absolutum dominium

i think he knows tt i'm with someone else. i don't just think, i am damn sure. but then why is it tt he's still so nice to me? he wants to fetch me from my home and drive me to a seaside restaurant for our last meeting-up session. that is unprecedented. i'm confused. i don't know why he would be doing this. but i feel very bad.

my father has been insisting tt i ask my university to get me a service apartment in vancouver. even though i have told him a million and one fucking times tt the university has not and will not help. they just lead me to a bunch of websites with 1-year or 6-month leases. what the fuck you expect me to fucking do???

ARGH. kanina. don't want to book hotel. whole life won't shut up about the benefits of the service apartment. and ALL THIS FUCKING TIME still expects me to work magic. if *i* were going there on my own i would be able to book a damn hostel for myself. but hello? my parents don't want to stay in a fuckign hostel, so what can i do??? ARGH.

but tt said, i have 22 credits out of 28 to 34 credits.

courses include:

1. LAW 339C - Human Rights in Asia
2. LAW 481D - Topics in Litigation, Dispute Resolution and the Administration of Justice
3. LAW 316 - International Law
4. LAW 476C - Psychology and Litigation
5. LAW 422 - Intellectual Property
6. PSYC 100 - Introductory Psychology

YES! I got human rights and psychology and litigation! i am a happy girl! now i just need 2 more courses. think i can go get them in september.

but a FUCKING LOT OF ERRANDS TO RUN. and i'm *still* awaiting the arrival of my study permit... grr... why is it taking so long? sigh.

oh. and i need my ipod repaired otherwise i can't bload my music files into my laptop. and i need to book tickets for the dim sum dollies coz sistic is fucking up big-time tonight and i know the tickets are running out! nah bei.

yeah. so last night i *finally* met up with james.

we met at clarke quay mrt (45 minutes later than we'd expected to meet), walked through the clarke quay pedestrian mall (twice in 2 nights) and headed over to momo at central mall.

just a note: clarke quay is uber-revamped. it's not like what i'd expected anymore; it's not at all like mohammed sultan. it oozes class from attica to the tapas tree. the outdoor 'lily pads' seating is so fucking inviting it makes me wish i were born with a silver spoon in my mouth such tt i could actually dine there. coz i'm assuming tt it'll probably be at least $50 a person if you want to eat comfortably.

anyway james and i were catching up on our lives. he's doing an attachment with A&G, so he's getting an insight into the world of lawyering. i guess even though i've signed my life away i haven't completely ruled out becoming a lawyer if it all doesn't work out. admittedly the money is fucking good. being able to bill your client $600 an hour for something as simple as replying to email or giving advice over the phone is one hell of a temptation.

but then again to be a really *good* lawyer i would also have no life. like, literally no life. wake up to go to work about 7am, all the way till maybe 9 or 10pm, if i want to socialise maybe meet up for drinks after tt till midnight (but i still gotta go home to rest early), and then back home to sleep to wake up early again the following day.

money or life?

wahahahahaha.

tt's why james concludes tt lawyers live lavishly. coz they have so much money, and no time to spend all tt money. so first chance they get they try to blow it.

ooh. tapas tree. tapas tree.

unfortunately for me police officers *don't* earn *that* much. i'd be lucky to earn $600 in a *week*, not an *hour*.

we got to momo before 10, ordered some drinks at the bar and sat down and chilled/talked somemore. i like the atmosphere of clubs when there is little people, coz i don't like smoky places and inhaling 2nd-hand cigarette smoke. i like music when it's chill-out/progressive at a volume WHERE YOU DON'T HAVE TO SHOUT, or smooth rock tt doesn't grate on the ears. the resident band 'by definition' came out 10 min after 10.30pm. they weren't too bad. they were advertised by the club as having "youthful energy". yeah, they had 'youthful energy' all right. the lead singer looked younger than me, and he was infusing his songs with "uh's and justin timberlake type dance moves. don't ask how tt works. but well. it was listenable to.

the crowd at momo is relatively diverse. mix of working class and kids. maybe it's coz i'm dating an older man, so i feel older than a lot of the people here. but kids... haha... i don't think i can see the appeal of young boys anymore. it's this maturity tt a lot of guys my age lack. you don't even need to know them for long to feel it so starkly. but i guess at least at the live band area more people are there to enjoy the music and to chill-out, so at least the crowd's a little older than the clubbing section where everyone's *still* young and energetic. don't get me wrong. i still enjoy clubbing, dancing, and as long as there is a hip-hop beat going... but i don't see the same appeal in tt anymore.

i like chilling out. i'm getting old and slow. oh dear.

john molina and his band kruger came out at midnight. we'd stayed till then. they sang matchbox twenty's 'bright lights', stone temple pilots' 'plush', guns n roses' 'november rain', and radiohead's 'creep' among other songs. and oasis' 'wonderwall'. man, i love this band. my all-time fave genre of songs is 90s rock. i don't know 80s rock coz i was too young (i.e. just born or even before), and 00's rock doesn't stay with me the same way tt '90s rock does. not surprisingly for my boy, he loves '80s rock the most. the similarity between the both of us is tt if we hear a song we love and know the lyrics of, we will sing the entire song along with the band. yet another uncanny property.

james feels tt he doesn't want to get a girl who's too similar to him (i.e. another lawyer), because he thinks it will be boring to talk about the same thing (i.e. cases) all the time. and he has a huge point there. hmm. never considered tt. but by empirical observation, you realise tt lawyers tend to date lawyers, just as doctors tend to date doctors and police officers tend to date police officers; for the same reason tt all of the three groups of people have no time to socialise or date other people outside of their social circle. it's just too much work and too much time spent in the office. plus no one understands you better than someone in the same position tt you are in.

law school couples in my year (*still* excluding inter-year couples): 20 and counting. 20 couples = 40 people. 40 people out of 200 people = 20%. 20% of law school year 3s are attached to EACH OTHER. imagine tt. it's an inbreeding phenomenon.

anyway i digree. the band played till about 1am, and we wanted to go club, but the dance floor side was full house and we couldn't enter except by queuing or by paying a cover charge. so after a bit of wandering and hesitating, and james complaining tt he hadn't clubbed since his birthday ages ago and he couldn't believe tt his first clubbing night out in a long long time would end up with us getting locked out instead (!!!), i had to leave to hit my 2am curfew.

so... erm. tt was tt.

but momo is a nice place. i pref it to wala's now coz there's more space. but then again wala's is 10 min from my house and momo's = 55 min coz i gotta take a bus, change to nel at dhoby ghaut, and still walk from clarke quay...

so hmm.

BRIGHT LIGHTS -
matchbox twenty

She got out of town
On a railway, New York bound
Took all except my name
Another alien on Broadway

There’s some things in this world you just can't change
Some things you can't see until it gets too late

Baby, baby, baby
When all your love is gone,
Who will save me
From all I'm up against out in this world?
Maybe, maybe, maybe
You'll find something that's enough to keep you,
But if the bright lights don't receive you,
You should turn yourself around and come on home

I got a hole in me now
Ya, I got a scar I can talk about
She keeps a picture of me
In her apartment in the city

Some things in this world, man, they don't make sense
Some things you don't need until they leave you...
They're the things that you miss

Baby, baby, baby
When all your love is gone,
Who will save me
From all I'm up against out in this world?
Maybe, maybe, maybe
You'll find something that's enough to keep you,
But if the bright lights don't receive you,
You should turn yourself around and come on home

Let that city take you in (come on home)
Let that city spit you out (come on home)
Let that city take you down...
For God's sake, turn around

Baby, baby, baby
When all your love is gone,
Who will save me
From all I'm up against out in this world?
Maybe, maybe, maybe
You'll find something that's enough to keep you,
But if the bright lights don't receive you...
Turn yourself around and come on home
Yeah, come on home
Baby, baby, baby, baby
Come on home
Yeah, come on home
Come on home,
Come on home

ok. sometimes i think life is a bit too complicated.

or rather, tt life could have been simple but once again, *i* complicated it for myself by doing things in a "stop-gap" matter ("stop-gap referring to the pre-Magaret Thatcher economic policy in 1980s Britain whereby the government measures taken to help the flailing then-welfare economy were symptomatic and not forward-looking), without considering the long-term repercussions. help. hsien, yanli. i think i need help. again. fuck. how do you tell someone who's *still* both bitter and hopeful not to be anymore?

rainy sat afternoon. or rather, damn rainy sat morning. at least now the rain is gone and the sky though dark, is clearing up. hope to go for a run. it's been fucking long coz of my seminar last week. totally spoilt all fucking exercise plans. plus all the really good food. morning tea. lunch. afternoon tea. am fucking fat now lah wtf.

anyway just to update... seminar carried on for the past 3 days. was exposed to various social and economic policies. class went through A LOT of debate. maybe tt's why they sent us to various unis in various countries to study various subjects. all of us have come back with pretty much a diverse mindset and range of views. maybe the only thing tt binds us together is our idealism. some are more idealistic than others, but we still believe.

a lot of themes were being discussed. views, thinking "for the people" (even though i still find tt getting the top 1% of society to come and discuss how the other 99% of society think and live from this ivory tower in some little building in a better part of singapore still smacks of pretension), the so-called "national interests vs. the interests of the individual", and the focus on tangible instead of intangible benefits... these subjects were bandied around so much it was just too tiring for me to continue engaging with the same people over the same things all over again.

but tt said, inspite of all the disillusionment a number of us went through with the system and the policy-making process, we did have our faith restored by the talks with a successful entrepreneur about attitude in such an environment, as well as with mp dr amy khor about her work with the grassroots and her take on singapore's policy directions.

all of us have lofty ambitions. one wants to work with the world bank to help resolve the issue of poverty. many want to inspire the students to study, to learn, to fulfil the dreams tt they have from the time tt they are young. me? i've already mentioned my dreams so often. i just hope i will be able to do what i set out to do when i join the service. i don't just want to end up drafting policies from an ivory tower. i want to be on the ground, with the ground, where it's all at. and it's not lofty in an academic or in a career sense, because according to scholarship policy i'm probably OVER-qualified to be an on-the-ground officer, but i don't believe tt it's impossible. plus i already have some ties to the ground, so i guess some headway is better than nothing at all.

