Skinny ties and cheesy moves

The past few days have been pretty ego-boosting for me. First, I woke up one day and realized that my legs were close to completely recovered. Can't wait to do some exercise again. Second, I had a long conversation with a French exchange student from Lindy Hop, and it looks like I didn't lose it all, after all. Finally, I managed to do just about all my Maths homework on Thursday morning, and that feels like a milestone for me personally.

I went to play L4D2 with Kseen and his Maritime friends on Thursday afternoon. It was fun creaming his friends together with him, haha. It made me realize though, I still get unsettled even when the silence should be comfortable.

Note to self: Use $20 Ichiban voucher.

Starbright

Something disturbing happened today. I was walking to the toilet at Jurong point, when suddenly a fair-skinned, slightly overweight girl wearing a grey t-shirt starting talking aloud to herself about Chinese clothing. She seemed to be having an imaginary conversation of some sort. It was quite a pity. She seemed too young to have to deal with such problems.

CNY dinner conversation with cousins from my mother's side taught me that apparently, some of the stars we see in the sky have already died; what we observe is the light that has taken X no. of light years to travel from it's point of emanation/radiation(?). It kind of sheds a different light on all the metaphors using stars that I'm used to hearing.


Spent 8 hours playing Monopoly deal and 3 hours playing poker over the weekend. Also, I watched 'The One' starring Jet Li.

Current list of worst movies ever:

1) Pathfinder
2) The One
3) The Village

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Here's a nice quote I found:

"And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation." -Khalil Gibran

Anger and other assorted feelings

On Thursday, I went with Mych to Ikea to take a look around. I think her idea of walking around places just to find inspiration for things pretty good. I left the place with a few good ideas to pursue in the next two months.

I finished IPPT in the evening after an incredible 3 hours because I came late for the registration. I got home and watched Glee reruns, followed by clips of Pastor Rony Tan's tirade against other religions. Senseless. Distasteful. Offensively illogical. Offensive.

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Friday was... an interesting day. A bunch of us Soci peeps met up at Sultan Kebabs to eat (Note to reader: Even if you're dying of starvation, do not ever go to the stingy, overpriced Turkish Kebab place at Far East plaza). We sat there and argued over what activity to do after the meal, and we finally settled on playing LAN. The shops were full though, so we ended up crossing the road to play board games at Mind cafe. Vithiya, Sharon and Fadzil turned up later, followed by Clara and her friend.

The highlight for me though, was coaxing Ashley and Vithiya to play L4D2 with us. Heh. That was fun, and Ashley is a pretty quick study. Vithiya seemed to enjoy herself too, and Fadzil shot me a lot (Though I did incap him that one time). After that, the last thing we did was to eat at Aston's.

On a side note, throughout the day, I idly wondered about the kind of things that got me worked up or angry, and the past offenses or hurt I refused to let go of. It made me remember a newspaper article about a man on trial for manslaughter for the death of his two-year old daughter.

He was known to be a loving and caring father, and one day he was on his way home with a Barbie doll for his little girl. When he opened the door, he saw her playing with a packet of his cigarettes. Panicked and enraged by the sight, he rushed at her and beat her on her back, scolding her for touching them. The little girl then slumped over a few minutes later, unable to move. Apparently his blow had burst a major blood vessel near her heart, and blood was welling up in her body. She died soon after.

One can only imagine how that father must now be feeling guilt and shame on so many levels: Guilt because he didn't quit smoking, guilt because his rage blinded him, guilt for beating his innocent girl to death.

What that story left me thinking was about the father's sudden anger and fury. And I thought that although some of us have hotter tempers than others, maybe it takes a lifetime of letting your anger fly over smaller, less significant things, for it to develop to the point where you can be so blinded by your rage that you could hurt a helpless child.

Maybe it takes a lifetime of lustful thoughts and sideways glances for a man to cheat on his wife. Maybe it takes more than just that, and every test we ever cheated on, every lie we ever told can come back to haunt us like this.

Every race we've ever passed was possible because we pushed ourselves every step of the way. Every performance we've ever had was made out of tens, maybe even hundreds of practices. Every friendship we cherish is made up of a gallery of big and small moments, 21st birthdays and daily silences together.

Our life exists as it is not simply because of chance or fate, but because of the way we choose to live in each new situation... My anger is clearly neither rational nor justifiable now. But my expectation of you will remain the same.

