pain to go away. They do, they really do. Like you said, it's therapeutic, it really is. But then they only last for that long, right? That's why we are slaves of blogging, that's why we are servants of our own pathetic sorrows. This, only lasts so long. Then you are back again, in every word and every blank spaces in between the words. 

Take a deep breath, man. Go to sleep, sleep it off. Tomorrow you are going to laugh at how stupid you were while you typed this pathetic little entry of yours. But for now, from now till the time when I fall asleep, it's a constant reminder that yes, it still hurts. That you have taught me how to hate, as you have taught me how to love. Teach me how you got over me in two weeks, take it as that thing you never gave me - our final kiss. 

That, was probably the best concert I have ever been to. OK, I think this concert had a completely different energy from the other concerts that I have been to, but the sheer number of songs performed were enough to throw all the other concerts out of the waters. I cannot say that I am terribly familiar with Suzanne Vega, never looked online for old videos to get a rough idea of how her concerts would be like. But today's concert at the Esplanade was definitely an amazing experience, a concert that is not going to go down into my history as 'just another concert'. It was top-notched from the beginning till the end, completely immersing the audience into the whole vibe of the gig, drowning us in the beautiful of her words and melodies. Even Valerie, who isn't as big a fan as myself, enjoyed herself even though she didn't know some of the songs. Suzanne Vega blew me away with her live performance, and here's what happened tonight at her concert.

When I first heard about her coming to Singapore, I must admit that I was a little unsure of attending it. I wasn't very familiar with her, and Caramel was the only song of hers on my playlist. But it was part of my new year resolution last year to not miss a single act in Singapore, and I was determined not to let the Damien Rice incident happen all over again. So I bought the tickets and then got her Retrospective album, then listened to the album for a dozen times a day, for a straight month or so. Her songs grew on me, and it surprised me that lyrics could be written the way she wrote them. They were more than just song lyrics, but album after album of poetry. You read a normal piece of lyrics from a song and you know that you are reading the lyrics of a song, but certainly not for Suzanne Vega's case. She writes what she feels, and she writes all the time. Her songs are personal, and they are more like words written by a poet that so happens to have a nice melody to go along with them. She's a writer more than a singer, a poet more than a lyricist. She's everything that an artiste should work for - and more.

First of all, thank you Valerie for accompanying me to this concert when nobody else wanted to - or, nobody knew who Suzanne Vega was when I asked of them. April and Elizabeth really should have asked me about it sooner, I'm sure it would have been a lot more fun with more fans of Suzanne Vega around. But either way, it was a great night out with Valerie - as usual - and I thank her for that, truly. I was a little nervous about her coming, because she knew so little of Suzanne Vega's songs, and the last thing you want your partner at a concert to feel is boredom. I was terribly afraid, but I am glad that things turned out brilliantly and the night ended off with more than just a feast to my ears, but a great company from a great friend. 

Anyway, Esplanade should really emphasize on the punctuality issue by locking the doors on the outside to prevent late comers from coming in. They not only distract the rest of the audience, but they certainly distract the performers and shows a great amount of disrespect as well. I think I have mentioned this the last time I went for a concert at the Esplanade, but I don't suppose anybody lodged a formal complain about the issue. This certainly should be addressed, simply because I am sick and tired of seeing people who can't be bothered to make it for a concert in time, and then scrambling to their seats and blocking the view of everybody else behind them. I think it is both inconsiderate and tactless to be late like that, and the crew of Esplanade should really consider locking these people out, it's all about quality control and quality reassurance here. With a gig like that playing in the concert hall, you would want your audience to have a certain level of class, or at least a sense of punctuality. Save the rest of us from their inconsideration and lock them out!

With that said, the concert went on smoothly. I like how fast everything worked in the Esplanade, how the show started right on time. Coldplay's concert at the Indoor Stadium was delayed for a full hour or so, but that certainly wasn't the case here. We were ushered to our seats, the seats were filled, the lights were dimmed, the singer was being announced, and things kick started. No hassles and no delays, something which I appreciated of Esplanade, not to mention the small cozy venue and the excellent sound system. Anyway, with the mentioning of her name, Suzanne Vega appeared onstage in a specially tailored coat that exposed her left shoulder. She came out with a cool fedora covering half her face, and underneath that fedora the hint of her carefully trimmed red hair. The lights reflected off her bare skin as she stood there silent for a while, waiting for the applause to die down. Then the light was focused on her, a breath was taken, and she started the night with an a cappella version of Tom's Diner.

The thing about the Asian audience in general is how difficult it is for them to get involved and let loose during a concert. It is difficult for the asian audience to respond to a certain request by the singer, or clap along to a certain tune especially at the beginning of every show. It usually gets heated up towards the end, but never at the beginning. Silence really is the sign of appreciation for the asian audience, and sometimes I just feel a little bad for the bands or the singers who may be thinking that the audience is being letdown one way or another. But the crowd started to become more responsive as the faster numbers started to flow, and Marlene On The Wall was really when I told myself "Wow, I am at a concert!" It felt magical, magical indeed.

