cleaning the SOHO

I pull back the curtains, and let the room flood with afternoon daylight.

-

Today I resolve, finally, to clean out my new workroom, and to preliminarily pack our work stuff in. This room, Jan's ex-room, will become our new splashwurks workspace, for making art, for desktop work, for meetings. It is the best room in the flat, because it has the most light.


To tell the story of the evolution of the splashwurks artspace:

We gave up the studio at East Coast Road because we had not enough manpower and time to make the place profitable. Which was a waste because given the time we could have done it, but because we see ourselves as shrewd business folks we are not that overly sad about it - take it like a man, they say. Anything that does not make money is a burden to us in cash and mind, so, we cut it off, like a branch that does not bear fruit. Anyway, because our current main business is site-specific, so we are never homeless and spaceless to the point of inability to function.

Of course, us being H and E, we want to have an artspace nonetheless, because we like to have a place to lounge with our colleagues, to make art for art's sake, to have management meetings and the like, and to do our administrative stuff more properly. In future when we have enough members on board, our artspace will graduate from this SOHO for sure. Coffee parlour anyone? This current SOHO artspace will serve kopi c and darjeeling tea for the moment.

We will be removing the bed (anyone wants to buy a tilam?) in the room and bringing in our tables from H's place to make deskspace and a meeting cum artwork table. This will mean that the living room will finally, once again, be clear of art materials and other work stuff, and my room will hopefully be neater after this conversion.


The room is incredibly dusty: 3 pails of dirty water so far! But it makes me glad and sniffly all at the same time.

newness and eternity

Irwin sent me a poem today. It is titled 'Invitation', by Oriah Mountain Dreamer.


Isn't it nice to make new friends? He is not the only new friend I made lately, and i have to say the experience ushers in a lot of fun into my social relationships.



The Invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life's betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us to
be careful
be realistic
remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
"Yes."

It doesn't interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.


Oriah Mountain Dreamer



It is wonderful to get to know someone. And often, it takes an eternity to someone inside out. It takes a lack of distraction. It requires some excitement. It demands creation - of a shared time, of a genuine concern, of a shared space; it requires us to muster concentration on another. Perhaps it makes you fall in love, because suddenly you see the immense beauty in your companion.


What if you have great long-time companions already? How would it be possible to know them all over again?


It takes the same things really:

- eternity.
lack of distraction,
excitement.
creation of
a shared time
of genuine concern
a shared space,
and concentration.


I call these times of conversation, of shared solitudes, of lounging with good company, of being with people we love. All the same, and I will continue to have more when I can.

and she said...

KungfuBaby says:
aiya..forgive him lah
boy cannot think properly one


Gem of a thought and piece of advice. I will carry it with me.

still up tonight

Because I can't sleep -


I think I am ill, probably UTI, not sure exactly. I feel like peeing; a bit feverish and uncomfortable. Yeah, probably UTI. It is too late at night now to drink loads of water, so I will just drink juice, eat vitamins with apple cider vinegar and whatever else I can find that is detoxicating, and drink water enough till just below the point of gaining water retention.


I say all this, on Calvin's newly $558 rammed-up laptop in my living room, under the reading light.


Meanwhile:
I chat with Nigel on MSN
I read up on UTI
I go drink some more water


And very soon, I will have to go pee again!

Ray and Jane and Evelyn

Recently I re-read Animal Husbandry which I found to be rather shallow the first time I read it, but when I did again this time around, I felt it to be much more of worth. The conversation and unfolding of plot seem credible now.


I also find my experiences similar to Jane's from the story. She has been lied to by the man she fell in love with, Ray. He falls in love with her, but after they get together and he suggests they move in together, he decides that the relationship is no longer what he wants. This is not the lie, but rather, what unfolds afterward. It turns out, he has been going out with another girl, Evelyn, all this while, and he went off with Evelyn the minute he said he was 'not ready for another relationship now'. Sounds familiar?


It sounds juvenile, yes, but I can feel how Jane felt when, after Ray and her were no longer together, she saw Evelyn one day, wearing Ray's shirt - and that's how she found out. She then turned obsessive, and went to investigate, and there she found out the whole story.


Jane's housemate, Eddie, told her that she was getting too obsessive, and that it had been a year since Ray left, and that she will find someone to love that way again, and someone will love her again. This broke her down. Personally I believe it, but then again, the brand of love may or may not be the same or better the next time around. After all, it will be a different man.


Part of me wants Evelyn and Ray to break up, and the other part of me wants them to be together so that Ray would be happy eventually. Anyway, the real Rays of my life are indeed having problems with their currents, perhaps they might forever be alone in this life and unhappy. I feel sad when the Evelyns shed their tears, and I feel them. I also still hate the sneaking around behind or in front or after my back. I hurt myself by imagining Evelyn and Ray together, although I know that she is not me, and I gloat because I was there first. We are sharing now, but I was there first.


This is too much gloating; there is too much sharing, and ultimately, there will be a piece of him you cannot have - this I address to myself.


Isn't all this coming and going all too troublesome? Ordinarily, all the girls who are now currents-of-the-exes or exes-of-the-current, would all be good friends had they known each other under milder circumstances. But we all have to try more than once, and ruin everything. They all have to lie and hold discreetly their actions from me, and make me hate them more than I would if they came clean.


Enjoy your pre-marital beds, your honeymoons, your darting-and-hiding actions, your eventual break-ups. I see them all, and enjoy them: thankfully, I am masochistic.

[untitled]

"Would you believe me if I said I miss you?


I look and hope to find traces of your coming by, but my wait is insatiable longing, and is unfruitful at that.


I should not be missing you, for you are not mine to miss. If I missed you, I missed a technicolor image of you, and not really you. For I have no reckoning of you save for my fantasies. And that, I forced myself to fantasise, to be attracted, to break the trust, to indulge with you. You are not that attractive a man. I made up an image of you, so that I would have a rescuer of a man, that I actually hope I will never have to call upon.


I write this, and I no longer miss you, no longer look out for your traces, your sights and sounds, your name. Instead, I abide afloat as is, because I hope I will not actually go there, to where you are, for you, or rather the image of you, is false and of my weakness, and that I will take to my bed and bury there with the other many men."

what's with the self check list?

I wrote just two nights ago, about my interests and hobbies.


It sounds rather juvenile, this topic, and so I will reveal the intent behind it.


Recently Calvin said that we have no common interests, and therefore, no common conversational threads. He has come to find this trying, or rather, in Kee Min's words as I confided in him, he is becoming restless. Calvin has asked me to think about what we could possibly find common in our interests. As of tonight, the problem is pretty much on its way out. But at the time I wrote the self-check, I almost felt as if, I would lose yet another man. Which is no easy experience to wonder over.


I am too emotionally-old to start over, too used up, I have too much history for a good man, and honestly, I hate the starting of a new relationship because there is too much groundwork.


Has no one felt this way before? There is too much foundation to have to lay.


Firstly, you have to know where his beliefs lie in many life aspects. What is his direction in life? What do you feel about children? What does he feel about your idealistic mission- ambitions? Does his presence itself challenge your personal beliefs?


Secondly, PARENTS. Ever had the prospective mother-in-law from hell before? I have. Thankfully she is no longer the prospect.


Thirdly, do you live well together? You will know this from the very first night you ever have to spend together. Can you take his bad habits or his, yours? Or is he open to correction if there are unsavoury habits?


Also, how much history do you have to reveal? I know I always reveal too much at my own expense. Guys hate to know your history, please never reveal more than is necessary and always, always, leave out the details.


Wait, there's more. Do your friends approve? Or him of your friends? Or you of his?


Gosh, the list is never ending. It kills the experience of meeting a nice new male stranger who you can't help but just want to know, to spend time with as often as you can, and to take home in your pockets as soon as possible. Honestly, if the fall-in-love feeling is all you want, then you just need role-play and sexual banter to make the attraction and tension ever-present in any relationship. This is how I stay in love beyond the first few weeks till every today.


Anyway, Calvin and I may have different interests, different ways of charting our life direction with God, and love completely different activities most of the time. If anything, our only common interests are clubbing because we love the same music, and anime. That will be all.


But nothing beats being with Calvin, because I love him for who he is and not what he can do with me. I can find a million art-fanatics/reading geeks/depressive solitude-seekers, but few are able to eventually become my real life companion. Love to me is like companionship, because a true companion loves you, and is able to communicate that love to you, just as you should be able to communicate the same to him. Companionship is almost everything. It encompasses intimacy, love, and communication. It is hard for love to transcend without communion.


We may not love certain things about each other, like he hates how insensitive I am (all men do, I have this disqualifying trait that generally repels them), and how I hate his (insert undesirable Calvin-trait). But somehow, because we communicate well enough, we still work things out. Not in the way some people do such as to ply with gifts, make-up sex or apologies. But really, something concrete and tangible beyond all that.


