In Continuum.

Is Love.

'cause that's what you deserve

You sacrifice so much of your life

In order for this to work

While I am off chasing my own dreams

Sailing around the world

Please know that I am yours to keep

My beautiful girl 

When you cry, a piece of my heart dies

Knowing that I may have been the cause

If you were to leave, fulfill someone else's dreams

I think I might totally be lost 

You don't ask for no diamond rings

No delicate strings of pearls

That's why I wrote this song to sing

My beautiful girl 

It's strange, but that is how I feel, and I am sure she feels the same sentiments. It is kind of like how dream-time works different than real-time, where an hour in real-time may translate to a whole week in dream-time. It does seem like we have known each other forever, sharing the same liking for Japanese puddings and both disliking the idea of being immersed in a crowd of perfect strangers. In truth, there are just some people that you come across in life, people you know who are going to stick around for a very long time. I got the same vibe with only so many people, those who are still sticking around because they care, because they like the way that you are and you like the way that they are. It is this special thing, this space in between that people share, it's unique in a sense that it cannot be recreated with anybody else. Relationships like that do not get replaced, but they do falter if not handled properly. They are like those multi-colored bubbles, the giant ones you blow out through the plastic loop. You see the colors change shapes on the surface of the bubble, and from underneath it'd seem so beautiful. But you know, no matter how many more bubbles you blow, the patterns are never going to be the same again. 

I used think that I am only lousy at intimacy, but there are times when I feel that I am worse at friendship. You cannot blame anybody for changing, for relationships to falter and change. It happens, it always does, and nobody should be pointing fingers. There have been so many people that mattered, and so many of those people matter little at this point in time. You meet someone through a friend, from school, and they matter a lot to you for some time because you find them so infinitely exciting to talk to. Then something happens, it's the cruelty of life, and then you guys talk so much that there isn't anything to talk about after some time. I regret being the one leaving, but then I have been the one being left behind as well. Sometimes you try so hard to keep a relationship going, and you thought it'd be easier with friends instead of a lover. It's harder at times, there are no obligations to one another, you change when you want and however you want. No one knows what is going to happen two, five, or ten years down the road with the both of you. It's kinda like how 90% of the animals that ever existed on this planet are extinct now. The same can be said about friends, because I dare to  predict that the same percentage of friends you had ten years ago aren't around you, any longer. 

It rained for the most part of the morning on Thursday, and I was wondering if it was going to spoil anything for the rest of the afternoon. We are both lovers of rain, but the town during a storm isn't a place you want to be trapped in, despite my cool spring loaded umbrella and her posh Japanese umbrella. The cab ride in the morning due to the bus that was forty minutes late did not stop me from spending another awful lot of money on a cab ride down to town after school. I didn't want her to wait, it'd be impolite. We only had the afternoon anyway, parents are such irritating creatures when it comes to the time their children get home. We didn't have a plan, I didn't have a plan. It was all about where our noses wanted to lead us, or our stomachs for the most part. The craving for pizza eventually led us to a random Pizza Hut I never knew existed, then to the shelves of toys in Toys R Us which I didn't know existed in Paragon either (Come on, it is tucked away in a corner of the highest floor). From there, the craving led to a coffee bean downstairs and, eventually, to City Hall where the craving for fast food wasn't exactly satiated. The initial mission to look for a birthday present eventually dissolved into aimless wandering around my most hated shopping mall, but that mattered little. I mean, I was in Malaysia two years ago, but my friends made it all OK. Yeah, it was all OK. 

If anything goes wrong in town, evacuate yourself into the nearest bookstore or Coffee Bean, and you shall not go wrong. Even if the waiter trips and breaks a whole tray of bowls and cups on your table, it is OK with great company. Macbook itself is hours of fun, even more fun when we attempted to change the colors of every Mac in an Apple distributor. Funny how we spotted a few people using a Mac with the colors inverted, but we ran away from the crime scene like children who's just left a bag of dog poop outside someone's door. It was fun while it lasted, but even more so when you laugh uncontrollably over the lame trick I did with a ten dollar note. On my defense, I didn't come up with that myself, but E-Fei who looked so proud with that trick himself. Amidst the soft toy throwing and putting ridiculous looking roses on her head, the spaces in between were occupied mostly by lightsaber fights to the death, and the lyrics of childish nursery rhymes. My impulse took us to City Hall, where I made the both of us walk down long busy streets at the peak hour, through narrow corridors to Davis, a brief jam on a Takamine guitar (which was surprisingly good), and then having to make a detour around a bunch of concrete barricades because of the stupid F1 race happening next month. 

It was fun while it lasted, but all good things come to an end. The crowd around us built as the offices and the trains unleashed torrents of strangers into the once empty town. So much for the town on a weekday, it really only lasts so long before everybody gets off from work. As if the innocence and the fun has been rudely disrupted, the time ticked by much faster now, when it was moving by at a crawl only hours earlier - and I meant that with all the love, crawl isn't necessarily bad when you are having fun in the context of time. It's great to know, at times, that you still have to capacity to trust somebody out there with everything that is in your mind. You know, somebody else who is willing to just listen, at times. There are others who does the same, but the more the merrier at times, right? I have a best friend to play the guitar with, I have a best friend to have impulsive coffee with. I have a best friend to bitch about school with (not to mention the occasional advices, but mostly bitching anyway), and now I have a best friend undercover, code-named Melon. 

It has been great knowing you, Melon, although I am not sure when these clandestine (I love this word) thing is going to turn into somewhat of a threat to what you hold dear. Either way, I like the way things are now, and I enjoy the fact that you are a friend of mine, met under unusual circumstances indeed. There are people who come and go, they are exciting for a certain amount of time, and they kind of move on with their lives. You can't make yourself stay, and I certainly don't expect that to happen. I have come to an agreement that people do leave, and the ones who stay are merely pleasant surprises. It'd be OK if one day, just one day, the bubble bursts and the colors are no longer. But sticking around would be my business, and I'd keep blowing the bubbles just to catch another sight of those beautiful colors. 

Without actually noticing, we've already come to the seventh edition of Sonics! I really do deserve column all to myself for the purpose of sharing the music that I have been listening to lately. But who really cares, anyway, nobody likes to be told what to listen to and what not to listen to. It's not like I truly enjoy reading musical reviews in newspapers and magazines anyway, they usually really only focus on the mainstream bands anyway. It only really matters when they are "popular" and "cool", the quality of their music is secondary to most reviewers out there. I think we deserve a better set of music out there in our airwaves right now, and I am glad I am not contributing to the funding of the radio stations in any way. Four years without the radio and going, let's hope that this continues before the world officially runs out of good music. 

Something For All Of Us... by Broken Social Scene Presents: Brendan Canning
Broken Social Scene is back with yet another side project under the "Presents..." title. Kevin Drew's shot at a solo project with the band backing him up last time was a success, through and through, no questions about that. Spirit If definitely is a Kevin Drew album, and yet you find traces of Broken Social Scene sprinkled all over the album like pepper. This time around, bassist Brendan Canning is taking his own shot at the lead vocals, and I must say that the effort, though commendable, falls just a little short of Kevin Drew's amazing vocals and, catchier tunes. This album still has the signature Broken Social Scene brand, with the messy and almost chaotic instrumental arrangement and the momentum in between songs that never seems to allow the listeners to breathe. I particularly like the first single off this album, Hit the Wall. It has one of those hypnotic quality that kinda forces the lyrics into your skull. The best part is, the lyrics along with the riff gets stuck there for the longest time. I'd listen to this song over and over and mouth the words to myself even in crowded places - it's great. Snowballs and Icicles is a surprisingly sweet and mellowed down song, varying far from the general theme of the album. Love Is New, too, has a strange disco and retro feel to it that is signature to most of the other Canadian bands under the same label, but not Broken Social Scene. Brendan Canning's voice is a little flat, perhaps a little too nasal for my liking, to be completely honest. However, I think he did a fantastic job in pulling off this solo project of his, and it'd be interesting to see who else Broken Social Scene decides to dish out the next time around. 