i despise hypocrisy.

anyway on wed we went to the infant jesus home in the afternoon. a group of 8 of us. the home used to be where chijmes now is; in the 40s to 60s parents used to abandon their daughters here if they were a) born during the jap occ; b) deformed; c) born in the year of the tiger. as such, the sister would take care of these girls, and now in 2005 these girls have grown old. there are 7 of them left. and it depressed me.

we with our lofty ambitions. us the young the educated the previleged. we have dreams, we have our lives in front of us. we have the power and the means and the opportunity to make our choices, to pursue our dreams, to do everyfuckingthing tt we want to with our lives. these women never had tt chance. everyday they follow a set routine. they know only each other. they have nothing else to do but to keep busy. to wait till bedtime. to wait to die.

fuck. i hate this. i hate visiting such places for the same reason tt i hate visiting the stifling environment of the prison. granted, i will def have to visit the prison often in the future. granted, i will be going to tiny little rooms where they'll be stuffing a whole horde of illegal immigrants in uninhabitable conditions. granted ill be going through makeshift brothels where foreign women may have been forced to work for the sheer sake of a bowl of rice. granted, ill be running through forests or really poor estates looking for drug abusers or runaways or whoever else have fallen through the cracks of society. and i know there are so many.

i'm an escapist. we all are. we know they are there, but we choose not to see them. up till now, i chose not to see them. but i know tt i cannot choose to be blind all my life. i always wanted to make a difference. and to be honest, i think i can. i know tt one person may not be able to do much, but the little i do will be more than nothing. and from the seminar at least i know tt more of us exist than i realise. it's like what amy khor said. like-minded individuals coming together can achieve more than just 1 person.

we were taken around the home. the guy in charge was mentioning about the crisis shelter, and how it seemed more people were in need of help, just tt a few were too proud. and what could you possibly do? resources is always a problem. not enough funding, not enough manpower. so maybe for them it's not so bad coz they have support from the school and members of public, but it's not the case for everyone. i think something is seriously wrong if statistics show tt social ills is on the rise. what's the point of a growing economy is the wealth gap keeps on widening and more are left behind? the social fabric of family has been disintegrating. many of the higher-income families have parents too busy to keep tabs on their children. many of the lower-income families have parents who are taking on so many jobs tt they are never around for their children, and these children become unloved and they seek love in every single place tt they can.

what can we do? it's not just about volunteerism. a lot more has to be done. the welfare centres, the family service centres, they are cures. cures, not preventive measures. we need more preventive measures. not just stop-gap reliefs.

anyway we interacted with the women at the home. they were all so warm and friendly. all raised catholic. there was this innocent simplicity in all of them. they trusted, they loved, they did not expect. there was no bitterness over their kind of life. they welcomed us with warm smiles and lingering handshakes. two were blind. they saw by hearing and touch, by running their palms and fingers over ours and touching our hair.

i left the home around 6.15pm. no choice but to take a cab back to nus for the dragonboat end-of-season dinner. i guess it was supposed to be celebratory, but just as i'd expected it was more like a 'come-for-the-free-food' trip with a few customary speeches thrown in. we were given an insight into the new direction for the team. i'll be honest here. i'm not comfortable with the new direction.

i know tt winning is important. let's face it. we're representing our school. the school is funding us, supporting us etc. we have to put all this funding and support to good use. it's a pride thing. who wants to lose? but the thing is tt the attitude of the school and its representatives is just not in tangent with the kind of values tt have undergirded our team ever since its inception. the concepts of feeling and rowing for each other, being being a team, of bonding, of being sisters; these are the foremost values of the team.

WE matter most. it's not just the medals and their colour. winning is important, i'm not disputing tt. but it's not an end-all in itself because team cohesion is supposed to be the championing value. we do train hard, but what motivates us to win is our heart. our heart to row for each other, to not let each other down. to row for someone else, and not for yourself alone, is even more inspirational than just a medal. that means tt even if we row our hearts out, we end up vomiting or blacking out or something along those lines because of the effort put in, but if we still do not clinch the coveted gold, it's not a loss or a disappointment because we know we've done the best tt we could. if it were all about the medals, then suffice to say we could always just go down to the factory in katong and commission them to make gold medals for each of us.

society thinks in one way. society is generally caught up with the tangible and the material as a measure of success. but the team does not think as society does. we believe in the intangible. and like johnny might say, it's not viable because the 'heart' is inconsistent and erratic. and it's true. we do require consistency. we do require a more solid method. but this being said i'm all for tangible, but i am of the firm belief that the team should never lose the values tt have undergirded us all these years. the love tt we have for each other.

i went home early after the dinner.

on thurs after the seminar, the girls had election dinner at the holland village xo beehoon place. which was btw, 2 min walk from my college where i was having the seminar. almost everyone was late and later. wahaha. we had a re-election. yirang's our new vice-capt. :) not bad lah. the 2 original si geenas in charge of the team. both from jurong somemore. wahaha.

i know tt both of them are not going to find the ride smooth-sailing. i was never in any position so i wouldn't know how much behind-the-scenes stuff goes on, but now tt expectations have been raised, now tt there is intervention (more politically-correct than interferrence), now tt there is more to be done and done differently, and with little time for adjustment, things may not be easy. i can't advise much, can't say much. but what i can say:

1. believe in yourselves. like mona says, no matter what everyone else says, you two are the heads of the team. you are the ones who will care the most for the team, who will guide the team, who will protect the team and think for the interests of the team and place them first. so don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

2. work-team balance will always be a problem. esp when you're in year 2 and the modules increase and get tougher. but tt's what studying together and motivating each other is about. it may not help entirely, but support each other emotionally. :)

3. the team will be behind you every step of the way. i know tt we all made the right choice and elected the right people to be the new heads. as a senior, i've seen both from the time they came for our (not-so) fun row till now, and we've all seen you both grow stronger both physically and emotionally. we know the kind of love, attachment and dedication you have for the team. we know how you feel, how much of yourselves you can and will give. it won't be an easy ride, coz mona should pretty much have told you her own experiences. there will be moments of frustration, of anger, of resentment, of disillusionment, of helplessness, and there will be tears.

but with all the bad comes all the good. the love. the bonding. the smiles and the laughter. the amazing realisations when you realise how you can bring out the passion and dedication in others, when you realise how much you've affected others and how you've earned their respect and admiration. the revelation tt all the mission: impossible objectives tt you'd set out to achieve from the start of the academic year would somehow, at the very end, all be achieved, or even over-achieved, even though you could have had no prior clue hope or idea.

congrats to our new capt and vice-capt cindy and yirang. like we've said before, you both will do just fine.

ok.

and tt's my 2 cents worth. won't say anymore on this coz it's all in your hands and under your authority now. :)

after the dinner, we (the old birds. somehow the si geenas abandoned us. again) s.l.o.w.l.y made our way down to wala wala. of course by the time we got there the band was playing and seats were a fucking impossibility. plus we'd missed happy hour so a pint of hoegaarden set me back fucking $17.00. knn. he was there with his drinking buddies (2 tables of them); tried to get us a table. the band tt was playing was called "the unexpected", although there were guest appearances from "the ministry of rock". maybe i'm too young, but i couldn't appreciate the music coz i wasn't into heavy/80s rock, which was what they were playing.

tt said. they were good.

the girls left around 11.30pm. decided to stay on with him. his crazy friend was trying to get me to finish the heineken (they'd ordered 16 bottles of erdinger (dark) and 10 bottles of heineken during happy hour, and it seemed no one could finish everything), but i was kinda bloated coz he'd made me 'bottoms up' my hoegaarden, and i hate downing my beer coz it ALWAYS makes me bloated. plus the kick always comes all at once and damn strong.

the same reason why i should never down my vodka or any other drinks all at once. but yeah. i do it all the time anyway. fuck.

the band played system of a down's 'aerials' at midnight. i love tt song. highlight of my night from the band. he introduced to one of the girls who used to be interested in him when he'd been bartending. and uh, announced tt he was her boyfriend. i realise tt among some groups of people, lovers are interchangeable. so is sexual partners. HMM.

he drove me home in his friend's car. yeah. i did relay the message tt he might get caught if he drinks and drives. he laughed. d-uh. he broke every traffic rule, drove the other way up a one-way street, parallel-parked in 3 seconds, and yeah. no accidents. ended up having a midnight chat with my dad over microwaved cabbage soup till 2 am.

about... stuff. my dad's asking but not pressing. i'm lying and he's knowing tt i'm lying. but he's not pushing me much. i'm scared tt he will soon.

melissa says tt i should take it slow. i know i should. 2 weeks is too short to determine a lifetime. but maybe i'm the naive one for saying tt i feel like i know him inside out. i trust him completely. and i don't want to take it slow. i'm leaving soon. we're both so busy. time is a luxury i just don't have right now. i know what i'm doing. i'm not being cautious. i'm not being very rational. but i'm not a fool. i'm not overly-emotional or idealist. i've already done the cost-benefit analysis. and i've already decided what i am going to risk for what i'm going to get in return.

friday was the last day of the seminar. the original plan was to head down to km8 with the rest of his friends who'd been there playing beach volleyball. in the end we decided to just go the the food court at marina square with the panoramic view, then walk from marina promenade to momo at central mall. and just talk, i guess. he did more talking than me. he's an open book. he knows tt. i know. i'm the one who's more guarded. always have been, always will be. you don't know me till i want you to, you don't get close to me till i let you, and if i don't want to get to know you i'm never going to talk to you. am i too arrogant tt way?

his friend's birthday was today. we dropped by momo to wish the guy happy birthday. tt guy tried to go after me, but i don't trust skirt-chasers. i think there's more to lift for guys than just trying to chase or impress girls. a certain degree of tt is natural, but if tt's your ultimate goal in life then you're just a sad loser with major security and esteem issues. and if you don't know how to treat a girl right, tt's even sadder for you.

this guy doesn't know how to treat girls right. and he wonders why he has a long string of really short relationships.

me? i believe tt good things are worth waiting for.

my boy sent me home by cab (and then went back to chinablack to go drink himself silly). then i had to type out my dad's speech for him for testimonial tt he's gonna give the congregation at church.

today had my first meal of the week with the family at this thai restaurant, then helped my dad to document his company profile. except tt now my dad cannot remember the address of the website tt i created for him, so until he does tt i cannot put the damn profile up on the site. grr.

anyway am meeting james at momo again later. i wonder if john molina's band is still playing tonight?

