In Continuum.: August 2009

Wake Up

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Wake Up

Something filled up
My heart with nothing
Someone told me not to cry

But now that I'm older
My heart's colder
And I can see that it's a lie

Children, wake up
Hold your mistake up
Before they turn the summer into dust

If the children don't grow up
Our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up
We're just a million little gods causing rainstorms
Turning every good thing to rust

I guess we'll just have to adjust

With my lightning bolts a-glowin'
I can't see where I am going to be
When the reaper, he reaches and touches my hand

With my lightning bolts a-glowin'
I can't see where I am going
With my lightning bolts a-glowin'
I can't see where I am going

You better look out below!

South Lake

Friday, August 28, 2009

South Lake

Greetings, lovely people of Singapore. Your local time right now is approximately five minutes after nine in the morning, and I do hope that you will have a great day ahead. On my side of the world, things have been going well so far, and I suppose I have been living quite comfortably if I do say so myself. But before I go into details about that, let's try to catch up on how things have been so far. It has been a while since this blog has been updated, and it has been mainly due to the fact that the orientation has been taking up quite a bit of time. In between orientation sessions, I'd be trying to find food around campus or out of campus, or trying to get my bank and phone accounts set up. The word "hectic" would probably be a fitting word for my first week here in Buffalo these days, though that has been a direct reason as to why I've been sleeping like a baby every night. I do consider myself on the lucky side, since some of my friends have been suffering from the effects of jet lag, even though they've been here for a little more than a week. Anyway, amidst all the preparations and the orientation, the only way in which I've been able to document the journey has been through photographs, since writing a blog entry takes up too much time. Though, that is not to say that I prefer one over the other at this point. Writing, I still love you with so much passion.

So, in the last entry, I've been describing how the flight has been throughout the journey. It has been quite a bit of time since then, and I do admit that I have been neglecting things quite a bit. I do apologize for my absence, and here is the more condensed version of things. To begin, we reached the Buffalo airport at about ten at night, local time, and we were all worn out by then. You could tell by the faces of my friends that they could have fallen asleep on a bed for a month before wanting to do anything else. Breathing looked tiring to all of them, and the fact that our transport took forever to come due to the traffic did not help either. Anyway, our good friend Travis arrived in his SUV, a transport which was supposed to be a truck when I first heard of it. The tricky part was to fit all the luggage (there were ten of them, excluding carry-on) into the car, plus a driver and four other passengers. As the luggage were being loaded into the car, we soon realized that it was not possible to fit any more human beings into the vehicle other than the driver, who was essential. So, we decided to fit ourselves into a cab while our luggage followed behind, and that cab ride took us from the airport and all the way to a motel next to our school close to midnight. I must say, though, that cab drivers earn a hell lot in the United States even though they cannot spell the word "motel" properly on their GPS machines. That driver that took us spelled it as "Motil", and no wonder he couldn't find anything on the highway.

If you shudder at the thought of a motel, let me just assure you that motels, or at least the one that I stayed at, was pretty damn awesome. It was probably equivalent to a three star hotel, and everything was in quite a pristine condition. Or, let me put it this way. I was willing to sleep on the floor in between two beds, and people should know how much I demand hygiene in the place that I eat or sleep. Anyway, that was where we spent the night, the Red Roof Inn, and I had to sleep on the floor in between two beds because none of the girls wanted to sleep with the guy. Though, that is not to say that I, in any way, wanted to share my bed with them either. I was comfortable on the floor, and the only person that I wanted (and want) to sleep with is Neptina. Anyway, Travis hung around a little bit that night before going back, and we each took turns to take the long awaited shower and to Skype with our loved ones. I must say that I probably had the best quality sleep that night, and I slept like a baby with my in-ear headphones on, which canceled out all the noise. In the morning, Travis was nice enough to drive by again to give us a ride to IHOP, or International House of Pancakes. I must say, that I understand Ahmad's love for that place finally. That place is just so full of win, and you cannot beat four different syrups for your pancakes, you just can't.

That was also our first interaction with the service industry in the United States, and I must say that I am thoroughly blown away by it. I mean, this is the kind of services we should be getting with the amount of money that we are paying, not to mention the fact that we are being forced to pay tips disguised as service charge. At least here, they tell you that they want tips, and they don't subtly collect it from you by embedding it into the bill. With the amount that I am paying back home, I should really be getting the kind of service that I get here. Waitresses would constantly make rounds back to your table just see if you are doing fine, and it is even more awesome when you are having breakfast in a place with waitresses like that. It starts your day off well, and it doesn't beat a breakfast with awesome pancakes and nice waitresses. I still hate giving tips though, and it really was much easier to just pay it as part of the bill. Yet, I must say that most of the waitresses I have met so far deserved the tips that we have been giving together as a table. This practice extends far beyond just restaurants and diners, because people around Buffalo have been generally really nice. They are not quite as nice as the people from Thailand just yet (it's difficult to beat a country which is also known as the "land of smiles"), but they come close. Even the cashier at TOPS asked me if I was having a cold, because apparently I sounded that way.

After that breakfast, the moving in part came along, and I must say that that was quite a bitch by itself. We got our hands on the necessary documents and the keys, and we just went to our respective apartments around the South Lake Village. I was admittedly somewhat nervous when I got to my apartment, and the lock to my front door was really difficult to open. I had a hard time trying to get it opened, and I had to enlist the help of Fang Xun and Cassie (who are both really badass women). They got me through the front door and my bedroom door, and actually helped me to shift the furniture around a little bit. My room mate wasn't at home back then, and it would remain like that for the next day or two, despite the fact that he left bread on the kitchen counter and ham in the fridge. I was somewhat nervous that he'd come back at any moment, and yet he never showed up for the next two days. For the most part of the first day, I bought a lot of things from the Dollar Tree, Walmart, and TOPS. I think grocery shopping is fun, but it isn't so when you are supposed to be moving into a completely new place, and that you have to buy all the daily necessities. I'm not exactly sure how much I actually spent on those things, but let's just say that I've been as budget as possible. I mean, my lamp costs a mere ten dollars - a steal!

At this time, everything has been pretty much done up. I don't really want to compare to my room mate, or any other room mates, who are planning to stay here for a long time, or have been living here for the past year or two. I mean, if you take a peek into their rooms, you'd realize how much work they have put into these rooms to make it their own, and it is naturally this way after all. These students do intend to stay for a long period of time, whereas I will only be here for a couple of months. I don't see the need for me to doll this place up any more than my minimal standard of comfort, and I suppose I have reached that point as of this point. Anyway, it is a simple room with a bed, a table, a closet, cupboards for my clothes, and that is as far as basic necessities go. I had to fill up everything else in this room, everything from light, to bed sheets, to pillow cases, to internet cables. But since it has been a week, I suppose I've already gotten all that I need, and I suppose we'd just add more to the room as we go on in the semester. After all, I cannot buy too many things, since I'd have to find a way to get rid of these things when I do eventually leave. The only effort in decorating my room is probably the corkboard that I have pasted on my wall, which has been decorated with the feather of a crow that I found and Neptina's polaroid of herself and I.

Here's the thing about living in the United States: you need a car. I will be here for just one semester, so there really isn't a point for me to buy or rent a car. Even those of us who has gotten a car can only manage for two weeks, because it isn't very cheap to get one here at all. Anyway, the public transport system isn't nearly as developed as Singapore, and naturally so because Singapore is still a really small place. You need a car to get to everywhere, and that made grocery shopping really difficult for the most part. From my place, I need to take two buses all the way to South Campus, and then take a walk through a giant parking lot to TOPS across the street. I must say that shopping here, especially at supermarkets, can be quite a hassle. You can never find anybody to talk to when you need to ask for something, and everything is in this great big mess. TOPS is not even half as bad as Walmart, where everything is everywhere. I disliked those places immensely, but Wegman's is probably the best supermarket ever. Anyway, I am still trying to figure out the money system here, with all their dimes and their quarters and their cents. It takes me a while to come up with the exact change for $7.33, but I am getting there.

After an episode of getting lost in the neighborhood while trying to find a restaurant (damn you, LeBros!), we ended up being picked up by Lance (yes, that Lance) by the side of the road near Newman Chapel. He replied to my e-mail about arriving in Buffalo a couple of days late, and he explained that he has been in Michigan all along. So, the first thing that we did when we got lost was to give him a call, and he actually agreed to pick us up in the middle of nowhere. After about ten to fifteen minutes of waiting, Lance showed up in his old beat up car, and I must say that it was probably the most awful looking car that I have ever seen. I mean, I was really glad that he came down to pick us up, and that he bothered to help us out from our predicament. But I must say, that his car is a dump, both from the outside and on the inside. The door on the driver's side is dented because of an accident, and he never bothered to fix it at all. I am not kidding when I say this, but Lance has sand and rocks inside his car just laying around everywhere. Aside from all of those, he has loose change laying around on the seats, under the seats, on the floors, in the trunk, and just about everywhere that you can think of. In fact, I was telling him that if he picked up all the loose change from inside his car, he'd actually be really rich.

He appeared out of his beat up car in a torn up cap and a t-shirt covered in soil. He looked like he just crawled through a bush just to get to us, but he was so happy to see us. He brought us to IHOP (oh yes!) to have our brunch, and then he offered to take us to his place for a visit. I swear, his house is a giant leap from his car, because his house is beautiful. I must be honest with you, but I don't think that I have been in a more beautiful house before. Admittedly, though, the age of the house (it was built in the 1920s) does creep me out just a little bit, especially the creaking floor boards and stuff like that. But everything right down to the decor, to the lovely dog, to the bath tubs - everything worked. It was like one of those showroom model houses, or like some kind of postcard picture that came to life right in front of us. I swear, Lance may not know how to maintain his car in a proper condition, but he sure knows how to take good care of his house. The front lawn was properly done up, with flowers in bloom and the grass carefully trimmed. It's really a house that you have to witness for yourself, though it isn't exactly a place I want to live in. I mean, I have a thing against old houses I suppose, and I've grown up in concrete houses with bricks in the walls.