Albums by the band:

1) Something For All Of Us... (2008)

Urban Angel by Natalie Walker
Natalie Walker came to me like how A Fine Frenzy did: a pleasant surprise. I noticed her album mainly because the cover attracted me over at the iTunes Store, however shallow that reason may be. The thing is, however, the songs are so much more than the pretty album design. Natalie Walker reminds me somewhat of Beth Orton somehow, and her song writing style is along the lines of Alison Sudol. She has brought her down tempo and trip-hop roots into this pop album, with electronic elements present in most of the songs. However, they do not intrude into her territories, as her voice and lyrics takes over for the most part of the album. Her voice is smooth as it is soothing, the first couple of songs captures your attention almost instantly. I must admit that this album does suffer somewhat from a mid-section slump, whereby the songs do not exactly live up to the brilliance of the first couple of songs. Urban Angel is comfortable while Rest Easy calms you down like a good rub down. Quicksand is heartbreaking, and the highlight of the album for me is definitely Colorblind, the cover of the original song by Counting Crows. Natalie's bright and crisp voice is both innocent and honest, and it lends to the song a different depth not found in the original version. This is definitely a very solid album, despite the slight flaws here and there. 

Albums by the band: 

1) Urban Angel (2006)

2) With You (2008)

In Finite by The Broadway Project
Dan Berridge is the real name behind The Broadway Project, a DJ famous for his cinematic compositions in the electronica world. He masterfully combines elements of jazz, hip hop, ambient and electronica into his pieces, making his songs atmospheric and overwhelming. You would expect these songs to be played in a high end lounge, with the occasional piano punctured by heavy drum beats. Unlike a lot of electronica albums out there, this album is surprisingly melodic, and it sees to follow a theme that I have yet to grasp very well. Either way, this is the song to listen to when chilling out in a cafe alone, or just walking down the street alone with the earphones plugged into your ears. The truth is, there is something in a moment of the day that suits this album, you really only need to press play to realize that I am right. I haven't actually tuned into this album and found that it does not sit very well with the current situation around me. This album is flexible, very versatile in the kind of mood it commands you to have, and very arresting in that very sense. Blood in the Temple is definitely the song to get your pulse going at two hundred beats per minute, not because of beats that go by like some annoying techno song. The deep bass just makes your heart bound an extra beat every single time, and you just feel like committing a crime when you are listening to this song. Besides, with this album playing, it is impossible for you to get caught, for sure. 

Albums by the band: 

1) Compassion (2000)

2) The Vessel (2003)

3) In Finite (2008)

Ma Fleur by The Cinematic Orchestra 
OK, The Cinematic Orchestra isn't actually an orchestra in the traditional sense. It does use a lot of strings like cello and violins, but it is still essentially a trip-hop and down tempo band. It's kinda like Zero 7, only more mellowed down and not exactly suited for the bar or lounge type of environment. This album feels more like a lavishing mansion with no one in it, just you and a muted television show. I am making up music videos again, but that is the kind of imageries that this album evokes in my head. The first song, To Build A Home, definitely fits the bill perfectly. Patrick Watson's voice is haunting and beautiful at the same time, so perfect for a song about leaving a comfortable home built for two lovers who are no longer together. Patrick Watson isn't exactly in the band, but he is a guest vocalist like Sia is to Zero 7. The rest of the album is filled with simple tunes by minimal involvement of instruments, just allowing each other remaining instruments to shine while the rest takes more or less a supporting role. Guest vocalist Fontella Bass has such a beautiful voice as well, and she certain lends to the beauty of this album as a whole. This is a calming album, something fitting for a rainy day at home all alone, when you feel that you are far away from your comfort zone at the same time. 

Albums by the band:

1) Motion (1999)

2) Remixes 1998-2000 (2000)

3) Every Day (2002)

4) Man With A Movie Camera (2003)

5) Ma Fleur (2007)

Bring Me Your Love by City And Colour
City And Colour, or Dallas Green, is folk music at best. It is difficult to believe that Dallas is actually a part of the post-hardcore band Alexisonfire. His voice is so beautiful that it sent chills down my spine when I heard the first word of the song "Waiting..." This album is an acoustic album, with little to no supporting instruments throughout. It is just his voice and a few other guitars mostly, and the occasional soft drums here and there. It is a very minimal album, but I suppose herein lies the beauty of it all. The lyrics are very simple, gentle, honest, and most of all they convey a certain message that only folk songs can tell. You know, the kind of words you can only say in a dark room at the beach alone with somebody else. The Girl is a nice and happy song about, well, the girl. Waiting kind of digs into your bone marrows and then takes everything out. You kind of feel empty by the end of the song, but you feel completely comfortable with that fact. Dallas Green probably has one of the best voices I have ever heard, and it certainly carries his songs very well all the way through. Believe me, listen to this man's voice to induce hyper level of goosebumps. 

Albums by the band:

1) Sometimes (2005)

2) Bring Me Your Love (2008)

It's true what the introductory video about Sociology said about our society you know, it raised some questions that I haven't really asked myself before. I like how, as we move on to more advanced levels, things are looking to become more interesting and, may I say, exciting at the same time. I know, words like that aren't usually associated with school in my books, but things are certainly turning out pretty well at school for me, or at least the content of my studies. Reading into the sentences and the words, you can't help but take a step back from your life and observe as a bystander at times, and see just how absurd our society really is at times. Suddenly, all that you have taken for granted are not incredibly and unbelievably ridiculous and stupid. Wait a minute, you were a part of that crowd as well, mindless drones just going through the motions at the conveyor belt. I haven't really gotten deep into the subject yet, but I predict myself to see a lot of absurdities around me, to not take everything I see and hear on surface value, to think more people as being retarded. Yeah, I totally see that happening. 

The concept of free agent isn't exactly new to me, I suppose, after digging into the whole concept of free will and determinism. They are slightly different though, we different external factors. But the basis is still pretty much the same: whether or not ordinary human beings have the ability to tell apart what is influencing us externally and if we have the ability to make our own conscious decisions. I don't believe in free will, however, beautiful the concept may be. Democracy is not free will, there are still rules to control you one way or another, just so that you do not run out of your house naked when you feel like doing something outrageous. The Bible, or any other holy books do not preach about free will either, although they'd like to think that they do. I mean, if a superior being knows what happened in the past, what is happening right now, and what is going to happen in the future in regards to every being on earth, then what free will can we speak of? Nothing we do or not do is going to prevent the inevitable - whatever it is. Nothing will change, because it has been decided, and that God has his plans for you. It has been determined, so why bother making decisions in the first place. 

The concept is the same, are we really individuals, or are we just individuals like everybody else? I remember the birthday card I received last year, it said "Always remember that you are unique, just like everybody else". So much for uniqueness I suppose, but that is kind of true if you think about it. We are just individually composed units of external influences. The clothes that we wear, the kind of music that we love, our values, everything has been influenced by something else. Even if you subscribe to the emo culture, or the punk culture, they are still external factors, right? You like the culture because you have read about it somewhere, saw it somewhere, and you figured that the frequency works fine with yours. So you follow that culture, and you stand right out in the crowd but you don't quite fit in. Being a minority doesn't necessarily make you a free agent, I feel, it makes you a conformist of the non-conformists. It's kinda like being different for the sake of being different, which in turn makes you pretty much the same as those people who are trying to be different. 

The lecturer then mentioned something about "choice", and that we are in fact free agents because we always have that. You know, it's not like we are forced to wear a certain kind of clothes, neither are we forced to listen to a certain type of music. There isn't a guideline for us to follow, this isn't some kind of apocalyptic view of the future in a science fiction novel. We always have a choice, or so they say, and we always have the choice to make our own, unique, individual decisions. Or, do we really? The idea of "choice" is just such an abstract idea anyway, it is hard to say if we really have a free choice, or free will, in anything. Religion aside, our decisions are pretty much governed by fundamental physical laws, right? If we decide to reach out and grab a pencil, the brain sends electric signals down through our arm and to our fingertips for us to reach out for that pencil and grab it. The idea of choice is rather vague, simply because it is so easy to convince ourselves that we have made a mindful choice when we really haven't. How do we know that our decision to vote for a presidential candidate hasn't been influenced by their half truths and whole lies? You may think that your decision is based on your own analysis, but you really haven't. What choice do we have, really, when the powers are be controls everything. 