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Woke up this morning and realized that I'd been dreaming of Fadzil explaining misconceptions about Islam the night before. . I woke up this morning, thinking of .

It made me think about the things we ought to love but don't, and the terrible things we hanker for/obsess about/obsess over/hanker after(?)/long for.

We live in a big global world now, a world of cities and bureaucracies and universities and job vacancies in a set social structure. Within this structure, you can be powerful or impotent. You can be a star or mud. You can be colorful or conservative. But you must always make money, and you mustn't ever exceed the amount of crazy allotted to you based on your job requirements (ALWAYS EXCEED THE AMOUNT OF CRAZY).

What if we lived in a world where it was normal for everyone to walk around openly with two personalities inside them? What if we could live in a world where ADHD was considered completely unremarkable? After all, there was once a time where classrooms didn't exist, and people spent their whole lives out in the fields, running, doing, playing, farming, copulating, and sometimes dying early of the plague or of bandits (Less people die early of the plague now but the bandits will always be around). Well, we don't live in that world, but still.

TV characters are always one-dimensionally awesome or melancholy, admirable or detestable, congruent or conflicted. They can never be boring or irrelevant or inconsistent, because viewers watch them to admire or hate just one or two qualities about them. People in real life though, are inconsistent characters, and often that inconsistency is inconsequential to the performance of many socially-mandated functions. There's always a child and an adult, a villain and a hero, a knight or a wizard (No dual-spec allowed), a clown and a captain, and many other characters inside us. So many faces, but so few places where they're acceptable, and even fewer the friends whom we can share all of them with.

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Implacable Imperceptible Imbibe Impassive Imperfect Impeccable

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Hanker:

–verb (used without object)
to have a restless or incessant longing (often fol. by after, for, or an infinitive).

Peaceful days

I started out the day making poor decisions. Thankfully the consequences ended at me messing just 5% of my 217 mod grade. Apparently, I freaked out a lindy hop mate who wanted to say hi to me, but got scared by my black face as I was moping about near Canteen B.

Later, Marie and I met our refreshingly frank and forthcoming teacher, Amporn, for 350. 219 presentation went well, or at least it didn't go badly. Astronomy lecture was fruitless. We spent the time talking, and I slept the rest of the time. Really falling behind in that lecture. The next couple of hours after that were pretty cool because I went around selling candy for lindy hop with Marie. It was probably quite fortunate that she was there, because my sales and socializing skills aren't what they need to be. Trisha asked me what I was selling my candies for and I answered, "For fun". Meh. Thanks Marie! You helped out a lot even though I hit your sunburned arm. Haha =)Postnote: YOU HELPED A LOT AND YOU ARE A REALLY NICE PERSON UNDERNEATH ALL THE LAYERS OF IDIOCY.

Met Mych at Lee Wee Nam later and we sat down trying to figure out how we could all attend her birthday. After that, I headed down to Lindy Hop. It was pretty fun the whole way and I chatted more than usual with everyone.


Retrospectively, this post is looking strikingly similar to a 'Cassandra' post. Haha. Ah well.

The Great Beyond

"They say it takes more certainty than talent to become a star."

Pray for courage to take the stage.

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Had a long day today. Had a long car ride with my Mom, during which we discussed the relevance of physical punishment and humiliation in primary and secondary level education. In retrospect, I think it's a sign that some amount of hubris has set in when I unconsciously expected my Mom to agree with my thoughts on the issue, even though I knew her position was contrary to mine at the back of my mind. I realize now that I have a mindset about school that borders on overconfidence. I innately assume that I know what to do for all the presentations ahead and that is all business as usual. I've lost the sense of wonder that leads to being able to think of all the interesting things I've seen people presenting in the past few weeks. Guess it's a case of too much good fortune. People say the darndest things sometimes, and it makes me wonder how I plan to progress if I can't even see things from their perspective.

Went gallivanting around NTU with Mark and Kader. Scored points with Mark with my display of camaraderie in my taking the effort to travel to school. Kader lost points by meeting us from school. Discovered how obscenely well-funded ADM is. Resolved to start a hate group against them.

Went to Germ's house for steamboat. Ate a lot of mushrooms. Wasted a lot of food because everyone overbought. Really felt the music (along with some chills due to incredible cheesiness) while watching the Tuft's Beelzebubs. Ate a delicious brownie. Felt dizzy from overeating.