AERIALS -
system of a down

Life is a waterfall,
We're one in the river,
And one again after the fall.

Swimming through the void
We hear the word,
We lose ourselves,
But we find it all

Cause we are the ones that want to play,
Always want to go,
But you never want to stay,

And we are the ones that want to choose,
Always want to play,
But you never want to lose.

Aerials, in the sky,
When you lose small mind,
You free your life.

Life is a waterfall,
We drink from the river,
Then we turn around and put up our walls.

Swimming through the void
We hear the word,
We lose ourselves,
But we find it all

Cause we are the ones that want to play,
Always want to go,
But you never want to stay,

And we are the ones that want to choose,
Always want to play,
But you never want to lose,
ohhh

Aerials, in the sky,
When you lose small mind,
You free your life.
Aerials, so up high,
When you free your eyes,
Eternal prize.
Aerials, in the sky,
When you lose small mind,
You free your life.
Aerials, so up high,
When you free your eyes,
Eternal prize.

last night he drank 9 glasses of erdinger (dark), 3 bottles of heineken, 1 kilkenny and 1 stout. and he could still parallel park.

tonight he drank 7 shots of tequila and 4 jugs of beer. i guess tt's why he's smsing me funny things every 5 to 10 minutes. hmm.

i guess it's called karma. i'm getting back what i did to him tt time *i* got drunk. wahaha. i'm amused.

...and he says tt he's never fallen this fast, or this deeply before.

and maybe i am the goddamn fool.

if you're wondering why the fuck i'm so busy this week - i have a developments in public policy seminar everyday from 9am to 6pm the whole of this week. tt effectively means no exercise at all, no gym, not clubbing, and for this week, no social life.

actually, i qualify tt. i have a social life. but the only social life i have is with a) my girls (wed and thurs), and b) my baby. ok, unless you count sat, and then c) james as well, and tt's coz i haven't seen him since fucking april 29. ARGH.

how's the seminar like? well. can't really say much without risking a) being hauled up by the ISA b) being slapped with an OB marker c) losing my scholarship etc, so can't say that much. except maybe these few phrases: 1) boring; 2) wayang; 3) know-it-alls; 4) MORE wayang. oh, but the food is good. if ONLY the damn sessions DON'T make me feel fucking DRAINED by the end of each day.

yesterday we did an overview of the government structure, principles and policies in general. thank god for yuwei and hsien, my saving graces. and for the other spf scholars justin, wanyi, leng lee and qicong who were there to talk to. there were 35 of us in total; mainly moe scholars with a few lone jtc, lta, mcys, moh etc scholars thrown in the mix. a majority of them were overseas scholars, hailing esp from london unis, although there was a pretty brilliant guy from harvard as well as 2 from chicago.

thing about doing public law, is tt when someone who knows almost nuts about the government structure starts to talk to you about it, you just want to laugh when she can't answer simple questions. but i shall say no more. i find tt a lot of whatever is being said about the subject matter on paper is highly positive and paints a very rosy picture, which makes me wonder why don't the speakers realise tt if you don't provide a holistic view of said subject matter, the target audience might just be largely skeptical and unreceptive to what you try to put across?

coz if we look very receptive and enthusiastic... which we do... let's just face it. if there is 1 thing tt scholars are good at, it's wayang.

if all the policies are fine and dandy, then why are there still problems in the system? why do i get the feeling tt all we're supposed to do is to find out tt the policies are all innately 'good' (if we were to use a normative term here), thereby shutting us up and allowing us to defend them better?

where the fact remains tt even though the policies are sound, there is something inherently WRONG with the system, coz it seems everywhere tt somewhere inbetween top and bottom, people screw up. therefore the original intentions of a policy get screwed up and warped, and by the time it hits the ground, it's no longer a semblence of what it was, or rather, its effect ends up being different from what was intended.

and i hate it how we always refer to 'the ground' as if we were above it. as if we were about 'the masses', the so-called 'proletariat'. i'm getting sick of the class divides. so i admit, they do exist, no matter where you are regardless of the claims of equality and meritocracy, class divides have always and will always continue to permeate society. my point is tt a lot of class bias comes from mindset. and since here we are pretending tt we're so-called mre fucking 'enlightened' than the rest of the proletariat since we can afford to sit in our ivory towers and discuss their problems as if we know them inside out, i think tt the alteration of the mindset should stem from US, now should it not? why do we continue to perpetuate it?

i'm tired. i don't know whether it's from the programme or the concentration, or whether it's from playing the political animal in a room of other political animals, all looking to scramble up the social ladder even now, impress the civil servants and their peers, and well... wayang wayang wayang.

yesterday the bus ride from the college to plaza sing took me one whole fucking hour coz of the rain. the bus was fucking crawling. i was pissed by the time i'd reached PS. had dinner with him and his friends - the last of the group he'd wanted me to meet. according to him, i've now met everyone. then we detoured to ice cold beer so tt they could drink. between the 3 of them they finished 12 bottles of becks. he drank 5 of the bottles. they played pool as well. but i was so fucking tired i didn't really say much. plus i needed to go home early. i'd slept really late the night before. was supposed to meet leng lee at the mrt at 8.20am. in the end i OVERSLEPT till 8.20am. fucking panicked.

anyway no avail. he wanted to call me later. spoke to him till 3.00am in the end. so much for sleeping early. but he'd asked me about how i was like in school. said it was hard to imagine how someone like me would have been so quiet back in sec school. and i'd explained a lot of things, including how i underwent a serious mindset change. coz let's just say in jc, i was almost as political as everyone else in tt room. i wanted to climb, i wanted material success, i wanted to be that damn good.

fortunately i changed my life philosophy. with a 180 degree turn. maybe tt's why mine and his are pretty much similar now.

fortunately i managed to wake up this morning. shared a cab with 3 of the guys to changi prison. yes, we went to prison this morning. my 3rd prison visit. i hate visiting the prison. even though it's clean and new, i hate how depressing the environment is. i hate how sad it makes me feel. i hate how claustrophobic it makes me feel, and how i feel like i cannot breathe and there is a great pressure on my chest as i walk by the gray passageways with the iron bar grilles and the younger-than-me inmates waiting their time out.

prisons' has this whole rehabilitative scheme, of which the yellow ribbon project is one limb of. it's for the people who fall through the cracks of society. as we all know, most inmates aren't innately bad. they come here coz they're from really bad backgrounds, they were born unlucky, they weren't educated right, they missed the chances tt the more privileged ones of us were given, and as a result they have to pay for it with their freedom.

that's why the rehab programme is here: to give them a second chance. and i believe tt. i believe in the programme. let's face it. society is hard on giving second chances. there's always a stigma. it's never easy to change your image in society's eyes. once you go to prison, it's difficult to get back to a position tt you were once in. but i guess even though the rehab programme may never restore the expectation loss, at least it does let you start off SOMEWHERE.

i know i make all this jokes about being a mata and sending people to prison and giving them more business, but as far as possible, i feel tt prison can still really ruin someone's life. i wouldn't send people to jail except as a last resort, unless they really deserved it and would not change otherwise. i wouldn't send people to jail just because it's a by-the-book procedure. yes, i believe in justice, i believe in upholding the law, i believe in keeping the peace, but i also believe tt i'm dealing with human beings like me, who have the capacity to think, live, and feel. and i'm not in any position to play god with their lives.

tt's why i advised tt friend not to report his friend for substance-abuse except as a last resort. so it's illegal, so it's against the law, and he IS harming his own body. but 6 months in jail or 2 years in rehab... is long time to spend out of a life. and after tt it's going to be almost impossible to start living as per normal again. if he can't change, if he won't listen, if he won't give up and there is no other way to save him, then so be it. but if you can persuade him without resorting to the police, please give him tt chance.

we came back to the college for lunch. then we had a security discussion before a panel discussed security issues with us. i think tt was really really draining. i'm sick of the word terrorism, and yet we can't not talk about it. every group mentions it. same reasons yadda yadda yadda. our group can't agree on certain government policies because we have idealists (the teachers) and realists (me and 1 or 2 others). tt's why i'm in security and not education. i don't have a burning desire to mould the young or to teach for the sake of teaching.

fell asleep during the panel thing coz i was just so mentally drained. before tea time my mind was already zapped. i guess it was all the discussions. my god. what kind of reactive/tactical actions taken by the government. what kind of proactive/strategic actions taken by the government. what is the role of the people and what have we done or not done. social apathy/complacence is a burning problem. is terrorism over-glamourised? what about bi-lateral relations? how does the US/China issue affect us? what about our relations with our neighbours malaysia, indonesia and thailand?

one of the speakers mentioned something about the characteristic of terrorism post-911. it's no longer organised top-down the way it used to be. there are splinter cells in different countries and regions. he calls this "franchised terrorism". aka McQaeda. even when bin laden (c.f ronald mcdonald) is no longer leading the al-qaeda, it doesn't mean the whole organisation dies out. in fact you can't even link terrorism to a specific race. converts to radical islam can become suicide bombers, even if they're ang moh or chinese. the 'poverty trap' argument may no longer hold true because apparently the london bombers are from middle-class/lower middle-class backgrounds with stable jobs, just as the jemalyah islamiah detainees were also mainly middle class/lower middle class.

extensive research is still going on into what fuels terrorism? why is it tt it has become a movement from the ground, and no longer from the top? what drive ordinary people with no seeming reason to blow people up, to blow people up? was walking from the college to get a bus at holland v home, and was asking leng lee this question. she thinks it's for the thrill. i guess i don't agree. i see it as something else. one theory i have is tt some of these middle class converts might have been disillusioned with life and materialism as they saw it, thereby seeking refuge and finding their so-called 'purpose in life' in radical islam. and because suicide bombers are generally matyred as having died in a bid to defend the faith, maybe tt's why they might have resorted to it... but once again, this is just a theory. i'm not a muslim and i did not take islamic studies (although i would want to, considering the history, diversity, and sheer vibrant richness of the religion), so i am in no real position to really theoraticise.

and yes, i am harsh. i will not condemn the london police for mistakenly shooting down the wrong guy. i know tt humanitarians would condemn the police to death for this blunder, but let's face it. i'm in the force (or going to be. i apologise for always referring to the police as 'we'). i know what it's like. i know the problems tt we in singapore (as well as all over the world in every other country) face. it's always a question of damned if you do, damned if you don't. we make mistakes. sure, it's a life. but there's ALWAYS the unanswered what if question. and if 1 life were sacrificed tt 58 might be saved, then you know fucking well what my stand is.