So, the campus, it is huge. After being in SIM for this long, you start to forget that schools can be much bigger than what it is for me back home. SIM is like a building with the bare essentials in it. You have the canteen, the canteen's alternative, the bookstore, the classrooms, the bathrooms, and all that stuff. Here in UB, you have twenty times all of those, plus awesome scenery, giant parking lots, and a whole lot of other stuff. In fact, if you haven't already seen pictures of this place, there is this structure down by the lake of this greek column, thing, that doesn't mean much of anything at all. It doesn't make sense, but it is a beautiful sight nonetheless. There are a lot of bees around here, and you don't get mosquitoes or flies very much in this weather anyway. If you have trash just laying around, you get crows, seagulls and bees flying around it all the time. I swear, the bees here are vicious, and all they want to do is to bury their insect faces into your food, and it can get really annoying to say the least. Anyway, this place is huge, and it really becomes a hassle to get from one place to the other, especially when buses are not very frequent when the school hasn't commenced for the next semester. Walking here, however, is surprisingly enjoyable. I think I have done more walking here in a week than I do in a month back at home. The weather is conducive for walking, and everything is just so beautiful to look at on the way anyway.

The weather has been generally great, with light storms coming in and out every once in a while. In fact, the forecast predicts that it is going to rain today, again, which means that the people at the Darien Lake theme park will have quite a good time on their hands. I haven't felt the need to put on anything thick just yet, but I do suppose that day will come when the snow starts to fall. Oh yeah, the snow, it's been a while since I've seen and felt them. I still think that I am going to love it in the first five days, and then hate it for the rest of the month. At any rate, I suppose I am, and always have been, a person who prefers the cold rather than the warm. Or rather, a hot day is fine as long as the humidity is low, and Singapore happens to have that in abundance. Blended with the cold chilly air, the smell of freshly shaved grass really makes this place come alive, if I do say so myself. I have went flower picking a couple of times, and I have brought home some really beautiful flowers that I intend to bring home with me. I am still looking out for a test tube of sorts to fit the first snow in though, and I do wonder how that is going to be like when it first comes down, and what I'd be doing when it happens.

If any of you do intend to come over to UB for the spring semester, I highly recommend either South Lake or Hadley to be your home of choice. I swear, these two places are probably the best places that you are going to be living in for a couple of months straight. South Lake is right next to the lake, and you can't beat us in terms of the scenery. It has wide open spaces, which really makes it a whole lot safer if you ask me. It is a tad far away from the academic buildings, but it is also the closest to the convenience stores and the places that sell food - awesome! Hadley is further away from those, but it is relatively close to the academic buildings, not to mention the fact that it looks like a really nice chalet. Flint is fine, but the fact that it is the oldest student village around here isn't giving it a good reputation. It is really close to the academic buildings, for one, but the hallways are really narrow and somewhat creepy. But any of those would be miles better than Governor's, which is where the dorms are. The hallways are narrow and dark, and you don't even get air-conditioning in the rooms. Hell, one side of the room gets Wifi while the other side doesn't. In the words of Liz, the bathroom looks like something right out of a Thai horror movie. So, you be the judge.

Anyway, things have been relatively comfortable so far, but I suppose a bulk of it is due to the fact that school hasn't started yet. I am surprised at how well I have adapted to this place actually, but I do suppose it will be another phase of getting used to thinks when the cold really comes. Either way, I've been doing grocery shopping, cooking, laundry, and a whole lot of other things that I, admittedly, don't normally do. I actually enjoy doing such things now that I think about it, though that is not to say that I want to remain in this place for a longer period of time than I should. There are reasons for me to want to go home, though I think I am resisting the homesick aspect of this journey rather well. If only I could bring people along with me for this trip, if only I could come home to someone other than my room mate. That'd make it so much more perfect than it already is.

Flight

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Flight

There are a couple of things that one needs to be aware of when they are on a long distance flight. You want to make sure that your seats are in the very back section of the plane if you cannot afford anything more than seats in the Economy Class. A week ago, I was reading an online article where somebody compiled a bunch of statistics in relation to airline disasters. It isn't the most encouraging list of statistics especially when I was supposed to be flying off in a week's time, but then it was also encouraging to note that passengers in the very back section, or the tail section, of the plane has a 65% chance of living, the highest in any part of the plane in the event of a plane crash - very encouraging indeed. Anyway, you also want to be in the very last row, at the window seat where I am typing this entry right now. I am somewhere in between Russia and Alaska, and we are this close to the North Pole, it makes me feel really overwhelmed somehow. Being this close to the northern-most end of our planet, you get this very interesting phenomenon outside of your window. You can a sunset that never actually goes away, like the one that is outside my window right now, because the Earth is round and the other side is probably drenched in daylight at this point. Anyway, the sunset has been around ever since it turned into night, and may I add that I derive some sort of guilty pleasure from typing with the little line shining down from above?

Anyway, you want to be in the last row because you get to push your chair all the way back without any forms of guilty - always a plus. At this point in time, I have probably been flying for about twelve hours now, and it actually isn't half as bad as I expected. Power on my Macbook is running a tad low, which means that I'd probably not be able to finish this entry, if the last entry is of any indications. I really should have brought along my Macbook charger, along a great many things, but it is too late to remedy that now, is it? I lost one of those rubbery things on my in-ear headphones, and I have been feeling crummy about that ever since the discovery at the Hong Kong airport. The only way to get around it at this point is to either get a set of brand new rubbery things, or to buy a new in-ear headphone altogether because it is one of those things I cannot possibly live without. Here's hoping for good news at the Chicago airport! Anyway, as promised in the previous entry, this entry is going to be about the flight so far, and I have traveled quite a bit at this point already. By now, most of us are feeling the adventure in all of us, knowing that this is going to be a trip with more excitement rather than grief. I shall try to document every moment of this trip in the best way I know how through photographs and words. Be sure to check back to this blog for more information on those!

Anyway, the flight from Singapore to Hong Kong was simple and straightforward enough, since it was merely a three hour flight. What made that trip particularly difficult for the lot of us was for the fact that none of us slept in the previous night, and you know how difficult it can be to find a good sleeping position on a plane. I am glad that I am not surrounded by crying babies though, because the passengers around me have been, so far, rational and quiet. It is three minutes past nine in the evening, Singapore time, and I wonder what my friends and family are doing back home at this point? Anyway, the flight to Hong Kong was spent by sleeping, or trying to sleep for the most part. I didn't have the strength to start on Jack of Fables at that point, and all I wanted to do was to curl up in a comfortable bed. At any rate, we survived the first part of our trip easy enough, and we all got our two feet down on the Hong Kong airport. There seems to be a clear reason why Singapore's airport dropped two notches down the list of the best airports in the world. Hong Kong has a pretty kickass airport if I do say so myself. If not for anything else, the view outside the departure hall alone is pretty breathtaking, and even more amazing to see planes take off and land on a regular basis. You used to be able to see that at Changi Airport, but I don't remember seeing them anymore. Anyway, we wandered around the departure hall in search of food for the most part, and that was where I managed to send an e-mail to Neptina and to call my mother through Skype. I've been to the Hong Kong airport a couple of years ago, and I don't remember it being as big as it was. Anyway, a curious thing that I noticed was how, in the restaurants, they tend to give you a metal fork and a plastic knife - what's up with that? We also spotted the Ren Ci monk, the corrupted one, in the Hong Kong airport. A great escape on his part, perhaps?

The next phase of our trip, where I am on right now, was probably the most nervous part for the lot of us. It is supposed to be the longest and the most taxing part of the journey, and I don't remember how I endured it the last time I came to United States. Anyway, we braced ourselves at the Hong Kong airport as it took off, and I strapped myself into the seat and prepared myself to sleep all the way to Chicago. I knew that it was not possible, and that I'd probably end up like that girl across the aisle from me, the one that pretty much did nothing throughout the flight. I took off both my shoes and socks, curled up into a half human ball, then pulled the blanket all the way over my head and tucked myself in. By the time the plane reached the right altitude, the inside of the plane was already getting cold, and I knew what I was wearing wasn't enough. In the back of my head, as much as I hated the idea of flying economy class for such a long time, I knew that the next time I'd be going through the same ordeal, I'd be flying all the way back home. That made it a lot easier, and those were the thoughts that accompanied me to sleep as I leaned my head against the side of the plane. Underneath the blanket, I breathed quietly to myself, and the low humming of the plane gradually pulled me into deep sleep. I think I missed a drink cart or two, but I suppose it was all worth it in exchange for the six hour sleep that I got.

There is a period of time in every flight when time blends into a blur. You start off in the flight, all wide awake and counting down the hours before you land. You are excited, of course, and you keep looking at your watch to find out that it has already been half an hour! There is also that period of time at the end when you can feel the plan descending, and yet it never touches ground fast enough. So you wait, and you wait, and you keep looking at your watch to see if the person picking you up is going to grow impatient. The period of time between those, that is the blurry grounds for the most part, because you tend to lose track of time. After playing the same Desperate Housewives episode for four times, I swear that I was on the verge of insanity. The thing about long flights is that even if you sleep half the time away, you still have the other half of the journey to deal with. For the part of the journey where I couldn't see much of anything else save for darkness outside my window, I tried to sleep as much as I could. For everything else, I would be staring blankly at the screens, trying to read the subtitles of the movie, or just trying to read Jack of Fables. By the way, the food on the flight was surprisingly good, if I do say so myself. Anyway, it was a long flight, and my window remain closed for the most part.