And with regards to life direction, I know that, Calvin will become a man of great influence, that he lives to want to make his life a difference to this world, and that as God directs, we will work the path out together somehow.

christmas drama

I sit here, eaten a chocolate-chip muesli bar, and with a beer, writing this as soon as I got home.


I have just returned from one of the best drama performances I have ever attended, at the MGS Auditorium, performed by superb non-artists from my ex-church. I went because I helped conceptualise and paint the backdrop with the team. But after sitting through the performance, I now know that it was my honour to have been in the audience to receive this theatrical experience.


The title of the performance is, 'Defending your life'. I cannot even begin to describe it; words will fail the impact of its presentation to the audience.


In true modern drama style, it had live music - vocal and guitar; dance, which was very well choreographed; and visual art - the backdrop we painted! and other artwork on panels at the foot of the backdrop. The drama was written and directed by Sherilyn, who I must stake claim as my Splashwurks team-mate, because she is such a gem.


I fail at writing more about it. Words will not be able to tell the experience well enough without bastardising it. I shall stop here for now.


Honestly, this tops as the icing on the Christmas cake for me. I had a great Christmas celebration.


I met so many teenagers-turned-young-adults who I knew many years ago - and I still remember almost all their names, and many of them said hello to me, and treated me as part of them even though I left their church four years ago to join my present one.


I met my old friends, to catch up on their lives, to hear stories about them being proposed to or of their career changes.


I also, not very pleasantly but, bearably, had the excruciating privilege of having all of my exes all in the same room at the same time. Too much history in one room, I say. But oh well we are all adults, and we get along civilly somehow. At least, they are all exes and not, ugh, currents.


Thanks to Sherilyn and the fabulous team, for the amazing performance that I would have shed tears whilst it happened, had it not been that I wanted to put up a non-emotional front for the rest of the audience so that I will look brave.

self check: my hobbies and interests

I confess: I am a very boring person.


My hobbies and interests are pursued as long as I can afford them, and I am honestly rather poor. Therefore, it means that the things I do nowadays, are only the affordable favourite activities.


There are tons of things that I enjoy, or would love to do, but as of now, I cannot afford to do much of.


I love travelling. I love Asia, Irwin says I will love Europe, I want to go to as many art museums and places of history that I can in the entire world. To me, stepping into a place like an ancient mosque in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, was something I am till this day, impressed by - a piece of history that I carry with me always. I remember the point where I realised I stood right at the street where the Silk Road passed through - stopped my breath for a half-count. I love art so much that I will never forget the Queensland Art Museum in Brisbane - I almost forgot I went there alone. But these are things that, sorry to say, I do not always have the luxury of spare cash or spare time to do. And even with travelling, I only enjoy certain things more than others, for example I found Gold Coast only a passable place, and the only thing I really, really loved there, was the beer, which is available throughout Australia. So I am poor as well as rather troublesome: I only like to travel for art and history and culture, and for taking in God's creations like mountains and horizons of fields, not for the typical urban entertainment types meant to attract tourists.


I would love to learn sailing. The type of sport that I like to do, which isn't very many to begin with, are the types that allow contemplation and intimacy of sorts. (Obviously, I am doing these physical activities for the wrong reasons). I like cycling. It helps me think, enjoy my surroundings. I like swimming, it helps me de-stress and feel good. I like walks, if with another, walks allow me to link hands with someone and have intimate conversation.


I love conversation, and about things that alter history, the intimate things. I will remember the places where I had the best conversations with people. I remember the benches in the garden of SAM, where H and I talked about our shared goals and visions. I remember O'Briens in Citilink, where Shuyi and I had the first long conversation with each other after work one night, and that started our friendship.


I love music and most things related to it. I enjoy playing it, with or without others. I enjoy seeing people play it, thus I like going for gigs and live band performances. I enjoy going clubbing mainly because of the music.


I love art, which is why I love my work. And not just art-art, but also the performing arts, film, and design. I love them all. I like experiencing them all.


I like shopping! Because I am a girl, because I love fashion, it is to me, art as well. When I hated my job, dressing up for work was my main motivation to go to work, and make up too. But, now because I am poor, I obviously do not shop very much. I am also not the sort who plans to go shopping, it is more likely to be an impromptu thing that occurs.


It is silly to say this, but I also enjoy all the base-level existential thngs that fulfills our primary physiological needs. I know that some people do not really, but I do love all of them: sleep food sex drink. In copious amounts, please.


And, I love books and writing. Words are ultimately my first loves. When I stop writing, I stop thinking. And I cannot stop reading. I am an addict.

the story was about me

Prostitute.


Murderer.


Adulteress.


When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner."

Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet.Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little."

Then Jesus said to her, "Your sins are forgiven."

The other guests began to say among themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?"

Jesus said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace."

Luke 7:36-39; 44-50

the best loves

One night in Rouge, we were all high and happy, Enid had said this to Calvin:


"I love Elaine. Whoever Elaine loves, I will love. And Elaine loves you. So I love you too. Don't listen to me: I'm high."


According to Calvin, I probably don't remember this, because I was high too. But he would, since he doesn't drink much and had to drive us girls home. And he has remembered this very much too because it was very sweet.


All this triggered a recounting tonight, because I just told Calvin, that I love Enid, and Enid would only want me to be happy. That is when he retold this encounter in Rouge to me. I can now vaguely remember this moment, Enid put her arm on Calvin's shoulder, saying this to him, while we were on the cosy Rouge dancefloor. Anyway, it is the sort of thing that my other E would say. And I know, she really meant something along that line somehow.

the concept of solitude

I have been reading Immortality by Milan Kundera, wherein the beauty, and the scarcity of solitude is mentioned.


Right now, I am writing in solitude, as I always have. Writing, just like art, be it executed alone or with others, is done in solitude, shared or singly. Solitude does not mean being alone, for to me it just means completely being with yourself. With an intimate companion, you can achieve that. In a crowded place, you might - then again, you might get bumped into and have your chain of thought cut short, or bubble-shield penetrated against your will by jabbing strangers who walk too near you.


Solitude is not the furthest from me when I am in a crowd. It is when I feel a broken, or missing synchrony with the people I love, or with the company I am keeping. That, in fact, is loneliness, the lateral inversion of solitude, the furthest extreme, the polar opposite.


Instead of being with yourself and enjoying it, you are alone and prone to doing silly desperate things. You do not love yourself when you feel lonely, and time holds no meaning in itself. In solitude you gain inspiration; in loneliness, you might just get yourself sick.


Imagine a moment transformed: At first, you sit down by yourself to enjoy a meal at the kopitiam, happy because you are hungry and about to enjoy your favourite food of the moment, and perhaps read a good book while at it, or people-watch if you like that kind of thing. Suddenly, your man smses you he is out with someone else, doing an intimate deed like watching a movie, with a girl who is not you, and you know is about to betray you. The soup turns bland, threatened by tears that might fall anytime, even the hotness of the soup, no longer scalds; your tongue feels nothing. Solitude has turned into loneliness.


I remember that moment: I was having fish soup at the Ang Mo Kio S-11, it was in a year I no longer recall.


I have mentioned before that I am claustrophobic. I feel inwardly disgusted when my space is invaded. This can take the form of Orchard Road crowds, or in the form of someone entering my room, or an occasion forcing me to be happy for it. I no longer hate people for being part of any of these instances, but I am enduring them, not enjoying them in the slightest. They threaten my love for intimacy, that is, shared solitudes. I feel like something is being taken away when these instances are in place, and I want it back.


In intimacy, there abides shared solitude. I enjoy the moments when I share the space with someone I love: reading, or having a quiet meal, or having walks, or lain on the bed at night. Shared solitudes are the in-betweens of pure solitude and pure loneliness. Some will say, that they have felt lonely lying next to the person they love - that is possible, and often experienced, shared loneliness. But shared solitudes are not about feeling lonely, if anything, these moments will help you gain more insight into yourself, and your companion into himself.


Loneliness occurs with or without the presence of someone you love. Where there is someone, a loss of synchrony might occur sometime. Loss of synchrony - a broken connection, a dead love never to be resurrected and that be against your will, a loss of love of life because there seems to be no vision nor purpose. When we find that our loved one is far away in his thoughts, or communication breaks down, or that your differences seem irreconciliable; or that he has left you against your will; or when we need direction in life and somehow are still searching - loneliness steps in.


I added the last point because, when we need direction, we feel lost, and apart from the presence of God, we are lonely, because we have to search alone and incommunicado, and because without vision in life, even love with another human can turn to be meaningless and without direction too. Ever been told that she cannot see a future with you? She turned lonely even with you around, because really she needed direction, and probably still does very much, maybe without her realising it. Perhaps, anyway.