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anyway i logged on the ubc website just to check my timetable. i have 22 credits out of a min of 28 settled. guess i can settle the other 6 over there in september if it's not done by then. things are looking good. i got the law modules i wanted and i get to take a psychology module too. exciting. all i need now is for my study permit letter. things are falling into place.

all tt's really left now, is you.

...at the end of the rainbow where the deer run free
and it will just be you and me
and all of mankind will be gone, lost in their own little purgatories
while we shall walk alone hand in hand down the thick green grass
and i'll tell you tt i love you and i'll mean every word
and i'll never have to leave you again.

saturday was hsien's burfday celebration! ok. so it was belated, but nonetheless...

seems i have problems waking up in the morning. cannot seem to wake up before 11am. hmm. public policy seminar tomorrow... gotta wake up at 7am... SIAN!!!

went to make my 1-year supple of contact lens. fucking $360. ARGH. ARGH ARGH ARGH. met him for lunch, then finally bought my winter coat (which i'd been eyeing since a month ago) and my leather gloves and socks. and i bought the leather gloves coz i thought they looked cool, and he thinks they make me look like i'm gonna use them to murder people. and i rejoindered tt i'd already killed a cow to get tt leather. so another person wouldn't matter tt much. HEH. ooh. and i bought kiddy socks in pink and maroon with pretty little hearts. wahahaha. his disbelieving look followed me out of the store.

spent the next 3 hours at baker's inn with my warm chocolate cake and goos conversation. actually, conversation was largely one-sided - him talking and me laughing. which happens pretty much 3/4 of the time. except for...

see the thing is, the night before at approx 2.19am, just as i was falling asleep, my ex-boss called me. first time in almost 6 months. 6 months of no contact, no calls, no messages, no nothing. she calls me. and she tells me she's been drinking heavily at thumper and alternative, and right now at the void deck of her house, she thought of calling me.

turns out she's an emotional wreck. in between the last time we spoke and now, she's changed jobs to a more stressful work environment. but more than tt, she met someone new. this girl who started out as her 'protege' and ended up as her lover. thing is the girl's married. and now the husband's flown off the bangkok coz he wants to leave his adultering wife, and the wife flew off in the evening without making any prior arrangements to go find him and to beg him to stay. and now my ex-boss wants to take a plane up at 2-fucking-am in the morning to go make sure the girl's ok.

and here i am telling her: "no. you cannot. it's a stupid idea. she's old enough to take care of herself. her husband's not going to leave her at the airport to die or get raped or abducted. if you go up he's gonna know you're a third party and tt ill make things worse..." blah blah blah.

obviously, she's drunk. she doesn't listen. she also tells me tt she blames me for whatever position she is in now. she says tt coz i 'judged' her when she was quesntioning her sexuality by labelling her straight-out lesbian, she was so shocked and hurt by my 'judgement' tt she decided to "go to the edge and never come back". so now she's a full-fledged lesbian. and apparently she doesn't find it in her to forgive me or to understand me.

and yet here she is, calling me at 2am expecting me to answer her cry for help, to be sympathetic and to drag her out of the mud the way i always used to, esp when her last relationship with another girl didn't work out and she got obsessively depressed for the next 1.5 years. i was trying to be sympathetic. maybe i felt guilty tt i did label her before she was sure. i tried to counsel her but she refused to listen.

she was just a melancholic emotional self-pitying mess of a person. what happened to the person i once respected? where did she go? the 2 hour conversation was so fucking draining and hurting. i wished it would end earlier even before the first hour was up. i was tired, i was sick and fucking tired of having t defend my stand about every comment i made or every piece of advice i gave. she kept insinuating tt i was a cold-blooded heartless creature, tt i no longer cared, tt i didn't know what love meant. like she did.

and when she asked about him and i told her about him, everything she said was negative. tt it was too fast. tt he was too old. tt we weren't compatible. tt this shouldn't be happening. tt i was being naive and impulsive and immature. as if i'm the one seriously considering running off to bangkok after a married woman and defending everything tt she does as if she has the god-given right to fuck around when married.

my ex-boss said tt she didn't know me. tt these past 2 year of being friends, for all our 6 hour phone-call marathons, she didn't know me. didn't understand me. tt i was always a puzzlement to her.

she called this our last phonecall. she said there was no more desire to call. maybe i was happier than her to hang up when we finally did.

there goes a friendship. i've come to realise tt maybe, it was never there to begin with. i went to sleep on fri night feeling like shit.

i was talking to him about it on sat. he was psycho-analysing her from all the prior stuff tt he'd seen before. he thinks she's close to the edge too. her call to me was a cry for attention, for sympathy. and he thinks tt she was never really friends with me to begin with. just like her other mentor-protege relationships, i was a potential love interest. the problem with me, is tt i'm too 100% straight. advances just bounce off me like ping pong balls coz i don't even realise them.

tt was just a speculation. but it explained why her expectations of me were always so high. why she always cared more for me than i thought necessary. why she always wanted to be there. why she was so pissed (and i really mean pissed) tt i'd got together with someone else and why she was throwing cold water on everything even before i could say anything. explained why i had so much of an influence on her, such tt things tt i said would affect her so much. how a simple label would have become a 'judgement' tt would force her to swing all the way to one extreme of her sexuality. it's as if all this time in the last 2 years, i was like her last hope to cling on to in between the worlds of heterosexuality and lesbianism. and because i'd in her own words "slammed the door in her face", i'd broken that last strand for her. she said tt i wasn't like anything she's thought i was. tt she'd created an image of me in her mind, only to realise tt i was nothing like it. and maybe tt's why. because she thought tt i would reciprocate, but i didn't.

i was the first person she thought of when she was drunk. she was crying during our phone call actually. no one ever just 'thinks about' someone when they are drunk. in truth according to him, she'd never really put me out of her mind the past 6 months. it's when we're sleeping, drunk or high, or in shock, tt our subconscious mind, which is our true thoughts and feelings, takes control. and i never left her subconscious.

but i'd rejected her again. i'd refused to sympathise. refused to go back down to where she'd fallen so far and tried to carry her up with me again. i'd told her to wake the fuck up and do it on her own, or not at all. and she'd taken it as a slap in the face, a rejection of love and friendship.

he's asked me what my plans were. gave me three options. i'd listened to each one, but i'd said nothing. and at the end of it, he said tt he already knew: i've already made up my mind what i want to do with her.

and it's true. i made up my mind before she called, and her calling had cemented what i'd decided. there are memories, good and bad. there are happy times, there are laughter and tears. she'd helped me in many ways, and vice versa. but maybe she was right and there was never really a friendship.

in which case, there shouldn't really be anything left to lose.

so goodbye michelle.

...

it's funny. people have been giving me different pieces of advice. some are genuinely happy for me. some are apprehensive. some have told me to forget about it, to stop. they don't see a "happily ever after" for me. and in truth, i don't think i'm going to see a "happily ever after" either. it's also interesting coz the people who have told me to stop it are people who were previously interested in me. i don't know why the coincedence.

but those who know me, know tt i generally have made up my mind if i'm just 'telling you something', and not asking for advice. i know tt successful living means not taking risks tt you know won't work out. but i've never believed in successful living. like i already said, i don't believe in play it safe. i know tt you care coz you've seen me hurt, you've seen me screwed up, you've seen me in very bad shape and you know tt there is a strong possibility tt i am just being an emotional masochist and throwing myself into the pit again. and i probably am. but i can't let go. i can't go back to 'good friends' coz we completely bypassed tt stage from day 1. i can't let something like this just slip away. even if it doesn't work out, even though i'm probably being intentionally stupid for choosing precious moments of immediate happiness, even with the promise of years of pain thereafter, the fact remains, i have to embrace life. life with all its colourful emotions of passion and pain, happiness and grief. if i chose the safe route to forgo happiness to avoid the pain, then what is the point of living?

what if the point of living if you don't feel, if you don't make mistakes, if you don't learn? what's the point of stable if your never really happy? what's the point of living if you don't feel like your making a difference to someone else, if you don't love and feel loved in return?

i want someone to come home to next year.

