In Continuum.

I do not consider myself a crazy fan of any artistes out there, I don't think I even come close to that. The rational side of me always manages to pull me back from fanaticism, knowing that it isn't worth it to go all the way for such trivial things in life. However, if you really have to pick just one artiste that I have been crazy over the past few years, it'd probably be John Mayer. His music stands apart from most of the things that I love and listen to on a regular basis, and many people who know me would probably scratch their heads at why I love this man's music. Well, I suppose when I first got into his music some time in 2003, the lyrics related to me on a level that no other songs did. You know, about the quarter life crisis, about growing older, about not wanting responsibilities - that kind of things. Besides, that was also the period of time when I got serious with guitar, and I suppose there wasn't a better way to learn the instrument other than to learn it to his songs. I cannot say that I know most of his songs by heart on the guitar, but I can pull off a decent setlist of songs that I already know. I don't think I know many other songs other than his, considering how the rest of the songs in my library are made up mainly of electronica tunes. Those songs are, after all, kinda hard to recreate on the guitar, you know?

Anyway, I've been a fan of John Mayer for a long time now, all the way since he was just this awkward singer-songwriter who couldn't find his foothold in the world of show business. That was his staple, though, that was what he was known for. The sensitive, somewhat geeky musician who'd prove everybody wrong whenever he is standing alongside guitar legends on a stage somewhere in this world. Whatever preconceived ideas you might have of him would be shattered once he shreds the guitar, because he is that good on it. People often call him a "pop singer" because of the pop tunes that he dishes out onto the radio, and there is no denying that. Whenever I tell people that I am a fan of John Mayer, people tend to look at me with an expression of puzzlement, wondering if I was being sarcastic in the first place. "That Wonderland guy?", they would ask, and I'd have to admit it. "Admit it", I said, because it almost sounds like I didn't want to. Saying that I am a fan of this man used to be simple, because it made sense. This is a perfectly talented person with enough skills under his belt to impress and prove everybody wrong out there. If you want proof of why he isn't just another pop singer, you only need to type the words "Gravity" and "live" into the YouTube search box.

That used to be how it was, though, when it was really all about the music and less about his celebrity life. It was always musician first, celebrity second for this man, and I suppose that is something of a rarity these days, after all. When you have cameras following you from your home to the car, from the car to the gym, from the gym to the restaurant, from the restaurant back home, and from your home to a club, you cannot help but realize that your life has been turned into an unofficial autobiography, documented in pictures in tabloid newspapers. So many celebrities have succumbed to the scrutiny of the paparazzi, and it is surprising just how little regulations there are in the United States to govern these people, I feel. I mean, we have celebrity breaking down and turning into a train wreck right in front of the flashing cameras, no thanks to the paparazzi crew involved in that situation. They've crossed the line a long time ago, and no one is spared in the paparazzi world. Even back when it was easier to defend John Mayer as a fan, his life was constantly under the microscope, and America's obsession with celebrities and their private lives became epitomized in the tabloid sales.

Some celebrities are better targets than other celebrities, which is why paparazzi are more interested in some of them more than the others. You don't hear much about Chris Martin doing something stupid in the public because, well, he simply doesn't do it. It has got nothing to do with him being a father, or the fact that he is also a husband. Normal people just don't do stupid things in the public, and the trick is to keep a low profile even when you have cameras following you all the time. When you don't fan the flames, you don't get a bush fire - it's really as simple as that. Somewhere down the road, though, John Mayer decided that it'd be clever and fun to play the media game and try to "fight back" by giving them exactly what they want. You know, pretending to be drunk in public, saying something outrageous on the camera, or running around a cruise ship almost completely naked. Somewhere amidst his odd and twisted sense of humor, he feels that that is the best way to deal with the celebrity side of his life, the side that people are obsessed and crazy about. He feels that the best way to stop a train is to run head on into it, and most of his fans brushed it off as "John being John", that it is something he does.

His humor hasn't always been easy to understand, and they can become overwhelming even to me sometimes. If you are following him on Twitter, for example, there are times when his Twitter don't make any sense. They are sometimes crude, somethings crass and weird but, they are all a part of who he is and his so-called wit. Many of us defend him and say that because the general public knows him by what they read in the tabloids, they obviously do not understand the context and what he is trying to say. His humor has always been harmless for the most part, just him being a goofball and playing his "games" with the media. It has been harmless for the most part, until recently when he decided to give an interview to PlayBoy magazine. It is a long interview in which I will not go into detail, but let's just say that it has stirred up quite a lot of dust in the media regarding its contend. Everything from the usage of the word "nigger", to how he described his penis to be a "white supremacist", all of those things have caused him to become a giant douchebag all over again. In an effort to be clever and witty, he has also spoken way too much and said stupid things in a magazine - and what for? What was he trying to do?

I've been giving this a lot of thinking, simply because I care. I care enough for his music to know that I don't want people to give me "that look" when I tell them that I am a fan. It's never about the person - never. I do not care what a person does in his private life for the most part, just as long as he can justify himself in his music. I don't care if the members of Oasis are a bunch of douchebags, but the fact is that they make good music and they continue to do so. I try to be objective most of the time, but then sometimes enough is enough, you know, when too much is simply too much. There are times when what that person does in real life is so stupid, that you cannot help but hear the stupidity between every line of every song. It is especially so with John Mayer, a guy who has written songs about saying too much in songs like "My Stupid Mouth", and songs about people not knowing who he really is, and basing their judgments solely on what the media says in "Who Did You Think I Was". I remember he once said that he likes to prove people wrong on stage, with his guitar and his music. I get that, I really do. But I'm not sure he had to go out and stir up shit just to prove people wrong, you know. That's like becoming a pastor after masturbating in the public just to prove to everybody that he isn't a pervert after all. No, people are still going to think that you are a demented freak.

If I don't want to stand out in a crowd, I usually try to keep quiet and stay in the corner of things. If you don't want the tabloids to write about your private life, then don't air your dirty laundry in the public when the cameras are all pointed at you. If you don't want people to make your past relationships a big deal, then stop telling people about how great somebody was in bed or stupid statements like that. I believe that he is a smart enough man to know that, and yet something went wrong in that interview that caused me to rethink my stance about him as a human being. Perhaps there was a case of over-estimation, perhaps I've got it all wrong from the very smart. Maybe he just isn't all that smart, the way that he feels that he can defeat stupid things by doing stupid deeds. It doesn't work out that way at all, and he of all people should have known that a long time ago. It doesn't matter the context in which he used the word "nigger", which wasn't in the malicious context at all. He meant the exact opposite, but then the general public isn't very smart either. You know the consequences and repercussions that come along with using such a racially charged word, and everybody knows it. What in the blue hell were you thinking back there?

In the act of being clever, you obviously weren't too clever. It is a shame really, and this is the part when it becomes impossible to defend. I cannot find the words to defend your words and your actions, and I am sure many people out there feel the same way about this situation. From this day on, people are going to think John Mayer fans as the kind of people who supports the idea of a "white supremacist penis". For some reason, "being a fan of his music" is suddenly the same as "agreeing with everything that he says". I think he is a douche bag not because the media tags him as being one. I seriously think that John Mayer is a douche bag, and he made himself to be that way. There is always a choice when it comes to doing or saying things. You know, not doing something or not saying something. Once you've made that choice, it becomes very difficult to turn back now. I'd hate to be your publicist or your manager, seriously, because of all the stupid things that you go out to do, night after night. This isn't even the first time that something you have said got turned into an overblown issue like that. So many times, you have said that it should be about the music, that it shouldn't be about the spotlight, that you should just stick to what you do best. Then what do you do after that? You go out, do some interview and say stupid shit. Your stupid mouth just doesn't know when to shut the hell up, does it?

I am continue to listen to his music, and try to be partial about it. I've always known the fact that when I meet the musicians or the actors that I admire and respect, I am not going to like them as human beings. I love Steve Jobs, but I think he is also an asshole - same thing. I think John Mayer is a great musician, but I am going to want to punch him in the face if I have a drink with him in New York City. For the most part, I am the kind of person who cannot care less about what a famous person does in his or her life. As big of an asshole as Tiger Woods was to his wife by sleeping with a thousand women out there, you cannot deny that he is a great golfer. Just stick to playing your golf, hitting the balls, and everybody will forget about this shenanigan sooner or later. Not unless, of course, you appear in front of paparazzi cameras and start telling people about why you broke up, why you did the things you did, and all that kind of retarded things that'd only cause people to dig deeper into your life. Tiger Woods was stupid enough to not cover his tracks after cheating on his wife, but I think he handled himself pretty well with the apology and everything. I'm not even sure if he had to do a public apology at all, since he really only needed to apologize to his wife and everything. But John, I think you are smarter than that. You don't do the same stupid shit over and over again and expect people to still stand behind you. Get your shit together, even if it takes a long hiatus away from everything. The next time a camera comes up into your face, shut the fuck up. The next time an interviewer asks you about your private life, stop trying to act clever by being stupid. That stupid mouth of yours is still stupid, until you decide to get your shit together and wise up.