In times of loneliness we may do very silly things. It is like a spell of fear, a sickness that incapacitates healthy functions of our own bodies and minds. I once I called someone up, and mistakenly in my sickness mistook him to say, imply, something else - and that practically altered the path of my life forever. I no longer think, 'what if?', but months after that incident, I realised I misintepreted him too soon, and that the clock can never be turned back. It was my turn to kill the same beautiful thing, as we kept doing, to the point we carry sadness with us till it transfers out. In my loneliness thereafter I became a person I call my alter ego, for I am not her, but I sometimes think about her glamourous lifestyle and covet it mistakenly in lust. When I am her, my tents are open, and company comes, even the wrong and taken ones that should never enter. I regret, and move on and away from my alter ego.


Despite my current safe haven of completed husbandry (c.f. chick-lit author Laura Zigman) as some perceive, loneliness still occurs, albeit rarely. But it hits tsunami-style, like a fall from a great height, in sudden occurences. Suddenly you sense a loss of synchrony, because of differences in things that matter to both, or a rare moment of lost control of temperament. It resolves eventually, but at that point, the fall into loss and loneliness, is no regular single-girl fall.


There was once, Cal and I were along Greenleaf Road towards his house, in a car or walking I don't remember. We saw a guy walking by himself towards us, presumably walking out to take a bus along Holland Road. Calvin gestured towards that guy, and gently said, 'If we didn't find each other, that would have been me.' Just like how I told him on another occasion on the PIE towards my house, I would rather be the guy in the dingy car with someone beside him, than be the uber cool yuppie in his beemer, going home alone. These shared intimate moments make loneliness even more feared, and protected against. That is why the fall is greater.


I no longer hunger for solitary cavegirl moments (improvisation mine; it should be caveman, c.f. Men are from Mars) as much as I used to. Because I have someone I can share moments of solitude with, and he likewise, so I reserve the unadulterated moments of solitude for writing, like I am now. When together, we share solitudes through intimacy. When apart, sometimes I do crave for intimacy instead of pure solitude, and that is where I write or if possible, talk to people and spend moments of shared solitude with them as well. Though, it may not always be easy, possible, or guilt-free, for plenty of reasons.


Very soon, I will sleep for a few hours before my work day starts. Sleep, another form, to me, of loneliness. I no longer fear it for I no longer have insomnia. But I still go to sleep in the same way - through fantasising, thus, through dreaming, bridging the gap of awakenness into sleep. And in my fantasies, of course, I am never alone.

calvin's desktop things

1. mineral water bottles
2. melatonin
3. vitamin B
4. can of tennis balls
5. posb statement
5. tea tree oil
6. ventolin inhaler
7. coins
8. box of girl guides cookies
9. bibles
10. packet of biscuits
11. watch with dead batteries
12. model of aeroplane A380
13. moisturiser
14. dictionary
15. headphones - 2 sets
16. digital camera
17. double sided tape
18. clarins men shampoo
19. NSmen magazine, unopened
20. empty package of gilette power 3 shaver
21. tissue paper packet
22. tissue paper boxes
23. vitamin c
24. screwdriver
25. medicines
26. large book titled 'milestones of aviation'
27. waist pouch
28. cd-rack
29. toner
30. box of ultracarbon tablets
31. 02 mini
32. wallet
33. xray films
34. readers' digest
35. portable external hdd

joie de vivre: Make Specs Sexy Meme

I haven't many pics of me with glasses though, but I have memorable moments having worn them.


Here it is, my contribution to the meme.








Oh dear I didn't realise I looked fat in this; but Cal looks great so this will suffice.





This is old but I had just gotten this pair then.




This is my previous pair, that I lost before the current one. I have been complimented on when wearing this one, by a bank client, who remembered the first time he met me because of this pair. I guess bankers don't usually wear specs.


Will take more next time perhaps. Meantime, those of you with funky specs, you know who you are, try this! It be fun!

urges

I have this urge to re-renovate my flat. Which of course I do not have the money for, so it is but an urge. But I can blog about it, just as how some people substitute porn for the real thing when they have none.


And so I shall.


Perhaps I feel like renovating again - the last time being last October when I just got this flat, thus it is an obsessive urge - because, for one, I am falling in love with my flat again.


Jan has moved home and now I am living alone again, as I was for a while now. Many times I come home, put the key in the door, and thank God again for the flat he has given me. I always longed for my own place and I asked for it despite the fact I knew I would use it for selfish fun things like have parties and invite boyfriends home. My parents never knew I had this prayer, nor the secret desires of course, but they went ahead and sought this flat out for me nonetheless. It costs little, and they paid for the renovation, and my mom's and my CPF did for the deposit.


So I am a home-owner. Too bad the mortgage and bills and taxes that come with the title.


I love living alone. For so many reasons. Walking around naked or half-dressed is one of them, so is peeing with the door open. But that we do even if someone else is around sometimes, don't we?


Lately when I walk around my flat, I appreciate every step I take on my laminate floors. I take in the sound of my feet on the wood, the feel of smooth wooden panels on the soles of my feet. I love the quietness of my kitchen, the quaint, inviting kopitiam table that beckons me to take in solitude. I am glad I have bathrooms to wash and decorate, if and when I do. Even though my house is in a mess, or rather, as I would put it, in a state of flux between stages of chill-out neatness.


I enjoy the reading lamp in the night in a different way now. It really is my atas-cognac moment, although I have no cognac in the house.


A few spoilers at this time though, largely due to the current state of flux I euphemistically named, that is, my house is in a real mess. I have to re-pack my workspace-related art materials into the now spare and empty room. H and I are going to convert that into our new workspace - SOHO indeed and truly, soon. I need to do major housecleaning, as it is a year old now, this flat. I need a part-time auntie cleaner to help. None in sight. I could use a man to help. Which, man I have, but I somehow always engage him in other things instead, not housework (too bad I am still unsuccessful at distracting him from WOW; I seriously think computer games and real live women are completely and mutually substitutable).


Also, my bookshelf has too few spaces and too few books all at the same time. Many of the books I love are not on my shelves. They were borrowed, and returned, or lent, and never gotten back. Many books on my shelf now, I did not really enjoy. Irony!


(Dear me. I only just realised, rich tai-tai housewives like to redecorate too. Have I been speaking like one so far? Oh dear.)


I want to go and acquire the books that I love intensely, to keep on my shelves, to have with me in my old age. I should stop borrowing from libraries and add books to my permanent collection. Albeit, I will need more money for that.


I read Emily Dickinson online again, and I read rapturously. I tear at the sight of a poem I take in, remembering the past that I read them in, feeling the pain that Emily felt when she wrote some, loving her poetry so much that I wish I had the entire collection in print, thumbed and annotated by me to pass on to future Elaine (term borrowed, cf. Kelvin), and to others whom I will love enough in future.


Meantime, I write and write. That urge, I can satisfy immediately. It is almost free. And gives me the same pleasure. Talk about porn being a replacement for sex: writing is a replacement for so many things else. Even for painting.


I take it all in. And leave you with this:


Emily Dickinson (1830–86)

Part Three: Love

VIII

THAT I did always love,
I bring thee proof:
That till I loved
I did not love enough.

That I shall love alway,
I offer thee
That love is life,
And life hath immortality.

This, dost thou doubt, sweet?
Then have I
Nothing to show
But Calvary.

For those who love to read, read on reading geeks!

Emily Dickinson (1830–86)

Part One: Life

XXI

HE ate and drank the precious words,
His spirit grew robust;
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was dust.
He danced along the dingy days,
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book. What liberty
A loosened spirit brings!

desktop things part 2

I am always fascinated by the items accumulated in layers on my desk.

1. makeup pouch
2. measuring tape, the contractor type
3. visa receipts, Calvin's
4. tissue paper packet
5. movie synopsis to Lilya 4 Ever
6. box of Belgian biscuits from M&S given by Jiahui's family
7. box of Panadol Actifast
8. handphone
9. a novel titled 'Coco and Igor'
10. bra-straps
11. calculator
12. coasters - one given by Enid long ago, another free from Rothschild
13. handphone charger
14. packet of spare buttons, Calvin's new Calvin Klein shirt
15. nail polish
16. notebook from Clyda, brought to Cambodia
17. metal ruler
18. cutting mat, now a mouse pad
19. clutch bag, in metallic fushcia
20. thumb drives
21. Fox sweet wrapper, Calvin's
22. scanner, work documents on top of it
23. angpow packet, from Dad and Mom for my birthday last month
24. bottle of wasabi nuts
25. watch, gift from Calvin


Eclectic list.

secrets

Ever had secrets you are bursting to share, but have kept them so long to yourself, till now? I may have a blog but strangely I have too many secrets to keep. There are many things that people may guess about me but may never know. I will hide them in words and cryptic questions, and I will keep them between me and the parties involved.