It kinda made me think about my childhood, at which point did this whole "free agent" concept began to intercept. I bet it began a few hours after my birth, when I was wrapped in a blue blanket because I am a boy and the girls were wrapped in pink blankets. Babies with little penises between their legs were automatically given the blue blankets, it doesn't matter if they eventually turn into homosexuals or transexuals in the future. You can't tell, so you just kind of assume anyway. At home, we were given toys for boys while the girls were given girly toys. You know, I played with Voltron and Transformers when I was growing up, while my sister stuck mainly to Barbie dolls and cooking toys. It was all working normally until I started playing with her Polly Pockets as well, and my sister started playing with my Legos. Of course, just the Polly Pocket wasn't enough, I had to invade their perfect little plastic homes with monsters from my Mighty Max collection. My sister built houses with the Lego bricks, and moved her love for miniature homes in the Polly Pocket collection into a somewhat bigger version of the houses. Our toys blended, toys for boys and toys for girls, and there really wasn't a problem. 

That was until my neighbor, Ben, came downstairs to play this one time. He fell crazy in love with one of my sister's Barbie doll, the one who wore a black and white striped top and with blonde curly hair. It was a little strange, to see a boy be fascinated with a toy for girls, and we joked that because he was secretly gay. Come to think about it, I wonder who dictated what little boys should play and the little girls should play. I don't suppose there is a part of our brains that tells us whether or not we like trucks or dolls. Our parents were the one who dictated the toys we played, and their parents probably did the same to them as well. It isn't something wrong or something right, it is merely how the society has forged this vision of norm, to have this group of people do this and this group of people do that. Ben probably saw that as a young child, and decided to break away from what everybody else wanted him to do. So he fell in love with a plastic doll that belonged to my sister, who is to say that he was being a strange kid? 

We play with specified toys, we go through specified education systems, we have ordinary careers, the story of our lives. We do the things we do now, not because we really want to do the things we want to do, but because it just seems right. Everything down to the things that we eat in this culture is dictated by the society as a whole, what everybody else is telling you to do. It is disturbing sometimes, if you think about it, of the implications involved. We become enslaved to this system, by working most of our lives away, by being valiant soldiers for an imaginary cause, to be leaders of our future and all that kind of gibberish that they inject into your system. Being free agents is a fairy tale, it isn't going to happen in our lifetime, or any lifetimes I dare to wager. It's just sad that we are probably not going to find a way out of this system, even if we are puppets who know about the strings that control us. We are helpless, aren't we, we have nothing else to do but to follow these subtle orders and instructions. Every individual and mindful choice may seem that way at first, it may seem like you made a free choice. But seriously, are you really free? 

This is what happens in a break up. First, you have to pick the method, or rather, the channel. Face to face would be fine, unless your boyfriend is an alcoholic who has a history of beating you for no apparent reason. Face to face is usually a form of respect to your partner I suppose, to show the person that you actually have the guts and the respect for him to convey your thoughts to him. Phone is probably the closest choice next, although not nearly as personal. You only get the voice, but at least the break up is in real time, and you don't really have to worry about how you look as your mascara trickles down your face. It's quick and it is efficient, all you have to do is to pick the appropriate last line and the appropriate time to hang up. Not half as sincere or as personal, but it works. Next would probably be anything that doesn't happen in real time. MSN conversation or texting. Seriously, you don't even get that audio feed with MSN conversation, you are just receiving a whole bunch of words from someone on the other side of the computer. Texting is horrible, because the word limit forces the other person to give you a summarized version of why he or she wants to break up with you, how unethical is that? It's cold, it's not right to text "It's not working out, please move out of my house". 

Of course, there's that disappearing act thing, which is really the worst of the worst. It doesn't get any worse than just disappearing from a person's life without saying a word. Being cold and heartless with your words is bad, but at least we still get some form of explanation. Vanishing is a horrible way to break up with someone, and it is both childish and irresponsible. But people do it anyway, people don't feel like they want to explain themselves at times. Of course, most of the time, we still have to consider the context. If that girl deserved it, then slap her with a simple text message and be done with it. Something like "It's over, bitch" would be more than appropriate I suppose, and you move on from there whether she likes it or not. Anyway, that is the first step in any break up, to choose how you want to break up with a person. But of course, we aren't exactly interested in the initiator most of the time, victims tend to go through a lot more than the initiator, because being dumped isn't exactly the best feeling in the world. Sure, dumping someone doesn't feel nice either, but least you've had more time to process and digest the thought, whereas your partner has only so long to accept it as fact. Always better to dump than be dumped, remember that.

Second stage of a break up, from the perspective of the victim: denial and depression. It is not happening, I must be dreaming, he still loves me, I can't go on without him. Words like that are commonplace in the minds of someone who's just broken up, it's pretty normal. You don't want to admit that the person who loved you a month ago isn't going to love you a month from now, and depression sets in when you find that old Christmas Card tucked away at the back of your drawer. It happens, and that is kind of how it occurs. This is the worst part of a break up, and it usually lasts for a very long time before it proceeds to the third symptom: anger. Anger comes when you are no longer in denial and depression. It's easy, because you rationalize with yourself that you don't want to be the victim any longer, and you want to be the aggressor. So you are frustrated and infuriated with everything and anything your current ex does, and you want to take revenge, or to completely destroy his or her life in any way possible. Burn up the giant teddy bear that he sent you, or to spray paint his front door and paste posters around his neighborhood to tell everybody that he has a three inch penis. It could happen, it's all a part of anger. 

After anger, comes acceptance. It's easy to get over someone when you are angry, although no one ever really gets over somebody else. We all try to decrease our misery, we never eradicate them from our lives. We are still going to feel the pinch, but it is going to matter much less because you have toughened up. You start to accept that he is gone, that he isn't there any longer, and this is really when you start to build up your life from scratch. Some people may take a whole year to do that, while I know of others who has taken much less, two weeks? Maybe three, who cares. I suppose it depends on your level of involvement, and the deeper you are the later acceptance comes. But it comes, it always does. Unless you decide to take the stupid way out and kill yourself by launching your body off the side of the balcony - that'd be moronic. Anyway, so we have denial and depression, one. Anger comes next, and then we have acceptance. The first stage sucks, it really does. It sucks your life out, and you feel like an empty vessel, stuck in the middle of the ocean with a busted engine and no compass. You are disorientated, and this is the part of the break up that most people are going to have thoughts about throwing themselves off cliffs, cutting themselves in bath tubs, or just taking a stroll across the MRT track. 

But, this part sucks a whole lot more: the questions. The moment somebody close to you finds out about the break up, they are going to flock to you like vultures on rotten meat. They'd like to find out what happened, how it happened, why it happened, when it happened, and then every little detail in between. You tell the story to your sister, to your mother, to your father, your best friend, your other best friend, then those people tell even more people, and they also come to ask you about what happened, how it happened, why it happened, when it happened. It is bad enough when you have to repeat your story over and over again, it's worse when these people start to tell you what you have to do for the next couple of weeks or month. Go watch a movie, go out shopping, drink yourself silly, go to a pub, meet more people, hang out with friends, be alone for a while, pick up a new hobby, work harder at school, go for long walks, listen to sad music, go for a jog - everything. But seriously, don't you just get sick and tired of these people telling you what to do when you break up? They treat you like some hopeless idiot who doesn't know what to do during a break up. Yeah, be alone, go shopping, get my mind off things, I get that. Oh wait, I think I have tried all those things, and don't tell me to "get over it", because it doesn't come with a snap of my fingers. 

These people are irritating, they really are. Of course, they do it mostly out of care and concern, but it is still frustrating to know that some people just do not understand that sometimes, you really only need to listen. You know, to hear and comprehend, to not use your mouth and just your ears? Something like that, people don't get it most of the time. They want you to know what they think of the situation, they want you to follow what they want you to do, as if they are some love doctor who knows everything. In truth, their relationship is probably as messed up as yours, they are probably in a worse situation. They just want to know that you have broken up to make their pathetic little lives better, to think that their love relationship is still very much alive. People love to hear about other people's failures, to know that someone else has failed where you are still hanging on to dear life. No one likes to hear someone else say "We are so deeply in love, and we are going to remain this way forever and ever!" It doesn't just sound hopeless wistful, it also sounds incredibly retarded. People love to hear about failures, and they treat your break up like some prime time drama serial. Seriously, your break up is your business, nobody should be telling you what to do unless you ask for it. 