I told Valerie and a few of my friends, that I'd die a happy man if she plays Caramel, and that was exactly what she did on the fifth song. I screamed my head off when I recognized the tune, and I couldn't believe how smooth the song sounded even live. You would think that it'd feel different live, but it was definitely better there in the concert hall. I still had the image of a naked couple making out in a dimly lid bedroom after a glass or two of whiskey, and the air smelling like scented candles and hot sweat. The song is my number one sexy song, and even amidst four hundred other people in the audience, I still felt the same thing. It was just a song of perfection, the song that defined Suzanne Vega for me. Brilliant song, truly brilliant. And like she said after the song, it's a song that really makes people hungry for some strange reason. For caramel or sex, I wonder? Maybe both.

The thing about live concerts I love is how you get to know a little more about the songs that you have already fallen in love with in the very first place. You get to know how they came about, the little stories behind them that were left out of the studio recording inevitably. Of course, it is probably possible for one to find the stories behind the songs, if you'd only search hard and deep enough into those fan sites and forums. Still, it was different hearing those interpretations and explanations from the artiste herself, and she certainly shared a lot of her past on stage with the audience. I certainly didn't know that Frank & Ava was a song written about Frank Sinatra and his wife having a rocky relationship but their contrasting sex life in bed. I certainly didn't know that Gypsy was written by her when she was 18, while she was in a camp teaching little children how to dance disco, for a British guy from Liverpool. I didn't know that Angel's Doorway was written after a conversation with her friend's wife about her husband, Angel - a rescue worker who was at the 9/11 ground zero, coming home from there everyday. And I certainly, didn't know that In Liverpool is, in a way, the sequel to the song Gypsy, written for the same guy from Liverpool. She wrote a song for him before he left, and he gave her, in return, a bandana.  

For the song Gypsy and the next couple of songs, most of the band left the stage save for herself and her bassist. It became quite an intimate session to have her songs stripped down to just her vocals, her guitar and the bass being played in the silent hall. It was a welcoming change to the studio versions of the songs that we have heard a dozen times, and it was utterly beautiful indeed. For I'll Never Be Your Maggie May, she actually forgot her lyrics for a part of the song, though none of us actually noticed it until she mentioned it later. That's class man, that's how you are when you've worked in an industry for over twenty years. You just learn to make yourself cool, and your mistakes cooler. Pornographer's Dream was breathtaking, and I've finally figured out the meaning behind the song after hearing it from herself. A pornographer's dream would be to find a woman and desire her with her clothes on, I should have known! I have so much more respect for this singer especially after the little stories have been said to fill the holes in my mind. There aren't a lot of words I can say now that can truly justify how brilliant she was at the concert, so I shall stop here about the main set.

After the main set was done, I thought it was going to be over and the lights would be turned on anytime soon. But it was turned off, and the applause of the audience carried on until the full band appeared onstage again. They played two more songs for the first encore and two more for the second, and it was indeed a treat on our parts to listen to these encore tracks. They are like little prizes or bonuses we have earned as a good audience, and it was probably my favorite part of the whole show because it just felt different and special. The Queen and the Soldier was moving, and Small Blue Thing was intimate and personal. It touched me, and I am sure it did the same for a long of people out there tonight. The ringing of the guitar stopped after each song, and the echoes would be bouncing off the walls and lingering in the silence before the crowd would break out into a round of applause. They always say that the power of the song is known at the end when it stops, and no other concert halls tonight could have justified that statement better than the Suzanne Vega concert. 

Like a tradition of Esplanade, there was an autograph session after the act. There weren't a lot of people queueing up for the autographs, at least compared to Rachael Yamagata's concert I went to almost a year ago. So Valerie and I decided that we should give it a shot, even if we were in the very last part of the queue and we didn't have the CDs for her to sign. We were only given half an hour, but Suzanne really took her time with every fan out there. It was getting close to my turn, and there was that feeling again. The feeling of wanting to say something, but nothing was fitting for a person such as herself. So I went up to her with my ticket and acted like a complete idiot, at least I thought I was like an idiot because I felt so small in front of her. There is this aura around her, this presence. She doesn't try to be intimidating, but that was the impression I got from her. Her eyes sank into mine, and she'd look at you as if she's trying to read your mind or something. Her red hair created a stark contrast from her dark pools of eyes, and it was just a sudden moment of realization that I was standing in front of someone bigger than her body givers her credit for. I shook her hand and I thanked her for the night, she was soft spoken and slow with her words. But her articulation was clear, slow but precise. "You are welcomed." she softly said, and I was off to ogle at the autograph on my ticket. 

It was a strange experience meeting her so close, completely different from meeting Rachael Yamagata. Rachael felt like a friend, while Suzanne felt like somebody completely out of this world. Yet, her songs felt so close to me, felt so human and personal. I guess, being in the business for this long, you just get that natural presence around you. It is admirable as it is daunting, and it is definitely an experience I shall not soon forget. Corinna, you should have stayed. You really should have. But at least you got the free tickets and enjoyed the big set of twenty songs. A great, great, great concert indeed. 

1. Tom's Diner (A Cappella version)

2. Marlene On The Wall

3. New York Is A Woman

4. Ludlow Street

5. Caramel

6. Frank & Ava

7. Gypsy

8. I'll Never Be Your Maggie May

9. Left of Center

10. Blood Makes Noise

11. Angel's Doorway

12. Pornographer's Dream

13. Unbound

14. In Liverpool

15. Luka

16. Tom's Diner

17. Zephyr & I

18. The Queen and the Soldier

19. Small Blue Thing

20. Rosemary