Finally, went to Changi Airport to see Aaron off. Met his mother for the first time in years (It's always a pleasant experience). Sat and chatted. Realized that we need to come to a collective decision to revise the story set told when introducing me to new people (Preferably, said stories will recount the killing of a lion with my bare hands). Realized that he's going to be very far away for very long periods at a time, and that L4D2 and D3 are going to have to take place online from now on. Realized I wouldn't be going to Zouk for a long time (Ambivalence, but mostly positive feelings). Realized that I'm going to be flying to Perth if the timings work out, because I want to, but also because friendships will be voided if I back out.

Realized that life seems shorter now, and that I'm going to spend the next two years leveling up and becoming as epic as I possibly can.

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I went through all this reflection to uncover some deep, pseudo-philosophical shit lurking in the back of my mind. Ah yes.

What does it mean to be a big person?

Pretentious noun version of a word: Rumination

I think it's probably true that if you deal with a person with the foundational mindset that he is an honest person, then they'll become more likely to deal honestly. Conversely, if you deal with him as if he is a bad person, then he'll become more likely to act poorly.

Still. Ugh. How am I going keep a straight face if I can't dump all the judgmental things I'm thinking right now?

Freud

During a break in Astronomy lecture, I met Kei Seen outside the auditorium. It was a warm meeting and we talked for a bit before he left, and it struck me how long it had been since I'd last saw him, and how wrong that was. I figured I would meet him again on Friday and didn't dwell too much on it.

After two hours, I finally accomplished the mammoth task of sitting through Astro lecture with Sharon. We left the hall with Janice and went to the HSS library, where she graciously provided menial labor for the arrangement of my notes. After they left, I felt a tinge of ennui mixed with... I hesitate to use the word 'loneliness' for all the incorrect things it connotes. Haha. Well, it's just funny how, sometimes, meeting old friends who bring us merriment and nostalgia brings us fullness and satisfaction long after they've gone, yet other times their leaving makes us feel so much more alone.

After that, I sat in the library, with a mind too paralyzed to continue the mechanical, sometimes alienating process of studying. My mind drifted to vague and unsubstantial thoughts about longing, about the odd and sometimes troublesome/painful turns it can take at times. I got up and idly walked in the aisles between the bookshelves. I saw a book entitled 'Longing', and I picked it up and started reading.

It was a book that placed considerable emphasis on specialists in the field, but some of it was accessible; it made me think new things and it felt comfortable to think, to let my mind wander without having to analyze or criticize or summarize. It was also charmingly coincidental.

It started to rain outside, and the constant sound of the rain washing the sidewalks lulled me to sleep. And in my sleep, I dreamt of blue books half-covered by lightly colored curtains. Then I dreamt of someone. A pleasant dream, but not too much so. And then I woke up, feeling tranquil, and wondering 'Why her?', 'Why not?', 'What if?'. Idly, I sat there thinking, and after reflection, I saw good things and I saw bad things, and I recognized good justifications and ugly reasons on my own part, but I came to no clear conclusion.




But she is beautiful.




I thought about Vagabond's Musashi, how he slowed down and began to listen to the feeling of music inside him, a sound that, if he allowed it, would resonate through his whole body till there was nothing of him but music, and he would move without moving, think without thinking.

We strain our heads so hard to grasp the concepts of Sociology, and we accrue so many symbols of symbols (I don't know much about Baudrillard but I think he's not wrong) for (to?) ourselves, but today I realized with some certainty that my 'sociological view' and for that matter, my view of life, are both still childish. In class and during personal study, handling the concepts is something akin to how a child picks up differently shaped blocks and tries to insert them in the right holes. That tiredness I feel after studying often feels more like mental heavy-lifting than any participation in a cultivated mental form of art. Whether or not that's just a phase of development to go through, I don't know. I do know that there's a very low limit to how much gets internalized. I do know that people like GB and Tan Joo Ean are the best examples of the people who keep it real, who bother to go beyond settling for 'abstractions of abstractions' and to make all these concepts something concrete in their lives.

I still feel some unconfidence, some uncertainty with a few Soci acquaintances I meet from time to time in the hallways. I can feel it manifesting in the small disconnects in our conversation, and in my own thought process. Yet at the same time, it doesn't bother me because I can feel how temporary the problem is, how fixable it is.

But some things, once broken, can't be fixed. (*Cue sorrowful piano melody)

On the hilltop

If thou wilt be epic, thou must level.
And if thou would level, thou must win battles.
And if thou would win battles, thou must join battle.