It was the end of the year and the end of a decade. The sea winds blew in from the south and graced our faces like heavy feathers. There was a group of people, us, by the side of a man-made slope, eating pizzas and drinking alcohol. It was the night before we said goodbye to one of our own, a friend of ours leaving for a place far, far away. In the past, the sea winds would probably promise a swift journey from here on out, but that was the last thing that any of us wanted to see. A friend of ours was leaving for overseas studies, and the lot of us gathered at Marina Barrage the night before to bid our goodbyes. Aside from the snacks and the drinks, we all took turns to hold a line in our hands from time to time. On one end of the line, a spool of string that coiled itself around a plastic handle. On the other, a fifteen dollar kite that soared into the air and rebelled against the mighty winds. Flying a kite isn't exactly the easiest thing to do, especially when your kite isn't very good to begin with. The flimsy center beam poked through the fabric and rendered the kite completely flightless after half an hour. We tried our best to get it into the air throughout the night, and for a while it stayed in the air for a long time. I don't remember the last time I ever flew a kite other than that one time when I was still a little boy. You know, when things were different, when it was all simpler.

The red and white line fluttered in the warm afternoon wind, and the perimeter of the field was bordered up with metal fences painted in pale green. A tall sign rose up from the other side of the fence, something about a new housing estate being planned in the small plot of land right next to the MRT station. That place used to be where the temporary canteen of my school was, and I remember how out-of-place it looked when the new building was still under construction. Everything was changing back then, replaced by things that I don't quite remember anymore. I stared at the little piece of land as I came out from the station, with the smell of burning grass teasing at my nostrils. It's the smell of the haze again, the fumes drifting over the seas from the south and engulfing our little island within it's embrace. It was as if the little piece of land in front of me was burning without flames, and that the smell was coming from the dying leaves. Yet, they remained steadily rooted in the soil, fenced up by metal fences, ready to be dug up by bulldozers in the foreseeable future, taken over by steel and concrete. The grassland shall die, burn down into ashes without flames. Everything around my home isn't the same anymore.

There used to be a big green field on the other side of the road where the newer condominiums are right now. Right in front of the main entrance to my estate, there used to be an untouched piece of land that nobody touched for a very long time. It separated itself from the main road by a monsoon drain, drawing its territory from us, as if to say that we do not have the right to touch the last remaining piece of free land. My parents were still new to this country at that time, and so were my sister and I. In an effort to entertain us one weekend afternoon, my parents brought us downstairs and across the road to fly kites. I remember my kite, though only barely so, and I remember it had big blotches of red on it. That was my first time flying a kite, and the winds were optimal for us to do so that afternoon. My parents gave me a few instructions, and I remember trying to run against the wind in hopes that the updraft would pick the kite up. At five years old, I suppose my legs couldn't carry me fast enough, and the kite refused to take off. Like most parents that bring their kids to fly kites, they usually end up being the one doing all the job anyway. I remember my kite flying higher and higher into the air, until it became a small red dot that threatened even the height of my condominium. It was a glorious day for me, but it was also the last time in a long time when we flew kites.

A couple of years down the road, my parents walked my sister and I down the same stretch of road in front of our house and along the edge of the field. Strangely enough, there were rows upon rows of cars parked along the road, with people climbing out from their vehicles with their own set of children from all over the place. A piece of land was carved out on the kite flying field in the corner, and the people were swarming towards a makeshift building that had fancy lights in the windows. It was a condominium showroom, and my parents were there to check out the prospects of having another house altogether. Or, maybe they were just curious as to what would happen to that little piece of land, who knows. I remember walking in between the model buildings, peering into the empty plastic units and running my fingers down the styrofoam road. Half of the grass field would be gone, I thought to myself. Less land for me to run around with my kite now. I hated that condominium, and I still do not have much love for it. It looks like a sad attempt to blend modern housing units with medieval castles. Everything felt crammed even as a child, and I remember being oddly infuriated on my way home. My parents asked what the matter was, but I couldn't put my anger into words. I wasn't even sure why I was so angry at this new concrete beast that was about to rise up from the ashes of the ground. All I knew was that I didn't want it there, I didn't want it to take over that piece of land that was rightfully mine to fly kites.

I've lived here for a long time now, ever since my condominium was still the tallest building in the neighborhood. You could see it in all directions, wherever you were coming in from. Then, of course, people calling this placed a "prime land", and thought that it'd be a good idea to squeeze as many people as possible into this already constricted place. They took up fields to build housing estates, more fields for condominiums, another to build the Australian International School, and a whole stretch of it for the MRT station. They even tore down an old terrace house near my home just to make way for a new condominium a few years ago. Everybody who lived there had to leave, they called it "en bloc" or some fancy name like that. I remember the day when the bulldozers came to tear down the terrace house. In the night, the workers would be asleep and the machines would be resting, and the broken walls of the houses would reveal old furniture and posters still pinned up against the walls. It was an eerie sight, but a sign that the old days are over and the new day has dawned. Everything was changing rapidly around me at that time, and we seem to be the only bunch of people who have remained the same for the most part. Sure, we tore down the ugly wooden fences and changed the tiles around the swimming pool. But, for the most part, we are still the oldest condominium around here, and you can still see it from a great many directions from all around.

Yet, I cannot fly a kite around here any longer, because it seems like these contractors are monsters who feast on soil and dirt. They see an empty plot of land, and they want to stick metal beams into them and pour cement into holes. Just when you think that they have finally ran out of space to do more of that, they'd somehow do it. I can't help but wonder which building is going to be the next to be torn down, to be turned into something spanking new around the neighborhood. Everything is a grotesque copy of the other, one building imitating the other, like soldiers in their ranks, shoulders to shoulders. That is the case all over Singapore, I suppose, and these lands are going to be taken up by steel beams and concrete walls sooner or later. It doesn't matter if the government wants to make up for it by building artificial fields down at the barrage - it's always going to be different, somehow. At any rate, I miss running through the fields with a kite in my hands, and how my parents would teach me how to tug and let go so that the kite would catch the winds and fly even higher. At least back then, if I wanted to fly a kite, I could just grab it from the storeroom and dash downstairs to do so. At least I had the option to do that back then, you know. Now that everything has been taken over by others, it just seems like my childhood isn't there anymore.

A couple of days ago, I thought it'd be fun to look for a couple of places that I have been to as a child in Taiwan. Since my country has recently managed to get the street view option on Google Maps, I thought it'd be fun to take a look around. I found the house that I used to live in nearly twenty years ago, a house that has been converted into a warehouse and office building by some idiotic contractor who never had a knack for the aesthetics. My house is still there, but they built warehouses on either side of the house to accommodate oil barrels. My parents sold the plot of land to them, although I suppose the contract never stated that they should preserve the place as we left it. The front lawn is gone now, and it has turned into an outdoor storage area for oil barrels and a parking lot for lorries. The windows have been darkened by dust and dirt from all the years of not washing them, and you can see dark tracks of vehicles going in and out from the front gate. I used to stand on the railings on the front gate, and my dog used to chase its tail in the front lawn. My mother sighed when she saw the picture, and she told me about how my aunt and her would set up chairs on the balcony of the second floor to watch movie screenings on the other side of the road. The sliding doors to the balcony seem to be locked up now, and the place seems vacant for some reason. The person that my parents sold the place to used to complain to them that the place is haunted by ghosts, and the employees would be terrified at night when they see them. Well, ghosts or not, it was still the home that I grew up in. Ghosts of my childhood memories, perhaps, pacing the corridors and the rooms.

I zoomed out from that place and went north from there. The camera zoomed into the cities, and my mother and I tried to look for the place where she grew up. We came across her primary school, though she said that it has changed beyond recognition for the most part. She said that there were only two classrooms back then, but it has now been rebuilt into a typical school with hundreds of students. We went down the street from there, coming across familiar parks and street corners here and there. Much has changed, though, and there were times when she couldn't even remember the street names of the place. My mother used to live in a rural area of Taipei, a place surrounded by farms and gangsters for the most part. Up until about twenty years ago, she still lived there before she got married to my father. It's a small alley with the residences all crammed up together in small, dark houses. That was where my grandmother lived, and we used to visit her every time we went back to Taiwan. I remember drawing hopscotch boxes on the piece of road in front of the house, and we played with the neighborhood children who always looked dirtier and poorer than my sister and I. We used to play hide and seek around the temple area, but the neighborhood kids always found us because they already knew of all the places to hide.

The thing about Google street view is that you can only see where the Google van has gone, and I suppose that particular alley was too narrow for the van to enter. My mother and I were kinda disappointed by the fact, but I shifted the camera as best as I could, so that we could check out the entrance to the alley. The big red building at the end of the alley is still there, with the golden words nailed into the walls and the motorcycles parked in front of the gates. My mother forgot about that building, but I distinctively remember seeing it whenever we left my grandmother's place at night. I'd be tired and worn out from a day of running around and playing, and I'd be lying down in the backseat and looking up and the buildings around me. There they'd be, the golden words, peering down into the car and straight at me. I recognized it straight away, but everything has changed as well. Hell, even the road name has changed, which was why we couldn't find it before. I suppose, in a way, it was better that we couldn't go into the alley with Google Maps. In that way, the old house would still be there, and maybe grandma would still be living in it too. If nobody knows how it looks like now, then it remains the same in our minds forever - right?