Hearing is easy, listening is hard. You know, that's what they tell you in life, right? I believe that we all need a terrible break up in life to treasure the real relationships a little more. And during those break ups, it is difficult to find someone who listens instead of someone who speaks. Everybody wants to have a piece of the cake, everybody wants to have a share. They love you, they really love you. But when you are so out of love from this one person, the overwhelming love from everybody else can cause you to suffocate too. It was probably not out of malicious intents of course, but sometimes too much concern can become overly irritating, and perhaps pretentious too. You probably know what to do anyway, everybody knows what to do. You break up, you move on, there are people everywhere. It's not the end of the world, it just takes a little time to get over things. Especially when it isn't the first time you have broken up, I'm sure we more or less know what to do with our broken hearts anyway. We don't need ten people to tell us what to do, we already know. We just need time to set things into motion, we need to accept that things are no longer. So the next time these vultures intend to swoop in on you, you have all the right to ask them to fuck off. Because really, the breaking of your heart is your own business, it shouldn't be the topic of someone else's discussion or pose as their midnight entertainment. 

You've made your stand

You got me crying

As was your plan

But when my loneliness is through

I'm gonna find another you

You take your sweaters

You take your time

You might have your reasons

But you will never have my rhymes

I'm gonna sing my way away from blues

I'm gonna find another you 

When I was your lover

No one else will do

If I'm forced to find another

I hope she looks like you and she is nicer too

So go on baby

Make your little getaway 

My pride will keep me companied

And you just gave yours all away

Now I'm gonna dress myself for two

One's for me, and one's for someone new

I'm gonna do something you wouldn't let me do

I'm gonna find another you 

Like how I began the entry below, it is Jan all over again. Nothing much to say in regards to that, save for how murmurs of her behavior last semester has turned a lot of people off. Apparently her antics in the other class last semester was so bad that she resorted to screaming at some of the students, something you don't see a lot of at this level of education. I honestly can't imagine her raising her voice over that of a falling leaf though, but apparently something short circuited in her head and she went a little overboard. A curious thing happened yesterday after I signed my attendance, right before I returned to my seat. Jan approached me and apologized for last semester's group project grades. Wait, you mean lecturers actually realize how unreasonable and irrational they can be at times? When did giving a bad grade to a student become something for you to apologize for anyway, I thought to myself as she went through her excuses as to why she gave my group a bad grade. I'm not sure what the apology was for, and to me it felt a little hypocritical, to be completely honest. You don't give the lowest presentation grade to a group and give the excuse that you were "in a hurry". What's up with that, anyway?

And as for Sociology, it is shaping up to be an interesting module indeed, but I suppose my class got the worse end of the deal as compared to the others. The other class under a different lecturer has lesser quizzes, lesser projects, and that is good news for anybody with at least half a brain. On this side of the deal, we have way more projects and way more quizzes, and the very first assignment is due on Tuesday next week. Oh, the horrors. The lecturer, however, looks like a soft spoken woman who is generous with the grading, although such things are difficult to judge on first sight. She obviously spent a substantial amount of time in England, judging from her slight accent and the way she had a pair of sunglasses perched on top of her head throughout the class. I don't know, the latter just seems like such an European thing to do, perhaps I am merely stereotyping. So Sociology is looking to be a heavy subject, a module that is going to take up the better half of my time - great. Just when I thought I'd be given enough time to ease slowly back into the whole school thing. 

So, I wanted to drop the philosophy module, simply because the timetable sucks - it does. A four an a half hour wait on Fridays just for the lesson until five in the evening is not welcoming in my books, especially not when it is on a Friday - Friday! Which is why, before today's lesson, I had every intention to drop the subject. In fact, I didn't even want to go for today's lesson if not for Janis' and Joyce's presence at lunch today (not to mention Cheryl, whom I have so rudely left out previously). I actually wanted to meet with Neo, to see the procedures and consequences in regards to dropping the subject, since it'd be my very first time doing so. We stayed in Megabites for the most part, ate the same disgusting Fish and Chips for lunch, and went ahead to the philosophy class without knowing how it'd turn out to be like. There I was, seated at the front of the class and feeling studious and eager to learn all over again, nervous about the lecturer and the nature of the course. "Critical Thinking" isn't exactly a very specific description, if you ask of me. 

But there she was, Angelica, all over again. I couldn't recognize her when she walked in though, I suppose the new set of glasses must have changed her looks somewhat. But it was her alright, with a curious little bulge in her stomach that could only indicate one of two possibilities: either she was pregnant, or she gained a substantial amount of weight since the last time I saw her during history classes. Apparently, she was indeed pregnant, and I was right about it. She was happy to announce it to the class too, and it is always nice to see someone who isn't actually worried about the responsibilities that come with carrying a baby around. She went through the course outline as any other lecturer would, and no other modules have interested me in the very first lecture like this one. Questions in regards to existentialism, the existence of after life, death, religion, the kind of metaphysical questions I love to debate and argue about. It all felt too familiar to me, right in the same ball park as myself. However, we have to keep in mind that I also single-handedly messed up COM 231 despite it being my favorite module. Like so many other things, I seem to have the talent of turning everything I love against myself. 

I had a nice little chat with Angelica after class, about the whole pregnancy thing and about Sophie's World. I really dislike Sophie's World, the novel that is, and she agrees with me. She read it when she was much younger, and we talked about how the sexual undertones in the story made us both really uncomfortable - but at least she managed to finish the book, I didn't. NTR is probably going to be fine, although the idea of writing the research paper is going to turn me off quite a bit. This fall semester is shaping up to be pretty alright, I suppose, and like every other semester, I hope for the best to come. At least this time around, I've got the greatest bunch of people on my back, and that is as comforting as it gets in the midst of everything else. 

First, set up a freedom restricting device (FRD) using some tantalizing chicken feed, a la worm. Next, await the grand arrival and consumption of feed, a la worm, by chicken. This crucial step will activate the freedom restricting device (FRD), which will restrict the freedom of the chicken. Then, we will slowly and carefully lift up the FRD with the non-master hand, and we will reach in with our master hand to apply a vice-like grip to the chicken's walking apparatus (WA). Adjust and enhance to a comfortable yet firm grip and using your non-master hand, apply another vice-like grip to the other WD. Take note that the above process should be completed within 5.3 seconds, or the shortest time possible. Failure to do so will result in the repeat of the whole process and the freedom of the chicken. Next, transfer your master hand to the head supporting apparatus (HSA) of the chicken with your thumb perpendicular to the ground and parallel to the force of gravity. 

Give the HSA a firm and abrupt clockwise (or counter clockwise) twist and lift the brain containment unit (BCU) off the HSA housing. Tilt the organ-containment unit (OCU) in the angle of 45.8 degrees to facilitate the excretion of oxygen carrying fluids. With a sharpened tool, slit from under the solar plexus all the way down to the waste excretion opening. Then, remove the contents. Slowly but surely, lower the carcass of the chicken into a pot made of steel, containing liquid made up of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen at a boiling temperature of one degrees above ninety-nine degrees. Remove temperature preservation coating, a la feather, to expose porous flesh covering. Lastly, consume. 

Buying Starbucks in Singapore isn't too big a problem, you pick what you want and go to the counter and order exactly that. In Taiwan, however, all the english names are translated into chinese names with characters even I cannot read very well. So there I was at the counter of the Starbucks underneath my place, trying to order a cup of Cafe Latte. I naturally assumed Cafe Latte to be known as Cafe Latte all around the world, and that was exactly what I said to the girl behind the counter, with a little more accuracy in pronunciation and perhaps a tad bit of accent. Her face turned white, blood rushed out from her veins and she looked at me wide-eyed. She was struck by panic, and I could tell from the way she asked me if I wanted it hot or cold. Now, you really couldn't have blamed me for scaring the poor girl, a Latte is a Latte, right? It's not like I went up to her and said, "I'd like a tall Cafe Latte, hot please". All I said was "Cafe Latte", and apparently that was too much for her to handle. I didn't carry on the prank, and I told her that I spoke mandarin, something which she was obviously relieved to hear. Anyway, I really didn't need to be ordering Cafe Latte and then torturing the poor girl at the Starbucks. I was there because Sarah wanted to meet there, the same Sarah whom I haven't met in more than ten years. 