I think it would feel so good to share them but then I can never face the consequences of people knowing them. Too many things are out already as it is. I could be classified as having an obsession with the act of keeping secrets; it is not easy for me yet I severely want to, and fail constantly at some, and abide in the success of keeping the others.


It is like a shared solitude. When someone else in the same room as you are and has a secret to keep from you, and you from that someone, it is like solitude in a shared time and space. Just like how you might be reading in the same room with a friend, sharing the time and space, but your mind is in the world of somewhere else, and so is hers.


In a literary ideal this paragraph should consider to follow the previous one by revealing a secret, and having an explanation why I kept it, and now shared it and broke the solitude. Or perhaps, it should continue to expound on shared solitudes and how they exist in our relationships with others. I waver at the keyboard, and decide what I should type next.


And I decide, to keep them all to myself till another time.

10 Dec, Saturday night

"
What am I doing all this for?


Doing things for God, ministering to others, helps me breeze through every day here, with adrenaline-high.


Right now, I lay on this bed of the hotel, adrenaline ebbed away.


Withdrawal - as with all adrenaline surges comes the aftermath.


But I lie here and inspect myself.


My driving force and all that I do, is Jesus. My God, my protector, my best friend indeed.


I sometimes forsake the person of best friend, and see Him as boss, and colleague. But in the habitual act of doing, as many are engineered for, we forget the reason behind the doing.


Though it may seem paradoxical, it happens more than we are aware of it. We work alongside someone so much till we forget the someone alongside us.


I need to return to the driving force behind my love for people, and let Him love me and I, Him.


And know, my best friend all over again.
"

Intermission

Just as an entertaining interlude to the posts on my trip.


The Pseudo Purity Test, taken from Yiguang's blog.

Start off with 100% and minus off 1% for each thing that has happened to you.
(Obviously I'm not going to indicate which items I have or have not experienced, I'll just indicate my total score :P)

Smoked.
Drank alcohol.
Cried when someone died.
Been drunk.
Had sex.
Been to a concert.
Given a hand job/gotten a hand job.
Given a blow job/gotten a blow job.
Been verbally sexually harassed.
Verbally sexually harassed somebody.
Felt someone up and/or been felt up.
Laughed so hard something came out of your nose.
Cheated on a boyfriend/girlfriend before.
Been cheated on by a boyfriend/girlfriend.
Been to prom.
Cried at school.
Gotten lost in a WalMart or a department store.
Went streaking.
Given a lap dance.
Had someone of the opposite sex in your room.
Had someone of the opposite sex sleep over.
Slept over at someone of the opposite sex’s house.
Kissed a stranger.
Hugged a stranger.
Went scuba diving.
Driven a car.
Gotten an X-ray.
Hit by a car.
Had a party.
Done drugs.
Played strip poker.
Got paid to strip for someone.
Ran away from home.
Broken a bone.
Eaten sushi.
Bought porn.
Watched porn.
Made porn.
Had a crush on someone of the same sex.
Been in love.
Frenched kissed.
Laughed so hard you cried.
Cried yourself to sleep.
Laughed yourself to sleep.
Stabbed yourself.
Shot a gun.
Trash talked someone and then acted like their best friend the next day.
Watched TV for 9 consecutive hours.
Been online for 9 consecutive hours.
Watched an animal die.
Watched a person die.
Had sex and/or messed around somewhere with at least 1 person present.
Pranked somebody.
Put somebody in the hospital.
Snuck into someone’s room and/or your own room after being out.
Kissed somebody of the same sex.
Dressed punk.
Dressed goth.
Dressed preppy.
Been to a motocross race.
Avoided somebody.
Been stalked.
Stalked someone.
Met a celebrity.
Played an instrument.
Ridden a horse.
Cut yourself.
Bungee jumped.
Ding dong ditched somebody.
Been to a wild party.
Got caught stealing something.
Kicked a guy in the balls.
Stolen a boyfriend/girlfriend from a friend.
Went out with your friend’s crush.
Got arrested.
Been pregnant.
Babysat.
Been to another country.
Started your house on fire.
Had an encounter with a ghost.
Donated your hair to cancer patients.
Been asked out by someone that you never thought you’d to be asked out by.
Cried over a member of the opposite sex.
Had a boyfriend/girlfriend for over 3 months.
Sat on your ass all day.
Ate a whole carton of ice cream all by yourself.
Had a job.
Gotten cut from a sports team.
Been called a whore.
Danced like a whore.
Been mistaken for a celebrity.
Been in a car accident.
Been told you have beautiful eyes.
Been told you have beautiful hair.
Raped somebody.
Danced in the rain.
Been rejected.
Walked out of a restaurant without paying.
Punched someone/slapped someone in the face.

Total score: 53%

(Better than Yiguang!)

my khmer journey continued

Last year when I went to Cambodia, it was in August. The land was dry, and it was yet due the rainy season. We walked around sticky with sweat everyday, and the land was covered in wind-eroded dust. Everyday we saw the Khmer people living among ruins left behind from their heavy past and a lack of hope and of a future.


There was a marked difference between Thailand and Cambodia. Passing the Thai and Cambodian border towns of Aranpathet and Poi Pet on the roads, we saw how the Khmer land was covered with rubble, roads never mended, never made, everyone brown and dry with lack of hope hung on their faces.


This year, we went after the rains.


The house ponds were filled to their brim with water. The rains were over, and instead of brown dying grass, we were invited into the country with fresh new-start greenery. Meet the horizon of sky and rice-fields.


"It is harvest time.


Cambodia is more beautiful now than I remembered from the last time."









It is harvest time.


First in the flesh, then in the spirit.


When I came here last year, it pained me that it was already so hard to help just one person in Singapore, let alone so many, who needed so much more, in one entire nation that lived in her past everyday. The first thing we did last year, was to commit ourselves to helping the care-giver - the church, for she also, at that time, hung her head low in tears and held on to nothing but God himself. Just as Ezekiel did, we prophesied over the valley of dry bones, that it rattled together into a mighty army once again in its awe and splendour at victory.


Have you ever seen Jesus feed the five thousand? Can you feel what it is like to have the Lord add daily to the numbers? It may be a small thing in Singapore with elaborate amphitheatres, seats and logistics management, but in a village, a transposition of any of those scenes would equate to a miracle taking place.


It was truly, a harvest of people. Jesus wasn't kidding when he said we would be fishers of men.


I haven't yet taught sixty children art at a go before, but now I have. These children might never have held crayons or glue before, but they make their art with more faith and confidence than their Singaporean equivalents do.


By the third night, we had close to two hundred children in a church that has usually only ten kids.


We protected the abused, collected the kids from the streets, fed and entertained them with movies and songs, gave them clothes,toys and stationery. And most of all, left them in the hands of the Youvawai church, who would bring these children into the safe haven as often as possible, because in Cambodia, the most fertile ground of self-worth, are the children and teenagers.


The teenagers speak of ambitions. To learn English, hence they enjoyed speaking to us. To go to Bible school and return to help their village. To believe that God will change their abusive fathers, and that He did and we witnessed so while we were there. To listen to the word of God and gain faith and wisdom, to believe they will indeed rise to be someone greater than themselves.


The more we protect, the less are turned towards vices. There are so many street kids we cannot protect now, but if we touch a handful, they will impact their generation.


to be continued...

i'm home

Prelude

I thought a lot throughout my entire milling process, how I was to write in words my Cambodian mission trip experience.


One thing I do know: I really love writing.


Pastor Brian mentioned that while on a mission trip to a third-world country, we somehow end up being on a fast, not from food, but from our habits, like he does of reading the newspaper daily. I fasted from the internet - msn and blog-reading. But I never fasted from writing, it is too large a part of my consciousness.


I took to consciously writing when I could, not just about the mission trip objectives, but also about the minutiae of my travel, especially apparent during the prelude of my actual journey, on my way to Bangkok.


Consciousness - something many of my favourite writers write about. D.H.Lawrence, Haruki Murakami, Milan Kundera, Emily Dickinson.


Words and writing them, are so a part of my consciousness, I think I almost cannot live without. Without words, love, communion, details of experiences, strata of human theories, cannot exist beyond a human brain.


Calvin wrote to me, before I left:


"... this letter is as much a letter to you as it is a prayer of thanks, my prayer to God, thanking him, for you..."


(Thank God for a man with good grammar).


When I left Singapore last Wednesday, I had to force my adrenaline rush, amidst writing in the pockets of shared solitudes. Here I pen my prelude and post-journey thoughts in between.