...

anyway after baker's inn, i went over to chinatown to meet yanli, junch, the burfday girl hsien, ian, jason, zhaowei and tris for dinner. we had teochew food at ah hoi's. damn good food. duck with sea cucumber, a vegetarian beancurd skin dish, pig's stomach pepper soup, kway teow, steamed red garoupa, pomegranate wanton, and shui jing bao... it was SO GOOD. yum yum. of course it wasn't tt cheap, but the food was worth the money! and it was SO GOOD to see hsien again after so fucking long!!! oh man. i love you dear.

anyway after tt tris junch and yanli had to leave early. the rest of us went to eski bar to chill out. literally. they had a 13 degree celcius room and the -5 degree celcius room. we almost opened a bottle of chivas, but later prudently decided on individual shooters and cocktails instead. yanli had the lychee martini, hsien the tequila sunrise; zhaowei the eski blue. ian and jason shared a jug of chivas, but it was really watered down. for the lack of something new to drink (plus the drinks were expensive), just stuck to my blowjob.

it's actually quite a nice place. the progressive house in the background was very comfortable to listen to. we even took silly pictures in the -5 degrees celcius room for the fun of it. wahaha.



above: that is the bar tt is made up entirely of ice, ice baby.



and this is jason, me, zhaowei and ian.



me, yanli and hsien. apologies for poor pic quality. hsien has the ones with the much better lighting.

anyway i kinda wanted to see my baby again, so i left early. hsien and yanli got a chance to say 'hi' to him outside penny black. wahaha. :) and we walked for over an hour from boat quay to the marina promenade and back to the esplanade bus stop. talked about quite a few things, particularly a lot of my insecurities. which i do have and i still am apprehensive about even though i have already made my decision. went to the mac's at shaw house coz he forgot to eat dinner (again), said 'hi' to his bouncer friends at china black, and then he sent me home.

didn't see him today. prob not till tues or something. went to church with the parents in the morning. then finally went to get rid of the black roots in my hair at chapter 2, and came back for dinner.

interestingly, before dinner tonight my father suddenly asked: "have you fallen in love?"

i was so taken aback, i almost didn't know what to answer. i realise my father's much sharper than i realise. fuck.

tomorrow. DPP seminar. ARGH.

so much to do, so little time.

it seems i have a lot to prepare. my courses are all not confirmed. nus has some stupid rules on non-law courses, and i can't even confirm my timetable coz ubc is still tabling my modules for me. i have my accomodation; waiting for the confirmation of my study permit. got the plane tickets booked, all we need now is a service apartment for approx 2 weeks.

i need to get winter clothes. great sg sale ends in 2 days. i have tomorrow, essentially, to get my winter clothes or freeze to death in canada. i need new contact lens. my dad is bugging me to stock up on medication. and frankly right now i have no fucking idea what else i need. oh yar, bedlinen. right.

dammit i feel so unprepared.

got a public policy seminar to attend next week. 5 days of 9am to 6pm. i'm trying to keep up the gratitude and forget about the anger, but it's getting exceedingly difficult as precious time passes me by. sometimes i feel like asking "why God, why?" why bring me someone whom i would actually end up falling so hard for, at a time like this? isn't it bad enough tt we're so incompatible everyone thinks something is wrong somewhere, and if i brought him home to my parents my dad would get a heart attack, and he's so busy with work tt meeting up requires a copious amount of planning all the time?

why is it tt i have to leave so soon? why now? why this timing? i might have preferred not meeting him at all. at least i could leave without any strings attached. and worse yet, he's been on course all week. and next week when he's NOT on course *I* am on the fucking seminar. and then my parents are dragging me to malaysia for another 5 days.

fuck. i'm trying to be optimistic now but when it gets really bad, i don't know why things are happening this way. i know everything happens for a reason, but sometimes it makes me wonder what kind of game He's playing with me sometimes.

on the upside, tomorrow we're celebrating hsien's belated birthday. hopefully i get to run some of my errands as well as meet him before tt. next week i foresee we won't be meeting up again. i feel very frustrated.

i went to do my canadian medical check-up yesterday. was supposed to do it in the morning but ended up completely oversleeping. eep.

but went to do it after lunch, nonetheless. fortuately there was no queue. they did my chest x-ray first. i was amazed at how the doctor could balance my x-ray in 1 hand and *2* cups of coffee in the other when she was collecting my results to process in her room.

then they drew my blood and urine (which was an initially scary process until the nurse kept talking to me and telling me how healthy i looked)...

~ interlude: whenever people see me, the first thing they say is "WAH. you look so *HEALTHY*! that's a good thing!"

knn. pigs sent to the slaughter are 'healthy'. ancient women who lived with cavemen and produced babies all their life were 'healthy'. a piece of meat is 'healthy'. i feel like a fucking meatloaf for crying out loud. ~

...and then the doctor examined me physically, and he was telling me about how beautiful canada was and how i would probably never want to leave the place. apparently vancouver is fucking gorgeous, and it goes beyond the flowers and the fact tt it's the warmest city in the country. they have mountains, they have seas; essentially they have everything i would love to see when i wake up in the morning and look out my window.

said tt most of the people who've been to canada and return to singapore... migrate there permanently after one or two years. me? i don't know. no matter how gorgeous canada is... i'm still bonded to a singapore job. i still have family here. and most importantly, i still have him here.

went home coz the mom was sick. dad was once again making today his "get-on-my-wife's-nerves" day. argh. parents.

but i went out in the evening to meet him. it's been almost a week since i'd last seen him. had to go to the office coz i was lugging around his friend's birthday gift + his gifts from bangkok + his 6 cans of irish stout... now tt was heavy. saw his colleagues, but this time in a different capacity. for once, i felt like a deer caught in headlights. previously, i could be sure of myself. i knew what my role was, where i stood, what i was there for, etc. now i don't know what to do with this new role. i feel lost and more than a little shy for the first time. but they were really nice and friendly and they all had these knowing smiles on their faces. like, ugh.

it's embarassing.

we had dinner at thai express at plaza sing. yeah, i know. i just came back from fucking bangkok on tues. but because i didn't get to eat my beef noodles and my mango with glutinous rice in thailand, i couldn't rest in peace until i ate both. heh.

he was telling me about some of the stuff he'd had to encounter at work. like a jumping case and how the SOP was so screwed up tt even though it had been followed to a 'T', the guy'd died anyway and his parents were fuming. and he'd asked my opinion, and i said tt if this happens, then there is something seriously wrong with the system. he agreed.

incidentally, a friend of mine had been enquiring. someone he knows is taking drugs. asked me to find out what would happen if he reported his friend to the cops. asked my baby. if it's heroin-based, it's 2 years in rehab. if it's not heroin-based, for first offenders it's a mandatory sentence of 6 months and above in jail. my baby paused, then asked me what i was going to advise my friend to do. i said i was going to tell him to counsel his friend. report only as a last resort. coz once it's reported, there's no turning back. a life could be ruined, and if it's just a moment of folly and things can be changed now, they should be changed without involving the law. my baby agreed too. tt's one of the things i respect most about him: his innate sense of justice. it's not about obeying the law or following the SOP to a 'T'. it's about understanding tt you're dealing with people here, and justice is over and above the law itself. justice is about humanity. and if we're both too idealistic for our own good in this respect, then too bad. so sad.

and then during dinner he was telling me tt he'd spoken to a female friend of his about us. and she was the first one to give him negative comments. said to him tt he'd better think through this carefully because i probably wasn't serious about this relationship. tt i was "just being 21", being naive and impulsive, challenging the norm to god knows what end. said tt when i went to canada, i'd probably hook up with some canadian boy and forget all about him, and he would be the one hurting.

i didn't say it then. i wanted to say: "she doesn't know a goddamn thing about me and who i am." but i didn't. i didn't see a need to, seeing tt he should know me well enough to know tt i don't play around with relationships. just coz i'm young doesn't mean i'm an airhead. he defended his stand to her, i guess. said tt he'd already made the lines black and white. everything was up to me.

i feel tt he's giving me too much power. too much leeway. too much choice. he doesn't expect much commitment from me. maybe tt's why i am determined to prove them all wrong about me.

today was his friend's birthday. so the group of his colleages (who were also the friends) were planning to make the guy drunk and if possible, get him laid. well. in the end they decided to scrap the joo chait plans and drag him to siam supperclub instead. it was my first time in ssc.

it was not very big, dark and there was a small dancefloor. i felt incredibly young coz it was a working crowd club. apaprently the people come here to drink till their high, and then pick up girls, if possible for the night. there was a 3-for-the-price-of-1 offer... 5 min after we sat down the waitress brought over 4 buckets of beer. and i'm talking buckets filled to the brim with ice and between 5 and 6 bottles of heineken inside. and there were 5 guys and me.

incidentally, i got the "you look very healthy" comment again. what the knn?!

decided to play it safe. drink completely NON-alcoholic orange juice. let the guys finish the beer. before the buckets were wiped out the waitress came back with 3 more buckets of guiness stout and cans of red bull. according to my baby, stout + red bull gives you energy... and makes you fucking horny. right.

but i didn't like the place. it was dark and the air was stale. i kept getting stared at by lecherous older men, and i felt claustrophobic coz the only time i'm in a place like this is if i'm on the dancefloor. i can't just sit there and not do anything, esp if i'm not drinking per se.

he noted tt i was uncomfortable, so he brought me over to the pool table side. it was a lot less crowded, brighter, there was no cigarette smoke permeating the air, and they were playing more palatable music. we didn't really say much even though at this volume we didn't have to shout at each other. just sat there leaning into him and feeling the muscles under his shirt (which was highly surprising, how hard he felt) and just being with him. didn't have to say anything at all. what had been said had been said. what hadn't been said either wasn't important or could be said at a later time. all tt mattered to me was his company.

we went back to the other side after his friend came by to look for him... and caressed him on the thigh to see if he could tell the difference. tt was funny. ;) caught the birthday boy trying to flee. penalty for attempted escape: they plied him with so much more stout + red bull tt he threw up. and THEN after tt he REALLY cha bok.

so the remainder of us went down to thumper. another working crowd 20-something/30s type club. the security managers of the other clubs like chinablack and momo come here on their off-days. it was around 12.30am.

the live band was doing covers of songs by the black-eyed peas and guns n roses, and people were actually dancing. his friend asked me if i wanted to dance. i said ok, and my baby was actually willing to dance with me. i was so surprised. he'd told me before tt he'd retired from clubbing coz he was "too old". and i was like "you don't mind dancing?" and he was like "if you want to dance, i'll dance with you lor."

so we danced. actually, we were singing along and rapping to the lyrics of all the songs the band played.

and it sounds cheesy, but i think it was at this point tt i realised tt he's everything tt i ever wanted. he's the only person i know who's a radio like me. who knows every song i know, who loves almost every song i know, who has a maroon 5 ringtone like me (this is completely coincedental. he had it before i even met him), who can sing and rap to everything just like i do.

even though our backgrounds are so fucking different, our ages are so far apart, everytime i seem to find more similarities between us. we think so alike we don't really have to say tt much to each other coz we already understand what the other's viewpoint is. we have an uncanny knack of SMSing each other *at the same time*, and this already happened 3 times in a row. in the morning i had this fear tt he'd overslept, and in the evening he'd confirmed tt he had. and now this.

i'm a fucking romantic. a fucking sappy cliche die-hard romantic. don't believe in the stars, don't believe in fate... but i'm starting to read more into coincedences than i logically should.