I suppose, for everyone, there is a place where we remember deep in our hearts, a place when we used to have fun. It was always near our homes, somewhere close by where we could go to and get home without much effort. But living in our time, living in Singapore especially, these places are increasingly difficult to find, especially when so many other buildings are slowly taking over. It's like an infection that spreads, a rash that goes from your thighs to your stomach and all the way up your chest. You can't help it, though, because everything changes all the time. You cannot expect old buildings to remain the same forever, or plots of land to remain empty especially when people are constantly moving into this already constricted island. I suppose a part of me just wish that there is still a place for me to fly my kite, or a playground where I can sink my feet into the sands. Do you remember those playgrounds with sand? They don't come by very often anymore, and I miss that. I miss being a child, especially with all the expectations and responsibilities resting on my shoulders. The burdens that we have to carry just because we've grown up, they are difficult to bear after you have come along for so far and so long. Every once in a while, you remember the place where you used to go to fly a kite, a place that isn't in front of your computer or television. You know, like a field. A big green field, and an open sky for your kites to soar. Yeah, something like that. That'd be nice.

My mother does frequent full-body check-ups annually. She does it in Taiwan because it is cheaper there, and she visits her regular doctor over there most of the time. She dragged my father along because, well, my mother has always been the most health-conscious person in the family. She is almost a vegetarian, eating very little meat and focuses the bulk of her diet on vegetables and fruits. It's not that she is secretly a fruit bad or that she loves animals too much to kill them really. She just feels that avoiding meat, any kind of meat, is better for the health in the long term. I suppose the cholesterol in meat has got something to do with it, but I suppose I personally cannot imagine a life without bacon. Anyway, my mother is probably the most healthy person in the family, and these full-body check-ups aren't anything to worry about, or at least for me. After all, my mother has been like a straight A student at such health screenings for the past years, always scoring relatively well other than a few minor hiccups here and there. However, it doesn't matter if you are scoring full marks or just over the threshold of an A - you are an A student, no matter what. That is my mother, a grade A student at health screenings.

A week or two ago, my mother flew back to Taiwan to run some errands, with the health screening being one of them. She does that every year, so I wasn't exactly too concerned. Amongst many other things were the new house that we bought, checking up on my uncle, and a couple of other minor businesses. Besides, I think my parents have been married for a long enough time to warrant some time alone with each other. Nobody wants to be tied down to their children for the rest of their lives, right? So last Friday, or was it Thursday, my mother went for a health screening early in the morning, and the results were available for pick-up almost straight after she was done. The results, however, weren't exactly that comforting. The doctors found some kind of growth, like a tumor, at the base of her neck. No one was sure what they were, but the doctor immediately scheduled a blood test on the following Monday. My mother called me after the health screening, starting the Skype conversation with some trivial matters about cooking earlier just so that my sister could cook her own food when she returns from work, and asked if I have been keeping the house intact - like I said, trivial things. Then she told me about the news, and I couldn't stop thinking about it ever since.

It seems like everybody is getting tumors now, as if it is some kind of a trend that everybody wants to catch on to. Now my mother has some kinda tumor, my uncle's cancer is due to tumors, and it just seems like everybody else wants one too. It is certainly not something I wish upon my loved ones, but what can we do about it anyway. I remained calm for the most part, and I haven't talked to my sister about it just yet. I don't suspect that she is still kept in the dark about this anyway, but then it's not like we've addressed the issue with each other. Or rather, my sister never really address any issues with each other - ever. I am glad that my sister and I are not a married couple, because it'd be the worst couple around, truth be told. Anyway, I called my mother up over the weekend to check up on her condition, despite the fact that I knew nothing about what was going on. She didn't tell me a whole lot about the situation, nothing more than the fact that she could only get a blood test by Monday, at the very earliest. I wanted to know more, but even the doctors couldn't do anything more other than that. It sucks to sit at home and not know what is going on with your loved ones. Then again, it is probably worse for my mother, knowing that there are things in her body that aren't supposed to be there.

I asked her about the options that she have, and she said that the doctor told her to get the blood samples first to determine if the tumors are benign or malignant. Here is the thing that I do not understand: why would doctors advice the patients to "observe" the tumor if it is benign? My mother was told by the doctor that if the tumor is malignant, then she should have it removed. That is a fair enough diagnosis, because it makes a lot of sense, right? Then the doctor went on to tell my mother that if the tumor is benign, then we should just wait and observe and, well, see what happens. OK, that is just something that doesn't make any sense to me, and that is what got me furious for the most part. It is a tumor we are talking about, and there is a reason why it is called a "growth" - it grows. I'm not saying that I am a doctor, or a tumor expert or anything like that. Hell, I haven't even taken biology before, and the only medical information I know are from House. I know next to nothing about tumors, but I know this: if it isn't supposed to be there, it isn't supposed to be there. If there is a growth in the body that isn't supposed to be there, it is meant to be cut out and removed. I don't care if it is benign or not, just cut the damn thing out! If there is a chance to remove a dormant volcano from a village, the villagers would be elated to hear that I am sure. They won't care if the volcano hasn't erupted in the past sixty years. What if it does tomorrow? Yeah, exactly.

I guess the doctors haven't lived right next to a damn volcano before, and they probably don't understand that very well. Here's the thing, what if we observe for the next year and it grows to become malignant? Now what, cut it out? Well, why didn't we cut it out in the first place when we found it? It's not like a third arm when it just hangs there and not grow anymore, you know. It is there because there is a problem, and it demands to be removed. It's like seeing an injured soldier on the battlefield, and the medics tell the other soldiers to not pull him out of there because he's only been shot in the stomach and not the head and, thus, not going to die anytime soon. "Let's see what he does next! Maybe he will make it out of there himself". It doesn't work that way! He needs to be pulled out of there or he will die out of blood loss! Maybe this isn't the best analogy around, and the tumor isn't going to miraculously bleed itself out and die - which would be great. This is something that could very potentially develop into something worse than it is. It is easy for them to say, because they are not going to be responsible half a year down the road when the tumor develops into something malignant. I mean, even a malignant tumor must have developed out of something perfectly normal, right? I might be wrong, but I can't be wrong about this: it's not supposed to be there, cut it out.

The blood samples came back today, and two person called me about the results back to back. My aunt called me first to tell me about the situation, but I wanted to hear from my mother herself. She called almost right after my aunt hung up, and she told me that at this point in time, the doctor is deeming it to be something normal, and that we have nothing to worry about. Supposedly, people around her age do get such growths often, and she quoted a medical term in chinese which meant nothing to me. She just kept repeating that, and I was frustrated that she couldn't understand all the medical terminologies that she was churning out. On the phone, she asked me to look up a bunch of ways to decrease cholesterol via food intake, which is strange because my mother is already taking very little meat. She's not even 50KG! Anyway, that's not the point. The next scheduled check-up is in the March to April period, and she'd have to make a trip back again at that time to have it examined further. Yes, that is a full two to three months away from now. I don't care if it is nothing serious at this point, what if it develops into something else within that period of time? It unnerves me, but my mother seems nonchalant about it, oddly.

All this teasing with death makes me somewhat uncomfortable, somehow. People grow old, people get sick, and people die eventually. I understand that, and I suppose I have been equipped with everything that I need to deal with everything that life is going to throw at me at this point. Yet, when it does happen around you, even if it is just a tease, you cannot help but feel uncomfortable about it. And as for my uncle, who has been going through the experimental treatment, he is doing rather well. Surprisingly well, at that. He is supposed to go through six to eight treatments, with the last two being done only if necessary. He is about to go through his sixth treatment, and everything seems somewhat optimistic at this point. Measurements are done once every two treatments, and the last result (after the fourth treatment was done) indicated that 50% of the cancer cells were terminated in his body. That seems like a really good news, and my uncle is really hanging in there by a thick thread of his stubbornness. He is a fighter, and he's never ever been the person to give up so easily. These are just some of the good news out of all the bad news, I suppose. People are getting sick around me, but at the same time they are doing better than expected, you know? I worry, and I worry a lot. But at the same time, I trust in numbers and statistics. These are the things that will get me through.

In times like these, a lot of people would probably turn to prayers for comfort, you know. I don't want to turn this into some theological argument, but let's just say that I did not turn to that for any forms of comfort. I didn't see a point of doing that, because it isn't going to make anybody around me get better just because I mumble a few words to a being of higher order. If there is a plan for something to happen, then it will happen. Shit happens, you know, and we cannot prevent that just because we pray for somebody to feel better. However, I sought comfort in knowing that the numbers are not against me, that people have been through the same situation and came out on the other side just fine. I want to hear statistics, and I want to know case studies. I want to know what the doctors are doing, and I want to know that they are qualified to do their jobs. I don't see a point in praying, because that does not make me feel better at all. Praying makes me feel worse, because it makes me feel like I am out of control, that it is up to somebody else to make me feel better. Well, instead of praying, I figured, I thought learning more about what is going on seems to make more sense, you know? So I looked around for answers, and I will continue to do so. In the mean time, everybody, just hang in there. Let's pull through, let's get the hell out of here.