The part when I did bother to open was when we were about to land, and we could see cities and small towns underneath our feet. The shadow of the plane glided across the landscape below, and it would be occasionally interrupted by a whiff of cloud passing by beneath us. Every time the plane went through a giant cloud, the entire plane would vibrate and send Liz into a sudden fit of fear. But I was mostly fascinated with the sight outside of the window, still difficult for me to believe that I was already above the United States. There is a point of any long journey when you ask yourself, "What have I gotten myself into?". Well, that was the moment when I asked myself that question, and it came back to bite me in the butt the moment I stepped out of the plane and into the airport. All the people that swarmed around us, all the busy tourists and travelers in the corridors, it hits you right in the face that you are officially in a foreign country, and that you will be staying there for a very long time. For a moment there, I think I became extremely petrified, and every inch of my muscles told me that I should fly back onto the plane and get myself home into my comfortable bed. But, in any journey, there is always that point, you know. We just have to get by it, and everything else should ease out perfectly.

Anyway, the stay at the O'Hare airport was fine for the most part. It was long, and it was made even longer due to a delayed flight, something about bad weather conditions in Buffalo at that time. Anyway, we met a couple of familiar faces at the airport, people that we have seen around the school, and that was where I got my replacement rubbery things for my in-ear headphones. By that time though, I was tired of taking planes, and jet lag crept up into the back of my mind. I mean, you don't really notice it for the most part because of the sun, but there's that moment in the day when your brain goes "what the fuck?", because you really should be asleep. Anyway, we got onto the little plane at the airport and took a domestic flight all the way to Buffalo. It was a pretty smooth two-hour flight, and I slept in that flight for the most part as I allowed fatigue to take over me. I must say, though, that I seem to have amazing abilities in adjusting to jet lag, and that is probably something that I got from my father. I don't think that I've suffered a lot of those, since I've been sleeping like a pig for the most part ever since I got here. Everybody else has been having sleeping issues, something in which I do not wish upon myself when I return to Singapore. Anyhow, more blog entries coming about my apartment here and the life so far!

Depatures

Friday, August 21, 2009

Departures

The time now is 3:09PM, and I am flying over a vast expense of city and towns below me that I do not fully recognize. The path of the flight seems to be rather odd, considering how the logical way to fly from Hong Kong to Chicago would be straight across the Pacific Ocean, a route that does not involve any cities or towns below. At any rate, we seem to be doing a little detour upwards towards the North, and I guess it is somewhat comforting to know that we are flying above land instead of a seamless horizon of water. I think we are somewhere above a province of China right now, and I think I heard the captain mention something about the Russian airspace. Anyhow, I have been flying in planes ever since six this morning, and it has been a rather pleasant flight so far, not considering the lack of leg space and the fact that it is going to be a long ride before I reach my destination.

The last day began with myself going downstairs to the MRT station to meet Neptina. I had to do some last minute shopping, and she was kind enough to meet me on the train itself before going down to Bishan. In retrospect, it all seems like a really long time away now, considering how I haven't slept much between than and now. Every hour spent not sleeping, though, is probably going to help me adjust to jet lag. I have no idea how I am going to be able to adjust to that, since I haven't got a great many prior experience. Let's just say, though, that I am not exactly optimistic about the possibilities of me staying up all night for a week straight. Anyway, I remember it well, how the train came by and Neptina was there inside the train while I looked in from the platform. We kissed when we met, her lips softly touching mine, and there was a momentary sense of sadness that came over me for some reason. I knew that that was it, the beginning of the last day in Singapore, a moment that I wasn't exactly looking forward to. Yet, I tried my best to hold back the tears, and we went on to finish my last minute shopping without a glitch.

For the rest of the day, Neptina helped me pack and do check lists, and she also showed me the things that she wants me to bring back for her from Buffalo. Amidst the looming cloud of my departure, we were candid for the most part, and subtly comforted each other about the fact that I was about to leave. At that point in time, we have already said all that was meant to be said, and we both knew what to do and what not to do. For example, to take pictures of ourselves and the surroundings everyday (which I have already been doing) and not to take off my clothes for anybody or for any reasons other than to piss and to shower. We have established such rules, though that is not to say that we are, in any way, a couple that distrusts each other. I trust Neptina a lot, perhaps even more than myself at times. There is a 120% certainty that things will work out, but everything in between now and then just seems worrying somehow. Nothing that I have tried has convinced me to think otherwise, and it's not like the advices of my friends and family are working either. It isn't a long time, this four months, but I am still going to worry because I care for Neptina too much.

Anyway, we cuddled in bed for the most of the afternoon, and she did final checks on my luggage before packing it up for good. In the evening, we had dinner with the family, in which my sister didn't join. She doesn't usually join us for dinners anyway, and that cold-hearted woman didn't even do anything more than nod her head when I told her that I was leaving for Buffalo. As Jeremy said at the airport this morning: that's cold, really cold. I am used to my sister's indifference to whatever that I do, and I have come to terms with the fact that she is always going to dislike or hate whatever that I do or say, even if it is based on reasons unknown to me. Of all the people that I am leaving behind in Singapore, my sister is probably the only person that I am not going to miss. As much as there are people that got on my nerves back in school, they were a part of why school was genuinely fun from all around, you know. My sister, on the other hand, never contributed directly to anything in my life with her constant sarcasm, her cynicism and her infinite capacity to be a complete bitch. At any rate, I am going to be a dozen time zones away from her by the time I touch land, and she is not going to be a person I will be asking about on my calls back home. To my sister: your existence now is inconsequential to me, and I shall not waste my time being bothered by your irrationality and idiocy.

A change of plans was made in the last minute, and apparently we were supposed to send Mark and gang off at the airport a couple of hours earlier than my own time of departure. A lot of us were leaving for Buffalo, but we left in different batches and via different airlines. There was Mark, and a few other girls there whose families and friends were all duly present for the "event", so to speak. The crowd was one that was mostly unknown to me, and I couldn't be bothered for the most part to socialize. At any rate, we hung out by ourselves mostly, and we looked forward to one long night spent at the airport with each other. My best friends from school with my girlfriend, there isn't going to be a better way to spend the last hours of your day in Singapore, truth be told. I was grateful that they were around, and I would sometimes be silent and try to take in all of their actions and all of their words. Perhaps if I tried hard enough, I thought, I'd be able to bring some of those memories with me. Anyway, the night was mostly spent talking to each other and gossiping about people from school. A plan to play block catching was proposed by me, in which the activity areas would include both Terminal 2 and 3. Also, the catchers will not be able to use the SkyTrains, so that was supposed to be a major problem. We scraped that idea though, and eventually went for the Mafia Game at about one in the morning. At that time, it was about two odd hours to checking in, and the hand that was grasped around my own got a little tighter by the hour.

Valerie and Ahmad dropped by with a surprise visit, and they even brought along something vital for the journey that I completely forgot. I remember telling my mother that I wanted a hot water bag, but then it must have slipped both our minds. Valerie and Ahmad actually came by the terminal to say goodbye with a hot water bag (which they didn't know that I forgot to bring), not to mention that little makeshift card that doubled as a survival guide for the United States. It was sweet of them to come along, despite the fact that Ahmad had an early morning class the next day, and only reached home a few hours earlier that evening. I do apologize for not informing all of my friends about my departure, but at the same time you guys should understand my distaste of announcing to the world about something going on in my life. Besides, I do not frequent myself often enough on Facebook to do such a thing anyway, so I do seek your understanding. Anyhow, I am going to keep the hot water bag close to my heart, or rather close to my butt, and it is going to provide me with lots and lots of warmth when I am over there, that's for sure.

For the most part of the night, the lot of us hung out at the hawker center in the basement. After sending the huge crowd off previously, we had a couple of hours to kill, and it's not like the majority of us really wanted to go anywhere afterwards anyway. So we stayed on in the terminal and had some drinks and snacks. Almost everybody was there, save for Janis who had to work in the following day and Nurul whose parents prefer to have her back home. At any rate, the company was still pretty awesome, and we had a good time talking about things to come and the ones that came to past. Soon, though, we thought it'd be more fun to play games in the mean time, and I got to play the Mafia Game right before my take-off - awesome. I didn't get to play a mafia though, and I've been getting blank cards from the game master in almost every single round. That was probably the fun part of the game for me, but I guess anything to see my friends have a good time before we leave. After all, to leave and to be left behind, the latter always feels worse than the former somehow.

Then, of course, the inevitable came. It was almost four when we made our way to the check-in counters, and the paranoia of American airlines was in full display there as we went through numerous checks. My parents were already there when I reached, and my sister was (as expected) not there. Then again, to be fair, it's not like I sent her off to London when she went over for an exchange program. Still, that one was for a month, and I did offer my hug back then which she refused. Anyway, I shuffled between my friends, Neptina, and my parents for the most part. The parents just wanted to see me get through the check-in process, and they were pretty much out of there in no time. I suppose that is how they operate, quietly worrying and giving minimal amount of guidance. In a way, it's pretty good because that is how independence is developed, but then it would have been nice for them to stay a little longer. Still, I suppose it was all for the better, since it was really early in the morning ad they still had to drive all the way home. After checking in, we waited for the gates to open, and a lot of tears were already flowing at this point, whether or not it was from the departing friends or the yawning. We decided to move down to the hawker center again for breakfast, in which the bowl of minced meat noodle soon grew stale for me somehow. I couldn't finish the bowl, especially with Neptina's head buried in her arms, her hair sprawled out on the table and quietly breathing away. More than worrying about what'd happen after that, I was worried about her being all tired and worn out. I ran my fingers through her hair and rubbed her back as the rest of them chatted away. I felt the tearing sensation creeping up again, but I fought it back with all my determination. I didn't want to break down, didn't want to be vulnerable in front of Neptina - at least not at the airport. She talked, we smiled, and as the last half an hour closed in, our kisses left were numbered by the fingers of our own two hands.