"Will I be this tired and lacklustre the whole of today?

In the morning before I got ready to leave, with the malingering viscous mucus-phlegm situation still prevailing (carried over from the last flu bout it seems), I took a Telfast caplet to okay the situation - hopefully once and for all.

Now I am on the plane - Jetstar Asia, en route to Bangkok. Have napped, and to be honest, still headached from air-travelling.

I think about the seats, something I cannot help for it having a noticeable trait, for when I slipped in my row and sat down, my first thought: 'Wah, very squeezy.'

I am claustrophobic. Manageably, but only if consciously. I sit with Yizhen, our knees graze the backs of the seats in front, even while we are seated upright with good posture and all. "

I realised how I abhorred small spaces, when I found myself consistently getting a sick stomach when in small aisles of shops like provision shops or bookstores. Somehow whenever I entered and browsed shops with small aisles, I got a tummy ache and I didn't know why I did, for a really long time. I hated it when people came into my space, in crowds, or into my room, or when doors closed on me in darkness. I felt constricted in small spaces like, aeroplanes for one. Now that I know why I felt odd, I control myself and disallow myself to feel discomforted any more.

"While I nurse my headache - by ignoring it - I revert to awakenness, and here I write. If one were to ask me why, or what am I writing, to that person I would answer this, 'When you stop writing, you stop thinking.' That, of course does not mean to say that all of us should be writing all the time. It simply means, if there exists a moment - any moment - where it is possible to conceive a worded thought and thereafter pen it down, we should do it. Even in a situation like being in a plane, doing nothing but waiting for it to arrive at your destination. If we think about the things of that moment, in order to write it down, we perhaps truly really live that moment. If I did not write this now, I would perhaps merely have been waiting to arrive. And aren't we already doing that too many times.

We may eventually arrive, and find ourselves, slower in thought already, one step too late."

During this trip, I stayed awake even when I could have napped, save for the journeys to and from Kampuchea to Bangkok. I was tired, but I knew that if I slept, inertia would creep up on me and I would lose my alertness and state of being sober and vigilant.

"As we sat in the short depth of a seat, I sat next to Yizhen, occupying two out of three seats in our row. Yizhen hoped very much that no one would occupy that third seat, and none did. So we are rather less uncomfortable now, her in her striped toe socks, anti-social earphones and book, both of us with feet on seat, listening to the considerate conversation behind us, between Pastor Brian and SB.







































Sometimes conversation is difficult. If one tries and is considerate to try well at conversing, but the other does not, there is no longer any consideration in the conversation.

I do suppose listening to their conversation about uni life and apologetics - we all eavesdrop even in the best of times - helps me feel human and part of the group we belong to in this mission trip. It also helps me forget my headache. It betters the option of me looking out the window, although the clouds and sunset sky in the horizon, are beautiful momentous creations, I think I will feel sicker admiring them with my eyes.


I have run out of minutiae to discuss write and think about for now. I hope to train my mind to awaken despiteTelfast and sleepiness, just so I can think and write and live the moments that compose my trip ahead."


Further on I thought about what I do not enjoy about flying in aeroplanes:

1. The dehydration that makes me thirsty, dries out my skin and lips, and drains whatever radiance I might have emanated before the flight.
2. Needless to say, headaches.
3. The flat hair that results. Urk!
4. The static electricity, related to point 3.
5. Of course, the cramped seats for us economy class and budget airlines proletariats.
6. The Singaporean uncles and other kiasus that come along as passengers too.
   

There are of course, likeable things, perhaps the view, and the good service.



To be continued...

leaving tomorrow

I will be a good creative pensive committed literary educated introspective inspired writer, and write during my trip. I may or may not publish anything directly from the journal I am bringing along, when I am back on Monday. But nonetheless, I will write on a journal I will bring, and that which is given by Clyda, hand-made by her kind creative self and a birthday gift no less.


Meanwhile, the heavens are changing as we speak. Legions of angels are hording at the town we are going on a mission to.


I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.

There is only ONE thing I hate about my job.


The Ministry of Education.


Suddenly, anger management comes to mind. I now understand, why anyone would go and vandalise the walls of NKF, or the like. I am truly experiencing the sensation of blood boiling - hot viscous flooding surging about my chest at the speed of rapids.

[untitled]

I cannot tell you why I love you
The only way I can do that,
would be to create another you
- and that would be my explanation.

my secret friend

"


I was rather nervous really. It has been a rather long while, since I have built a friendship up from scratch. But more so, because I knew I subconsciously admired her, perhaps bearing almost on platonic infatuation.


I felt the way I felt when I first met H again, and realised he loved art, thus making a new best friendship. But H is a boy. It would never be the same, watching an arts house film with him again. Doing that would also affect four people all at the same time. And then I lost a best friend at the same time.


While I waited for her to arrive, the fact that she was a girl, this time, comforted and frightened me all at the same time. But I will go through with this. I am not going to be afraid for long. After all, I really need someone who loved the same books and movies and the like, someone who will be able to go enjoy them with me too, and talk about it thereafter without making anyone feel emotionally endangered. I need someone like that to befriend me again.


"


Sometimes I wish H was a girl. I crave a friendship like the one described by D H Lawrence in Women in Love, where the two men had an intimate moment of friendship almost comparative to that intimacy they had with women, and yet not being gay in the slightest.


There are people who are like that. You will feel attracted to them, yet not physically. You could never fantasise about them in that way and feel good about it - disgusted, more like. But with every shared interest, that sameness grows.


I made a new acquaintance recently. I also wish he was a girl. Then we could go book shopping together and coo over those we already had and exchanged with each other. But because he is male, I probably cannot make this friendship that way.


Maybe I just miss some people, like Shuyi for instance, because I haven't seen her in so long. Shuyi is someone who asks my permission even before she complains about things. You see, women like to whine and gripe about things. It helps us deal. Some whine to the point of irritation, causing them to have few friends, or when in the presence of any, causing them to think to themselves, "Just smile and bear it, and say, 'never mind lah.,'" just so they can get it on and move the next person, next topic. Shuyi is not that sort. Anyway, I need to re-commence my face-to-face communication with her soon, otherwise something is missing.


I love my other best fem-mate Enid too, because she is mad and she loves art, and we can talk on the phone a long time too. We can even end up wearing the same thing on the same day to the same place. She can be quite cute and silly when high, and she will suan you if you are from SJI - sorry Cal. The unfortunate things in life also happen though - she studies in bloody NIE and it has fucked up her education experience in so many ways, I wish she would graduate tomorrow. I also hope she will find nice friends, and regain her positive outlook and comments, and for the benefit of my other friends, be less tao-seeming, else how I introduce her new, meaningful friends? But Enid - and she will agree - does not enjoy poetry, Murakami, cheem novels and the like, the way I do. Plus, apart from chick-flicks, our tastes in movies differ.


Maybe it is me. I am not a good friend to have, because I don't celebrate my friends' birthdays, I don't share things very much, I have all these bourgeoisie characteristics and seem to see planks in others' eyes rather than my own, and I prioritise my things all differently. Perhaps I slight others with my lack of commitment, or my seeming aloofness, or the fact that I love my job too much, to the point of drop-all relocation. Maybe I attract all the male company unconsciously, so that I can't have all the girly companionship that resonates with what I desire.


As for my secret friend, maybe that new acquaintance would do, or else others yet to be, but then again, I have to stop myself from being subconsciously female and thus do the subconscious flirty actions I cannot help, much to my own despair, because it is my survival instinct in the presence of male company. Or I could seek out new female friends, though it is hard - ever tried to make friends with a woman? Ha.


I need to find another Enid-cum-Shuyi to add to my friendster list, with a dash of Huanjie - female version - into the mix. Where to find her? And even if I did find my secret friend, will the friendship last at all?


I shall just continue to write. At least the words that come out here through me, alive that they are, will be there for a long time, till I die and beyond, hopefully.

right now

I feel like downing an entire bottle of wine, or a whole jug of beer. Not that I can do that necessarily, it depends on the the moment. But right now, I have these transcedent thoughts.


Dear me.


I am not as strong as I was ten years ago. When I was in JCone I was in Odac, and went for daring - at the time - things like abseiling down a 10-storey high cliff side, or walking in the middle of the night on Ubin, or carrying seriously heavy stuff just so that we can go somewhere to camp.


Right now, I am older. What if I get to Cambodia and realise that I am also weaker?


I overcame that physical courage requiring task of my first of many solo walks at that time, by trusting in God and singing then the only Christian song I knew. And it was exhilirating to complete it, because really it was nothing at all.


On Wednesday when I leave for Cambodia on my mission trip, will I be able to withstand it, and emerge champion? Will I have the divine revelation Peter had of Christ, again? Will I once again stand up to my calling and go from house to house to bless heal fellowship and preach? (Luke 10).