I've watched a great many films in the past year or so, and it is quite a pity that the first film that I review after my "return", so to speak, is this one. By now, everybody has seen Avatar - and I mean everybody. Everyone has watched Avatar, and it is the new "in" thing, because if you haven't watched it, you are weird. It is like Titanic back in the 90s, and curious to note that they are by the same director, no less. Avatar has been touted to be the movie event of, well, this entire decade perhaps. Everybody has been anticipating for it ever since it was announced, and raving about it after they've watched the film. Ever since the first trailer was released onto the internet a few months ago, my reaction to Avatar has been this: Wow, James Cameron is back at last! Not because I thought the trailer was very special, but because James Cameron has had a great track record with his films. I am a huge fan of Aliens, and Terminator 2 is perhaps one of the best action movie ever. Titanic, while it was more like a badly written love story on a gigantic set, it was still a pretty decent watch. Well, it didn't justify people watching it ten times over, but it made sense, if you know what I mean. Now, here comes Avatar, and here's what I think about it.

If you pick out ten people on the streets and ask them if they liked Avatar, nine out of ten people would tell you that they loved it. Expand the sample size, and you ask one hundred people if they liked Avatar. This time, about ninety-five percent of the people will tell you that they loved it. Here's the thing: there is no denying that Avatar is a box office hit, and it is already the biggest film in terms of the amount of money it has earned of this entire decade anyway. Basically, it has nothing left to prove any longer - it is the king of this decade. As it carries on to be shown in the theaters around the world, people will keep flocking into the theaters for this "cinematic experience", something that it has been advertised as. You know, everything we've seen so far has been boasting about its visuals and special effects. Visuals, visuals, visuals, humans are slaves to those, aren't we? We love pretty things, and we are OK with ignoring everything else about it. Now, back to the sample size thing. If you ask me how I felt about Avatar, I am going to say that I am one of the five percent of people who didn't like it. In fact, to be honest, it is a truly over-rated piece of cinema.

Yes, you people can continue reading this blog entry after you have finished gasping. After all, finding a person who doesn't like Avatar is like finding someone with two properly working heads, each with its own personality and the ability to speak. People like us are hard to come by these days, especially when rave reviews are pouring in from every direction in the media. I get it, everybody loves Avatar, but that does not explain my general indifference towards the film. The same thing was said about The Dark Knight two years ago, and I loved it when I saw it in the theaters. I do pride myself as being a very objective audience, and I dislike something when it certainly deserves my disliking. Avatar did not work for me, and I feel like I have very valid reasons to dislike most of everything about. While trying to give a fair and balanced review of it on a forum, I couldn't come up with more than one good aspect of the film. You guessed it: I said good things about the visuals. Beyond the visuals, though, everything fell flat almost completely. I sat through the nearly three hour long film wanting it to end, and the first thing I did was to turn to my girlfriend to ask for her opinions on it. It's true, and we agreed. We shrugged, and discussed what to eat for dinner.

Let's begin with the good stuff: Avatar is the most visually stunning film I have seen in a very long time. Pretty much everything you see on the screen was generated by a computer somewhere, painstakingly painted frame by frame, pixel by pixel. That takes a lot of talented people and a lot of time (and money), and that is part of why Avatar is so awesome to look at. When you have just 40% of what goes on in the movie to be live-action, that's a lot of grounds to cover if you want to digitally insert elements into your film. I suppose that was necessary in the post-production process, considering how the film was made to be watched in 3D, instead of being altered to be watched in 3D like many other films. When you want that kind of control over your film, it is inevitable that you have to go through every single pixel in order to achieve it. You know, paint in elements digitally to give it a kind of 3D depth that cannot be achieved if you filmed something in an ordinary manner. This film is beautiful to look at, no matter how you want to argue about it. This is special effects done right, and you almost forget that you are watching a film that is saturated with computer generated graphics. All of that, though, represents a huge part of my problem with this film.

I remember watching an interview CNN did with James Cameron, and he was talking about how the technology today has enabled him to make this film with ease. He mentioned about how every blade of grass in the film was painted on, and the natural scenery could be altered over and over again until they got what he was looking for. In the past, he said, it was completely different. He brought up the famous kissing scene in Titanic, right after Rose tells Jack that she is supposedly "flying" at the bow of the ship. In the background, we see this beautiful sunset - that's a real sunset, by the way. Apparently, during filming, James and crew had to wait two weeks for the perfect sunset to come up before shooting that scene. Nowadays, all you have to do is to film something first and then digitally insert a fake sunset later. He seemed very proud of the fact that you can insert pretty much anything you want into a film now. If you want Elvis to come back to life, you can probably do that with a few buttons pressed - no problem. However, I feel that this takes away a part of what makes filmmaking, filmmaking. It becomes almost too convenient and too easy, and this isn't about digitally inserting a creature that does not exist, or a plant that is alien in nature. It's a sunset we are talking about, and it occurs 365 times a year. Even something like that, you have to digitally insert it? I guess I am old school, and I like "keepin' it real". That, to me, is just being lazy.

Next, when I say that the film is visually stunning, I do mean that the specially effects are awesome. However, this film was also advertised to be watched in 3D because it was meant to be watched in 3D. Avatar is my very first 3D movie ever, and I have no way of comparing it with anything else that I have ever seen in my life in terms of 3D. Based on what I have seen in Avatar though, I couldn't help but go, "That's it?". Because really, the only aspects of the 3D graphics that popped out to "wow" me were the plants and the computer monitors that the characters used in the film. Whenever those things were onscreen, you can very clearly see how it benefitted from being 3D, and how everything looked so much better in that medium - that, I get. Everything else in the film, however, didn't seem to benefit from the 3D at all. In fact, I took off my glasses every now and then to see if there is a difference between 2D and 3D. While the image was a little blurred out without the glasses, it pretty much looked exactly the same to me. In fact, the colors were brighter and much more vibrant without the glasses than with the glasses. With the glasses, the film looked dull and boring in terms of the colors, and the world of Pandora was completely drowned out in a scene of, well, dark hues and shades.

Everybody raved about the final battle between the humans and the Na'vi people, and you thought that all the spaceships, all the missiles, all the arrows and explosions involved would somehow take advantage of the 3D, right? No, it didn't. In fact, as you continue to watch the battle scenes, you quickly start to forget that the 3D is even there in the first place. It's not like I expected missiles and arrows to be flying into my face all the time, which would actually make things really cheesy. But one or two wouldn't hurt, right? I thought the action sequence did too little to take advantage of 3D, which meant that visually it was just like any other science fiction battle scenes out there. It kind of felt like the first fifteen minutes of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith when you have a million things happening at the very same time. Sure, great visuals here and there, but they weren't anything to make your heart race or your adrenaline rushing, you know. The final battle really wasn't as good as what people made it out to be. I mean, especially when you have gunships versus arrows, there aren't a lot of things that could potentially go on. I wanted to get involved in the action, but I couldn't. For the most part of the final battle, it was more like watching a bunch of people with high tech weapons exterminating pests in a jungle. The humans fired rockets, the natives exploded. The humans fired more rockets, more natives exploded. Then, of course, a miracle happened. 3/4 of the final battle scene involved the Na'vi pretty much losing, and then the reason why they won wasn't even because of the Na'vi themselves at all. Mother nature stepped in, and of course our hero threw a few grenades. He saved the day, yay.

That aside first, I want to talk a little bit about the story itself. Avatar is a rip-off of Pocahontas and The Last Samurai combined. We have a human infiltrating into the natives' lives to get to know them, and the natives reject his presence at first. Then, a beautiful native starts to teach this human the ways of the forest, taught him how to hunt with bows and arrows and how to live amongst the natives. Then, of course, the human falls in love with the native, and feels that the humans are doing bad things to the natives. So, the human tries to help the natives, and they eventually win. Avatar is Pocahontas because it follows the exact same plot from the beginning till the end. It is Pocahontas high on steroids, and it has gunships instead of men on horses. It is the same as The Last Samurai because, well, do we remember the final battle in The Last Samurai? Oh yes. The Japanese army, with their guns and cannons, fought against the samurai warriors who rode horses and killed people with bows and arrows. Everything is a rip-off of one another, I agree. But when your copying is this obvious, it almost becomes a little bit shameless, don't you think. James Cameron probably banked on people ignoring the simple story line because the visuals are supposedly so great. They are great, but they aren't enough to cover up the mediocre script that he supposedly wrote more than ten years ago.

According to the story, the way that you find your banshee (those flying dragon things) was to see which one is trying to kill you. So, the Na'vi people brings out protagonist onto the edge of a cliff, and he is supposed to find a banshee that is out to kill him. That all made sense to me until the part when one of them actually tries to kill him. Jake, the protagonist, jumps at the banshee and wrestles it to the ground. According to the natives, the way to properly ride any animal on Pandora is to stick their braided hair, which has tentacles in them, into these tubes on the animals to communicate with them almost telepathically. Now, after Jake managed to properly wrestle the banshee to the ground, the Na'vi princess then asked Jake to quickly insert his tentacle things into the animal's tube. OK, if you guys are not getting what I am trying to say here, here it is: Jake just raped a poor animal. He wasn't using his genital to insert it into the animal's genital, sure, but it sure looked like it. Apparently, on Pandora, it is OK for the natives to rape an animal, just as long as no genitals are involved. Forcefully stuffing your antenna into the animal? That's perfectly OK with the people of Pandora. No wonder the humans thought them to be uncivilized. It felt like the banshee just didn't want to be disturbed, and here comes a native who tries to stuff things into its tubes. It's like a prisoner in a prison trying to mind his own business while picking up a bar of soap. Yeah, the poor banshee was raped and everybody got to watch it in 3D.