my god. but he's an ex-mambo king. now tt was hilarious. when the live band left and they started playing all those old zouk songs tt i'd never heard before, he started coming alive and almost doing all the hand actions. and he was telling me how he used to spend the days of his youth on the zouk podium on wed nights. and i was like: "oh. my. god. you were one of THOSE people?!"

he calls dancing his cardio workout. was really funny coz he would dance dance dance halfway and then lean on the table and breathe in and out and say tt he cannot take it anymore. and then his friend would ply him with hoegaardens. and then when it came to my kinda music and 'tempted to touch' and 'so confused' and 'oye mi canto' i made damn sure he didn't want to stop dancing with me. even to rest. ;)

thumper's like a pick-up joint. there was a group of 5 lesbians - 3 les 2 butch on the dancefloor. and boy were they open about publid displays of affection. bumping, grinding, butt and boob rubbing, and long french kisses tt go on forever in plain sight of everyone. at first it was just les kissing butch. and then there was les kissing les, and butch kissing butch. and partner swapping and everyone was kissing everyone at some point in time. then this ang moh tried to hit on 2 lesbians in the group 1 at a time. bumped and grinded and kissed the first one, then when the butch stepped in he changed target to the second one. and then you had this les alternating between the ang moh guy and her butch girlfriend (?) and the other les... it was disgusting at first and subsequently highly amusing.

see girls? i didn't have to go to patpong to get my free lesbian show. this doesn't even qualify as a free lesbian show. looked more like a free-for-all show. the les even smiled at me at some point in time. i'm sure if i was drunk and not with andy we'd probably end up kissing or something along those lines too.

anyway i had to leave around 2.30am. went to the toilet first. 4 of them were in there. conversation inside between them went like this:

girl #1: "i think i better tell amos tt i'm leaving."
girl #2: "you want me to come along? i think it'll look better if your boyfriend was there."

hmm.

his friend drove us home. actually he drove me to my home and my baby took a cab back to his from there. night ended much too soon for my liking.

did i enjoy myself? activities wise, no. didn't like both ssc and thumper. didn't really like the music, despised the crowd, didn't like the stale smoky atmosphere. but he was there. and all i need from now till i leave, is just his company.

i'm not seeing him till tomorrow. why does time pass so fucking fast when he's around, and crawl when he's not? i can't play sappy love songs on my itunes now coz it increases the intensity at which i miss him.

argh. ok ok. get blue's "breathe easy" off the playlist now.

...but tt said, he's a DAMN GOOD dancer. i'm lucky. i have a boyfriend who can actually dance. yippee! even though if the DJ plays a zouk mambo night retro song he'll start almost doing the hand actions. wahahahaha. which is hilarious.

oh. and for the detractors who ask me how sure am i about this "new relationship so fast so soon and with someone so prima facie incompatible", here is my answer:

i love my baby. he is everything tt i ever wanted.

and tt's tt.

i'm stubbornly refusing to write about bangkok until i get my pictures. this means it's probably going to be a REALLY DELAYED entry going by the number of overdue pictures i need anyway, but no matter.

bangkok was a blast. geok's written something short about it on her blog; now it's up to wendy and yirang to write their versions first. and anyway geok's diary has a nice essay tt i wrote about bangkok. so people lucky enough to gain access to tt diary get to see what it was like from our pov.

nonetheless, in wendy's 'top ten lists' fashion, i'll just list down what was memorable about bangkok. in no particular order (i'll try to make it chronological, but you guys should know tt my mind's a bit of a mess).

1. valuair.

it's 1000x better than malaysian airlines. adequate legroom, good service with a smile, and piping hot good food. we even got a song at the end of our flight. and this is a BUDGET airline. what can i say? s'pore still rocks.

2. the cleanliness.

the airport terminal 2 looks like s'pore's terminal 1. wherever we go, as long as it's cosmopolitan and touristy, it's fucking clean. i.e. suan lam night market.

3. the cosmopolitan effect of globalisation.

it's easier to find an a & w, a baskin robbins, and a dunkin donuts (along with the usual burger king macs and kfc) than it is to find a traditional thai restaurant.

4. cockroaches.

they are an integral part of bangkok's landscape. we see them in the drains on the streets, in our authentic thai restaurant (KNN the food was FUCKING GOOD and we couldn't even eat it properly coz we were so busy shoving food into our mouths to get out of the place ASAP), and even in our hotel room (we had 4 on our first night. 3 in the room, 1 in the bathroom. can anyone say 'gross'?)!

5. 'first hotel' is a misleading name.

it's not even 3 star. it's 2 star going on 1 more like. the room's are falling apart and are cockroach infested. we had to pay 1000 baht more for an upgrade to a cleaner room. basket we've been cheated (esp ince we were originally supposed to stay at the *real* 3 star asia hotel). KNN.

6. walking gets you around faster than driving.

when there is a jam in bangkok, boy oh boy should you just WALK.

7. cabbies and tuk-tuk drivers are mainly out to cheat your money.

once it it hits midnight, cab drivers turn off their meters and demand 200 baht. and then we had this sleazy cab driver who said he would bring us to patpong, only to detour to suan lum, and when we were pissed off, he threw us in some dark alley with a lot of restaurants tt looked like they had waitresses tt did a lot MORE than just waitressing for their mainly RICH MALE clientele.

9. go to patpong at night to see free banana shows.

according to the people soliciting us with interesting menus, "ladies also can see". and if we "don't like it, we can just come down." oh, and you want to know what's on the menu? among other things: 'pussy playing with ping pong ball'; 'pussy peeling banana'; 'pussy blowing balloon'... etc.

and no. pussy does not refer to cat.

10. you can get a pair of jeans for 199 baht, which is approx S$8.30! it's my best buy so far!!! whoopie!

11. you can get lost in chatuchak market. which is what happened to geok and yirang on sunday.

12. oversleeping seems to be a common trend in the team now tt race is over.

yeah, we almost overslept our half-day tour on monday. it was at 7.30am. we woke up at 7.15am.

13. even in bangkok hotel rooms, it is possible to do push-ups and sit-ups.

my record is 120 sit-ups because i suck at tt bloody bean game. my excuse is tt i was fucking tired. i K.Oed the moment my head hit my pillow. in fact, every night we sleep with ALL the lights on coz everyone falls asleep before they can turn it off.

14. air-con is a GOD SEND. so is ice and cold drinks.

15. a 'hong bai lan' is a damn throwface but a bloody good investment.

just ask geok.

places we visited:-

mah boon krong, siam square, central world plaza, chatuchak market, suan lam night market, pathunam market (actually we tried to look for it but we only found the 'ah ma' section), patpong (for a while), chinatown (good food good food), for the halfday tour the floating market, the temple of the dawn and a gem factory, and the mambo cabaret show (aka the agua show).

stuff we ate:-

pad thai, fantastic tom yam soup, papaya salad, hamburgers and 29 baht fried rice, pork ball soup, pineapple rice, vermicelli salad, a & w's waffle with ice-cream, curly fries and the ice-cream float, prawn cakes, omelette with minced pork, crab with tang hoon, pork ribs, prawns with garlic, scallops and brocoli, baskin robbins 7 wonders of the world, dunkin donuts... oh. but we had no money for the sharks fins ad the birds nest.

advice to bangkok travellers:-

you will need: strong legs for walking and walking and walking, a good mind and sharp tongue for bargaining (and dealing with errant taxi-drivers), a strong stomach to tahan the damn hot and sweet thai delicacies, a non-fear of roaches, and A LOT OF CASH (we all busted our budget! for me i was almost broke by day #2!!!)...

and most of all.

the right company. :)

*muakz*

...
...
...

hmm. seems i did write about bangkok anyway. oops.

and it seems my blog is well-travelled. on the valuair flight back some completely stranger type guy in a commando t-shirt tapped me on the shoulder and asked: "excuse me. is your name izzy?"

and i was like: "...yes. why?"

and he was like: "oh hi. my name is so-and-so. I READ YOUR BLOG. or used to, anyway."

oh man. oh well.

anyway today was a restful day. stayed at home the entire day. 'rested'. alone.

OMG i didn't know how HORRIBLE it feels to really really miss someone. it's terrible. it's like you're always distracted and you can't concentrate fully because he'll keep creeping into your mind and you KNOW it's bloody expensive to call or message but you will do it anyway because you really really have to know how he's doing and you just HAVE to hear his voice.

eep. yuck. i feel like a dependent. 4 days and i'm a fucking dependent.

like this 4 months HOW??? ONE FUCKING YEAR HOW???

KANINA.

sawadee ka!

hey y'all!

well. just to let you guys know: i'm back from bangkok. gonna do a long posting on the trip and post photos and all... but there's going to be a catch. i've decided to blog my entries on bangkok and the (long-over due) penang & july races on *separate* blogs so tt they can be read on their own without having to search through my archives. :) and all pictures tt i have received will be posted up on those separate blogs (which means picture-intensive blogs!).

however, there is 1 BIG PROBLEM tt i have:

*I HAVE NO PHOTOS WHATSOEVER*

i have the penang race photos so tt photolog will be up soon.