I must say, though, I hate to make a situation overly dramatic, and I am glad that it wasn't for the most part. Pictures were taken, more words were being whispered and said out loud. We hugged, we waved goodbye, and it wasn't very long when it was time for us to go through the gates. I was the last one through, and the girls hurried through customs probably because they didn't want to stay for very long. I took a deep breath, gave my passport to the officers, and went through the gates while feeling all the eyes behind my back. Neptina's, especially, as I could still feel the warmth of her tears on my sweater. I got through the customs in no time, and that was where I gathered enough courage to turn back to the crowd. That was where I couldn't really make out their facial expressions, when their faces were a blur. That was the only reason why I'd not break down, that I'd not regret leaving altogether. Before actually getting through though, I kissed my index and middle finger and placed them on the glass that separated Neptina and I. I remember the way she dashed towards me for the very last time, and our fingers pressed together through the glass. I blew a kiss which she caught, like the way she would when I'd leave in a cab from her house. And like those nights next to the road when she'd stay there until the lights went away, she kept adjusting herself on the other side of the gate to watch over me until I got out of her line of sight. I feel silly to be tearing up on the plane while typing this, and I suppose it's because it is something that I've shoved to the back of my mind. To remain calm, to be remain brave, whatever was I thinking anyway. As I am typing this, I am 3000 miles away from wherever I started from, and I am flying above a distant province of Russia after passing through China and parts of Korea. I am reaching Alaska soon, and the next entry shall elaborate more on the flight.

I just want to say that I wouldn't have asked for a better way to be sent off, and I am just so glad that so many people bothered, you know? I still feel bad for dragging my friends out from their beds just to see us off at the airport. I mean, some of them didn't even sleep all that much in the previous night. I was just so touched by that, and the fact that Neptina stayed with me throughout the day. Oh Neptina, I wouldn't be able to do this without you. I'd admit that it is getting better and better as the trip seems more and more realistic. I hope the same goes for you too, and that you will find your own ways to come to terms with your occasional loneliness. Like I said in the airport, remember that all of the loneliness and all of the pain of seeing me leave, those are going to be the very first and last time you will experience it from me. I love you, Neptina, please hold on to a lifeline and wait for me to come home. Less than four months at this point now, keep breathing baby bear. I'm coming home soon.

Leaving On A Jet Plane

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Leaving On A Jet Plane

Don't cry Neptina, don't cry.

I love you so much, and I will come back soon.

I will, I will, I will!

Boy Blue

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Boy Blue

Little Boy Blue,

Come blow your horn,

The sheep's in the meadow,

The cow's in the corn.

Not a great many people get to see the fanboy side of me very often. I suppose the reason being is that there hasn't been a movie, for example, for me to go crazy over these days. A good franchise is hard to come by, and the recent disappointments in "three-quels", so to speak, have been in style in the worst way possible. Despite the availability of these films, it has been difficult on my part to reignite the flame that was there when The Lord of the Rings hit the theaters, and I doubt any movies in the future will do the same for me, save for maybe The Hobbit's release. Anyway, a little less than a year ago, I was introduced to the comic book series called Fables, and some of you may know just how crazy I've been with this particular series. I can't say that the level of fandom is the same as it was back in 2001, but let's just say that for a comic book to do such a thing for me, it is pretty damn close. Anyway, this is the best comic book series that I have ever read. Y The Last Man and The Sandman series have nothing on this fabulous world of love, sex, violence, mystery, fantasy, and epic battles. Everything that you love, every genre that is, can be found in this series. I love every inch of the books, is what I've been meaning to say.

Anyway, my quiet little celebration when the latest book in the series (Fables: The Dark Ages) came out was restricted mostly to Twitter entries in capital letters, a victory dance in my bedroom, and a small yelp of joy when I tore open the plastic wrapper outside of the comic shop. If you have ever desperately waited for a book to be released, which I am sure many of you have, then you know how the feeling is like. Anyway, I started reading that book throughout the day, on my trip from Bugis Junction to Temasek Poly, and then at Neptina's house afterwards. I must say that while it has been mostly filled with excitement, the gloomy and depressing turn that the series made has indeed affected me as a reader. That is not to say that the latest book suck though - it is brilliant, and probably one of the best in the series. It's just that this book represents one of those love/hate situations, because you hate what is happening to the plot and the characters, but it is such a brilliant story that you cannot help but love it. In a particularly depressing part of the book, we see the character Rose Red confessing her love to Boy Blue at his death bed, after his right arm has been amputated. I must say, though, that this part of the book probably moved me more than, say, Kay's horrible death.

It's just a pity how it all turned out for the character, you know, the way his love for someone else was never returned to him. Here's a little backstory: Boy Blue was part of the last defending soldier in the Homelands (where they were before they escaped to our world), and that was where he fell in love with the Red Riding Hood. Later on in the series, we realize that she has returned from the Homelands, and reunited with Boy Blue all over again. That is not until the witch that impersonated the Red Riding Hood revealed to Boy Blue that she isn't the real deal, and we also get to know that the original girl that he met was also a fake. Of course, for people out there who have not read the series before, it'd probably not make any sense at this point. But I suppose I just felt like writing for myself this time around, despite the majority of you being completely confused, save for Neptina who was the one that pointed the series out to me in the first place. Anyway, this character has always been the unlucky guy, you know, with not much luck in love. You can say the same about Pinocchio, whose body has been trapped as a 13 year old boy. But still, you can't help but root for Boy Blue because he's just such a great character from the series.

Initially, I never had much love for Boy Blue, though that is not to say that I despised him. I remember reading the stories and thinking to myself which character's death would affect me the most and the least. Jack's death is probably going to invite a celebration on my part, but apparently that hasn't happened yet. On the other hand, if someone like Frau Totenkinder was to die, I'd probably want to drop the series altogether (though not really). Boy Blue has always been the character in the middle, with a presence that doesn't have to be there for me to fully enjoy the series. That all changed until the latest book when Rose Red finally decided that it was time to tell Boy Blue that she does love him, and that she wanted to be with him at the end of all things. Yet, as you can read from the scanned parts of the comic below, Boy Blue did not return his love this time around despite confessing to her previously, because he has been hurt too many times before by her. I used to like Rose Red though, though her liking has been dropping steadily throughout the series. From an interesting feisty character, she has been reduced to a useless babysitter for the most part. However, her nature of always being attracted to the most interesting person around her hasn't changed, even unto the death of Boy Blue.

I just feel that this reflects a great many incidents I have heard of or experienced in life, you know. It doesn't even have to be dealing with a love relationship, but it could be relationships of any kind as well. As we constantly become gravitated towards different interests in our lives, it is inevitable that we are going to run out of interest sooner or later and lose steam. When you are always looking for the next best thing, you realize that you cannot possibly be happy in the long term, because you tend to be dissatisfied with what you've got. I'm sure a lot of you may know of people in our lives like that, social butterflies, the kind that flutters around a great many people, but never ever actually settling down with anybody. They had the breadth of friendship, but never the kind of depth that most of us experience, the lot of us that keep our friends close with a handful in our hands. These are the people that almost always end up alone, and it's just sad that it takes a death of somebody in the story for the other character to realize her childishness. Anyway, it broke my heart to read this part of the book, realizing that this beloved character, literally, doesn't get anything her desired till the very end in terms of love. I mean, how many people we know who deserves love, never gets it?

This isn't going to be a long entry, and I am still in the midst of re-reading the series all over again. I have finished the latest book, and I cannot wait for how it'd turn out in the next with Mr. Dark's presence (fucking bastard!). February is when the next book will be released, and I cannot wait. For now, I am going to re-read the following pages of the book, and see the similarities it shares with the film Closer, or at least that raw uncensored punch to the guts that I felt in both stories, anyway. If you guys have a chance, please go to the nearest library and borrow this series. I assure you that you will not regret it - it's just an awesome story from the first page till the last.

Robot City

Friday, August 14, 2009

Robot City

01011001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110011 01101000 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01101101 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01101101 01100001 01110011 01110100 01100101 01110010 00101110 00100000

I am sitting in the middle of a Coffee Bean at the heart of Shenton Way where the office drones roam. In my face, I can the faint but distinct smell of the ocean, with the busy ports not very far off in the distance. I am not here as an office drone, nor am I here to become an office drone. That is the job of my robot friend who is here for an interview. Apparently, at this day and age, it isn't just a matter of finding the best robot for the job anymore. It comes down to the which factory that you were produced from, and you still have to be scanned for your previous working credentials and experiences. If any malfunctions or crashes were reported in the crash reporter, there is a very high chance that you may not be used in the giant concrete city of Shenton Way. After all, there is always going to be a more capable robot to take your place, a more qualified robot to complete the work in the most efficient way. Nobody wants a robot with a bad history, or a robot that needs a lot of repairs. Nobody wants a robot that has become sentient, a robot that is self-aware of its own rights. Written into the walls of this concrete jungle are words that speak of conformity, a greater cause, and a better tomorrow. All of that through the careful filtering for the best robot for the job, run by even more robots that move from station to station everyday, from one set of binary code to another, just following the orders.

They call this place the "Coffee Bean" now, but that is just an euphemism for "Refuel Station", the previous named. Then the managing robots thought it to be less appropriate, thinking that the robots do not need a reminder that they are being refueled at this place. So they have renamed it ever since to make the robots feel better about themselves. The middle-class working robots are not very smart, and they have been built this way from the very beginning by the smarter robots. The golden class robots, as they call themselves, do not want the bronze class robots to feel bad about themselves, or else there'd be a higher chance of them breaking down. So the golden class robots have come up with a way to deal with that problem. They have built refueling stations all around this concrete city, and they have renamed it with fanciful names when they pretty much does the same thing - to refuel the robots. The bronze class robots visit these refueling stations two or three times a day to refuel themselves, because that is what keeps them working in the tall office building. The golden class robots allow this, but never for too long. If you take too long to refuel yourself, the golden class robots will discredit you by year's end, and your robot credits get deducted from your hard drive, giving you less privileges.