There are things I regret not doing, not remorsefully, but just things that I wish I did, then. Like reading the Chronicles of Narnia when everyone in primary school was doing, or going for the primary school camp.


I know that I will regret if I don't go.


It is already so hard to make the lives of people better. What more if I don't even try. One day, everyone I influence will take this journey along with me.


It may not seem that way, but just writing that last line took a big leap of prophetic faith out of me.


As for now, I will enjoy my night, and probably take that can of beer from the stockpile in the fridge. I am gleaming, I hope you are too, right now.

I LOVE

I love Singaporean men.



Just happened to be reading a post on a chill blog I just discovered - Opinionistas.



And realised that Calvin would never have this issue with me. He takes me, girly tampons pink bedsheets flowery desktop wallpaper jazzy oldies pink room bathroom please flush with the cover down and all.



Singaporean men are the best. And Calvin, the best of them.

'curiousity led me there!'

Do women surf porn?

weird frustration

There is a weird frustration efferversing inside of me, and for unlikely reasons I cannot figure.


It is not because I am bored, am on holidays and have nothing to do, because that is the inverted truth, and real far from the real one. In reality I have loads to do, and as I am here sinfully writing away, waiting for my hair to dry a little before sleeping, I could actually revert to proof-reading Clyda's essay instead, or do some mundane paperwork, or simply go to bed.


It is not because anyone has upset me in any way, if anything, I might have upset others instead, because I tend to do that. So my frustration is for sure not caused by my lovely friends.


On the topic of my lovely friends: I am going to be able to see Shuyi again tomorrow, together with my best mad girl pal Enid - the other E - and Syl, at Wala. I have not seen Shuyi for so long, and we have hardly had the time to whine and gripe to each other much, because we have been so busy. Absolute social-sisterhood handicap that has been. Gathering proudly organised by Enid, and I will go despite crazy schedules and pockets.


As for my lovely male friends, the two men in my life: no, neither are frustrating. Cal is lovely as usual, and H as he is very affectionately known as by me, has been his usual self.


So it is not my lovely friends causing me frustrations, that much is certain.


Now that the disclaimer part is over, I shall continue trawling about my weird inner frustration, and I think the root of it really is that I need some newness. I am bored in a way that wants to refuse the routine and the state of being I am currently in.


Perhaps I need to get to know some new people, or get to know some acquaintances better, or find new common interests with the people I barely know. But, it is so achingly difficult for me to make lovely friends easily, because I have terribly high standards, I think - even for friends.


I once got chatted up by a stranger, while I was walking home one day a year or so ago, at that time I was in Clementi. This guy used an old tactic: you look familiar / are you from this organisation / school yadda yadda. At the time, I needed some company anyway, and I am not adverse to pick-ups, so I entertained him, and after he walked and talked with me a bit, he wanted to further the conversation, so I said he could walk me home and we could talk along the way.


Subsequently we exchanged namecards below my block. Yes, it was all very pro. He sms-ed me a couple of times, which I replied politely each time. The sms-conversations continued a while, until one night. He said, as a gesture of small talk, that he was at home, watching Taiwanese variety shows.


Gosh. If there was another word that could describe my response other than - 'diao!' - I would use it for to make it sound less raw-edged. But I have none else. I replied him, saying, I don't watch Taiwanese variety shows (my goodness, I can't even type it without feeling the disgust), and basically, curtly called for a cease-fire in communication, meaning possible friendship altogether. I cannot possibly be friends with a guy who watches Taiwanese variety shows! How gross! How could we possibly have anything in common.


See what I mean. This is not the only instance. I also cannot stand poser-ish people, and by my standards, many I know are. Acting atas with no class, at all. These people are just unfriendly, stiff, horrible-slang-ridden, insensitive, overbearing with their this-and-thats, rich and proud as opposed to rich and humble, weird-shit-spouting, rigid, tao, aloof, insincere, and selfish.


Also, when it comes to communion and conversation, the frequency has to be right. English cannot be too cheem or too broken, cannot speak too softly or else I cannot hear, needs to be reciprocative in my attempts at intimacy and not back away or come on too strong. And of course, let's have something in common here. Better still, if you love the same things as I do (no, not Calvin - him excluded no less), and are willing to squeal in delight at that discovery!


There is more! Because I do not work in the CBD anymore , and I stay and mostly work in the East, and I am online working if am at home, and I have so many other things going on in my life like church and Calvin, it would only be possible for any friendship to flourish if the other party is on equally low-maintenance as I am, without subsisting on yuppie lunches or after-work drinks at Balaclava. And friends will have to be content with me communicating with them online more than anything.


Yes, I digress from the context. I really do find it hard to inject some new friendships into my social network, and it is because of my expectations. So if you love what I love and fulfill the above and can see me beyond this bitchy narcissistic post, let's be friends! Email me or something!


Perhaps I will be able to discover some newness soon? I am sure there are people out there who share my passions for writing, chilling out, reading Murakami, art and the like, and are not into horrible things, as above. Meanwhile, I might check my inboxes regularly and thoroughly hoping for exciting unknown people to drop in while I am online doing my things perhaps. Or else, I will just buy a new book to read, to get the newness kick in.


As for now, I will go and sleep because my hair is dry already.

to do

People sometimes use blogs as to-do lists.


My days of writing Big 5s and PDA lists are currently in recession. For one, I do not have a PDA, anymore anyway. And my Big 5s have gone mental, as in, I now commit them to memory.


Which shouldn't be, really. Lists, writing them and having them, are exceptionally therapeutic, whether your life is in shit-state of chaos or in perfect synchrony. Especially if you are a visual-literal person like me - you see, and see in words - then all the more, lists are a must have.


But I draw the line at using blogs to pen to-do lists. For one, people want enjoyable reads, and unless the lists are penned artfully, they are not likely to be very entertaining. Also, blogs are not for personal unseen gripes, they are meant to be published.


Hence they are called web-logs? The only way to reconcile the need to whine and self-inspect, is to write well, and concealingly if needed.


Why the rant, Elaine?


Because I am going to Cambodia next week and I haven't gotten ready!


I am leaving next week and there are so many things still left undone. I have work to do, I have no money to pay for the trip yet. I have programmes to plan. I have to buy and prepare things to bring to the people there. I have to pack stuff. My house is in a mess still. I don't think my bag is big enough to pack for my trip; I have no other. And I am sick and now still recovering.


Then He said to another, "Follow me."


But he said, "Lord, let me first go bury my father."


Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God."


Reading the word of God feeds me with internal strength, as if intravenously.


In all priorities, God first, and all will come in place, and be taken care of. My heart lives in missions, and I will not waver.


Now, time to get down to doing those things.

and now...

I have finally come to this stage of sharing my best reads in blog reading.

Those who prefer anonymity are not in this share-list. As for everyone else, turn to the sidebar and find links to my favourite blog reads. If you would like to share your blog address, do drop me a comment! I love reading new blogs, especially those in proper english/singlish.

Meanwhile, I am out of books to read, I need to discover more reading material. Recommend me some!

faith and dutch courage

Yes, I needed one and half glasses of wine before dinner to get me going and able to face my task confidently. And it sure does help.


While I practised my script, I murmured and subconsciously I start praying instead.


And then I realise, that I can do this well.


I guess it is really all Him.

soul and worlds upon words

Some feelings can only be condensed into pleasure with music.


I find Nancy Wilson's Alfie and play it on repeat, so that I can keep recreating this cognac-moment. Soul music, literally. Just like tasting enjoyable novels that airship me into thinking dreaming moments, where I will just keep writing afterward.


Not in sensible copywriting words, but like cigarette smoke that fills my living room air in the lounge lighting, for pleasure and decadence only, for mine only - if I did.


After I am done, I will return to copywriting with the same pleasure, upon my desktop and write continuously for serious art purposes.


But in the meantime, she sings for me.


As sure as I believe there's a heaven above, Alfie,
I know there's something much more,
something even non-believers can believe in.
I believe in love, Alfie.


If I don't write, I will cease to live. My writers whose books I collect hungrily to read, they write for me - and teleport the elements of their experiences into my world, reconstituted, through the medium of beautiful 'live' words. If I don't learn to write like them, I cannot share my experiences, which I will keep collecting and swelling up with, until I blog and it all comes out in quickies that end too soon, or till I write for real, one lifetime, and be like my writers.

