18

As I was talking to Rey online less than 5 minutes ago, something occured to me. We were discussing the best time of our lives. I thought this to be points in life where days were soaked in a surreal blanket of euphoric wash, dripping down onto gold-tiled floors, crying would only be out of joy, etc. Etc. I realised the best year of my life was when I was 18. Or, at least, the early part of being 18. When I got closer to becoming 19, it just went downhill from there. Maybe aging just doesn't sit well with me.

But. Anyway. Yes. 18. :>

allaroundbackgroundsound: If You leave - Nada Surf

ps I promise not to post rubbish when I've time on my 'ands!

are they or aren't they?

(I hate to be one of those post-chats persons but I really can't help it. This must be shared!)


ambulance ltd - young urban
have you by any chance heard news bout the strokes coming to s'pore?

CIGARETTE★BARBIE /when i was your age, pluto was a planet
i'm not sure if i did
are they??
WOW WHEN?

ambulance ltd - young urban
not sureeeeeeeeeeeee..
my friend told me about it..and he said he heard it from his friedn which he forgot who..
then i was like, are you kidding me...then i started drinking and smoking from then on like julian..
haha too stressed by this kind of news..

allaroundbackgroundsound: You Only Live Once - The Strokes

oh, yes

allaroundbackgroundsound: Blizzard of '77 - Nada Surf

death

My week is taking a morbid turn. That is me being as frank about it as possible.

Last night, I dreamt I killed myself on a huge ship while sailing to New York. Various people I know were there watching me die. Either they couldn't do anything or they couldn't care less. (I shall not name names.) I had a chance to turn back time and change small instances and events so I wouldn't die. In the end, I still killed myself, same place, same way, different time. When I woke up, I felt like a tortoise.

My friend just told me she's about to die. She has a heart condition; I have a broken heart. What would happen if she died? I realised that means half of the memories between us would be taken away. All that will be left is my set of memories, things I wanted to say to her, but never did, and never will. And all the time's she's wanted to meet up but I've been too busy caught up in my own hazardous lifestyle. I'm such an arse. Shit.

Dear _______,

I don't know what to say when someone tells me she's dying. It's like back when we were in Sec Two and A______ died. Farah called me to tell me and I thought she was lying. And more people called. I cried like I lost the whole world. Me on my bed in m Forever Friends PJs, crying and wailing. I wanted to turn back time and make her avoid that day. When we went to school and it was announced over the PA system, my heart crumbled into a paper ball headed for the wastepaper basket of the year. Everytime I pass her estate, I think of the wake. I think of seeing her on her bed, her dead body lifeless and blue, a huge red tomato/strawberry soft toy at the side of her bed. I had nothing to say to her; I couldn't say anything. I was afraid to touch her. What if she cracked? What if she broke into a million broken pieces? A million broken pieces of A______.

And now, you.

You who backed me up when I threw the chair at Iz___. When I was distraught at that broken friendship, inexplicable. Drinking red bull and always weighing yourself. That green bottle of L'oreal hair whatever you would run through your hair and I would smell it. Skipping PE. You with your tight tight school belt, almost as if you would choke in your pinafore. I would think about you and the mistakes you made, wonderng how I could help you avoid making them. I wanted to be there for you, yet I wasn't. And you're the only one who had the guts to say, "Jac, you suck and you're a horrible friend." You asking me how I stay so skinny. Us trying to speak in Chinese and everyone else laughing like we were on display.

Just please don't die before your time. And if you are, call me, so I can be there by your side at the very last moment. That way, when you go, you can't say I wasn't there. ;> I will miss you. Even though you call me Loser all the time. I will miss that too.

Lots of love,

Loser

allaroundbackgroundsound: Red Rain - The White Stripes

dead poets' society

Maintenant, allons-y.

Elite literature types.

Elite literature types are easy to identify - though you must be warned that none even acquiesce to something so meretricious and prosaic as a label - if one tries hard enough. You will, however, not find them in a library; it is of greater significance to own one's own set of books, and not succumb to the laity of the friendly neighbourhood library. Also, when elite literature types resort to that circumstance of book-borrowing confusion, most are disinclined to actually return the books on time, if at all.

The most distinguishable trait of abovementioned snob is the tendency to vociferously decry pseudo-intellectuals. These are the people who claim literature is their life and soul, and count books they reluctantly read (perhaps not even to the last page) as their favourite books on Friendster and MySpace. Ask them about the book, though, and you'll realise they don't know anything about it. The best they can come up with are elementary discussions on light versus darkness and individual versus society. Everything else is lost on them. Often, they barely remember the authors' names. They think Margaret Atwood is chicklit and Alice in Wonderland is a fairytale ("Lewis Carroll who, honey?"). They put William Shakespeare next to Sophie Kinsella and secretly idolise the Babysitters' Club.