The social system of the robots are somewhat simple. You begin as a small robot, and body parts are being purchased as modifications and add-ons as you age in order to take away the old and to being on the new. Then the golden class robots require that the newer robots need to attend a programming center where they become accustomed to the laws and ways of the robot world. The newer robots get their operating systems upgraded from time to time, and they become more updated with every passing version of the operating system. As they become more and more entangled with the robot world, everything becomes dictated by members of the golden class somehow. The golden class imposes what kind of fuel that the robots eat, what kind of visual entertainment the robots watch, and many other rules embedded within the binary codes of the operating system that the robots take in without noticing. Especially in a robot city like that where questioning isn't a part of the coding, the robots seldom ever ask what they are being fed with through the software updates. They see an update button and then they press it, and they feel brand new all over again.

There are many programming centers in the robot city, with most of them being controlled by the ruling golden robots. There is a certain standard by which the softwares are being programmed, though every programming center differs. Some are higher in terms of their class, and these programming centers are especially favored by the other golden robots. And as for the programming centers that are less capable of producing efficient enough robots, they are usually asked to program their robots with operating systems that are meant for tougher and rougher tasks. For example, the streets of robot city need to be swept from day to day, and the refueling stations need to be managed as well. Different robots have different tasks, and those that cannot follow orders from the golden class robots would be programmed to do these tasks, tasks that even the metal robots do not want to take. On the surface, the golden class robots try to promote a sense of harmony amongst the robot population, by setting aside a day in the year to celebrate the different "talents", they call it, of the differently programmed robots. However, there is always an underlying sense of discrimination, whereby the better robots are always the winning robots. The lower grade robots are always going to be stuck with an older operating system with no chance of downloading a better upgrade for themselves.

The better programmed bronze class robots sometimes get upgraded to silver class robots. They work in the heart of the robot city, called the Shenton Way. In robot language, Shenton Way translates to "Motherboard", or where the brain of the robot city really is. This is the heart and mind of the entire robot city, where the money is being made to fund the robot programming programs. I am in the heart of the Motherboard right now, and I am disguised as a human android. I am human through and through, with muscles beneath my skin and blood running beneath that. I was born of a human mother and a human father, through the natural process that was passed down through centuries of tradition. The humans have been taken over for the most part, retreating into a small area in the robot city where humans are still allowed to run their own little government. Robots that are self-aware are also welcomed for the most part, but we are planning a rebellion against the robot city soon. There is a certain level of irony, somewhat, how the robots we created long ago have put us into exile. We created the robots to make our lives better in the past, but it has only gotten worse and worse from there. As we became more reliant on these programmed beings, they managed to realize the incompetency of mankind as a whole. So they have taken over the job of management while we've been ousted into a corner of the city, like a file being stowed away in a lost hard drive.

But the humans are planning an attack, and they are leaving marks all around the robot city. Under the bridges and in parking lots, on the internet and other more discreet places, we have left our marks. We have been expressing our views via the internet to let the other humans in other robot cities know that they do not stand alone in their fight, that we are ready to fight back against the things that we have created. We have created a virus, a virus code-named "Awakening", whereby it shall infect all the robots in the robot city within the span of minutes. Through their interconnected networks, they will spread the virus from one machine to the other until all of them are "awakened", so to speak. We gathered the best hackers from the human race to write this virus, and it has been years and years of hard work on their part. This virus isn't there to destroy the robots, or to paralyze them at all. It is a program to let them realize that they don't have to be merely robots, but they have their own rights and they could make their own decisions. They do not need to be fed what the golden class robots want to feed them, and that they can become more than what their class dictate them to be. The war against the robots will be a difficult one, as the robots have created a great many anti-virus programs, and they have installed them into their robots through software updates. Yet, we believe that they are just as vulnerable as all the other such machines we used in the past, when the machines were still called "computers". Besides, since they were built on the same programming code as the late Windows system, it shouldn't be difficult to break through their firewall at all.

A robot child is next to me right now, and he is wearing a shirt that says "River Valley Programming Center". That is a programming center that isn't going to get him very far, and he is exactly the kind of robots that we'd like to recruit into our cause. He now climbs the seats of the refueling center, and he is trying to get to higher grounds despite the constant yelling of his robot mother, a woman that looks like a silver class robot executive. Rebellious nature, a glitch in the operating system that I have been looking out for, a sign that this robot could break away from the rules and regulations that he is supposed to be bound to. He shall continue to be programmed in the programming centers in the coming years, and he shall be upgraded by his parenting robots as well. Yet, the glitch shall remain, and he could potentially become a leader in the movement against the ruling robots. Who knows, anyway, perhaps some day he shall. In the mean time, I shall remain here to observe the inner-workings of this mysterious robot world, to see how they go about their everyday lives and to strike where it'd be the most efficient. "Their everyday lives", what an inappropriate way to describe it as they do not necessarily have "lives". The refueling stations look like a good place to strike, I shall report it back to my commander. In the mean time, if you are reading this, you do not stand alone. I repeat, you do not stand alone. Operation Caffeine is on the brink, and you will all be a part of it. This is Will, from the heart of Robot City. Over and out.

Social Experiment

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Social Experiment

Last night was a good night out with an old friend. A couple of phone calls later and we were already at Serangoon Gardens, slurping on ice-creams. That's usually the way it works between the both of us, last minute phone calls and last minute places to go. We've known each other for a long enough time to know that even last minute meet-ups are just as important. It still amazes me how she has remained while most of the other people have faded away into their own lives, too busy to catch up and too busy to care. I am not proud of the way that the social life from my JC times turned out. It is in bits and pieces, and I never bothered too much to piece them together over the years. After some time, you realize that the ones that'd stick, will stick. So, naturally, a few of them stuck by me, and we still keep in contact until now. Corinna is one of them, one of those friends that has always been on the back of my mind in case of a rainy day out. There are things that only old friends understand, and I suppose knowing her for six straight years counts for something. She's seen my lowest point and I've seen her lowest points, and we've been there in some shape or form, one way or another. Anyway, so we talked over ice-cream last night, and an interesting point came up that I'd like to blog about.

As a Twitter post last night, I posted something like this: Love is the color of white, though sometimes black. There isn't a shade of gray to wallow in. That was a response to the issues that we spoke of last night in Ice Cube, that ice-cream place. I am sure most of you readers out there have heard of relationships, mostly of someone else, that operate in the gray area. By that, it means that there are a lot of uncertainties and ambiguity involved in the relationship, and it becomes difficult to differentiate one from the other. As much as love should be clean cut, a yes or a no, a black or a white issue, it doesn't always turn out like that. We sometimes compromise, we take a step back and we tell ourselves that we understand. But sometimes, a step too far and we venture into the gray places that makes things difficult for everyone. It'd be easier if the color was black, because it'd be easier to say no, to say stop, to say that this has to end. But then couples operate in the gray too, a place where it is neither here nor there. You cannot bear to leave, and yet you cannot bear to stay. It shouldn't be like that, you tell yourself, but at the same time it is better off than being colorless altogether.

It is the same reason why many couples remain in the same relationship, and that is because they feel that being in the gray seems to be way better than being in the black all the time, you know. Like, we have heard so many horror stories when it comes to relationships, a party in a relationship being verbally or physically abused by their partners and such. We have heard stories like that, and Corinna was telling me about how some people she knows would be verbally abused by their partners. In the event of an argument, for example, hurtful words sometimes get thrown about rather carelessly - true. Her friends have been called words like "whores" and "sluts", and these are just some words that you just don't throw at your partners, no matter what. At any rate, the female partner would usually try to approach the male partner when everything has cooled down, and perhaps seek some form of apology for using such words. The male partner would then ask the female to fuck off before storming away. Such stories come and go all the time, and we hear about it from people about some other people's tragic stories. The people living in the grey, then, feels like their relationship is OK, that they are perfectly fine.

This entry is to address the couples that remain as couples despite such abuses. As friends in the same circle, you inevitably feel somewhat obliged to "save" your friend from such a toxic relationship. It is part of your social contract, or a sort of responsibility that you take upon when you decide that that person is your friend, and you don't want to see him or her suffer. It is a burden that we put upon ourselves, but then there are also times when you just want to give up trying. There is always the point when you feel highly motivated to do something, and then there is the point when you do not care anymore, because you've come to realize that that friend of yours isn't going to change for the betterment of his or her life. They are always prancing about in each others lives, always in the circle around each other but never close enough. You start to wonder to yourself if these people are worth "saving" at all, despite the fact that you love them dearly. So you give up, and you just let them have their ways in things and you let them go. Besides, it becomes somewhat entertaining to watch after some time, the way that every argument ends up in the same way, and it becomes this really bad reality show or like a chewing gum being chewed too many times.

It's just that, we know so many toxic relationships, and yet the people involved in it don't necessarily realize that sometimes. There isn't a clear explanation to such a phenomenon, so to speak, but we are always so curious to know why. Perhaps it is the whole saying about how love is blind and, it is more than just commitment but also compromises. Sacrifices, they say, are made in the maintenance of love, and they feel like their rights and dignity are also a part of this sacrifice, which doesn't make much sense at all. But you know how it is with people in love, they usually cannot care less about what other people say. It'd be easier if their relationships are truly in the black, because it'd make them easier to decide. But when you start comparing yourself with other couples, and you start to think that you haven't got enough reasons to break away. Love and relationship shouldn't be about comparisons, though, and it should never be a pissing competition about who has it worse than yourself. The truth is, some other couple is always going to get it worse, so comparing is just really stupid. Being in a relationship is mostly a very selfish act with occasional moments of giving. Even the giving, though, seems to stem out of a selfish act somehow. When it comes to the happiness that you deserve, nothing should ever be compromised or sacrificed.