Third Day - Cry Out To Jesus

From the album Wherever You Are


To everyone who's lost someone they love
Long before it was their time
You feel like the days you had were not enough
when you said goodbye

And to all of the people with burdens and pains
Keeping you back from your life
You believe that there's nothing and there is no one
Who can make it right

Chorus:
There is hope for the helpless
Rest for the weary
Love for the broken heart
There is grace and forgiveness
Mecy and healing
He'll meet you wherever you are
Cry out to Jesus, Cry out to Jesus

For the marriage that's struggling just to hang on
They’ve lost all of their faith in love
They've done all they can to make it right again
Still it's not enough

For the ones who can't break the addictions and chains
You try to give up but you come back again
Just remember that you're not alone in your shame
And your suffering

Chorus:

When your lonely
And it feels like the whole world is falling on you
You just reach out, you just cry out to Jesus
Cry to Jesus

To the widow who suffers from being alone
Wiping the tears from her eyes
For the children around the world without a home
Say a prayer tonight

Chorus


Third Day dedicated this song to the hurricane victims. I heard this song and cried. Suddenly everything came into perspective. Even in the lost, worst scenarios, I know again and again that God will never abandon me.

Third Day is one of my favourite ccm artists, I will be moved by this song again, and by their Love Song.

I look at myself in the mirror and hear it.


Curious? Ask me for the songs.

review of frankie's play

Update: I am reviewing my review on this, in order to give it more justice, that it deserves.


Read Frankie's self-written synopsis on the play.


It is based on Cyril Wong's poetry. I am not one to have memorised local poets, but after watching a play that translates words into visual, theatrical display, I am keen now to know more about this Singaporean poet.


It got me started on reading his poetry.


Few poets move me with their words...


Frankie and his team chose the poems and strung them into a story, and thereafter punctuated them seamlessly with songs, conversation, props, other poems and bits of prose.


No it is not a musical, thankfully. I still maintain, that I really do not enjoy musicals.


Bits of the poetry were presented in textual display - art in itself, written poetry soometimes without verbalising it audibly - overhead, forming the backdrop. I like this, though some may not. It was however too high above the action on stage; non-habitual subtitle readers may not acclimatise well.


The fact that this is a multimedia performance, in a different, less in-your-face way, and that is abstracted without losing meaning, comprehension and allure, it is a severely good setup. It can outdo performances that I paid for and attended in similar or even larger capacities.


That said, the only thing that I may not like about it, is that, it should have been a bigger event.

A-Z

I stole this from Yiguang's blog. Do one and link me if you are bored and/or skiving!

A is for age: 26
B is for booze of choice: beer, single malt, whiskey, cognac
C is for career: poor and happy entrepreneur
D is for your dad's name: David
E is for essential items to bring to a party: ELAINE! and drinks, and good dressing
F is for favourite song at the moment: something playing on Pandora.com
G is for favourite game: Scrabble
H is for home town: Singapore
I is for instruments you play: guitar, keyboards
J is for jam or jelly you like: i hate jam
K is for kids: when i'm married, have money and time
L is for living arrangements: 3 room flat, on mortgage loan
M is for mom's name: Lily
N is for name of your crush: what crush??
O is for overnight hospital stays: none, thank God
P is for phobias: claustrophobia
Q is for quotes you like: shit happens, that's why we're overcomers; but what things were gain to me, these i have counted loss for Christ (phil 3:7)
R is for relationship that lasted the longest: the first one
S is for sexual preference: male
T is for time you wake up: mornings. unless it rains, then I can't tell the time by the sun anymore.
U is for university degree: B.Sc Management w Law
V is for vegetables you love: all veg, except leek, spring onion, jew's ear, facai
W is for weekend plans: Keyue and Shirley's wedding, church, preparing for mission trip
X is for x-rays you've had: 2 - spine/chest/lungs
Y is for yummy food you make: bakuteh, herbal soups, salad, stir-fried anything, pasta, noodles
Z is for zodiac sign: scorpio, goat

darkholme

the mad splashwurks team and one particular art gallery

We just finished an artspace. Here are some really silly cool pics of the gallery.





This is Clyda in her chio-bu contractor outfit. The artworks in the background are not painted by us; we only managed the gallery to the extent of designing the space for these works as well as hanging them up - more work than it looks, really. The butterfly sculptures are really alive and nice; more about them below.







This is H, aka Mr Koh, or Ah Koh the main contractor. Work in progress.







The butterfly sculptures we designed with the students that Clyda and Enid taught Pop Art to, through much screaming and punishing no less.








And here they are, the digital art teachers and part-time splashwurks coolies (aren't we all). Tired and silly for sure, but that's what distinguishes us from others: we are always mad and upbeat about our job, regardless! That's why I love the team.







Here it is again, unmarred by us workers.




The 'before' pictures should give a better understanding of the transformation this space went through. The splashwurks artspace revamp started with this:








Yes, it is the same place, a month earlier. We hope to do more art spaces again soon! Art gallery management, anyone? It will get better than this, I believe it will.

continuation of my Bleach following

Take The Quiz Yourself!

its december weather already

It was a cold day.


I lay in bed at noontime, wondering if it was a fever, because it felt air-con-like cool without the air-con turned on. I needed blankets at noontime, something must have been up.


H turned up for lunch, wearing a purple sweater over a polo shirt, with camo-speckled berms - his leg hair will suffice against the weather, and cigarettes warm one I suppose.


It was a cold day, H affirmed.


We ate at my favourite Malay stall near my place, a quaint stall. I like eating there because it makes lunch such a chillout time, and the food is darn good. The hosts somehow created an idyllic eating place that would make any working class slave feel like he truly rested that one lunch hour.


H bought me a birthday present too! Oh that bastard, he said nothing for him for HIS birthday but then he comes along with a Metropolitan Museum of Art necklace for me. I suppose the circle really closes, because I bought him a cross pendant from the same, about a year and a half ago I believe. It matches my wedding event outfit. Some will find out soon enough.


During our discussion we talked about how we can work towards being able to fit future family commitments into our working style. H surmised that it would only be possible if we owned our own art space, then we can look after our children even though at work.


I mentioned a Murakami setting in his latest book Kafka on the Shore, where there was a coffee parlour that played classical music, specifically The Archduke Trio, which gave one man in the story - Hoshino - an epiphany of sorts. I suppose I could be passionate about an artspace like that soon. I enjoy hosting. I love creating chillout ambiences. Just like what I write on my friendster profile - that artistic reading, jazz listening (think Fred Astaire and the like), coffee-sipping life is not a faraway ideal, but already in my own home, once I get the housework done again needless to say. I think that in time soon to come, when we have more splashwurks (mad) folks on board, a splashwurks artspace will be quite possible all over again, and better too.


While we talked and listened to more classical jazz on my computer via Pandora.com, I made coffee lovely enough to garner praise from most men but not H of course - nothing is good enough for him most of the time, and we talked more in between doing some real work.


About doing art, about our business - oops that is real work isn't it, about music, about whether the necklace goes with my new love outfit from C, more about making art.


H says I have to believe that I can be good enough to take part in art competitions. Erm. We'll see about that lah. My students' artworks are nice though, does that count for anything? I think I am better at writing than I am at visual art. I can write literal poems better than I can visual ones. But I do love art, so I guess eventually I will. Like all little girls, I once had the list of must-dos-before-age-30: write a book, make a painting.


We did a simple pipeline planning draft, and I suppose I have to make our forecast revenue target for 2006 higher, because our pipeline as at this point already meets half of what I initially projected.


Business planning is definitely one of my more favourite pastimes in the business.


And now, after dinner, it is back to doing real work again, so I shall be back another time not too much later.


I leave you with pictures of my students' artwork:

bourgeois friday, chic weekend, adult thoughts

It started with us waking up at lunchtime at his place.


I wore my new skirt, which only cost me $10, and my signature black top, heels and my Coach bag. Calvin was taking me shopping for my outfit for next Saturday's wedding event.


He has said this before, that I am a closet tai-tai. I agreed with him eventually. This was because he mentioned that his family bought and installed ceiling fans in the back porch so that they could have barbecues, and I said, 'Ee, smoky." I guess that meant something.


I must have said other similar things before, subconsciously. I thought about my closet tai-tai fantasies, and realised that perhaps I could do what I need to do on this earth in the capacity of a upper-crust homemaker and wife, aka Marx's private prostitute. I already work from home, and I want to do missions and other welfare work, something that tai-tais do whether it be for the right reasons or not. Maybe this is proof that God indeed knows the desires of my heart, and will grant them to me if I put Him first, isn't that great?


I am not a materialistic, anti-feminist capitalist, I must disclaim. I do however believe that the one in subservience is the one in power, where men and women are concerned. And I do not mind being the one in seeming second-place, because when you empower a man, you are the one in power indeed. Subservience suits me, despite my woman-on-top tendencies. They go hand in hand, really.


C's mom gave me a $50 Taka voucher for my birthday, as well as a high tea 1-for-1 voucher at Orchard Hotel. We headed to town when we were all prettified and perfumed, and started our high tea at 3pm.


