"ten seconds left until midnight nine chances to drown ourselves in black hair dye eight faces turned away from the shock seven windows and six of them were locked five stories falling forever and ever three cheers to the mirror now there are two of us can we have one last dance?" jet black new year - thursday
let's all stare at the clock and pretend it's not moving.
so how was the year? good and bad, but honestly i cannot decide if it was more good or more bad. in the end, it's just another year with it's own unique nightmares and daydreams.
life's been good but rather sterile. next year is promising to be more troublesome/exciting, with school and all the assorted nonsense that it brings.
this year i've learnt that: 1. "i like you" is not worth a shit 2. being nice has lots of unforeseen downsides 3. i am too detached (or at least i seem to be)
we shall start now with a summary of the year, with the first paragraphs of the first posts of each month.
jan i had some resolutions last year. the only one i managed to accomplish was that i haven't regretted doing (or not doing) anything in 2008, or at least nothing major.
mar i've been wanting to punch someone, anyone, for the longest time now. never tried it before but i think it might be quite fun, to bring pain upon those who piss me off. it's not good to hold everything in the way i do.
apr so as you might have realised, i got off the evil land of ubin on thursday. no, i didn't die there. obs was alright i suppose, very boring and tedious, and the activities didn't stretch me at all.
may i'm passing out this thursday, finally. i should be happy, i thought i'd be happy, i'm supposed to be happy. am i? hah.
jun when i was on the plane back, i watched a whole lot of stuff on the plane entertainment. amongst the shows i watched (documentary on high-class callgirls etc) was a documentary on the origins of surfing.
jul first off, here is a site with some nice pictures. *warning naked girls* (i know that just made more people click on it)
aug find a place where when you look straight up, all you see is pure blue sky. nothing else in your view.
sep you should never put too much faith in others, because when they let you down (and they will), you'll have nothing left nothing leftnothing leftnothing left. oct yesterday i nearly ran into the back of a mini-bus on the expressway.
nov
dec a few days ago i was watching discovery. there was this show about african tribesmen and they were sitting around talking. as i was watching, i noticed this old man with a very saggy chest, and the guys had some kind of rod on their laps.
go watch this episode of top gear. they've got 15 million dong each to travel from south to north vietnam, and they all bought bikes, including one very nice vespa that got very badly treated.
on christmas eve we went to mustafa centre, which i think is the most awesome place to go in the middle of the night when you have nothing better to do. mustafa is a heaven for cheap goods and i ended up with a stack of vcds and also this album by dashboard confessional.
the songs in it are mostly very emotional (as is expected of them), and after going through some wiki, i found out that the album was released in 2003 when their singer chris carrabba was 28.
this made me wonder: how is it possible for him to still feel this much at such an age? don't people get numb after time? i'm only 21 and i already feel tired, i don't know how he can continue being so emotional and still be alive.
it's like after each failure, your skin grows thicker. it's good, because it protects you from future harm, but it also numbs you from enjoyment. give and take, i suppose.
i believe that we can only have one true love, because to love, you'll have to give everything and when it's over you'll have nothing left. you might fall in love again (or whatever you call it), but it will never feel as good because your skin is thicker.
i think that relationships operate on a depreciating scale. the more you've had, the less it's worth. firstly because you've been numbed, secondly (and sadly) because no one will believe in your love anymore.
i was home alone one night with the maid. i was in the room and she, in the kitchen doing whatever. suddenly i heard some strange noises. it sounded like... nothing i've ever heard before.
it was some strange, high-pitched, long whining sound. like heeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. or maybe heeEEeeEEeeeee. (imagine that sound and multiply its weirdness by 10 and you've got it) and then there were some foot stomping, THUMP THUMP.
at first i thought she was playing with the cat and the cat was making the sounds. no, it can't be, it sounds too weird. so i thought maybe her friend came over. but no, it wasn't. too weird for that.
seriously the sounds that were coming from outside were so weird that it freaked me out for a little. so i creeped closer to the room door to listen.
IT WAS MY MAID! she was talking on the phone and she was getting VERY excited. fuck, i've had lots of experience with maids getting excited on the phone (the previous one was a champ at this), but this shit was way out there, i tell you.
from what i heard, she would be talking normally, quietly, and then suddenly she'll say "NO!" in a playful tone. AND THEN, she'll go "heeEEeeEEEEeeeee," followed by a few stomps on the ground with her feet.
wtf? i thought. at first, it was strange and freaky, but after a while i started getting pissed with all the stupid noises she was making. i wanted to tell her to shut up, but then i honestly haven't spoken a word to her since perhaps her first month here, so i decided it would be rather awkward and didn't.
i have been on leave since 16 december so i've been doing absolutely nothing at all and feeling weird that i don't have to be in office. but then again, when i'm in the office i still do absolutely nothing at all so it's fine.
i went on a little holiday, and in the hotel bathroom, the basin had mirrors on all 3 walls. this means that i had a full view of myself. one day while brushing my teeth, i realised that my tummy was like... the biggest i've seen it ever. amazingly it avoided detection over all this time and managed to grow to such a size.
i have been going to the gym almost daily at the office, because as i've said, i've got absolutely nothing to do there. but i've been mostly training to do a one-arm pull-up, because i believe that it would make me invincible (inspired by this video).
anyway i haven't done any cardio since i ran my ippt back in september with an amazingly slow time of 10:16, but still, i was shocked by my tummy. so i decided i was going to run when i got back. and so i did another 2.4 run one morning. my timing? 11:58.