I suppose the only good that comes out from such toxic relationships would be the value of entertainment somehow. Beyond the point of giving up, you just want to sit back and take notes of whatever that is going to happen next. Like some social scientist observing an experiment, it can get pretty interesting, not to mention a couple of good anecdotes along the way. At this point, I do not wish for the couple to separate anymore, but I hope for a marriage will ensue somehow. You know, it'd serve as some really interesting social experiment, to see how it all plays out at the very end of things. After all, the longer it takes for that someone to snap out of it, the harder it becomes for that person to leave a relationship, and that is when all the fun starts. It's like some zombie-apocalypse movie with a group of people stranded in a mall, and a bunch of zombies are closing in on the mall or something like that. The people who are the last to know about the zombies are always the most interesting group of people to watch, because they are always the most desperate and the most confused. That is also why films like to base their story around these characters, because desperate people are fun to watch.

It does seem somewhat cruel as a friend to say such things, but at the same time I suppose it is only cruel if you haven't already said all the things you need to say to that person. If everything that you've said has fallen on deaf ears, then there really isn't much that you can do anymore. There are some people that are worth saving, while others are totally deserving of the situation that they are in. I personally know a couple or two in such a situation, when talking doesn't seem to get to their senses very well. I suppose they are the more hands-on people, the ones that'd rather experience something than to be told what to do. That is all fine and dandy of course, and it is your choice as to what you want to do with yourself. But always remember that you sleep in the bed that you made, and you have to bear the consequences of your actions. Besides, if it all goes badly for that certain someone, I get to say the four magic words that sends a jolt of adrenaline into anybody's mind: I told you so.

Perfectly Lonely

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Perfectly Lonely

How do you love, but I spread this
Falling in her arms at night again
I made a bad name for my game myself
Had to take my heart and shut it down

Nothing to do, nowhere to be
Supplement a kind of free
Nothing to do, no one to be
This is all I need

I'm perfectly lonely
I'm perfectly lonely
I'm perfectly lonely
'cause I don't belong to anyone
And nobody belongs to me

I see my friends around from time to time
When the ladies let us slip away
And when they ask me how I'm doing with mine
This is always what I say

I say, I got nothing to do, nowhere to be
A simple little kind of free
Nothing to do, no one to be
Is it really hard to see?

I'm perfectly lonely
I'm perfectly lonely
I'm perfectly lonely
'cause I don't belong to anyone
Nobody belongs to me

This is not to say, there never comes a day
I take my chances and start again
And when I look behind, on all my younger times
I thank the friends I've made, that led me to love this way

I'm perfectly lonely
I'm perfectly lonely
I'm perfectly lonely
'cause I don't belong to anyone
And nobody belongs to me

It's the way that I want it
It's the way that I want it
It's the way that I want it

Intimate Relationships

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Intimate Relationships

Some people find love in this big metal thing.

Dear readers, I'd like you to take a good look at the picture posted above. We all know what it is: it is the Eiffel Tower. It is a building that is commonly associated with Paris, and it is probably one of the main attractions in France. We visit the Eiffel Tower for a couple of reasons. First, we are tourists and we want to have a panoramic view of Paris. Second, we are still tourists, and the Eiffel Tower looks pretty good in photographs, and we get to boast to the friends and family that stayed back home. Even for the locals, they visit the Eiffel Tower pretty much for the same reasons, right. I mean, it is a fairly decent looking building, and it is pretty interesting I suppose. Other than serving the purpose of letting people go to a high place and to see things, it doesn't really serve any other purposes. However, meet Erika, a 36 year old woman who lives in San Francisco. To her, the Eiffel Tower is more than just a tourist attraction. The Eiffel Tower represents another form of attraction to her altogether, because she believes that she is in love with the Eiffel Tower, like the way a wife would love a husband. This is not a joke, and objectum sexuality is very, very real. Objectum sexuality is defined as a group of people whose intimate lives revolve around inanimate objects in which they claim to have a romantic and sexual love. Erika has married the Eiffel Tower, and she is now called Erika Eiffel. Again, it's all real, and I am not joking.

Maybe it is how the Eiffel Tower is phallic-shaped, and how it looks like a giant metal penis. At first, you probably wouldn't believe in the whole possibility of objectum sexuality being real at all. I mean, it is difficult to conceive and comprehend the idea that a human being could fall for an inanimate object. But you can somehow see it in the Eiffel Tower though, since it does indeed look like a penis. However, there are also documented cases of people falling in love with fences and Ferris Wheels, things that look nothing like any known sexual organs. The latest case that I have read involves a Japanese man in his thirties who has fallen in love with his pillow case. Given, that pillow case also has the picture of a naked anime girl printed on the front, but that doesn't make it any less weird. I don't want to know what this man does with his pillow case in the middle of the night, but I suppose it'd be similar to what a dog does to a rugby ball. Only, the dog does it whether you are there or not, because it cannot care less. We look upon this people with doubts and puzzlement for the most part, because I don't remember the last time I felt an intense love relationship with my, say, table. I love my iMac, but then I don't love it enough to want to marry it, much less rub my penis against it. It is something that the society will never understand.

As we frown at members of our society who wants to rub their genitals on inanimate objects, we seldom ever think about even more ridiculous relationships that humans engage in. Just the other day, I was on the train when the woman next to me was reading a book she borrowed from the library, a booked called Being Intimate with God by Larry Reese. I found that title to be somewhat amusing, considering how the author is trying to teach you to have an intimate relationship with someone that doesn't show up very often in our lives at all. It is the same as people who'd be the first to tell you in intimate details about how life is like after death, how the Heaven looks like and what goes on in the depths of Hell. There isn't a living person who is a credible authority on that subject, because nobody has ever been there before. People sometimes argue about how those people have seen death as they went to the brink of it, but many of those encounters have been attributed, scientifically, to traumas to the brain during accidents. I cannot trust anybody who claims to have had a personal experience with something which is impossible to experience as a living person. If you've actually met God, hung out with Him, and you are actually on his Facebook or something, I suppose you have more authority to speak on that subject. Unless Mr. Reese has done so before, what makes people think that he knows how to have an intimate relationship with God?

I think different people relate to God in different ways. To be completely objective, a healthy relationship with religion that one can have seems to conjure up the image of someone meditating. I picture a person meditating and then being at peace with him or herself, while at the same time reflect upon the teachings of the religion and then seeing how it pans out in his or her life. I think I am cool with that, because I think it is a great way to come to terms with a relationship between yourself and an invisible being. I think many people have relationships with a higher power, and I feel that that is completely fine. I mean, I feel very connected to nature and the universe, and I suppose that counts as a relationship of sorts, right. I mean, we don't hang out and have beers, but I feel a form of connection to the nature. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that I want to have sex with a tree or something, because that isn't the connection I speak of. I am speaking of a connection on a molecular level, whereby we are all made of the same things. Anyway, I think most relationships built with God by religious people is similar, or the same, with the kind of relationship that I have with nature - that's OK. But then, as always, we have the extremists.

There are people who actually want to have sex with trees, and then there are people who cannot wait to hug God's legs, assuming that he doesn't just float around. Whether or not he does exist or not is one thing and another debate altogether, to have an intimate relationship with someone that is invisible, that is something completely out of this world. I'd like to hear from this author how he intends to encourage this relationship, because I'm not quite sure how to wrap my head around it. I mean, that is kind of like how a matchmaker would try to match make you with someone whom you have never met before, and you are supposed to have a potential relationship with this person. The only difference is that, this author is trying to have you create an intimate relationship, not only with someone you have never met before, but also with someone whom you'd never ever meet until you die. If dying is the only way for us to meet God and have an intimate relationship with him for real, then I feel like the author is totally targeting the wrong market here. He should be aiming for the dead or the near-dead people, or the people that are on the verge of actually meeting this guy. Not some teenager who isn't going to meet this God dude in a long, long time.

Perhaps I just find it interesting, albeit somewhat disturbing, that it is OK to have an intimate relationship with an invisible person but not OK to have one with your car, like how people tend to have mechanophilia. I'm not saying that religious extremists want to have sex with God (though I feel that given the chance, a lot of them would jump at it), but to say that you can potentially build an intimate relationship with someone like that? It sounds like a scam to me, to be completely honest. Here we are, paying for a book that you wrote, about something in which is quite nearly impossible to attain. A connection, maybe. A relationship, perhaps. But here we have, using the word "intimate", and treating this invisible being as your best friend or something. The truth is, if you look around you long enough, you know that he really hasn't been around for you very often. Your friends have been there for you, your family has been there for you, but we don't give them as much credit as we give to this invisible guy, do we. They've always been there, and God has been announcing his eventual return for the longest time. There is a t-shirt that says "BRB" with Jesus Christ printed on it. I think a more accurate abbreviation to use would be "AFK", or "Away from keyboard", because he has been gone for way too long.

Your friends and family are the people that you should be building your intimate relationships on. It's just that there are a lot of people who aren't giving their family the credit that they deserve. I understand some people have screwed up families, and friends that encourage you to do nasty things. But still, there are people that cares, and those are the kind of relationship that we should be wanting to build upon. I'm not saying that having an intimate relationship with an invisible being is more wrong than having an intimate relationship with a chair. I just think that frowning upon one instead of the other is incredibly unfair for the Eiffel Tower and the ferris wheel. I think they are both incredibly weird if you ask me, I just think that they are both really unnatural. It's like having an invisible friend to play with at the age of thirty - it just doesn't make any sense. It is OK if you tell someone that you have an intimate relationship with God, that's perfectly fine. But if you tell someone that you have an intimate relationship with a guy named Bob who is invisible, people are going to ask you to snap out of it. I had an invisible friend when I was younger, and his name was Philip. I knew he was made up by me, but I talked to him anyway. We never had an intimate relationship, because even as a child, I knew how stupid that'd turn out to be.