High teas are luxuries beyond compare, by Singaporean standards, and in my own judgement. I mean, we have just eaten lunch right, and you will be eating dinner eventually. What constitutes teatime should be mere coffee and pastry - one serving only - and nothing more. But with the invention of high tea, buffet no less, you eat, a lot.


So we did, at just $26+ for 2 people, thanks to C's mom. We had fondue, ice cream, cake, brownie, pudding, dessert hors d'oevres, as well as savouries like chicken wings, laksa, chu-bi-berng. I had endless cups of coffee, which I needed because I was still sleepy.


Decadence, indeed.


After that we went shopping for a 'dress' for me, but of course I ended up with separates and with shoes to match. C paid for everything. You will find out what I bought after K and S's wedding this weekend. I will wear the clothes (and shoes) at other instances also, for sure. Everything cost C about $200 - my birthday present.


We shopped for five hours, and had a quickie dinner before a movie (C's idea, no less). We watched Oliver Twist, a classic, which fed my literary inclinations, so it was okay. See, I am already speaking like a bourgeois lady.


After the movie we went home to C's place, and had some birthday cake with his parents, lovely ice cold cookies-and-cream ice-cream cake, in the warm glow of the living room at about midnight. It was lovely.


The next day, before our separate dinner plans, we went to select some chairs for C's house, at an office furniture shop near my place. We stumbled upon a warehouse sale of IT goods, in a carpark. Talk about a road show with a twist! I bought a 512MB thumb drive for $60+ and a CD-RW drive for $33, using the angpow money I got from my parents for my birthday. C bought a new LCD monitor which was also a TV, for about $500+.


After stopping at home for a break and to get dressed again, I went out with my JC ODAC friends for a hen-nite/stag-nite party because two of them are getting married in the weeks ahead. We had a fabulous dinner at Sushi Tei at Paragon - I got us a VIP room - and dinner cost us only $15 per head. After that we headed to Zouk because Jean's - the bride's to be - friends were there. Phuture was good - breaks and beats. There is more seating space in Phuture now, though the chairs are entirely uncomfortable. Drinks were lovely. We had some vodka in Winebar before that and at Phuture itself I had a few beers, a few Chivas-on-the-rocks.


Supper after that with Calvin was even better.


He told me the most romantic things. That the reason why we couldn't get married yet was for no other reason but that he wasn't happy with his job.


He is not undecided about me, it means. How many men can say that about me? I want to marry this one.


At twenty-six, I am finally adult enough to marry and settle down just like so many of my friends who have walked this route. I often fantasise about a life I would lead without marrying. It always ends up with lonely others, and I will always be too frightened to start a relationship. I might have one-night-stands with exes, or spend time with different men. I had a glimpse of a similar life, in between H and C. It may have been chic and happening, the swinging singleserves lifestyle, but I come to decide that I would rather not. I think it is like having children, that it may seem unglamourous to those outside, but to those involved, the safe route is actually the route to take at least for this one. If C should leave me just like the rest, then I suppose I would end up reverting to that chic lonely life. After all, what is certain except for God Himself? I always start a relationship hoping and planning for it to be the last. But so far my hit rate has been nil. I would be ready to take on the single lonely route, but as for now, it may no longer be necessary, because of lovely C.


I awoke Sunday lunchtime with a mild hangover, which I got rid of with glasses of cranberry/kiwi juice. Afterwards I slept loads again, completely forgetting about housework, which I will do tomorrow in between doing my day's work. I hope to have more sleep soon, dreamless preferably, and without violent tossing. C complained that I punched him in my sleep on Saturday morning. Thankfully he is sleeping at his own place tonight, and I, at mine.

it is saturday at last

I tried to sleep in today but I couldn’t. I ended up waking up at the same time that I have been for the past five days.


Which is bloody six plus in the a.m.


I have been teaching in two schools the past week, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon. The morning session's course is acrylic painting in Impressionism - yes again - as well as mixed media in Modernism. My kids now know who Claude Monet and Paul Cezanne are because they have been studying their paintings. Upstairs from the art room where I am, Enid and Clyda are teaching Pop art using Photoshop in the computer lab.


We have been shouting so much, I have lost my voice, especially since I have seconded Enid to teach upstairs and I have been alone doing my 2D art classes.


You see, discipline is very important in doing art, especially when learning it. If a student fails to listen to the one he is learning from, he stops learning, and he then has nothing to apply to his canvas. His brushstrokes will be different, his work on the computer screen will not get saved, and he will disrupt the rest of his group members hard at work. And so, one value we extol in the splashwurks classroom - discipline. Thus we have been fierce, screamed and have punished.


And in art, logistics is so key, that we pay our folks for those hours which are spent preparing materials and equipment - not every external education company does that. Work on computers needs to be saved into one central disk drive. Palettes, palette knives, brushes and all those whatchamacallits have to be washed. Paint has to be mixed and separated into bowls so we can distribute them.


In the morning, the kids are in Primary 4. Some of the kids have never painted before. A lot of them are not yet computer literate (neighbourhood school demographics). It gets harder to teach this way.


But in the end, the artworks are beautiful. Really.


Compared to the art now currently displayed outside their classrooms, these artworks are truly, works of art. After the screaming ruckus leaves the room with the class, I look at their work and am moved. Even in the silly mistakes. Some of them try so hard, some really listen to instructions, some obviously realise they made a mistake and try to cover up - in strange and wondrous ways for sure. The fruits of your labour makes it worth the voice. I'm glad we hit an imprint in their systems.


When it hits lunchtime, we munch and head to another school to teach an incredible bunch of Primary 2 kids. Incredible because, they have, by this age, all done painting before. Different type of kids from the other school. Who are even noisier, but surprisingly more obedient when it comes to doing their art. This time around, the logistics get worse, because the classrooms have no sinks, and there are no breaks between classes, so the paints and water have to be prepared beforehand and transported to class.


Thank God for SKP packaging, and that I have 2 of us teachers to a class here.


The P2 kids have been drawing, colouring and painting Henri Matisse. Now they are learning about landscape painting. We are training their visual observation skills - of form and of colour - as well as in their painting skills. Because this is a good school, their painting abilities are already developed.


Teaching P2 kids is all about brainwashing them.


"When you've finished painting the trees/mountains/sky, brushes where?"


"In the bowl!"


"I said, brushes where?!" Some will still be painting as you are about to teach them the next step, and they will miss out if they don't stop and listen.


"In the bowl!"


"Then why are there pupils who are still painting?!"


"Whey, faster! Wait teacher scold!" Brushes enter the bowls of water at lightning speed. Some will invariably still be painting.


"That boy in the back, stand up! You are not listening."


Even more silence. Now everyone is really attentive.


"Okay class, we are now going to paint the mountains. Where are the mountains on your drawing paper? They are below the sky, and around the trees," I point the area out on the board. The visualiser is not working. "So where are we going to paint now?"


"The mountains!"


"Do you paint the sky?'


"No!"


"Do you paint the trees?"


"No!"


"Do you paint the tree trunks?"


"NO!"


"So be very very careful. Now, Mr Marc and I are going to give out paints to you. When you get it, THEN you can take out your brushes and paint the mountains."


Artistic chaos reigns supreme thereafter.


Children make really cute comments sometimes.


"Why do you always have to tell us your name [when you come into class]?" says James. Everytime I step into class, I will write both teachers' names on the board, so that they know us. I am afraid they might forget. And so I answer him the same.


"Why was your group so noisy?" I asked the group I was punishing for not listening when we were teaching.


Alexander says with head lowered and eyes up towards me, "I was shy."


Huh? "What do you mean by that?"


"I was shy so I didn't dare to tell them to keep quiet." Head still lowered, eyes still up at me, mouth still in a geniune pout.


Even though lower primary kids are, in my opinion, harder to teach, still, they can be cute and funny. When we listen to Enid relate and animate her stories to us about her kids also, they are so funny really.


These two projects finish next week. In the meantime, I will continue to shout, get shouted at (by H when he is around, because he is stressed too), paint like crazy with the kids, teach from the beginning of morning session till the end of the afternoon session, and be so stressed that Enid and I end up buying stickers at a stall outside the school. Entertainment, social and personal time have been so sparse, stickers and Hello Kitty paraphernalia suddenly seem wildly interesting. We buy 3 sticker sheets for a dollar.


It is Saturday. I intend to go back to the school I teach in the morning today, to varnish the works I have selected for exhibition. Not all classes have finished, so I will varnish the Haystacks, Parliament Houses and Irises first. Perhaps I will take photos. I will also be discussed with by H: he will be telling me where we should be hanging our digital art sculptures.


The monster continues. I hope I regain my voice soon.