BUT i am missing:

a) the last training/ORD photos
b) the july race photos
c) wendy's birthday photos (and the stupid videos we took)
d) the bangkok trip photos

so this is simple. whoever can pass me the photos, PLEASE DO SO. as long as you have the CD and you've already uploaded your photos, then pass it to me, esp if i am meeting you soon.

please don't wait too long. once i start my real preparations for/leave for vancouver, i won't be able to do jack anymore.

so yes. please help me.

love ya guys. :)

i shall be away in bangkok from tomorrow - july 16 - till tuesday - july 19. i shall be contactable by handphone, but please don't try to call me or get me to message you because it is more expensive to call or message from thailand.

i shall be enjoying a whole weekend in the warm and sunny land of smiles, with the really cheap bargains, the even more fantastic food (tom yam soup! beef noodles! mango salad! coconut dessert! tapioca dessert! glutinous rice dessert!) designed to make me put on even MORE weight, and of course the tanned and beautiful men, women and the in-betweens.

furthermore, i shall be enjoying this weekend with MY GIRLS. wahaha. 4 of them. wendy my chick (and her sister), and my roomies geok (YAY!) and yirang (YAY! 2nd time already!)!!! wahaha. i foresee tt we'll be having a hell of a time. :)

can't wait. :) *excited* half-packed. not sleepy even though i gotta wake up at 5.30am. at least my baby's (yes. tt's what i call him. let's face it lah, it sounds a lot better than dar dar or sweetie pie or mango pudding or some really gross vomit-inducing credubility-eradicating type nickname tt will probably make me want to hang myself before i even utter it) giving me a wake-up call, and since he won't be sleeping, i'll def be able to make it anyway. and he wants to borrow a car so tt he can even drive me down from my place to the airport too.

yeah. so i'm becoming a marginal male-dependent. oh, but disclaimer: i did not request for both treatments. i was in fact discouraging both treatments because he's fucking working tonight, and he's always swamped when he's working. but oh well. i should just learn to bask in the underserved attention... heh.

wahahaha. till wed. eep. i still gotta arrange my canadian medical exam.

it was a revelation, sitting beside him on the bus and holding his hand and for the first time dreading the distance being reduced as the journey to my home progressed tonight.

never wanting the moment, the time spent with him to end.

i went to the gym in the morning. attended christina's and cheslyn's body combat class. jane and melissa didn't join me today coz jane clubbed on wed and melissa was donating blood. but i met debbie. my back muscles ache like fuck. but at least today i was feeling better so i could keep up and i didn't look like i was going to keel over and die.

i met him at shaw house. he'd gone to buy the tickets for sin city at 2pm before cutting his hair. the hair cut takes some years off his face. but i realise tt for me, it's gone beyond age or physical appearance. it doesn't matter anymore. when he reaches for my hand, when he puts an arm around my shoulder, i feel secure and protected. i didn't even know tt with my size, muscles and black belt, i'd still be able to feel tt way. it constantly perplexes me.

he bought my lunch. lasagne from pizza hut. then we went up to watch the movie. he calls it "his kind of movie". i didn't say it then, but it's *my* kinda movie too. to say tt i enjoyed sin city is an understatement. i loved it. i loved the style, the comic-book atmosphere and overall effect of the movie. i loved the characterisation and tt 'pulp fiction' like quality grit to everything. i loved the way no one was really glamourised and beautiful, except maybe the ever-so-hot jessica alba as tt sexy stripper nancy callahan.

he thinks he's going to end up like the cop hartigan in the movie. haha. to be honest i see him as a hartigan. although he's not old enough to be my grandfather and he did not rescue me from some sick psycho rapist paedophile murdering bastard who turns yellow after 8 years.

man. i miss my comic books. my darkness and witchblade. and now i want to read sin city as well.

it's really really fucking good. violent? hell yeah (true to frank miller fashion). dark? yepz. gritty? definitely. unbelievable? of course unrealistic. even stereotypical and a little too glory-centred in certain instances. but the portrayals of honour and justice tt exists in a world where corruption thrives, just gets me. it really does.

i got myself a white belt to hold up my jeans from far east. then he needed to get a present for one of his good friends, and he can't shop to save his life. so we walked into G2000 and i saw something tt would go well with tt guy's skin tone. the miracle was tt i convinced him to get a long-sleeved shirt tt was not plain and dark-coloured, but rather striped, light and had more than 1 colour. i think tt is considered a feat.

then we headed over to the boat quay tcc for dinner. he calls it 'paying homage'. everytime we go out, we will go to tcc at least once. it's not even my suggestion anymore. i'm amused. i had macaroni gratin. not really the macaroni and cheese tt i still crave like fuck, but it'll do for now. some 'friend' wanted to meet up with him. in the end just as we'd suspected, the guy was trying to sell him something.

he ended up diverting the guy's attention by telling the guy his life stories. well. life stories aren't tt interesting in general. unless you're him. and then your jc history can include bbq parties tt turn into mass sex orgies tt go throughout the night and continue to the second day. hmm.

after the guy left, we walked from boat quay to the esplanade bustop so tt i could show him the race courses for july and november. i ended up telling him about my past, including the aspects tt i generally prefer to keep secret. and he never flinched. never once judged me. never showed pity or sympathy or patronised me or said "there there it's over now" or "i'm so sorry". and yes, my respect for him has been upped quite a few notches.

i guess it's coz he's more experienced. seen much more and much worse. done much more himself. people ask how do i trust him? he loves the nightlife. he drinks a hell of a lot almost every night. he goes to nightclubs and ktv pubs and tells me about how his friends hit on strange women. he has so many friends who fuck around even though they're attached or even married.

i can't tell you how i trust him. i trust him as a feeling. on instinct. i trust him because he's straightforward and honest with me. yes, he tells me he may have once fucked around, but tt was tt and he's done with tt part of his life. he doesn't hide anything. he doesn't pretend to be a martyr or act like some self-righteous fucked up moron. he shows me who he is, and i accept tt and i respect tt.

i know tt the friends worry. i'll be gone for 1 year. there is only a month plus before i leave. can a new and fragile relationship survive a 1 year absence? i don't know. i can't tell you. we both have decided to have no expectations. yes we're together but he doesn't want a promise of commitment from me. he says he will be committed to me and waiting, but he's giving me the option to change my mind (yeah. i know. i'm getting a fucking good deal and i think he's really too fucking good to me). we're going on feelings here.

when there is nothing else, there is tt feeling of happiness tt we feel when we're with each other. it doesn't matter if we don't do anything at all. it doesn't matter if we don't say anything to each other. my bro calls it 'contentment'. let's be cliche. let's call it 'bliss'. but it's there. it exists, tho i still have no goddamned idea how.

so we both came to this conclusion (i told you. we both think so alike i think it's fucking scary): if He has a plan for all this, then no matter all the obstacles and barriers tt we have to overcome, we'll be strong enough to survive them all.

i'm meeting kai (finally) and yuwei tomorrow. god, i missed youu girls so much. and i love you both too. kai, i'm sorry for everything tt transpired. want you both to know tt no matter how busy we all 3 are, your friendships mean the world to me.

yar lah yar lah. we're together lah.

most interesting. my posts are fewer and far-between, and they are shorter and more cryptic. yet my web-counter is jumping again.

i think i'm going to give up on doing back-dated accounts of things tt have since passed. i wish i could, but today just happens to be a rare day where i am actually at home and alone and with enough time or presence of mind to type out my blog entry. lately it's either one or the other - not at home, or no mood to blog.

yeah. tt's new. no mood to blog. wahaha.

so yar. except for certain assorted pics (i.e. below) tt i might put up from time to time for the hell of it... guess you can't expect much else. :(

oh well. fyi, i'm leaving for vancouver prob on 24 august. tt's about a month and 11 days from now. there is *still* a substantial amount of people that i have been supposed to meet up with since the fucking exams ended, and from the day of april 29 till now i have *still* not seen their faces even once. my apologies. we have 1 month and 11 days. altho you are more than welcome to join me in vancouver if you so wish. however, your airticket shall have to be self-sponsored. isobel is a poor girl *nods head*

i won't be going ladies night tonight. nope. don't wanna go out. i wanna stay at home and nuah. i met melissa in the gym this morning; we arranged to go for christina's spinning class together. christina is damn cool. now both our legs ache like hell. one of the things i like most about cfc, melissa pei, is tt it's the ONLY time where she looks as tired or more tired than me! wahahaha! payback for all those times you make me run and unglam myself immensely! heh heh heh.

we had lunch @ pastamania at cine. was contemplating introducing her to the joys of the warm lava chocolate cake (previously only shared with 4 other people), but we figured it was a little tight on the wallet, plus we would have to shelve our dreams of gymming in sports bras for another 50 years at least.

yuck. i dread to think tt i will lose my tan in vancouver. as bimbotic as it sounds, i love my skin colour. everyone who sees me says i look fit, healthy, tough, strong etc etc etc. doesn't matter so much tt i'm not stick-insect thin. i'm HEALTHY. wahaha.

yar. like a pig to be butchered for slaughter. healthy.

i wanna watch sin city! it opens in like, a day. i'm so excited. i've been waiting for the damn movie ever since i was studfying for my exams while watching movie trailers on my laptop. wahaha. finally it's out in all it's uncut glory and i'm old enough to watch it. wahahahaha!

stomach is kinda unwell. i'm not crazy. i'm just a little unwell. heh. been swinging from nausea to gastritis the past 2 days. damn fucking sian. at least the accompanying headache has left. but it's ruined otherwise good outings. pity he can't meet me today. gotta go for some cid briefing. oh well you can't have everything. anyway on the upside, i can get some rest and tao2 hao3 my parents today so tt i can stay out late tomorrow. *sigh* the things you gotta do when you have over-protective parents and you hide at least half your life from them.

there is a chocolate cake from lana sitting in my fridge. rem my 21st birthday, and tt really yummy cake? yesh. tt's the one. it sits in my fridge waiting for me to deflower... eep i mean devour it. now if only the damn stomach thingy will just hurry up and fucking go away. if it doesn't he's going to drag me to the doctor, and i so don't wanna go to a doctor. *pout pout pout* i hate doctors, generally.

lots of things have been going on in the news. from the london blasts to the nkf's cfo's $600, 000 pay, his 1st-class flights on public money, and his (almost) gold plated taps... hmm. very nice... to the latest train crashes in pakistan. is it me or are we getting too desensitized by the media? sure. we are outraged. a response is evoked. measures have been taken. but still life just goes on as per normal.

for some reason when people talk to me, they ask only 2 questions: 1) are you excited about going to vancouver? (my ans: i am leaving on 24 august. tt is like how many donkey years away. it is too far off for me to be excited) 2) how is your 'thing' with the police? (my ans: ok. my unspoken ans: my 'thing' with the police was only one fucking week. what do you expect? did i learn how to shoot? no. did i learn how to patrol? no. i didn't even get to go out with my (missing) tl. did i contribute or was i of any help in the slightest possible way to the force? hell no. i didn't do nothing except give the officers who had to baby-sit me more work. i took something good away from my attachment, but i don't even think that was the original intention of the board. so well. what do you want me to say?)

i hate it when people condescend to me. so maybe i'm young. so maybe i'm not tt smart or tt experienced or tt skilled or whatever. i know myself, i know my limitations, and because of my pride i like to know where i stand. so if you talk down to me like i'm a fucking 5-year-old, if you act like some great-know-it-all even when you're not, don't expect me to like you or be nice to you. and better yet, if you act like you can lord whatever you have over me, and if in reality i have everything tt you have if not more, i will not hesitate to humiliate you at all.

don't mess with me or my pride. tt would be a mistake.

yeah ok. this post is fortunately, a return to my more logical less lalaland entries. thank god. i'd kill myself if i ever lost any of my grrl power just because.

just an entry of some photos taken at the july race. not too many this time. just to give you a rough feel of the event. man. i miss my girls! :( *sobz*

1. tt's the requisite team photo.