A pseudo-intellectual thinks Donne is one of the great Romantics and think The Flea really was about a flea. Either that or they lament the plethora of 'literary cliches' they find in books, thereby denouncing art. They count almost everything as 'ironic', without really knowing what irony is. They cannot tell the difference between a simile and an allegory, between poet and persona, between trash and art. On Sundays, however, they go to poetry readings and emerge an enlightened army. They adore Shakespeare's plays (sometimes thinking they are true stories!) but don't know how many lines a sonnet has. Shakespearean what? Petrarchan what? They think T. S. Eliot wrote the Lord of the Rings. Secretly, they fear literature is just a heap of crap.

Elite literature types and pseudo-intellectuals do not get along. When cruel mistakes of the universe help a pseudo-intellectual get further ahead, elite literature types repeatedly consider suicide. (Please note that the planned suicides are often poetic; you will see and hear nothing about careless jumping off from the 9th storey, unless 9 is particularly symbolic.) There is resentment on both sides. A deep hatred for the other is not uncommon.

You don't have to be a pseudo-intellectual to be despised so don't feel so left out! All you have to do is be one of those folks who do some hobby scribbling here and there and call yourself a writer, or adore literature but don't read, or read but don't take a literature class because you want to roam the streets of PR and perepare the credit roll for News 5 Tonight. There's room for almost everyone here!

Elite literature types are themselves stereotypes. The crazy feminist, the either oversized or undersized geek who is a huge Godfather fan, the mama's boy who wants to be the next Haresh Sharma, the angry lesbian, the smokaholic, the wild party animal who never shows for class, the quiet brainiac, the snob who only appreciates works of dead people, the insouciant quasi-bimbo, and yes, The Cheena who booked herself into the class. By accident. (And now no doubt feels ostracised).

It's really not that hard to spot us (yes, here is me admitting and I will try not to recant), and though we may loathe and detest you inwardly, we are likely to appear friendly and jovial. We're classic, timeless, and, if truth be told, quite useless at anything else. But so what?

allaroundbackgroundsound: Leaf House - Animal Collective

monday:

Tonight was: an excellent dinner for two, blasting U2 on the car stereo ("oh you look so beautiful tonight / in the city of blinding lights), traipsing around vivocity in search of a hole in the wall, an unfinished chicken skewer, one dress reserved pour moi, trouble parallel parking!, finding ps cafe closed, driving to oosh, spotting a familiar face, an apple juice, getting a ride home!, blasting sappy music, an almost-empty expressway meaning speed speed.



I intended to ruminate the futility of paper chasing today by pointing out how only paper can chase paper. I, for one, am not paper. I thought about it long and hard while surfing channels on the goggle box, aimlessly whining inwardly on my non-progress, but eventually found solace in Great Indian Railway, which was about... the Great Indian Railway. I am convinced I want that second class ticket, so shamelessly sold to me by the narrator. Now that I am reading A Passage to India, I'm caught up in Ango-Indian quintessences.

But, as I pointed out earlier, I originally wanted to discuss the hopelessness of the education system. The hours spent in the library consuming fatal amounts of coffee and sugar to keep awake mean an entire hallway of sleepwalking anorexics. There are the four-eyed wonders of the world who don their spectacles proudly and parade in their unwashed clothes shrouding their unwashed bodies while they borrow more books than they can even carry. There are the oh-shit-what-exam-is-this? people, like me, who breeze through varsity as though we have propellers attached to our backs, worrying not, wanting not. (We are the most unpopular, however. Nobody wants to be friends with the girl who can't and won't help them photocopy readings.)

I realised this when asking myself, "Am I going to watch TV for 3 whole months?" Yes, there is my Hong Kong trip (for which I have not saved one cent), and script writing, and book reading, and sleep. Yet I still feel an ominous sense of doom and foreboding when I spend ten minutes watching music videos for bad, bad, badly written songs ("I want to kiss your mouth / I want to taste it"). Call it an epiphany, an awakening, a life-flashing-before-eyes experience. Whatever. Just tell me, please tell me, the world will make better music someday.

allaroundbackgroundsound: Brazil - The Arcade Fire, Bittersweet Bundle of Misery - Graham Coxon

revolution

Whenever it is that time of the month, aptly referred to as The Curse by one of my friends, I become an irascible girl, motivated by nothing, aggravated by almost anything. I switch from cherubic friendliness to diabolic murderousness, faster than anyone can ask for help. Perplexed, to say the least, I often choose to remain indoors, strapped like a psychopath to anything with a cushioned surface, switching TV channels and flipping pages, though not often at the same time. Lately, I just head to the gym and swelter in my gym shoes, hating less with every exhale.

