absolutum dominium

as i read today's sunday paper, i was once again visually bombarded by our msm selling us the idea of welcoming foreign talent. once again, the partisan views of our msm aren't lost on us, as much as they try to disguise these views with good layout editting and stomp.

so apparently the crux of the selling to do with foreign talent, is along the lines of making singapore more diverse and vibrant and along with tt, increasing our economic competitiveness globally (isn't tt always the case?).

while meditating on (everything other than) the word of god in church today, it suddenly struck me tt maybe, just maybe... this need for drawing from a global 'talent pool' (or so we are told), is a natural progression of a meritocratic society. after all just as globalisation and the effects of outsourcing and the like are the natural progressions from a capitalist economy, and as singapore strives to (i sound like a stat board publication here) keep up with the joneses of the world, we have to draw on this global 'talent pool' to survive.

and it shouldn't even be surprising - it is a natural progression of our meritocratic society.

singapore prides itself on meritocracy. although connections do play a part in certain fields depending on who you know, and although a larger percentage of people who rise through the ranks tend to derive from the upper middle echelons of society; for the large part your status and position in society, your wealth, the pay you draw, the recognition you get; namely stems from merit. academic merit.

it doesn't really care so much which family you were born to or what household income you were drawing. it is for this reason tt the ruling party proudly touts their scholars from the 2-room hdb flat type families as the principle of singaporean utopia. and for such people who succeed and break the cycle through their own merit, through studying hard and doing well in school, even though their families might have been from the lower middle income class and below, they too, strongly believe in this system.

and i'm not saying tt this system is wrong. after all, it overlooks extranuous factors like class, race, inheritance etc (ceteris paribus); and enables people who want it bad enough to succeed on merit.

sure, there are side effects, like a maddeningly competitive society and all the ills tt come with it, but for the most part, this system has shown tt it works.

and it still will. it's just tt in this current day and age, singaporeans are learning tt even citizenship, is no factor for consideration in a meritocratic society.

our society is an economic machine. yes it provides chances for everyone, but this isn't out of the good of anyone's bleeding heart; the idea of meritocracy is simply driven by an economic imperative. as such, this economic imperative necessitates the taking of meritocracy to the next level: now, you don't just provide chances to your citizens. you provide chances to every single person, be they a local or a foreigner, be they from india, china, vietnam or what-have-you; you attract the so-called 'best and the brightest', and you groom the very creme de la creme.

and as for those who fall by the wayside, those who might have been just there but not quite... well, too bad.

it's just tt with this influx in 'foreign talent' and the new immigration policies, it is blatantly obvious tt a lot of people who will fall by the wayside are singaporeans. and this will not be because they aren't good enough, but rather because next to their foreign counterparts, they don't quite cut it enough.

economically practical? undeniably so. but then again, considering tt i would have expected my red passport to afford me a little more protection than if it were any other colour, this is quite unsettling. it is just one example of how citizens won't recieve the kind of protection or help tt they require; not when the economy drives all principles.

this is why once again i say tt, singapore is a hard place - and is getting progressively harder - to call home.

L is for the way you look at me
O is for the only one I see
V is very, very extraordinary
E is even more than anyone that you adore can

Love is all that I can give to you
Love is more than just a game for two
Two in love can make it
Take my heart and please don't break it
Love was made for me and you



L is for the way you look at me
O is for the only one I see
V is very, very extraordinary
E is even more than anyone that you adore can

Love is all that I can give to you
Love is more than just a game for two
Two in love can make it
Take my heart and please don't break it
Love was made for me and you
Love was made for me and you
Love was made for me and you

# posted by Kitana @ 8/27/2006 05:35:00 PM 0 comments

for the longest time, we've been wondering what fergie's been talking about when she keeps singing about "her lovely lady lump". some people believe that she's referring to her ass; others to her breasts.

but thanks to our pm, we now know tt it is neither. it simply means "no cockles" (mai hum).