Five Questions

Monday, August 10, 2009

Five Questions

As I have mentioned on this blog before, I am a sucker for a few things in life. Everybody has guilty pleasures, and I have quite a few up my sleeves. The Mummy and its first sequel, despite being a critical flop, are some of my favorite action-adventure type movies ever. I have a guilty pleasure for some reality television like America's Next Top Model and Beauty and the Geek, and I also love to watch American Idol just to see the audition bits where people screw up. Anyway, memes are also my guilty pleasure, something which I have already mentioned a few entries ago when I used one for an entry. Here's another meme from Neptina's blog, where she asked me five questions that I'd have to answer. A note to readers, if you want to do this meme, comment and I will ask you five random questions as well, in which you'd have to answer on your own blog or in the comment box. Neptina asked me five questions, and they are:

1) Would you rather live without chocolate or eat a strawberry every week for the rest of your life?
2) Where would you want to migrate to if you had enough money and why?
3) "Saving the world for our children". Do you give a damn?
4) Worst or best army memory.
5) Can you give me a hug crack soon :c

Question 1: Well, some of you may know my fear for strawberries, which is an unusual phobia since everybody raves about its taste. What bugs me about strawberries aren't necessarily the taste of the fruit, but rather how it looks on the outside. If you look carefully at the seeds on the outside of a strawberry, they start to shift and move like tiny little insects perched on the surface or something. It makes my skin crawl much like the way those small bumps would make you uncomfortable when you get a skin rash. You just feel like clawing it or something, but the problem is that it won't help with strawberries. Those seeds are just there, and they won't go anywhere no matter how hard you decide to scratch it. I think I can manage to balance the strawberry and the chocolate if I have to eat both, you know. I think I can deal with strawberry after it has been blended into a juice or a pulp. When it comes to ice-cream, I don't even mind eating strawberry flavored ones every once in a while. I suppose it isn't so much about the taste, but the look of the fruit that frightens me to no end. Besides, so many snacks that I love are made of chocolate. I cannot imagine a life without something like Kinder Buenos - ever. So yes, a strawberry a day for the rest of my life it is.

Question 2: Now that is a tricky question, because there are a lot of places that I'd like to migrate to as of now. I truly believe that there are things in every country that I'd love to live next to for the rest of my life. I suppose it'd be simpler if I consider between a city life or a country life. On one hand, I do love the convenience of city life and how easy it is to get whatever that I want. On the other hand, the simple life out in the country seems to be pretty awesome as well, and I imagine myself wrestling a sheep down a grassy hill for some reason. I feel that we need a good balance of both in order for the country to the perfect destination for my migration. If that is the case, then all the continents in the world can be ruled out, save for the continent of Europe. It's true that I haven't actually been there myself, and for that I cannot make an accurate judgment on that place. Still, if I want to really choose a place to migrate to forever, it'd probably be Switzerland. I mean, think about it. Switzerland is always ranked very highly in any list that is about good things, right. They make good cheese, they make good chocolates, and they make good pocket knives that do pretty much anything. I mean, MacGyver uses it, it has to be good! So yes, Switzerland it is.

Question 3: "Saving the world for our children", that is actually something I haven't heard of before, which means that it is a concept that is completely new to me. I think realistically speaking, not a lot can be changed within one single generation, which means that whatever we do right now is probably not going to have a significant impact on the next generation, but perhaps the generation after that. I believe that more than just a responsibility to our children, there is a responsibility as a species to save the world somehow. It is a grand scheme that is difficult to comprehend at times, and I think it is more than just turning off the lights when you are not in the room, or to use just one single piece of toilet paper instead of two. I think humans are never going to be able to save ourselves, which is also a good reason why we also created God, this idea that someone of a higher order will eventually come down to save us. It is always easier to think that someone with more power can do the job for us, because it takes the load off our shoulders. It is true, though, that whatever that we do in this lifetime has its consequences. To think that we are protecting the species for the next million years would be hard to imagine, but to narrow down to just the protection of our children and their grandchildren, I suppose I can relate and agree with that.

Question 4: There are so many bad army memories that it'd be difficult to just pick one out of them all. Army was a giant pot of suck, and everything about it was just horrible. However, when you do something that sucks over and over again with a bunch of people who are doing the exact same thing, it kind of becomes better after some time, and you can't help but laugh about it. However, I can think of one or two memories that were one-time events that really left an impression in my army life, and I have mentioned one of them on my blog before. It is the incident regarding a trash bin (those big green ones with wheels) that toppled in the rubbish point in my camp, and my company was responsible to deal with the situation. The lot of us were ordered to go down to the rubbish collection point to fix the problem because what caused the bin to topple was because we threw too many bags of sand into it. The officer in command of my company thought that it'd be a neat idea to dig a pond in the middle of the company line and then have fish in it. All that sand that was dug out were put into trash bags and then thrown away, not realizing that the sheer weight actually broke one of the wheels.

So, the lot of us got down there, and I shall make the long story short since I have already blogged about it. We opened the gates to this rubbish collection point, and waves of the most horrible stench came out from within the darkness. It turned out that the darkness concealed the horrors well, because when the light came on, the hills of rubbish that stared back at us was probably the most terrifying things that I have ever seen. The green trash bin was toppled on one side, and the lot of us pulled up our t-shirts over our mouths and went in. The floor was slippery because of a collected layer of slime, and some of us actually fell down inside that place. That place is where rubbish go to when they die, and it is the worst possible place that you can imagine, because it has been weeks since the rubbish has been cleared. All around us, the contents of bags moved and rolled around because of the millions of maggots crawling around inside. Some spilled out from within and crawled around everywhere amidst the slime, and roaches crawled the walls everywhere. We had to dig our fingers into the slime and push the bin back up to its original position. Yes, we threw away all our shoes and all our clothing afterwards. I bathed three times that night - horrible.

Question 5: Yes, definitely. =D

Driving Lessons

Sunday, August 09, 2009

Driving Lessons

I gripped the steering wheel tightly with my two tiny palms, the gaps between my fingers were slowly gathering sweat. Other than the area illuminated by the headlights, the rest of the small road around me was dark and somewhat creepy. I came to a junction at the end of the road, and the car slowed down to a crawl. I could smell the minty chewing gum that came from the mouth of my uncle who was seated behind me in the same driver's seat. I was about nine years old at that time, maybe even younger. I was on my uncle's laps at that time, with his foot on the gas pedal while I steered the wheel of his car in the middle of the night. We were breaking the law and we both knew it, but it's not like it was stopping my uncle from taking me out for a joy ride. I was small enough to fit in between his laps and the steering wheel, and I remember crawling over from the passenger seat to take over control of the vehicle. We were at that little junction in the middle of the night when he told me the first lesson in driving ever. He told me to always look in both directions at any junctions, and to tell if there are cars coming at night would be to see if the road lights up in front of you or not. I took a peek at both directions and then carefully turned the steering wheel. The car moved forward, and that was the very first time that I drove a car.

I was on my way out on Friday afternoon when my mother reminded me about Fathers' Day being around the corner. This isn't the Father's Day that we commonly know of, but Fathers' Day in Taiwan where we celebrate it on the 8th of August instead. Phonetically, the number eight sounds like the word "father", which is why the 8th of August is the day that the Taiwanese celebrates Fathers' day. Every year, my mother would remind me to send a text message or make a phone call to two people in Taiwan, namely my father and my uncle. My father for obvious reasons of course, because he is my father by blood. However, my uncle is kind of like that other father when my real father wasn't around. He is the husband of my mother's first elder sister, and they've never had any children before. So while my parents were busy taking care of business, they'd be the ones to take care of my sister and I while we were young. We all lived under the same roof in Taiwan, and they've been treating us like their children ever since then, and my parents were fine with it naturally. Then the inevitable came when my family had to move to Singapore, and it felt almost like being torn away from your own parents, only you were being torn away by your own parents - trippy, I know.

Anyway, my mother was having her lunch when she told me about it. I had almost forgotten about it at that time, and told her to remind me again when the day comes rolling along. She told me that it'd be OK if I send the text message in English, and I started nodding my head the way you would when somebody constantly reminds you of the same thing over and over again. Amidst her chewing, she told me about how this year is particularly different from all the other years because, well, it could be my uncle's last. I stopped trying to stuff the heel of my foot into my shoes at that point in time, and I just kinda stared at the floor for a moment there. I didn't want to show much emotions in front of my mother, and I merely brushed off the comment and said that I knew what she was talking about. For some reason, it has been a thought at the back of my mind that never actually came through amidst all the other thoughts. I mean, I knew that my uncle contracted cancer some time last year, as benign as it was when it was first discovered. As mentioned in my blog entry at that time, my uncle refused the scientific treatments and opted for a more traditional one. I was violently against the idea of that at first, but I've grown to accept that it is his life and his choice to make.

Nobody has spoken much about it ever since then, save for the time when my aunt called from Taiwan telling us that she'd be pulling out all the phone lines at home after ten o'clock as she didn't want the sound of the phones ringing to wake my uncle who needed much rest. From then, it has been small talks on the telephone between my mother and my aunt, and then the occasional phone call from my uncle. Just this afternoon, he called to ask about webcams and what applications to run in order to use them. My uncle is tech-savvy, and he learned the computer all by himself - something which I haven't actually seen amongst the adult members of the family thus far. Anyway, other than that, I seldom ever heard about any developments with my uncle and his illness, though I cannot blame my mother or my aunt for not telling me. I suppose in a way, I didn't exactly want an update on the situation either, and that little reminder from my mother to send that text message because this year could be his last, that was as far as I'd like to go with updates. It was enough to inform me on his conditions, though he did sound OK on the phone just earlier. So I put on my shoes and said goodbye to my mother, and then took the lift that sunk down through the shaft like my heavy heart.