It is a lie. The whole endorphins-make-you-happy lionized by the Legally Blonde types is not true. I'm sorry to make you flinch in terror at the prospect that all your hours clocking in on the treadmill are but hopeless commercialised attempts by Hollywood to make you want to look like a cross between Janice Dickinson and Sylvester Stallone. Well, actually, it makes you happy in the way narcotics would make you happy: for a split second, you forget all your worries and love the people you hate. When the second hand gravitates 10 degrees clockwise, however, you return to your demonic insidiousness. It's called "temporary" in some parts of the world, "an evil lie" in some others. To me it's just known as one of those things in life.

I don't recommend you halt your ambitions for comfortably large biceps or a perkier posterior. Neither do I recommend that you throw your 200 pound weights at your physical trainer, after realising he is leeching off you being duped. All I can suggest is that one step back and inhale exhale inhale exhale inhale exhale and remain optimistic at your prospects, no matter how small they may be.

LOVE EVERYTHING.

ps: I often sound manic depressive but I just want to reasuure you all that I am not!

the garden of love

The Garden of Love by William Blake

I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And "Thou shalt not" writ over the door;
So I turned to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore;

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briers my joys and desires.

black cat

Black Cat by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Stephen Mitchell

A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place
your sight can knock on, echoing; but here
within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze
will be absorbed and utterly disappear:

just as a raving madman, when nothing else
can ease him, charges into his dark night
howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels
the rage being taken in and pacified.

She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen
into her, so that, like an audience,
she can look them over, menacing and sullen,
and curl to sleep with them. But all at once

as if awakened, she turns her face to yours;
and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny,
inside the golden amber of her eyeballs
suspended, like a prehistoric fly.

do not go gentle into that good night

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

wake up

"
Somethin' filled up
my heart with nothin',
someone told me not to cry.

But now that I'm older,
my heart's colder,
and I can see that it's a lie.

Children wake up,
hold your mistake up,
before they turn the summer into dust.

If the children don't grow up,
our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up.
We're just a million little god's causin rain storms turnin' every good thing to
rust.

I guess we'll just have to adjust.

With my lighnin' bolts a glowin'
I can see where I am goin' to be
when the reaper he reaches and touches my hand.

With my lightnin' bolts a glowin'
I can see where I am goin’
With my lighnin' bolts a glowin'
I can see where I am go-goin’

You'd better look out below"

allaroundbackgroundsound: Wake Up - The Arcade Fire

my new pet

His name is maximillian.
One and a half weeks old (or more maybe), and still alive.

hands off!

All I can think of at this point in time is, has Gabriel Garcia Marquez not heard of paragraphs? I should be outside right now, on the patio, where I have been feigning diligence for the whole parts of this exam period. Three words to bring home: Exam schmexam, honey. Instead, I am planted firmly on this seat (quite comfortable!) uselessly whiling away the rest of the evening, knowing very well I will suffer for this later in the form of a by now familiar panic attack.

I have skimmed loosely through one reading. All I remember are the words: nation, will, power, strength, war, espionage. Not very helpful, I know. Not very helpful to yourself are you, Jacqueline? Yes, boss. Good ol' boss. I'm not worried about the paper though. I am predictably (emphasis here) worried about what book I am going to read once my exams are over. How many can I read within 3 months? What will I eat if I spend all my money on books? Which should I read first? How about poems? What's a good anthology? If I get a job will I still have time to read? But if I don't get a job where will I get the money to buy books to read?? Questions, questions, questions. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Two words to take home: Imbroglio, honey.

I am doing everything but the task at hand. I have eaten as many donuts as my stomach would allow. I've chopped fungus (don't ask). I've plucked limes from the garden. I've petted my cat. I've read 4 chapters of a book. I've checked my email. I've sprayed mosquito repellent around with great zeal and ambition. I've made fun of my brother. I've repented by offering him a donut from my secret stash (not so secret since it is after all marked with "FOR JACKO ONLY DO NOT TOUCH HANDS OFF IF YOU VALUE YOUR LIFE" and various angry stickmen). I fear I've run out of things to do but...study.

allaroundbackgroundsound: the little voice in my head