The characters in this film are bland and, well, nothing really develops in terms of the characterization. Jake does, though, because he went from a non-believer into a believer of "the force" that resides in the forest. Everybody else seems to be unnecessarily one-dimensional despite the three-dimensional film. The main bad guy seems to be bad for the sole reason of being bad. He shoots at innocent natives and kills them all just because he can, and you start to wonder if people give out military ranks randomly in the future. Then we have Giovanni Ribisi's character, the guy who is there for the mineral, and he suddenly decides that it is bad to kill the natives for no apparent reason. Out of nowhere, he decides to look guilty and sorry for the natives, but all he does is to stare helplessly at a computer monitor at the end of the movie. Michelle Rodriquez's character as the tough female pilot is even more puzzling. She doesn't do anything and, out of nowhere, decides to go against her authorities and act on her own. When she died, nobody cared - at least I know I didn't. She could have been out of the film and we wouldn't have cared for her existence at all. She was completely redundant, and I do not blame her for it at all. The script probably did not dictate a very heavy role for her, which caused her character to be almost utterly useless. Oh yeah, she can navigate the flying ships very well... and? Nothing else. She's really there to pilot planes and look tough.

Next, the usage of Deus Ex Machina at critical moments of the film. Deus Ex Machina is latin for "God Machine", and it is plot device where a previously intractable problem is suddenly solved because of some miraculously occurrence that is out of the story's internal logic. For example, there is a scene in the film when you see the princess being stuck behind a tree with all the humans and robots coming behind her. She wants to shoot at those human bastards because they blew up her home, but all she had were bows and arrows - not very smart. Jake is trying to stop her from doing it, but all she wanted to do was to kill some humans. However, by doing so, she'd expose her hiding place, and she'd probably be shot to death soon after. Then, out of nowhere, all the animals of the forest comes to her rescue and tramples all over the humans! How in the world did that happen? Oh yeah, mother nature told the animals to. Seriously, mother nature commanded the animals to come and kill the humans. Suddenly, all the previously ferocious animals become tamed little pets, and they even allowed the Na'vi princess to ride on its back at one point. Then the flying animals swoop down to destroy the flying ships, they start eating the humans, and everything is resolved. The natives win! Woo! Suck it Pocahontas, you didn't have mother nature on your side. The natives have mother nature and a bad plot device on their side.

The next thing I want to talk about is the entire first half of Avatar. From the very beginning of the film up until the sex scene (which really isn't a sex scene), it is basically a combination of a National Geographic episode and Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth. James Cameron seems to be in love with the world that he has created so much that he wants to spend the first half of the film showing you everything there is to show about it. This is what happens in the first half of the film: Oh look, these plants look funny and they act funky. Do as I say Jake you idiot, you are supposed to shoot arrows like that. That is the Na'vi way. Oh, more plants to look at. Don't touch that, try this, no Jake! You idiot. Plants! That animal is dangerous, it can eat you if it wants to. PLANTS! Waterfall. This is the Na'vi way of talking to our ancestors. CATCH A BANSHEE! Floating islands, a lot of minerals in those. PLANTS! Glowing plants. Strange monkeys, strange horses. Tree of Souls! Tree of something. PLANTS! Cute. Oh look at this, this is a sign that you are "the one". Stop doing that, idiot. Plants! Let's mate. It is almost like a documentary feature of Pandora on its own. I understand if you want to show off all your amazing creations, and I get that. However, noticed how Peter Jackson tried to show off Middle Earth, an entirely fictional world? He doesn't spend half of the trilogy talking about where everything came from. This time, it almost feels self-indulgent while he spent all the time he spent showing off everything. Look! I created this weird looking monster thing! Me! And this plant! It glows in the dark! Like those Twilight vampires the sun? Only, we are in the dark, and they glow! Look! Plants! More plants! No, that is not the Na'vi way. Let's come up with a new language so that the Na'vi can speak that way. Insert Na'vi speech here. HEAR THAT?! I created a language! I'm the king of the world! Woo!

Avatar is James Cameron's moment to show off what he has been wanting to do, and people lapped every inch of it up. Aside from the special effects, there really isn't anything to rave about. Notice how I couldn't even be bothered with going into details about the story. You, as the audience, are always going to be about forty minutes ahead of the film, because you know how it is going to turn out for sure. I almost wished for the Na'vi people to lose just so that there'd be some element of surprise in me - no, they won, because mother nature had a divine intervention. Avatar is nothing more than a bloating effort on James Cameron's part to show off what he can do with special effects and 3D. While those were great, he didn't have the story or the characters to match up to it. But humans, like I said, are visually drive creatures, and we create this halo effect when it comes to films as well. If a film looks good, then we can forgive a lot of other bad things that come along with it. It's good that my 3D glasses were uncomfortable and screwed up, because that allowed me to really study the film without being completely distracted by the visuals. I initially gave the film a 7/10, but I think I'd like to lower it to about 6/10, or lower. The more I think about Avatar, the more it feels to me like an overblown film about James Cameron's own little fantasy world badly executed.

6/10

I remember asking the receptionist if he was still in his office, and she pointed me to his office which was right around the corner. I knocked, and he was behind his desk arranging some papers and folders when he noticed me. It took a while, but his smile overcame his face and welcomed me into his office. We didn't talk there, though, and we ended up at the end of the corridor talking about my trip to New York City, his possible trip to Singapore, and my graduation. I remember he asked me about it, and I told him that I have finished my studies for good - or, at least for the time being. He looked at me with a frown in between his brows, somewhat accusingly I thought, and he told me that it was a pity because I should have stuck around for a longer period of time. I'd like to, I'd sure love to do that. But there is an end to everything, every phase in life, and that was my time - my time was up. I asked him for some advices about graduation, because I was a duck right there and then, standing before Dr. Carter, a turmoil of thoughts and emotions beneath my skin. I was petrified about the prospects of graduating, terrified of leaving my comfort zone. I had time, I really did have time. I'd not officially graduate until I receive my certificate, and I know that. Yet, to know that I was on the brink of my "real life", or "the rest of my life", I knew that the next phase is going to be a whole new challenge. New challenges entail new set of unknowns, and that to me is the scariest beast of all.

Dr. Carter's arms were folded before his chest at that time, listening to what I had to say about graduation. Graduation: the beginning of unemployment! I said, as I sarcastically pumped my fist into the air to show my enthusiasm - or, lack thereof. He laughed, and placed his big hands on my shoulder. It was comforting, the pressure, and reassuring, most of all. He lowered his voice a little bit at that time, and he told me that he understood my situation. "Just one thing though," he then went on to say. "Just relax". I have been brought up this way: We study, we study, and we study some more. We study for better grades, we study for better grades than everybody else. We do well at school, we base our lives around numbers and alphabets, and then we feel better about ourselves. We do that for a long time, for the better part of our youths, and then right after that you throw yourself into the next world - the adult world. The world with a lot of working, a lot of stress, and the world where you have to fend for yourself, where every man is for himself for the most part. It is a dog eat dog world there, a cannibalistic world where people would eat you alive if you are not careful. These are not zombies which we can destroy their brains without a care in the world. These are fellow human beings, people who are hungry not for your flesh for money. And you, and everybody else other than themselves, are standing in their way.

I've been taught that since young, especially from the teachers in school. If you screw up in one stage of your life, you are screwed for the rest of your life. I've grown to learn that grades isn't everything, although it helps. It helps with a lot of things, but it certainly isn't everything that a person should be aiming for. I have done well in my college life, in fact pretty damn well if I do say so myself. I don't think I have had a better streak of good grades throughout my academic life, and this time I am more qualified than ever - or so I thought. Even though I am armed with everything that I can possibly arm myself with to protect me from the rest of the world, I am still, in every which way possible, scared. That is the case for every college graduate, I presume, you feel the fear brewing in your stomach, and churning around like expired milk. Or at least I hope dearly that I am not alone in this, that people are supposed to feel the way that I am feeling right now. It hasn't even been a month since I returned from the United States - hell, a month ago, I was still in New York City. It hasn't been that long, and I know of people who have graduated for good, still touring the United States because 1) They have the time. 2) They have the money. It isn't too late, it isn't the end of the line. But. But. There's always a "but".

I don't think everything will miraculously work itself out, and that everything will be fine. But when he told me to relax, I feel he doesn't mean that I should just sit on my butt and wait for something to happen to me, you know? I feel what he meant was that things are not going to take a turn for the worse, that this is not the end of all things. We don't have to worry particularly for too many things, because we only need to do what needs to be done in order for things to work out, you know. I think that is reassuring, it really is. Like the hand he placed on my shoulder that afternoon, I keep reminding myself those words. My mother isn't worried, father isn't either. My friends from local universities took three months before they found a job, and I am not even back from Buffalo for a month at this point. These are the things that comfort me, and also the fact that I am not in this alone. A bunch of my friends just graduated along with me, and a bunch of other people will graduate in a few months as well. We are all in this together, you know, like brothers in arms on a battlefield of some sort. It'd be nice to sit down and talk about our hopes and fears one of these days, at least that'd be more comforting than to wallow in our own worries. I think I should relax, and in the mean time, do what I need to do to make that happen. It can be nerve-wrecking, it really can be. This period of time, although you are really not doing anything, it can be the most stressful period of time.