2. the seniors - mac's breakfast! whoopie!



3. TATTOO GIRLS. ow.



4. me and geokz!



5. ROCK CHICKS!!! me and wendz! and our trusty guitars! wahahahaha. love this pic.



6. funny arh. july no mona pic. hmm. but got RIGHTIES PIC! (ok lah. this one not very pro).



7. me and jul... spastic pic. ok. i think it was supposed to be act-cute.



8. boon chin came back! wahaha. albeit with um. longer hair.



9. serene - ex-captain and probably my biggest inspiration last year.



10. my roomie! :)



11. the girls going down.



12. and the 'other' pic: from the penang race. spot The Hottie in the pic. heh.



*muakz*

"yes, i know you'll be away for one year, but let's put it this way. in 1 year, my situation will def be better and i will def be able to treat you better. moreover, i will not have changed in 1 year. i will be there to see you off at changi airport, and i will be there to welcome you back when you return. when you're lonely and you miss me, just give me a call and i'll catch the next flight up to find you. if by any chance at the end of 1 year, you've found someone new, someone better, or if you've changed your attitude, i will be happy for you as long as you are happy. if not, i shall wait for your return. and if you're strong enough, we'll stay together through tt 1 year."

so they ask, can i trust you? for all the (little) time spent, for all the black-sheep qualities tt you have, i replied tt i know enough tt i need to. do i know everything? no. could you possibly hide something from me tt might break my heart later? possibly.

but right now i feel like i know you. not your whole history, not your whole life, not your friends or your family or your work or what not, but i know *you*. your character, your attitude, your mindset. the way you approach things. simply because it's the same as mine, believe it or not.

i know you, and i trust you. people talk. people ask where this is going. my friends worry for me. they ask if i've made the right choice. if i need more time to consider. they fear you will hurt me. your friends... i don't think they think it will last. it just seems too unlikely.

will i be with you till marriage? i have no idea. i don't even know if we'll last a year. but i do know this. i trust you, i care for you, and i want you for who you are, regardless of the external influences or obstacles.

are we together yet? to my friends, we're dating. we're getting to know each other better. frankly speaking i think the labels 'single' and 'attached' are merely labels created by men to categorise things for easier dealing with. i don't know where we stand. i don't really care. i don't need you to say tt we're attached, even though i'm already 'your girl' to all your friends. i know this: you are the only one in my eyes, in my mind, and in my emotions. even if i consider myself 'single', i know tt i would never allow you to be threatened by any other guy. i know tt i'm the only one in your heart right now, because it's testimony enough tt your friends are telling me how much you changed since meeting me.

i don't know how far we're going to go. you're leaving tt all up to me. it's my call, my judgement. to you the answer is simple. it's me who'se more complicated, more confused, with a lot more to think about.

you tell me to think less.

i can't coz thinking is a fundemental part of how i live.

i operate via rationality and emotion. my rationality tells me one thing. but i am consciously going with my emotion, and consciously choosing to be with you.

went to the canadian high commission to apply for my stuidy permit today. had a longer conversation with the cute cop by the door than the counter staff. irony of things. cop looks like lou diamond phillips btw, and speaks with an accent. nice.

counter staff was irritating. i wanted a formal interview so tt i could show all my formal documents etc, but the woman was bloody lazy. just told me to drop off my envelope. i was like: i can't include any originals in here coz they're too valuable to me. and she just mumbled something or other in this super irritated face. i also don't know why. bloody pms-ey woman.

oh. and it seems people are finally pronouncing my name 'isobel'. not 'iso-bel' like 'isotonic/isotope'. coz it irritates the living hell out of me when people mispronounce my name.

anyway after tt went to cfc. melissa couldn't wake up. wahaha. i'm amused. i'm burning more calories on tt 'stepper' thing than i do when i run on the treadmill. on the treadmill i burn approx 8 calories a minute. on the stepper thing if i'm slack, i burn about 11 calories a minute. if i'm stomping hard, up to 14 calories. guess from now on i shall convert from running to stepping. slack and inspiring. wahaha. but tt's only assuming the calorie counter doesn't lie.

met ian for lunch and a movie. he's the only person i know who books me 1 month in advance to watch movies. but the horrible thing was tt i wasn't feeling too good after the gym. in fact while doing my cardio i already felt a little sick. like my stomach was queasy and my head kinda hurt.

had lunch with ian anyway. it was bad coz the headache stepped up and i couldn't really walk and i needed to sit down. but more than tt, i felt like there was a betrayal. not of you, but of ian. i don't know. i agree to go out with him more because i feel like i owe him big time coz of our history, even though conversation's always strained and it isn't like i can find much to say. and i pretend tt i'm still single and still the same, even tho this time things have changed and i dare not tell him tt things have changed.

and then you called during lunch and i was wondering whether to pick up. i did, and i made it short. you sounded drunk. or deliriously happy. i could hide a lot of things, the way i feel about you, the way i talk to you, i can play down the level of intimacy. but i can't hide the smile or the way my eyes light up when i hear your voice. can't hide the way my headache miraculously disappears for tt 2 minutes i'm talking to you.

he was obviously suspicious. and i had to throw up all the stuff tt make it seem like you're no more than just an older friend of sorts to me.

"is he married?"
"yeah... to his work."

my parents always complain tt i go out with too many guys, but i never seem to get it on with any one of them. of course, they don't know you exist. but they tell me tt when i get serious about someone, i'll automatically stop seeing other guys.

i laughed them off. i said tt whether i'm single or attached or even married, i'll go out with whoever i want and see whoever i want.

today, i realised personally what they really meant. i can have a really bad headache. feel nauseous and like throwing up. weak and irritable.

and i could be tt way with almost anyone else. but not with you.

i feel like i've let him down in a way. for being awful company. for not being able to control my headaches and nausea (except when you called). for not being able to refrain from SMSing you, even though as a principle of courtesy i never SMS or answer calls when i am with people.

we watched the fantastic four. it wasn't fantastic. after the movie i barely survived the bus ride home coz my head hurt so much it required all my concentration to walk to the bus stop. i don't know if he wanted to see me home again, but i found some way out of it coz i couldn't really talk.

and i slept for 2 hours, except for tt time you called from work and i picked up.

i miss you just tt little bit.

tomorrow: body combat with jane! body pump with melissa! man. i love having best girl friends in the same gym as myself. :)

"...because people like this don't come around often in your lifetime. if ever."

a quote from my bro.

i haven't blogged in a long long time. actually i made a really long 5000 essay post on everything from the july race till my night @ phuture with my lovely babes jane and sam, but blogger fucking ate the post and i was so dulan i refused to even log on to blogger till today.

times like these, i miss xanga. speaking of which, i find tt ludacris song 'pimping all over the world' damn catchy. the women and the fancy cars. hell yeah i am still lusting for my mazda mx-5. before i'm 30, i must be able to own my mazda mx-5.

anyway this post is going to be disjointed. thanks bro, for coffee last night. as always, you know how much i love you because of how real and how true you are to yourself and to me. it's been 4 going on 5 years and nothing has changed between us. throughout the ups and downs you've seen me grow and i've seen you come all this way and survived all the turbulence that you have survived to become who you are now.

and i thank you for providing the most clarity where before there was nothing but fear and confusion.

i won't lie. i'm so fucking scared, and the feeling is exacerbated tenfold when i am not with him. my head tells me this is all wrong. i know tt he's strong and constant and settled enough to know what he wants, and he's made it evidently clear tt he wants a future with me.

but i'm not tt strong. everything tt could possibly stand in our way stands in our way. from the physical barrier to th age barrier to the class and backgrounds and lifestyle barrier. you name it it's there. right now i can pretend not to care, right now i can say tt i'm not bothered. but i know i am, when the people talk, when some friend subtly comments on her 'surprise' at my choice.

i've always considered my reputation my most important asset. when it comes to pride, nothing else ever matters more tt it. i've done a lot of things tt i once considered impossible to do, and succeeded, because of my pride. i ended a relationship with someone i loved, because it all boiled down to my pride.

right now my head tells me tt there will probably not be a future for us. maybe we might survive 1 or 2 years. if we're lucky maybe 3. but when the real problems start coming in, the tongues start wagging in, when things like how much you can provide for me start to matter in a way tt they do not now, i don't know if i will have the strength or resolve to hold on.

i don't want to be tied down by a relationship. i'm used to thinking on my own, thinking about my own life, not letting anything other than myself control my life. i'm not used to being out of control, of having to consider someone else in the decisions i make. i'm not used to worrying so much about someone else, thinking so much about someone else, missing someone else so much tt there is a feeling of emptiness in my stomach, every time i'm not with you.

it scares me. being out of control scares me. knowing tt someone is so wrong and tt things may probably not last, scares me. and you know what worries me the most? the fact tt my greatest fear is not tt you will hurt me. but rather, tt i will end up hurting you.

my head screams 'no'.

but my heart gives me the entirely opposite answer.

simply because of what my bro said. you make me happy. i haven't felt this way in 3 years, and this is the 2nd time i've felt this way in a lifetime. i don't know how this could have happened because we barely know each other and we're from opposite ends of the spectrum, but it has. and you make me happy. and i know tt even as little as i know you, i have full conviction tt i can trust you with my life. you will do whatever you can to make me happy. i know tt.

and someone like you, is not going come along often in my lifetime, i know tt. if ever at all. i should just hold on, shouldn't i?

i'm a realist by nature, and an idealist by choice.

just like you.

i've considered all the possibilities, and gone by my romantic instincts.

just like you.

the general consensus: just go with the flow and see where this leads you.

so for now. i'm holding on.