holy shit. although i didn't push myself at all, that's still superamazingly unbelieveably slow. seriously my legs felt tired after 200m. don't worry, soon my 9:30 will be back.
i was watching football in my hotel room one night, hull vs arsenal, when several sad revelations came to mind.
i watched as the hull players hustled and bustled around the pitch, putting up their best fight. a player would battle so hard to win the ball, pass it to their team mate, and watch helplessly as all their work went down the drain when the guy lost the ball.
true, they are earning quite amazing amounts of money to do this, but it was still utterly depressing to watch. so what if they won? everyone, including the players know that they are just a mid-table club at best. they are going nowhere, and there is nowhere for them to go anyway.
every day they are training so hard to achieve nothing. at this stage, their salaries almost seem like a consolation. but at least they've got fans, thousands of people who watch and support them.
i then thought of an average player in an average club in singapore. definitely got nowhere to go, and not even an amazingly large salary to make them feel better. so why do they do it? for the love of the sport? or for lack of choice? maybe it's just the easiest way to earn a living.
HOW COULD WE TAKE THIS CHANCE NOT TO CELEBRATE? the end of the year is soon approaching, and as i always say in retrospective, "wow, that was fast!" people tend to evaluate their lives in yearly intervals. "what have i accomplished this year? what do i want to do in the next?"
therefore it is around this time when people are most sensitive to themselves and their surroundings. they are more aware of their achievements and defensive about their shortcomings, because they have thought about their lives and they know.
the new year & christmas period is a big event in the minds of everyone. whether or not they realise this, whether or not they confess to this, the fact is that no one wants to be alone or lonely during this time. they all just yearn for someone special to be with them, to celebrate this special time together with.
and so it is because of this that some people will try to make amends for the wrongs they did, hoping that they can once again make things right. this, together with the year-end self evaluation can lead to normally rational persons doing things that are extraordinary, things that they've always wanted to do but have put off out of fear or pride or laziness.
"NOW is the time," they think, it's either now or never. unfortunately, as often is the case with such wild gambles, there will always be immense failures and small successes. for every person who spends the festivities with a smile, there will be countless others forcing out a smile because they are embarrassed by their failure.
they will wonder why in the blue hell did they even bother trying? why did they bring such pain upon themselves? but at the end of the day, they'll always believe that the next year will be better. they have to lie to themselves or else they wouldn't live to see the light of day.
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i typed this out and then realised i've posted it before, but i suppose it'll go up again because it's more applicable now than it was back then in may. this was written on 10 november 2008 in camp.
so it's been scientifically proven that love makes a person irrational, chemically unstable, behave abnormally, have wild mood swings, and other such changes.
if a person weren't in love and projected such symptoms, you'd call them mad. so why is it alright to be like that when you're in love?
the question i have here is, would you allow this madness to cloud your vision, or would you fight it and try to see through the fog at the realities?
but that's not fun anymore is it? part of the joy of being in love comes from the madness, the delusion, the idea that you'll never fall out of love.
we all know that that's so far from the truth, so why do we still go along so willingly? so blindly allowing ourselves to be brought up for the fall.
i think we're all just suckers for pain, that a huge part of it is in knowing that someday you'll fall but still continue because at the very least, today you're in love.
6 december 2009, 10am my experiences with cats, both stray and domestic have always been pleasant. they're friendly, responsive and fun to play with.
which leads me to wonder, just what the hell is wrong with the cats we keep? something is really wrong when a stray cat comes to play with me when i call it, but the damn cat in my own house NEVER responds to anyone.
i tried my best to think otherwise, but i suppose that it's got to do with the upbringing of my family, which results in such demented animals in the house.
i'm still using the new phone now, in case you were wondering. and i still find it a bitch to operate, but the camera's nice so that's why i'm keeping it.
since this place's been rather dead lately (just like my brain), i shall start sharing some photos and the stories behind them. yeah, every photo has a story cos i'm cool like that.
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20 november 2009, 1:20pm
it's been raining a whole lot these few months, which is great, except that i'm cooped up in office all day and don't get to enjoy the rain much.
but it's not all good, because sometimes it rains when i want to go home and then i'll start cursing.
another thing is that the rain will seep into my bike's seat and then get absorbed into my pants when i ride, after which i'll look like i had diarrhea in my pants.
so on this fateful day, the sky was drizzling, threatening to give way and so i quickly went down to move my bike into the shelter.
just as i was done, the heavens unleashed their full fury and i ended up trapped in that little shelter for over 15 mins.
i started taking photos of the rain, but figured that i would appear rather suspicious and weird, taking pictures around a police station.
i already looked stupid enough to be trapped there and i really didn't need to make my reputation any worse.
so i stopped and waited for the rain to let up a little before making a mad dash (and still appearing calm, for the sake of my reputation) to safety.
a few days ago i was watching discovery. there was this show about african tribesmen and they were sitting around talking. as i was watching, i noticed this old man with a very saggy chest, and the guys had some kind of rod on their laps.
and then as the show went on, i realised that the old man with saggy chest was actually a woman with saggy breasts, and the rods on their laps was actually penis gourds that they wear on their dicks. they were all completely naked otherwise. i could even see their balls.
i found this rather strange, that such nudity could be shown on tv. i thought well maybe it's just a documentary, for educational purposes right? then i realised that in other documentaries, for example plastic surgery etc, their bits were always censored. so why is it alright to show naked tribesman?
it's because the tv guys do not consider these tribesmen to be humans or someone equal to us. naked like animals running around. so what's next? show them having sex? it's just mating right? it's quite sad don't you think.