It's not like I have never transitioned from one phase in my life to another before. I have, many times, but they were always within the same ballpark, you know. The difference between primary school and secondary school was huge, and the same goes to the difference between secondary school and junior college. The workload got heavier and heavier, and the things you had to deal with became more and more challenging. Yet, we still have the examinations, we still had the projects, we still had the assignments. Everything was the same, but varied in more ways than one. School is school, after all, and all you have to do is to adapt to the new lifestyle, and you are good to go. It's like switching from swimming to doing water polo, you know. But this time, the working life, that is something that is completely different. It is different from everything that you've ever done before in your life, and that can be really daunting and overwhelming sometimes. It feels like the time right before my military service, and the thought process that went on in my head. I couldn't help but start to get nervous about what awaited me, you know, because it was a completely different life - or the lack of a life.

This is the part when it gets heavy, this is the part when we have to toughen up all over again. Life seems to be an intermittent series of sessions where we have to toughen ourselves up somehow. I don't think humans like change, or changes that are too dramatic. We like to be comfortable, to know what we are going to expect. There are times when we seek the unexpected, when the unknown excites us. But not when it also has to deal with reality, our real lives, not when there are consequences that are going to affect you directly. Every once in a while, we want to go to a foreign country because we know nothing about that country. There is that excitement in there somewhere, but not when you are gambling with life. Life is such, and we have to live it. We all wished to be somebody else when we were five, or ten, and then you grow up to somebody whom you are not. I suppose, in some ways, none of us want to tell the childhood versions of ourselves who you finally became. My childhood self would probably be disappointed that I didn't eventually become a movie director, that I am still in Singapore and still a part of this massive system. Well, such is life, and it is harsh. It presses down upon, but we do the best that we could to get by. But sometimes, when you think about it, just "getting by" isn't nearly enough any longer.

I think I have figured it out, though, I think I finally know why that is the case. You see, when you are somebody who strives to write a little something everyday, then there is bound to be the day that you begin to burn out, when you feel like you don't want to embark on that kind of expressional journey on a daily basis. I am not the kind of writer, or blogger, who wants to post just about anything everyday. There are funny pictures or interesting quotes that come along all the time, and the sites that I see them are updated pretty frequently throughout the day. Yet, I don't want my blog to turn into a picture blog of sorts, choked with pictures of little things I gather throughout the day. It has always been a part of my heart and my mind, it has always been like a bank where I deposit these things. To exorcize them, to leave them somewhere safer than my head, perhaps. It has always been an effort for me to sort my thoughts out so that it will not jeopardize the rest of who I really am, you know. Every once in a while, I suppose posting song lyrics and such should be fine, but that has never been the sole purpose of what this blog is all about, or what I deem it to be about. This is an attachment, or a long engagement that seems to have gone too far and too deep. It's just a blog, the rational side of me tells, it's really just a blog.

At the same time, though, I didn't want it to sink into a blog that is like the ten million other blogs out there. I didn't want every entry to be a description or a report of what happened in a day of mine, you know. Nobody wants to read about my trip to the supermarket, the brand of rice that I bought, why I preferred to buy the bottle of cream sauce instead of a tomato-based one. Well, perhaps the reasoning would be somewhat interesting, but then there are so many blogs around that I can never be bothered to bring myself to read. I have too much respect for myself to do that, because some blogs are simply not worth your time. Even if they are just a paragraph or two about what they ate, where they went, who they met, what they did - you feel like pulling your brain out from your nostrils via a very long hook, and then proceed to beat your brain into a pulp with your fists. There are times when you start to wonder how anybody would be egoistical enough to expect anybody to read that. They may argue that they blog for themselves, that it is really a personal diary that happens to be online. Well, no such thing exists when you are on the internet, and a blog that isn't locked is for the public eye. A part of you craves for that attention when you leave it available for the rest of the world to see. A part of you wants to be read and be known no matter how mundane your life can become.

So, I didn't want my blog to be about that at all. An everyday account of what happened in my day - who cares? I know I don't care, but the thoughts that come along with the events that happened, now that may count for something indeed. I've heard of a saying before that speaks of how there is something in everything to write about, and I suppose that is true. Yet, if you are also writing with a certain audience in mind, no matter how insignificant or small, you have to realize that although there is something in everything to write about, not everything is worth writing about, however. So, in an effort to control the quality of things, I suppose that was the reason why I so suddenly stopped doing something altogether. It wasn't a conscious decision to do so, it just kinda stopped midway through my trip in Buffalo. Maybe it wasn't even midway, but it certainly felt very immediate. I have proclaimed a couple of times that I was back to writing for good, but I suppose there were too many things going on back then - or too little - to want to do this all over again. Sooner or later, guilt started to set in, and I started to avoid this blog like an ex-lover. You know, like an ex-girlfriend who is in the same class as you, you cannot help but avoid her as often as possible. Worse, if you guys were assign the same group in a project - the horrors.

I cannot guarantee to you, blog, how long I will be sticking around again this time. I still have a brain, things still go through my head, and I've always had the urge to write something. Guilt kept me away, and isn't that a curious emotion to feel towards a blog anyway? It is a time of self-reflection these days, when you are sitting at home alone and you are wondering what exactly you can contribute to, well, everything. Graduation is the beginning of your unemployment, and while that can be a truly terrifying period of time, it is also a time when you get to sit down somewhere quietly and do some reflection. That's what I have been doing, just reflecting upon myself and thinking about what I can do based upon what I do best. When you come right down to it, you have very little talents to boast about, and there are probably a dozen others who can do a better job than you do at practically anything. In a world this competitive, it is almost impossible to stand out, especially when you haven't been trying to do so all your life. I figured that I love writing, and I am somewhat decent at doing it. Writing isn't something that is foreign to me. In fact, I love writing just about anything. Even if it is a note for my sister, I enjoy crafting the message and choosing the words carefully. It expresses who I am, even the littlest things in life.

This is the crossroads, and I suppose any of life's junctions deserves a fresh new start in terms of expressing myself. It is petrifying down here, which is why I managed to ignore the nagging guilt in my chest. It bugs at you and tucks at your veins until you finally give in. You say to yourself "yes, yes!", and you go ahead and begin on the very first line, even if you have written something similar a couple of months ago. This is when everything bears down on you, this is when it seems like the right time to start over. I don't know how long I will last, but this feels right. This, everything, feels appropriate. By now, everything seems comfortable and familiar already, and it doesn't take a lot for me to slip back into my comfort zone. You know, amidst the billions of permutations that my keyboard can conjure, the different combination of letters and buttons, that is the place where I discover my solace and bliss.

I think I have been living in an environment whereby race hasn't been a pressing issue for too long. I recently wrote a paper about race and multiculturalism for my American Pluralism class, and that reflection paper really got me thinking about the state of race, or racism, in Singapore. Since my paper was mainly based around multiculturalism in my country, I discussed issues on the efforts that Singapore have engaged in in order to foster a racially harmonious society. With that said, though, I also talked about how there are subtle racism that is alive in Singapore even today, the way that the education system as well as the military seems to not provide equal opportunities to members of another race. I will not go into the details of that here in this entry, but let's just say that it is better to be a Chinese in Singapore than an Indian or a Malay in more ways than one. It is an inequality and a difference that will never be erased just because we set aside a day in the year to celebrate our diversity, or to feature members of every race in agenda-driven National Day music videos. Anyway, most of my friends are Chinese, and I suppose there is a certain level of comfort in knowing that you are in the majority, you know. Of course, that is not to say that the majority should, in any way, feel superior to the minorities in the country. I am just saying that being in the majority, the chances of your being discriminated against drops quite significantly. After all, not every country is like South Africa, where the color of your skin is more powerful than sheer numbers. I can never understand how the blacks in South Africa (the vast majority) can settle with being controlled by the white minority. They really only need to raise their eyebrows for the richer whites to be wiped out.

Anyway, I moved from Taiwan to Singapore when I was five years old, a change that was somewhat significant in terms of the people that I was with. Suddenly, I was thrown into a society with a lot of darker skinned people than myself, something that I've never experienced in my life back then. For some reason, though, I've never had a sense of hostility against these people around me, and I've never thought myself to be any different from these people save for our skin color and, sometimes, accent. I remember being in kindergarten back then, with a bunch of my classmates being either Malays or Indians, and I've never had a problem with that despite never knowing the concept of "racism". Perhaps that is the key to it all, not knowing the concept of "prejudice" and "discrimination" made me a child that looked upon all my peers as equals, you know. I don't remember my parents ever reinforcing the idea of racial equality in my head when I was much younger. It was something that came naturally, and I am thankful that my parents aren't some racist bigots who'd frown at my malay and indian friends if I brought them home. That is the kind of attitude you'd expect from common Singaporeans though, especially after living in a country with a variety of races for such a long time. I mean, we already live and work in such close proximity with members of another race, you'd expect a common understanding to rise out of this naturally. It's not like everybody of a certain race still retains their unique cultural practices after all. We've all kind of blended in more ways than one to form a culture than is a "Singaporean Culture" rather than a Chinese, Malay, or Indian one.