There was a time when coming back to Taiwan had a good reason. There were four other children other than my sister and I, a bunch of kids that hung out under one roof and did children things. You know, console games, role-playing, little adventures through the fields and whatnot. It was the epitome of innocence, something which we have all lost one way or another. You see, life is a series of rooms, and there are a lot of these rooms down this corridor of ours. People populate these rooms every once in a while, but you move on to the next because it is time to do so, or they leave the room because it is time for them to head on in a different direction. It wasn't helped by the fact that we live in different countries, and that my sister and I only really visit Taiwan so many times in a year. So, like so many other people that have came and went in my life, these people also faded into the background and became names I remember only every once in a while when I reminisce on my lost innocence. I've only really remained in contact with Sarah over the years, mostly because she was interested in being an air stewardess and I just so happen to be fairly fluent in my English. Anyway, there were talks the last time I was here about meeting, but somehow things never actually added up. This time, however, I really wanted to make it happen, for reasons that I don't even truly understand. 

But seriously, why not? She happens to live five minutes from where I live in 林口, what are the odds of that happening anyway? From the front door of my place and around the corner at Starbucks, it's a traffic light and then a few more paces before we actually reach her place, so why not? She's working right now as a logistics specialist right down the street, a ten minute ride on her motorcycle and tucked away in a remote corner of the industrial park. We decided to meet for dinner and perhaps a little catching up, something which I hadn't been planning for at all. You would expect awkwardness to take over when you are meeting someone you haven't met in more than ten years, especially when you try too hard to make it work out. So I decided to just let things flow and be myself, see what happens and have an open mind. That calm, however, went out of the window when she appeared on the other side of the glass outside of Starbucks, wearing a denim jacket over a yellow top and long skirts that covered till her ankles. There she was, Sarah, after so many years, still looking the same as the last time we met. 

Sarah has always been the leader of the pack, being the oldest of the group and all. It wasn't difficult to speak to her at all, in fact it was such a breeze that I completely forgot that it has been so long since we even sat that close to each other across the coffee table. So we caught up about our lives, mine in Singapore and hers in the company that she despises with a raging passion. You'd think that whatever happens in The Office was written for dramatic effects, that things like that don't usually happen in a real-life office settling. The truth is, at least for those of us who haven't worked in an actual office before, offices are less funny and even more malicious than the TV show would want you to believe. She spoke to me about malicious co-workers, managers who would speak behind your back, commenting on the thickness of your legs or just putting you down for no apparent reasons at all. Offices are the centers of all evil, it seems, and it has affected her in the deepest ways possible. Whenever she speaks of her working life, you can tell a very genuine sense of distress in her eyes. 

We picked a Japanese restaurant around her place, somewhere cheap and convenient for her and myself. You know the way the older generation would complain about ours, the batch of us born in the 80s. They think that we are weak, and that we give up easily whenever we encounter any obstacles. That is perhaps the only reason why she is still doing what she is doing, despite being almost consumed by the reality of things. That is not to mention the pressure from the family, but don't we all have parents behind our backs, secretly injecting expectations into the back of our heads. She is the first person amongst us in the so-called "real world", and it just makes me feel frightful about my own future too. She made it real, if you know what I mean, the fact that somebody is there now, with the rest of still in university and stuff like that. Suddenly, we are not children any longer, we are about to be a part of the workforce, expected to support ourselves, expected to pay tax, expected to be real adults. Through Sarah, I cannot help but wonder how much of our childish dreams, how much of our teenage aspirations, and how much of our academic goals are going to go out of the window once we do embark on this journey on our own. 

It is funny how I have the strangest memories of certain people, and Sarah probably tops the list in my head. You see, the six of us used to visit an orange farm in the mountains to pluck oranges with our parents. I have some of the fondest memories there, and I am glad that they also involve these admirable people when we were younger. I remember the boys would be plucking the oranges together at a tree, and my sister would be doing the same with somebody else - but not with Sarah. What I remember about her that day at the orange farm was her vomiting blood for some reason. I remember one of the adults telling me that Sarah vomited blood somewhere, and I thought that she was going to die after eating too many oranges or something. You know, we see those people spitting blood right before they die. So I had a false impression that she was going to die - but of course, and thankfully, she didn't. I told her about it on our way to her workplace, and she was rather amused by the fact that I remembered something so random when she couldn't remember anything herself. I suggested that we should all come together someday and piece together this giant puzzle of our childhood. Or, at least have someone else remember the same thing about her vomiting blood that morning. 

We rode her motorbike to her workplace, in which I was forced to wear a strange looking helmet. It has been a while since I rode a motorbike as a passenger, even longer as a rider. The last time was probably behind Aaron's motorcycle, but that was a frightening experience since I have lost so many friends to that accursed vehicle. Riding in Taiwan, however, seems to be a totally different story. Not only do you have to battle the suicidal stray dogs, the vicious drivers, the uneven roads, but you also have to deal with riding your bike in the blistering cold of winter. I asked her how she deals with that, and she said she doesn't know how to deal with it either. We passed by her workplace soon after, a darkened building in the industrial park like a tomb of some sort, swallowing the lives and pride of so many people out there. We eventually got lost circling the place, and the deafening sound of the engine drowned out our voices. Still, we screamed over the sound of the wind, and we spoke of a lot of other things in which I shall let it remain in my memories and her own. 

She gave me a lift back home, and we decided to switch helmets because we both thought we looked better in each others'. In the end, she looked like an ordinary college girl while I looked like an invading spaceman. The photograph below proves that she hasn't aged a day, while I have merely grown upwards and not a day better looking. It's true, I have photographic evidences. It is comforting, in a way, to know that the others are all doing fine in their lives, relatively, and that she is still managing well despite her colleagues from Hell. I mean, we are not children any longer, and most of the people in our lives have become different strangers. It's nice to know, that after a few MSN conversations and a few phone calls, two strangers can come together and become childhood friends all over again, even if we have to look like idiots with helmets. 

林口 (LinKou) is a very interesting place in Taiwan. It is located on the outskirts of Taipei, right on the very edge of things. In fact, I live about five minutes away from the bridge that separates Taipei and TaoYuan. This is the suburbs, and new housing and condominiums have been popping up like mushrooms after a storm around this area, and my parents have taken advantage of that fact and invested in a few real estates over the past couple of months - without me knowing it. My father sped down the straight roads and beat the red lights through the empty streets and to a place called 八里 (BaLi) - think the edge of the edge. From my house, it was a straight drive for about ten minutes, and then a left turn into a secluded forested area with an empty golf course to the right of the road. Trucks and vans squeezed into the narrow two-lane road along with my father's Volkswagen. By the time we were five minutes away from the design studio, all the vans and the trucks have already turned off into even smaller roads along the way into warehouses and factories, and that was when I started to have my suspicions about this supposed "designing studio" thing. Then, it happened. 

To our right, the top of a glassy semicircle peeked over the canopy, like a hidden planetarium somehow. The rows of broken walls and roadside shrubs dissolved abruptly into a stretch of wall made up of cobble stones, and the rest of the building came into view at last, with trees reaching inwards towards the studio like an embrace. The car pulled up towards the side of the road, and the silence outside the car was deafening. The sky was already growing darker at five in the afternoon, but there was not a sound in the vicinity, not even birds or insects in the trees. It felt a little creepy, and yet peaceful for some reason. It reminded me of those days when I lived in the middle of an industrial park before I moved, tucked away from everybody else in the city for a peace of mind. No wonder the designing studio was located there, it was the perfect place to run away and be at yourself, I suppose. My father and I stood at the front of the wooden gate, with the edges surrounded by a thick metal frame and a carved wooden dragon at the top. A stray dog came along and smelled my father and I, its tail wagged and its tongue hung out from the side of its mouth as if it just humped a leg somewhere. It waited at the gate with the both of us as my father, and the gate slowly opened automatically and we were inside - with the stray dog. 

The garden was obviously well tended to on either side of the stone pavement, with the bushes carefully trimmed and the sound of water trickled down somewhere in the shadows and into our eardrums. The front door of the studio opened, and a woman popped her head out to greet my father by his first name while he introduced me to her. She was a young woman, probably the designer's secretary, in her late twenties perhaps. She smiled at me, and she became the first person to say that I had a vibe that was completely different from my father - at last, someone! The first floor was relatively empty, with sculptures of animals made in wood around every corner and a corner of the studio showing off various upcoming projects by the designer. Little models made from styrofoam and wood, my sister really should have been here, I thought to myself. The secretary led us up the wooden stairs, the kind made up of pieces of wood, and we were at the top floor of the studio by the time we heard the sound of cello over the speakers. 