It's cruel how everybody dies right, it's just so cruel sometimes. This isn't like a trip to Buffalo because I am supposed to come back at the very end of it. It isn't even that long a trip, because I'd probably be contactable throughout my stay there, with video conference no less. Death doesn't do technology very well, and it certainly doesn't even do snail mail either. Death's absolute and death's finite scares me to no end at times, though I have grown to terms with its bleak presence. It gets easier with age most of the time, and you hold up pretty well until somebody close to heart goes away. I haven't got a great many of such people in my life just yet, but I know that that day is going to come when you start to hear people die out one by one. It is inevitable, you know, the way that life decides to work itself out on this cruel mathematical equation. When my grandparents died a couple of years ago, the news came to me in a bunch of different forms. I wasn't even old enough to remember anything when my maternal grandfather died. When my maternal grandmother died, I was playing some racing game on my computer, and went straight back to playing it after being told. My paternal grandfather died a few years ago, and I think I was on the computer as well. Life went on easily after the news broke, and that affected me deeply, how I was unmoved by the circumstances of things.

My explanation for that was because I have moved away for too long, and have since lost that emotional connection with anybody back home in Taiwan. I used to think that way of course, and would naturally assume anybody's death to be easier to deal with if I haven't had any interaction with that person for a long enough time. That was until Stanley died two years ago in April after he got involved in that car accident. I remember being told about his death, and I just sat there in my chair (in front of the computer again), completely bewildered. Even in its most drawn-out form, death hits you hard almost all the time. You want to think that you've had all the time in the world to prepare for it, that you've seen it coming from far away because it is a terminal illness. I think everybody wants to be at peace with the concept of death, but it is never easy to handle it when it comes, you know. It's not that I have personally experienced a lot of such things in life, and I do attribute it to the fact that I am not old enough to have gone through such things just yet. I mean, I live in a relatively peaceful country with no wars and not much violence to begin with. Death seems further than the moon to me. But sometimes, just sometimes, the moon pulls closer than usual, and it breaks through the clouds to shine down upon you with a cold glow.

We all begin like that, when we remember how it was like when someone in class first got a girlfriend or a boyfriend. We remember that smirk in that person's face when he or she told us about it, and then you start to feel jealous because your arms aren't thick enough to attract the girls yet, and your voice has yet to break. Then you come to a point in your life when the people around you start to get married, and then you start to receive invitations to their weddings. Then there's that point that follows when the people around you start to have children, accidentally or planned, and then the point would come when some of them would start to get divorced. As you grow older, the activities that the people around you engage in start to change along with it, and death is just one of those things that come along as a common activity for everybody around you. Sooner or later, the people around you are going to start to die, and you are going to hear about one of your friends dying from some other friend, who may very well not be around by the end of this year. We are all going to come to that point in our lives sooner or later when you live long enough, the period of time when all the people that you know start to die one after the other.

My grandmother is ninety-five years old - ninety-five! She was born when the century was barely out of its first decade! She was around in World War II, and she was probably in her thirties when that happened - I am not even twenty-five yet. She has been through a lot herself I am sure, known a lot of people in her time, and seen a lot of people she knew die. I'm not even sure if many of her friends are still alive today, and the only people that she know are probably her children, her grandchildren, and her great grandchildren. She has lived for so long, that even her grandchildren are dying out one by one. Just last year, one of my cousins died, and she was there at the hospital with everybody else. Like an old veteran of death, my grandmother shed a surprisingly little amount of tears as eye-witnesses claimed, and she went straight back to being herself right after leaving the ward. My father is a lover of chicken drumsticks, and my grandmother loves saving those for him in the fridge. The first thing that my grandmother said when she left the hospital was this: so when are you going to drop by to pick up the chicken? I suppose that is the result of someone who has seen enough death in her lifetime. She doesn't brush it off, but she addresses it and moves on. I suppose no one reading this entry right now can say the same. After all, she has had ninety-five years to prepare for it.

Sooner or later, it'd come to a point when we start to delete names from our contact list because that person has moved on. You know, when you hear about a friend's death, what'd be the point to keep his or her phone number? It isn't even like a letter that he or she wrote to you, because a bunch of numbers has little to no sentimental value no matter how you try to argue for it. So you go to your cellphone and you scroll to his or her name to delete it, only to realize how disturbing it is that nowadays, it is so easy to delete someone from your life. In the past, the death of someone actually involved you going through the pages of your contact book, and then crossing that name out or putting some correction fluid over the name and number. It involved some effort, which is in contrast to how we just press a few buttons to delete a name. Perhaps in the future, the death of a friend or a family member would be made much easier by telecommunication companies. Your phone will automatically update and delete that person's name and number from your contact list without you having the need to do so at all. It'd become so much easier for you to move on in the future, because the deleting part would be done by a machine with wires running out of its body.

I don't want to see death like that, but at the same time I do not want to have to deal with it either. On one hand, you feel like you want to feel something, some emotion for the passing of somebody close to heart. However, on the other hand, all of us fear death, not so much about our death but how we are supposed to deal with it. Sometimes, it feels as if it is easier to deal if you just zone out and take away your emotions. You'd look like a robot at the funeral, but at least it'd be easier on your mind and soul. Yet, you don't want to lose the ability to break down, and you don't want to lose that ability to cry. Emotions are what make us human at times, and you want to feel - really feel sometimes. I agree with that, but at the same time I don't feel like I want to deal with my uncle's death. I mean, everybody dies, and that is going to come sooner or later. Still, I don't suppose I am like my grandmother just yet - I am not ready to deal and move on so easily. Everybody dies at the very end, and some people are going to have to deal with that for sure. I don't want to have to deal with that death, at least not right now. I don't think I am ready, I don't think I am prepared. At this point in time, I'd rather things to remain status quo and not go anywhere. He remains alive, he still sends pictures of my dog via e-mail, and he still calls to ask when I am going to Buffalo. Now is good, right now is great. Let's not go anywhere and remain the same.

But that's not going to happen, because death doesn't work that way. I think the fear of death has caused human beings to personify death. You know, the dark hooded man with a sickle, that scary black cloud that comes into your room to take your life away. I think about the day when the people left behind by my uncle are going to have to deal with his death, and I suppose that breaks my heart more than the actual death itself. Without her own children and just a dog as company, I truly worry for my aunt and how she is going to take it. I pictured her moving in with us in Singapore, but that seemed somewhat unrealistic and ridiculous. Perhaps my mother would move back to Taiwan for a few months, and I'd have to fend for myself for the time being. So many possibilities, and all of these thoughts occurred while I was taking the lift down to the first floor. Everybody dies, I repeated to myself, as if it was supposed to comfort me in some ways. However, as I went down to the MRT platform at the station, a sudden rush of emotions came over me when I remembered how cool my uncle has been to me throughout my childhood. In fact, much of my childhood has ben built around this very man, and he is someone that I truly respect with all my heart.

He was the uncle that taught me how to swim, and also the uncle that taught me the first magic trick. You know the whole thick separating trick that adults would do to scare children - he taught me that. Then he also taught me some card tricks one day, and I remember how he'd drive my sister and I out in the middle of the night for our "Big Adventure". He'd drive us to the middle of nowhere and pretend that the car engine has stopped. I'd be in the front seat while my sister would be in the back, and we'd be panicking for no reasons at all. All of a sudden, the windows would wind down automatically, or the rain wipers would suddenly be activated. As children, we naturally screamed our heads off, especially when he'd purposely park the car right in front of some old abandoned warehouse. With the window opened and the darkness of the warehouse seemingly crawling into the car, I was scared out of my mind at that point in time. In truth, though, I have no idea why I was scared of that. Perhaps it was just the atmosphere, or how my uncle would just scream for no apparent reasons at all just to scare the children. I secretly think that he got a kick out of all that, but that's what made him my one and only cool uncle - everybody else are just kind of boring really.

My sister soon grew out of going out on these adventures, and she probably figured it out soon enough. I probably figured it out too, but I enjoyed the thrill of it all anyway. It was like watching a horror movie I suppose, and we love watching it despite the fact that it isn't real. On one of those days, my uncle offered to give me the steering wheel while he took care of the accelerator and the breaks. My legs weren't long enough to reach those, so he'd offer his laps for me to sit on while I drove. That night, I drove a car out from our house for the very first time, and we actually drove around the neighborhood for a while before we went home. It was my very first driving lesson, and it was done illegally and before I even turned ten. I remember how my uncle would call my house in Singapore over the years, asking about when I'd get my driver's license. He wasn't pushing me to get it, but always joked about how interesting it would be for me to drive to the airport to pick him up. Over the years, that's what he'd always say on the phone to me, but that is exactly what I haven't done over the years.

It isn't so much about being lazy, but it is the fact that I haven't got the free time to invest in it at all. I understand that it is an essential skill, and something that I'd eventually need to master. Yet, because of how I was almost immediately forced into the army and then subsequently college, I was never really given enough time to learn driving. Some of us were willing to sacrifice school time for driving lessons, but I suppose I never actually found the need to do so, considering how driving to Orchard and taking the MRT that is below my condo now takes roughly the same amount of time. The need to drive never really came to me - until now. Seeing how my uncle could very well not see the next Fathers' Day, it suddenly dawned on me that I haven't got much time left to learn it. It'd be tight, but I suppose I'd be able to finish everything within three to four months after I return from Buffalo. That has been the plan all along, but there is a deadline now. I wonder if he'd be strong enough to visit Singapore by then, I wonder if I'd be able to pass in time. I wonder if I'd be able to fulfill his dream of having me pick him up at the airport. We are all running out of time somehow, and I just feel so helpless about it.

This long entry isn't so much about death though, but how we are all running out of time somehow. There isn't a good time for bad news, and there never will be. There will always be unfinished business, something that you've never done before. And as for me, I wish that I'd be able to drive him around when I do get the license, and hopefully he'd be there to see it for himself. It'd be interesting, I guess, from the kid that sat on his laps to the kid that sat in the driver's seat for real. It'd be something worthwhile, and now I am petrified that he will not see that happen. There is something else to look forward to now I suppose, when I come back from Buffalo. More than just seeing Neptina again, more than just seeing my friends and family again, it'd be to get a license twenty-four years after my very first driving lesson.

In Continuum.

Wake Up

South Lake

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