Yet, you'd be surprised to hear that some people, some Singaporeans to be exact, can still be extremely racist for some reason. I mean, racism isn't something that you hear a lot in Singapore, at least not from my experience. I have malay friends, and I have indian friends. Sure, the malays hang out with the malays, and the indians hang out with the indians a lot. However, that does not necessarily mean that the different groups have anything against each other for the most part, you know. That was the common assumption that I held for the most part, until I had a conversation with a friend yesterday regarding the topic of race, and I was just surprised at how faceless racism can be. By that, I mean it is impossible to tell who is racist and who is not by how they look like, you know. Racist people do not have a certain way that they look, and at such everybody can potentially be a racist until proven otherwise. I met this friend of mine over dinner yesterday by chance, and we were just talking about the people here in the United States when she started telling me about how terrified she is of black people, something that I couldn't help by pry into after she confessed her fears. You'd think that a Singaporean would be more educated about how irrational racism is, but apparently not in this person's case.

This friend of mine started telling me, in great lengths, about how she has issues with malays in Singapore as well as black people in the United States. She used the word "hate" when it comes to malays, and she started telling me about how they have an awful sense of fashion, and that their antics "disgust" her. She has been known to make very generalizing views about things, and she isn't exactly an abyss of vocabularies when it comes to choosing the right words. Yet, when you are using the word "hate" and a race in the same sentence, you should know that you are crossing the line. At any rate, her dislike for malays could very well be attributed to stereotypes, in which case is a mental compartmentalizing tool that has some truth in them sometimes. However, she started telling me about why she dislikes the black people, and that really threw me off at just how real and alive racism is. She started going on and on about how the black people has scary faces, and that they look menacing somehow (the word "menacing" wasn't what she used, but I am sure that word does not exist in her word bank). I started prying into this part of the conversation, and she continued to rationalize her arguments. Yet, the more she tried, the harder she fell flat on her face in front of my impeccable arguments.

She mentioned about how she'd purposely take a detour if she sees a black person walking towards her around school, just because some of them look scary to her. I argued that only the kind of black people that rushes at you in the middle of the night while you are alone along an empty stretch of road can be considered as scary, but she pretty much assumes all of them as being the kind of person trying to stab her for whatever reasons. She seems to have a thing against short and stubby black women especially, claiming them to be the scariest of them all. In terms of crimes, she said that the people that commit crimes are usually black people, and we can see that from the crimes section in The Spectrum, where the descriptions are always of someone with "dark skin". Seriously, though, that was probably one of the most preposterous statements that I have heard in a while, and I still cannot wrap my head around the idea that it all came out of the mouth of someone who has lived in Singapore all her life, a place where diversity is celebrated. Even more shocking is the fact that she is a college student, a portion of our society that is supposed to be the most educated, and the most well-informed. I mean, shouldn't education change that narrow mindedness over the years that she has been in school?

You cannot argue for racism, you just can't. There is no way in which you can try to rationalize racism, because anything will fall flat against logic no matter how you see it. Racism, along with religion, really shouldn't be something that can be argued about, because they are both so ridiculous and stupid that it is laughable. Yet, those are two of the so-called "sensitive" topics that people tend to keep a hush-hush about, something which I do not completely understand. It is like the statement of "pigs flying" being a debate, when it really shouldn't be. Whether or not it is true that black people are scary, for example, is like the debate of whether or not pigs can really fly - it is no argument at all, really. My point is that racism is so stupid that it will not stand against someone with a set of basic logic, and that it shouldn't even be a debate whatsoever. But there are still people in this world who are terribly afraid of a particular race because, well, they are. They'd say that they are not racists, and they'd find a dozen different other reasons why they have a certain prejudice against a certain group of people. But the truth is that they are not fooling anybody but themselves, to deny the part of their minds that screams racist in a dozen different languages.

I expressed my disgust for racist people to this friend of mine, and I told her that she is disgusting for thinking that way. What is even stranger is how she apologized for her racist views, and then used the excuse "I cannot help it" to explain everything that she has said. I do not deny that at that moment, I wanted to walk away from where we were. But still, I didn't want to make a big deal out of the situation, because it'd seem rather petty of me to discredit everything else about this friend of mine that makes her a friend of mine, if you know what I mean. I believe that "I cannot help it" or "I am like that" is never an excuse for anything at all, especially when it comes to racism. You don't admit that you are a racist and not do anything about it. I mean, it is too convenient to do that, and it's kinda like how a slob would lay on his back all day and do nothing, and seems to warrant himself in doing so by claiming that he is "like that", and "cannot help it". It's disgusting how people like that can use their own personality and character as an excuse to racism, when nothing should ever be an excuse to racism at all. If you were gang raped by twelve black guys, maybe I see a reason why you'd have a certain distain for them, although I will still condemn it. However, this friend of mine does not even have a good reason to feel that way about black people - she just does.

The truth is that whatever that we believe about another group of people, that group of people probably also have a preconceived idea about how Chinese people are like. We are, after all, the minority here in the United States, and people here are going to look at us differently no matter how hard we try. People are going to assume that we are all nerds, that we all talk funny, that we all like to eat dogs, and that we do not shower very often. It'd hurt me immensely if somebody thinks that I look weird or scary just because of my race, because race is really just a state of mind, if anything at all. I can understand if cultures clash, and that we have disagreements between the different cultures. However, to write me off just because of the color of my skin, that is something that is immature and unfair in every shape or form. You simply do not make assumptions about a person just because of the color of his or her skin, when we are exactly the same underneath it all. If we peel away our skins, we are not going to be able to differentiate between different races of people. It sucks that we do not have a word to replace "race", no euphemisms this time to take over this horrible word that tears us apart. I guess it is how we deal with the word that is the most important, and I guess some people are just too immature to understand that racism is such a disgusting trait to have.

You would expect someone from Singapore and with a college education, in today's day and age, to have a better understanding that we live in a multicultural society, and everybody in this world are blending in together. People of different races are marrying each other, people are having children with one another, and who knows one day when there won't be a difference in skin color at all. That'd probably happen in a few thousand years, and not something that we can look forward to in our lifetime. However, it is something that we should always be striving for, even if it is something that we'll achieve in the physical form in our lifetime. I am not saying that we should all pro-create with someone of a different race other than our own. I'm just saying that there really shouldn't be a barrier of race when it comes to liking or loving somebody, you know? I asked this same friend of mine if she'd mind if she meets the perfect guy, but he is malay. She immediately brushed him off, and told me that she'd never even consider it, because she really dislikes malays. I mean, I think it'd make more sense if you want your husband to be rich, to be a certain religion (even this is pushing it), or of a certain nationality (for practical reasons). But if you are going to discredit someone for his or her race, it doesn't make any sense at all.

I am with someone who is half malay and half chinese right now, and she is the most amazing girl that I have ever met in my life. The both of us have already put aside a great many differences that some people may consider to be obstacles in a relationship, and I think for that we have achieved a lot. Sure, we have the age difference, and it is always interesting to know that she is a Catholic and I am an atheist. There are probably stranger combinations out there, but this is pretty unlikely by itself, you know. I've been rejected based on my beliefs (or non-beliefs), and I've never been the kind of person to impose any sort of beliefs on the person that I am with. I think if we can just look pass these trivial things in life, whether or not it is religion, wealth, or the color of our skin, we will be able to achieve a greater understanding. If Neptina is a malay, I'd still fall head over heels for her, no matter what. My liking for her has got absolutely nothing to do with whether or not she is a chinese, a malay, or a bit of both. Neptina's last name could very well be "Azikiwe", and she could very well be from Zimbabwe, I really cannot care less. How do people say that they'd never love a certain group of people is simply beyond me.

Racism is stupid, and I am thankful that I am in the crowd that believes that it is. I don't want to be on the other side of the fence, the side with all the bigots that are freaking out because he or she is in a room full of members of a different race. To be honest, I no longer feel like I am a Chinese in a country full of white people, you know. I mean, every once in a while, I do realize that I am in the minority, especially when the lecturer asks about it or when I am being asked about where I am from. I can understand stereotypes, because I can easily discredit stereotypes. Racism, however, that is something entirely different altogether. Racism has deep claws, and it sinks in real deep into the skin and flesh if it so wishes. You cannot expect to change a person's attitude over a short period of time, because it just doesn't work that way. Perhaps if someone of a different race rescues you from a burning car that you are trapped in, maybe that'd change your perspectives just a little bit. But it just disgusts me that such a primitive belief that black people are inferior or, "scary" as my friend put it, still exists in our world today is beyond me. More than anything, I wish for a world without division, and we can all recognize that we really are not a bunch of different people, but one species as a whole. But of course, stupid people are aplenty, and they are everywhere. What more can we do than to wait for the world to change?

I refer to myself as a "victim" when it comes to long distance relationships, and I use the word "victim" because the definition of it seems to fit with my current situation. The definition of the word "victim" refers to any person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other events or action. In this case, the so-called "event" seems to be my time spent away from my loved ones back home, and the part of me that has been harmed or injured as a result is probably my heart. Long distance relationship is a tricky thing, and it's kinda like trying to untangle and oiled ball of wires. I've never expected myself to be involved in a long distance relationship, and a part of my criteria for a girlfriend before I officially found Neptina was that she'd have to stay close to me. It is strange, and it may not make sense to everybody out there, and some people may attribute it to the fact that I haven't got a car or a license to boot. Yet, if you think about it, even if you do have a car to drive your girlfriend home everyday, having her live on the other side of the country (literally) is still going to be quite a hassle. Love conquers a lot of things, but it can only do so much when the money it takes to pump those petrol starts to burn a hole in your pocket. That is when it slaps you in the face, and you wish that your girlfriend lives underneath your unit in the same condominium.