The top floor of the studio was a giant open space, the roof rose about six meters off the ground, and the working desk of the designer was located right in the middle of the floor. He was working on something on the laptop when my father greeted him, and he came around the table to shake hands with the both of us. His shoulder length hair was combed neatly behind his ears, dressed in a golfing polo t-shirt and his watch glittered in the lamp from the table. His handshake was firm, and I returned with the firmest grip I could manage without being pretentious. The three of us settled down in big armchairs around the table, with the designer, let's call him Z, seated with giant spreads of blueprints on the table before him. He started going through the original floor plans, and then went on to give the both of us an overview of what he intends to do with the interior designs. It was the first time I was being exposed to the art of interior design, and I must say that I was wholly impressed by the man's knowledge, his vision, and his creativity. He was slow and patient with his words, not rushing his thoughts despite his packed schedule, and he carefully explained every changes to the original floor plan in his own time, in his own words. 

He would then stray to other topics every once in a while, and at one point he told my father that he should have brought him to a cello concert he attended last night that made him weep, something which would have been an utter disaster. Music and my father are like ice-cream and peas, you just don't have them together anywhere at anytime. Anyway, he continued to speak of everything but his own designs, still taking his time with the choice of his words. My mother has raved about him in the past, how they sat down and talked for an entire afternoon this one time, something which I saw as a possibility with my own eyes. I mean, he looked like the kind of person with a lot of control and comprehension in regards to his thoughts. He was very confident, very assuring, and certainly very proud of his own talents and abilities. For the most part, my father and I just sat there and listened to him, because we didn't feel like we were in league with this person at all in this field of work. I mean, he was speaking of how furniture are the soul of a house, the usage of organic materials and colors for his designs, and the kind of things that we've never actually considered while shopping through IKEA. It was fascinating, and yet the man was approachable and friendly, and so was his cute secretary who went out of the way to prepare cold tea especially for me. 

He asked if I am ever going to move back to Taiwan, as if the dilemma of leaving or staying was written on my forehead somehow. I told him of the possibilities, and he mentioned how most of these kids that grew up overseas find it difficult to fit back into the society in Taiwan, unless they already have some position to fill in their family business. That wasn't encouraging at all, but at the same time I wondered if the same can be said about returning to any country after a long time away. It was still interesting, though, to hear what he had to say in regards to that. Then we started speaking of the nature of art, in which I became a lot more involved than my father. I mean, my father was the man with the money, the one who pays the designer after all. He has the very last say as to what happens and what doesn't, so his vocabulary that day was limited very much to just "yes" and "no" for the most part. And as for me, however, I was eager to share some of my ideas with him, in which he was very interested to know as well. I told him about my love for space and height, and said that it'd be great to have a room with a tall ceiling like the room we were in. I also mentioned about studio apartments in SoHo, in which he immediately understood because he seems to love New York a lot. 

We shared our thoughts on our fascination with ancient buildings in New York, and he mentioned a friend who paints in New York, and he lives in an apartment building that used to be a shopping mall of sorts. They had those old school elevators with metal gates and the rope to pull just to activate the elevator, and we both became very excited about our common grounds. Still, what nailed my respect for this man was when we discussed the differences between an interior designer and a painter. He paints every once in a while, in fact the giant calligraphy in my living room now was painted by him for my family. Still, he doesn't consider painting to be his work, but rather a side hobby he does every once in a while. He spoke of how he'd never be able to be like his friend, the painter in New York, the way he weaves his thoughts into pieces of art. I, however, thought that what he does is a form of art as well, in which he begged to differ. He said that the art in interior designing is very much trained, and that everything an interior designer do is to, ultimately, please his employer. It doesn't matter if you like your design, it matters if he likes the design. Every ounce of creativity is very much controlled and stifled by the will of others. The amount of "true art", he said, then becomes minimal and artificial. 

"No one can tell a painter whether to use yellow paint or black paint", he said. "The entire painting is his, it's all him". Which is really true, and I guess I haven't saw things like that before. It is probably much easier to train an amateur into an actual interior designer, but much harder for a painter. It is much easier to churn out interior designs like iPods on a conveyor belt than for a true painter to be born. I was glad that I shared some of the interests with architecture, although I was clearly not in the same sport as he was. I liked his use of organic materials like wood and stones, and then the usage of non-primary colors like brown and grey. You can see his signature everywhere around my current house and his own office, tucked away in a small corner of the city and away from the bustling town. I suppose most people out there don't want to be told whether to use yellow or black paint either, but we don't have the luxury of that most of the time. The powers at be dictate what colors we use, what brush we use, what canvas we use, what frames we use, and what to draw. Everything has to be in favor of somebody else now, and we have little to none of ourselves in any work now. 

He bit us goodbye at the front door as my father and I drove away. I was very impressed by the man, the way he carried himself and his passion for designing. My father asked what I thought of him on the way home, and I really had nothing but good things to say. I don't suppose people like that come along all the time, but I am very proud that my family own a piece of his work right now. You know, it's kind of like buying a painting somehow, only it is really made up of wood and concrete for the most part. This visit really is making me think twice, again, in regards to whether or not to move back here. And the dilemma was certainly not eased out after meeting with Sarah later at night either. More details on that in the next entry, but here's a great shout out to Z, a man I truly, truly respect. 

mo ke pan nuo 

Truth.

There is a picture of me when I was about two years old, with a pinch of hair tied up into a rocket like Alfalfa from The Little Rascals in the old dusty photo albums. Next to the miniature version of myself is a woman who used to work at my father's office. She was an employee there, only a few years of age over twenty, and grew to become good friends with the family. That was twenty years ago, when my mother was only a few years older than her, and when I was still a baby with a rocket on my head. It has been twenty odd years, and I was told a month ago that she has finally given birth to her own little boy - at forty one years old. It has been a pregnancy that a lot of her friends, including my parents, have been waiting for. She has been married for the longest time, but luck hasn't been on their side for the most part. This time, however, everything worked out well for them, and they've only just celebrated the baby's first month on this, well, let's call it a planet to remain neutral. I suggested to my aunt to pay a visit to the baby today, which was what happened as we made our way down from TaoYuan all the way to Taipei this afternoon. 

It was a neighborhood that certainly took a lot of directions from strangers and literally a lot of twists and turns. The hand-written directions from my aunt looked like a treasure map written in ancient Mayan, and nothing made a lot of sense to me. When it did finally make sense, they were instructions that included anything from "drive up the bridge" to "drive down the bridge", instructions that were redundant and could have been left out completely. Anyway, we managed to find our way into the serene neighborhood, a rather old one that has been a relic of my parents' days in Taiwan. We found a parking space next to the remnants of a tree, and the summer sun pricked the back of my neck like little needles. There was a small nursery around the corner from where we parked, and the teacher was telling the students to imagine a great big mountain with snow on one side, and they had to picture themselves skiing down at high speed. Little children, they are always so pleasant to listen to, just as long as they are not crying or when they are watching the same movie as yourself when they really shouldn't have been. Four floors above our heads, she called down to us and then announced to the entire neighborhood just how much my father and I resembles each other - the third person on this trip back home already. Great. 

The apartment didn't have lifts at all, and the only way up to their home was to climb the stairs all the way up to the top. It was a grueling climb especially for my aunt, not to mention the fact that the shadows in the corners could have very well provided a good hiding place for a perverted old man, a desperate drug addict, or worse. But it was all good once we reached the top, when the front door opened and there she was, more than ten years after we've last met, looking less like the woman I remembered but more like a mother. It was a typical apartment in a typical old neighborhood, with just two bedrooms and a living room, not to mention the kitchen at the back. I was cautious about taking my socks off, as if any sudden movement would disturb the baby that was asleep on his father's laps. The father looked up at me and smiled, and I was reminded of a high school classmate in Singapore somehow. The sudden gush of air-conditioning struck my face with quite a force, and I was told that it was turned on for the sake of the baby, since they didn't want him to "overheat", the mother said, as if she was talking about a piece if pizza or something. 

There it was, thirty-one days old, wrapped in a small blue blanket with dolphins sewed on one side. The little bundle of joy, the result of so many expectations from so many different people out there, materialized into this miniature of a human being. His skin was peeling and had mild rashes here and there, and I was told that it was normal for a child that old (or young) to have such symptoms. You know how it is, new to this awful world of ours with little to no immune system, everything then becomes an allergy somehow. Apparently it was the wet tissues that they used which causes the rashes, and my aunt gave the young couple a good lecture before taking over the hugging. I was a little wary of my aunt and the way she carried the child, though she was also half the reason why I am the person that I am today (she doesn't have any children, which was why she took care of me while my mother was busy in the past). But you see, the word "clumsy" would be an under-statement to describe my aunt, because she tends to inflict accidental injuries on herself all the time, or cause inanimate objects around her to destroy due to her carelessness. She was also the same person who slammed the car door on my fingers and broke them all, an incident which I am very happy to not remember. So there she was, holding a delicate baby in her arms and swaying it back and forth while humming a small tune. Yeah, I was nervous as hell. 

But the baby turned out fine, just an obscene amount of peeling around the body and a general look of irritation on his face when he was woken up by the father's strange and comical laughter. Everything about the baby fascinated me, and vice versa for him too. He looked at me with complete wonderment, like everything else that he might have come in contact with for the past month. You know, the basin of water, the touch of his mother's hands, the lights, the blankets, and then - me. I was a human equivalent of all of the above, and yet I didn't mind at all. I wonder how much of the first month he is going to remember in a few years, perhaps none at all. But if he does, the way that I do, perhaps he'd remember a curious human being staring at his knuckles for some reason, just vague images of the past like I remember about mine. To be honest, I haven't the faintest clue in regards to the first month, but apparently my family moved from Taipei to where I grew up for the next five years immediately after my birth. I remember only bits and pieces of my childhood in Taiwan, a few scents and a few flashing imageries. Which is why, there was a lot of catching up that day when the mother told me about how I was the first and the last baby she ever carried before her own son came along. 

I'm sure some of the readers here remember the canary that the family had, the same canary that I killed with my bare hands (once again, I don't remember myself doing it but, apparently everybody blames me). The employees were trying to teach me animal names last time, and everybody pointed the canary out to me and said "bird", hoping that I'd learn and remember. As a bright young child in contrary to who I am right now, I learned the names of various animals really quick, until one day our young mother, let's call her L, came along and tried to confuse me. Apparently, according to L, she pulled me to the cage one day and told me that that was a "chicken", and I stared back at her in confusion. I didn't learn how to speak until I was about two and a half years old, or three. If I knew, I would have started some kind of argument with her or something about whether or not it was a bird or a chicken. Well, I guess everybody was trying to lie to that version of me - it's a canary people, be specific! So that was me as a child, the same one that (supposedly) almost ate my own poop, thinking that it was food. It was strange, and amazing, how I was the last baby that L carried in her arms when I was a month old. I was practice for her, in a way, and I guess this is the only context where I can say that I was proud to be one. 

I'm not sure about the others, but I personally feel strange when a group of people come together to tell me about what happened to me in the past, things that I hardly remember myself. It is as if I suffered from some horrific accident in the past that caused me to lose some memories, or something. It's kind of like how Ahmad forgot how to swim, when he actually could while being in primary school, it's the same thing. There was my aunt and L, telling me about how I was like when I was a baby, things that are difficult for me to even picture properly in my head. It's like this giant puzzle of you, and other people are piecing it together because you can't remember how the picture was like before you took them apart. So, it was still interesting to meet with them, even more fascinating to see the baby close up. Babies have always had this invisible zone of protection around them somehow, people are usually more protective around babies, especially with strangers. You see them on trains and buses all the time, and all you can do is to smile and maybe play with their fingers a little bit. But you can never get close enough to examine their every move, anyway. It's not polite, and just downright creepy if you go overboard. It's kind of like being a zookeeper in a safari as oppose to being a visitor to a zoo - it's just different when you are closer. 

I saw a documentary about a bubble boy once, I think his name is Andy. Due to his lack of white blood cells, Andy is incapable to lead a normal life like children his age. He grew up in a bubble constructed in his room, like a giant maze with everything he'd ever need in life thrown into the bubble by people from the outside world. He couldn't get out of this bubble, breathe the air that we breathe or walk the grass that we walk - he'd die. He's been sheltered all his life, but you cannot blame his parents for being over-protective either. It's sad, but his parents try their very best to give Andy everything that a normal child would have, and one of them was education. Andy read the very same textbooks and taught just the same as all the other children around the country, but one concept was difficult for him to grasp - the rest of the world. Andy couldn't see the rest of the world from where he was, perhaps just the trees outside his window and maybe an occasional bird. It is difficult for him to understand the vastness of the oceans or the tallness of the mountains. That is because he has never seen them with his own eyes, and the pictures in books don't mean anything to him more than just pretty and realistic paintings. The concept of wind, in particular, was difficult for Andy. It was difficult for him to understand how something invisible could actually exist when he couldn't see it with his own eyes. 

It's the same as how our parents tried to teach us the concept of wind, and how it exists despite the fact that we cannot see it. The same can be said about time, but it is an abstract on a completely different level. It is difficult to understand if time is dictated by the movement of the hands on a clock, or the movement of our planet around the sun. If we say that we should base our concept of time on clocks and calendars, then whose calendar do we trust? The muslims have their own calendar, the chinese have our own calendar, and the majority of the world follows the Gregorian calendar - so which is the real time? What is the standard? It is so difficult to grasp the concept of time, when everybody has different concepts of time. It is kind of like trying to travel from one country to another when the signs in the airports don't have a standard to them. You step into that foreign airport and you are bound to be disorientated, because you cannot base your understanding of these new signs on the ones that you have learned. What I am trying to say is, with so many different standards of time throughout human history, it makes the concept of time even more doubtful and questionable. 

Having no clock in a room is kind of like being stuck in a lift with someone you don't fancy a lot. It makes you feel uncomfortable, to know that you do not know when is now, or when is later. Humans like to feel like they are in control, which is also why they feel that they need to save the world and go green. It is this larger than life attitude we have in regards to everything, when we really are not much more different than a beetle in relative to the universe. We are trivial, and we come and go with time so easily. Anyway, we hate to not know the time, which is why if you stand in a busy street for a long enough time, someone is bound to ask you for the time. Every device has a clock now, everything has the ability to tell time. Your cellphone can tell time, your iPod can tell time, even your car's radio has the ability to tell time. We need to know the time while we are driving home, driving to work, working out in the gym, or just being on the street. Not knowing the time makes us feel helpless, it makes us feel disorientated. It's scary to think that time isn't on our side, the concept that there isn't a second hand behind our backs to push us forward a second at a time. But I believe that that is the case, that there really isn't such a thing as time - we just are. 

I have lived for long periods of time without time, which does seem kind of weird after I reread that first part of this sentence. Out in the fields and in the dark, I gave up keeping track of time unless I had to because, well, I am just not the type of person to wear a watch. It's kind of like bracelets or necklaces, it makes me feel bounded and stifled. Anyway, I have tried sitting in a crammed vehicle on a particularly rainy season for twelve hours straight without knowing the time at all. Initially, it was petrifying. You try to test the time with your body clock, but it soon fails on you because you are always over-estimating the true speed of time. I have tried to track with the movement of the stars as well, marking out a point in the sky and then trying to see where it'd be in two hours. But nothing ever really works, it's still too difficult a concept to grasp. After all, what is time anyway? If it isn't the watches or the calendars or the stars? 

I think the concept of time was created by the powers at be. Someone created the concept of time in order to control the human race, pretty much like the concept of government and religion. With all those numbers in our lives, we are then given a window to work, to work, and to work some more. Think about it: if we do not have minutes and hours to keep our days in check, then how do we know when to start or stop work? Or, we won't work. We'd just sit back, relax, and not do a thing since nothing else would matter. Time was created, then, as lines. Kind of like a starting line and a finishing line, and with those lines you know where the race begins and when it ends. With time, you know when to start work and when to end, when to start toiling for your boss and when to have time for yourself. Everything, then, falls into place and we become slaves to the authorities. You know, when to finish the assignments, when to complete this project, when to hand up your homework. Time table, schedules, and deadlines, these are just some of the ways people use to control others, like leashes to dogs. With these lines drawn, we can start to work. If one day lasts forever, what is the hurry? It will never run out, there won't be a need to do anything. And the powers at be don't like that, they don't like it at all. 