I still think Pasir Ris is very far away from where I stay in Singapore, but I have become quite accustomed to traveling the distance, thanks to the straight bus between our homes. Distance no longer is an obstacle, and I have now thought myself to be somewhat silly to consider that to be a criteria at all. After all, no matter how far you go, you are still within the same country, and the road in front of your house eventually leads to her house, if you are determined enough to travel it by foot. The distance can be conquered, and I suppose I have conquered it both physically and mentally many times over. However, nothing that we've ever done in the past could have prepared us for this long distance relationship, something which is most commonly heard in relationship horror stories. Chances of survival are small, and the odds are usually against you when it comes to long distance relationship. We've heard it many times before, those stories about couples breaking up after being away from each other for too long. Sometimes, it doesn't even have to be a long haul, like a year or two away from each other. Some couples do not operate very well with distance I suppose, and it isn't something that can be blamed for the most part. Long distance relationship, before this, was like a fable of sorts that I've never considered.

As mentioned before, the decision to come to Buffalo was made a long time ago, way before even Neptina came along into my life as a mere friend. The plot thickened when I became romantically involved with her, and the situation then became a little complicated. As much as I wanted to remain behind and keep as far away as possible from being a victim of a long distance relationship, I knew in the back of my mind that I had to do it. You know, to move away from my comfort zone, to toss myself into a foreign territory without a map or a compass. In truth, I came over to Buffalo without much planning and not a lot of luggage to speak of. I probably had the lightest luggage as compared to my three other friends who came over with me. In my mind, I wanted to start from square one with just a pocket full of cash and a lot of guts to boast. Perhaps I wanted to learn that way, to cut off all conveniences and luxuries, and to start from the very beginning of things. That might explain why I also bought the most daily necessities the moment we touched down in Buffalo, and how I also spent the most money on things like lamps, bedsheets, electric kettle, and all that kinda things. I came over here pretty much with my bare hands, and I suppose that was what I was aiming at - the fastest way to grow out of my shell.

I wanted to do all those, and I think I have achieved all those. I have had a lot of time to mentally prepare myself I suppose, all the way from the very beginning of my college life up until the moment when I left. Yet, I didn't factor in the possibility of being with somebody in the midst of my college life at all. I expected to leave my friends and family behind for months, but a girlfriend never came to me while I was trying to mentally prepare myself. After all, the way that Neptina and I was completely due to chance and some strange mathematical miracle in some ways, and we still constantly talk about how things could have been different if 1) I was late 2) She was late 3) I was a pervert. At any rate, her presence in my life, though welcomed, was something I failed to see when I was trying to prepare myself. I was not prepared to play the role of a victim in a long distance relationship, not ready to deal with the fact that we will be in different time zones and on completely different continents altogether. It was a daunting thought at the beginning, and I remembered all the horror stories that my friends have ever told me. Even the stronger couples that I have known in the past did not stand the test of both distance and time. Many have faltered, though some have survived. The trouble is, though, that you don't have a manual for such things, and you can't help but feel like you are going out into uncharted territories with your eyes blindfolded. After a step or two, it becomes terrifying.

I admit that for the most part of the trip to Buffalo from Singapore, my mind was both too tired and too excited to think about the growing distance between myself and Neptina. The plane ride went by in a daze of sorts, and it was punctuated mostly by food from the stewardesses and the various sleeping positions that I adopted throughout the trip. Even the first day or two in Buffalo failed to leave a mark on me, and I thought I was able to handle it. Perhaps it was the fatigue, or the surrealistic feel of everything around me. Even two days into my trip here, I still found it difficult to believe that I have made it this far on my own, by myself. At any rate, it was not until a week into my stay here in a foreign land did the nail hit deep enough into my chest. The pain of distance is the kind of excruciating pain that you cannot extinguish simply by thinking of happy thoughts. The voice of your loved ones over the phone doesn't help very much either because it only serves to remind you just how far away you are from everything that you have grown to love and care for. At least that was how I felt, away from everybody and everything back home, completely alone and scared out of my wits. It took a while to sink in, but there were nights when it would sink in too deep, and I'd tear uncontrollably about being away for so long.

But, like cockroaches, we have adapted to this distance, and I am glad to say that we are doing OK, something that we constantly remind ourselves of. I cannot help but wonder how the generation of our parents remained in communication in the past. That was a generation when "love letter" perhaps meant more than what it means to us, somehow. I am thankful for the internet, and have remained in contact through phone calls over Skype as well as video conferences. We've kept a blog on Tumblr to update each other on what has been going on in each others' lives, as well as our own common blog to record random little nothings from the back of our very vibrant minds. Aside from all of those, we've been writing letters despite the fact that it seems to take forever to reach each other. My latest letter, a physical one mind you, was actually sent mistakenly to Osaka because of a postage screw-up on their part and not mine. On nights when we are both free to do so, we'd even turn on our Skype throughout the night so that the other person could watch and look over. It may seem like too much work just to keep in contact, and may seem redundant to some people. But it is something that comforts me immensely, even if I am the one doing the looking.

It is comforting to know that when you wake up in the middle of the night, the person that you love is going to be right next to your on your bed, in some shape or form. It's not that I wake up in my bed screaming because of a nightmare or anything like that, because I haven't had that kind of thing for a long time now. But it is still comforting sometimes to hear Neptina doing something on her side of the world, whether or not it is the sound of her typing something on her laptop, or the sound of the television from the living room. I'd recognize some of the advertisements and television shows sometimes even when I am sleeping soundly, and these are just some of the things that reminds me that things are still going on back home, and very much alive while I am gone. I suppose we all need this kind of reminder every once in a while, something to tell you that things back home are exactly the same as how you left them, that everything is going to be all right. At any rate, I'd leave my computer turned on for hours on end, and she'd be the same floating head in the morning when I wake up as the floating head that waved goodnight to me the night before. Even when the bed is empty on her side of the world, she'd literally bounce into view and greet me cheerfully.

On weekends like today, when I haven't got a reason to be in school at all, she'd be the one sleeping while I mind my own business throughout the day, watching over her. Perhaps it is the fact that she prefers to turn all the lights in her bedroom off, which invites a great many vivid imaginations to brew in one's head. Neptina wakes up more often than I do in the middle of the night, and there were times in the past when she'd call me on the phone just because she had a nightmare of sorts. I've never actually watched over somebody like this before, because I'd usually succumb to my own fatigue halfway through the first ten minutes or so. This time, however, I can watch over her without the fear of falling asleep myself, and it has been a comforting thing to do. To see the person that you love in pixelated form, shuffling in between the sheets, her hair sprawled on the pillow like river systems that we've studied in geography so long ago. On nights when the lights from the laptop monitor is enough to reach her body, you'd be able to see her chest moving up and down to every breath that she takes, and then there are those moments when you'd see the tiny glitter in her half-opened eyes, with the eyeballs rolling around inside, hinting a dream in the back of her mind.

Sometimes, with a groan and a stretch, she'd wake up in the middle of the night for a variety of reasons. A nightmare sometimes, but mostly when nature calls, Neptina would always turn to me and I'd be there, checking up on her. She told me once that she never used to sleep with her back facing the outside of the bed, and always the side with the wall. With the laptop turned on and my floating head constantly hovering around, she has been able to sleep while she faces the other side, and she feels more secure because of that. It is silly, maybe, but it makes me feel as if I am doing my job protecting her somehow, even if there really isn't much to protect her from other than the wild imaginations of the night. I get more pleasure out of watching her, really, the way that her breathing would sometimes takeover the music from my Macbook, rising and falling like a natural symphony orchestra, and those rare moments when she'd murmur something in her sleep. We have been doing this for a great many nights now, and we have also taken pictures of each other sleeping. I hate the look on my face when I sleep, and I think I look like a corpse while sleeping, truth be told. She says the same thing about herself, but I truly believe that there isn't a more peaceful sight than the one of your lover asleep next to you.

I suppose when it comes to a long distance relationship, no one can safely say that they are very good at it. A friend of mine could have been called an expert at long distance relationships, but even his relationship disintegrated after four years of trying, with one of them in Singapore and the other in Australia. It's like the idea of having a "love doctor", an oxymoron by itself, because I don't think any of us are authorities on this issue at all. We are all trying to feel our way through long distance relationships, and we are also hoping that it will not get to the better part of what we hold to be precious and true. It is a tricky thing, as I started this blog entry with, and it certainly makes victims out of a lot of people, a lot of the time. What we can do is to work out an equation that fits both parties, knowing that it'd work within those boundaries. The truth is that there's no one else I'd rather be in a long distance relationship than Neptina, because no one else is worth the trouble and worth the time. I suppose she, as well as the thing that we share, are just too important for geography to take over, you know. Even if the both of us exist to each other mainly in the form of pixels, even if the clarity of our images are dictated solely by external forces like the internet connection, we still try, and we still try our very best. In more ways than one, that seems to be the only way for us to reach into the screen, to break the fourth wall literally, and it seems to have worked out so far. In pixels or not, I still love my girlfriend in high or low resolution.