I believe that we just are, there isn't a past, a present, or the future. What is "the present" anyway, right this second? Well, that second just passed, and the second after that probably passed as well by the time you hit this point. It's the same as "right now", it is difficult to pin-point that concept, don't you think? We've laid out human history into a timeline for us to have a rough concept of what has come to pass, and yet the concept of dinosaurs existing millions and millions of years ago is still difficult for us to comprehend. To me, we are just stagnant, and things merely happen. Things do not just happen, they just do. We do not exist in the present only because we put ourselves, in relative, to people of the past. We just exist, the way that a buried skeleton remains underground, or the way the mountains line the edges of tectonic plates, the way that the earth remain in a constant motion around the sun. Things exist, and that is the end of the story. We don't exist for this amount of time, and we do not have this amount of time left. To break free from the bonds of time, to embrace that every single moment is a moment that lasts till infinity. I suppose it is a release from bondage that is the same as realizing the concept of free will versus determinism. 

I don't suppose I can confidently say that I understood what I have typed either. The thought is still rather blurry, a little vague in my mind. Besides, it is a little after two in the morning right now, but there is an urge to document this down before it decides to flee my mind. Anyhow, I suppose this idea came upon me after watching an episode of House earlier on, and how Dr. House mentioned something about how believing in the concept of eternity makes life irrelevant. Believing in the concept that time lasts forever, like life after death, doesn't give any meaning to life any longer. I like that idea more, I suppose, than my own idea of how time was created by people to control others. I guess I can believe in an idea but not agree with it. I can be disagreeable as I can be contradictory, and I guess I can be really optimistic for a pessimist - a nod to Paramore here. I like to think that life does not carry on after death, that time does not last forever and ever and ever. It ends when we end, it gives meaning to why we are here in the first place. It is this whole existentialism thing that I am still trying to understand. Do forgive me, sometimes I don't know what I am talking about either. 

I was hoping that this trip would take my mind off certain things, with "certain things" being the fact that I just powered through a whole semester without a breather for the most part. So much for the summer break, since the two week long holiday is feeling more like a coffee break at the water cooler. That's the main mission, but there is a secondary mission that I was hoping to achieve, to kill two birds with one stone so to speak. I was hoping to test the waters here, kind of like putting your index finger into the tub of water to test if it is too hot or too cold. I've been toying around with the idea if coming back home, and I just wanted to find out if I am going to fit right in, like feet on a pair of silk slippers. Of course, a week long trip is certainly going to be different from "the rest of my life", but this is as good as it gets for now. There are still obligations back in Singapore, things that need to be done before any future plans are being made. Future plans, I really do think that I need to hire someone for that sort of thing. My first choice is April, but her life is tight enough I suppose. Yet another entrepreneur idea, I'd look into that. 

I haven't been back in Taiwan during the summer for the longest time. The past few winters in Taiwan have been welcoming of me, but never the summer, always the winters. It's really because time has never allowed me to come back in August, along with a whole bunch of other reasons I suppose. Summertime in Taiwan differs a little from the Taiwan I have grown so used to in the past couple of years. Thick jackets, a few layers of clothes, a heater in the middle of the living room, and hot coffee, were just some of the essentials I needed in the past visits. To be completely honest, I am not entirely used to being at the dining table in my shorts and t-shirt. But I guess, if I really do intend to move all the way back here, this is just one of the few things I have to start adjusting to. The only aspect of my old life that doesn't take any time to fit back in is probably the food here, the way the taste fills up the corners of my mouth is like an explosion of tiny taste bud invaders. Anything, very simply, works here when it comes to food, it doesn't even take a lot of thinking to buy something that is heavenly. That, I haven't got a problem with - it's everything else. It's always everything else. 

There's something about the air-conditioning that must have sucked out too much moisture in the air. My mouth felt like a desert and my tongue like sand paper. My nostrils of my noise decided to revolt against one another, with one of them being completely blocked while the other decided to run like the tap. I was mildly sick, and it was probably because of the air-conditioning or the fact that my mother shared a spoon with me before I came over here. Anyway, I needed medicine, but I didn't want to tell my aunt about thing either. I waited for them to go out in the afternoon, just a mere ten minutes while I went to the closet next to the kitchen to take out the pills, and then from underneath that shelf a jug of warm water to down the pills, since tap water here isn't exactly safe to drink. So I opened the bottle of pills, poured eight of those pills out onto the table, placed six in my mouth and put the rest back. Then I got the cup, poured the water from the jug in, and swallowed the pills. Routine, normal, nothing surprising here. 

Half an hour ago, my mouth felt a little dry again, and I felt like having some milk for the insomnia that I have been suffering lately. So I opened the storeroom where the fridge was (don't ask), turned on the lights by feeling the switch to the left on the wall, then took out the carton of milk that my aunt bought in the morning. I needed a straw then, I needed a straw to drink the milk. So I looked around a little bit and found the batch of straws stuck in a cylinder on the door underneath the neat rows of white eggs. So I poked the straw into the carton of milk, drank the milk and burped by the time I paced around the living room about four times. The bills stuck to the front door with a bunch of magnets looked the same as the last time I saw it in December, and the dead rose stuck in the glass vase still stood at the back of the shelf amidst old memorabilia and thick layers of dust. Just the way I left the house last time, little to nothing has changed. OK, not exactly nothing, since the dog has been shaved to look like a mouse with a lot more fur. Still, the house smells the same, the food taste the same, even the same television programs are still running.

You see, I found the pills, the milk, and the straws around the house, not because I knew where they were and consciously looked for it. I just knew that they were there, as if I actually live here. Of course, for the most part of the year, it is occupied by an old army officer (my uncle), an old saleswoman from Amway (my aunt), and an over-active dog with a bad attitude (my dog). But there is a certain level of familiarity around the house that I cannot explain, and it kind of reminds me of those basic routine practices that we had in the classrooms before any guitar lessons. The way our fingers danced along the fret boards after a few weeks of training without our minds being conscious about it, or the way our index and middle finger alternated in between each other on our right hand. Everything was automated, because we have grown so accustomed to those actions, we have learned how after doing them over and over and over again. It's the same as the time when you learned to walk, you don't think about putting one foot before the other after some time. You just walk. 

I have realized just how easy it is for me to lead a normal life on a very basic level. You know, to get milk or to get medicine - everything is relatively easy. In fact, getting food is a much smaller problem here in Taiwan, since I can probably have three meals a day in different restaurants in the neighborhood and still not eat the same dish for a week. I don't know about the environment, I don't know about the people. I don't know anything else outside of my comfort zone and if I am going to take some time to get used to it all. Which is also why my meeting with Sarah, my childhood friend whom I haven't seen in ten years, may just help. You know, to see how I can relate to the people all over again, to see what they see and to hear what they hear, type thing. In the mean time, I am just relying on my muscle memory here, knowing where to go and what to do, something which I am still trying to get used to after living in Singapore for a full seventeen years. So, the blood coursing through my veins, the skin that covers my flesh, and everything else on me screams of my nationality. The only thing that goes against that fact is probably in black and white, but that isn't going to change who I really am. I suppose, there is still a part of me that, very simply, remembers. 

But, here's the thing: I saw Gattaca all over again the other day on HBO here. You know, the story about how a "God's Child", or a man born under normal circumstances, defied the odds and got himself into space in a time and age when only the genetically superior could be selected for tasks like that. There is a scene in the movie with Uma Thurman dancing with Ethan Hawke days before his planned trip into space, and he tells her that it is a funny thing how he has been trying so hard to leave the Earth and yet, he suddenly finds himself a reason to stay. Well, there are so many reasons to come back here, so many reasons to just pack up everything and leave - and, it's easy. It is going to be petrifying to come back here, but it is certainly going to be an easy thing to do. Everything just works here, really. I mean, they have little USB things you plug to your laptop so that you can access Wifi from anywhere around the island with cellphone coverage. They even have Tivo here as well, something which makes the television business in Singapore look like the stone age. So many reasons to come back here, so many reasons to leave. Yet, sometimes, just sometimes, a reason presents itself to you and you find yourself unwilling to leave.