;)

i have been asked why i don't blog so much nowadays. it's not due to a lack of time or internet connection; it's just tt i don't really have anything to say. my days aren't particularly interesting - i just go to school and then i go home. and i don't wish to speak of my lessons, interesting as i find them to be, because it alienates most of my non-law school readers. and i don't want to talk about my relationship too much because every entry descends into mush, whether i so intend or not. besides, we don't do very interesting things in the first place, so there isn't tt much to blog about.

but in terms of other things, i've just read from antara news tt most of the imf/world bank will be staging their protests on batam. i kid you not. because of the anti-outdoor protests set up by our wonderful government, they have decided to fuck it and move to closest foreign area where they can protest in peace.

truth be told, i definitely believe tt they will be protesting in peace. i mean, batam? who do they intend to protest to? the monkeys? or the sea cucumbers?

it's been in the news these few days tt this poor chinese national woman was stabbed in the head and abdomen several times by her chinese national boyfriend (mad fucker) in the morning, in plain view of quite a few people. fortunately, she's doing ok, injuries nonwithstanding, and the guy's probably going to be charged with voluntarily causing grievious hurt with a weapon. under singapore law, tt should put him away for quite a few years, and he'll probably get a few strokes of the rattan to go with it.

but tt isn't my point. the government is now trying to solve our "population problem" with the short-term fix of getting in more foreign talent. i believe, as we all know, tt they do know why there is such a problem in the first place. the competitiveness, the crazy costs of living, and this pressure-cooker society; lots of people feel tt they are unequipped to deal with or the raise kids, or feel tt they do not have the time or the money to raise a kid (firstly, couples with dual incomes might work long hours; secondly, kids aren't cheap to raise in singapore, what with the costs of living, and the costs of education etc). furthermore, people dissatisfied with singapore are leaving for greener pastures.

but instead of dealing with these issues, the government has decided tt it is doing a good job so far (i.e. costs of living are not too high; singaporeans complain too much; we have to do what we do for the good of the economy; blah blah blah), so therefore it has decided to allow an influx of foreign talent and persuade them to populate our country, so tt we will resolve our "population problem". well, so we are expected to welcome these foreigners with open arms who will not only compete with us for our jobs, will probably receive better pays and treatment than locals (i would rather be a singaporean living overseas than in singapore; at least the government specially sets up a unit to remind me tt i am actually wanted) - i.e. they don't have to serve 2 years of NS -; but it seems tt the crime rate is increasing also due to foreign nationals.

i am not xenophobic. i don't generally judge people by race, country of origin, or skin colour. i believe in diversity, after all. but the thing is... what kind of people are we attracting? for one, the rate of murders have gone up this year; the increase has been mainly due to foreign nationals killing each other, or locals killing foreign nationals etc. the problem in joo chiat was due to an influx of chinese nationals who decided tt our sex trade needed an additional boost (but according to my sources, chinese nationals are still inferior to the thais. they might be younger and look better, but apparently a lot of them lack skill. they just lie there. *yawn*)

our mm said tt singapore should be set to become the paris of the east. 40 years ago, he wanted order and discipline. he got tt, along with a nation of largely apathetic conformists. now, he wants disorder to attract the tourists to the vibrancy. sigh. it's all about attracting foreigners.

i've been told by my father tt singapore is the best place to live in because we are 1st class citizens. at this current juncture, i would like to challenge this assertion. the way i see it, the truly 1st class citizens hold a foreign passport.

You Communicate With Your Ears

You love conversations, both as a listener and a talker. What people say is important to you, and you're often most affected by words, not actions. You love to hear complements from others. And when you're upset, you often talk to yourself. Music is very important to you. It's difficult to find you without your iPod.

he communicates with his body. *wink* ooh.

the power to make me happy, euphorically so, and in equal amounts, the power to make me sad.

sometimes i look at the photos on my laptop and i long for an age almost past where i was once tan and fit, and just 1 in a team of 20; all we had were our paddles and our hearts for each others and things were simple.

but things change, as they do. and no matter what circumstances throw at you, you force yourself to adapt and to make the best of things. i don't complain. for the most part, i am happy.

i love you.

and although i am now a full-fledged law student and everything else secondary, i am beginning to take interest in what i learn. islamic law is a strange but mammoth creature tt fascinates me with its resonating history. evidence in its flexibility and uncertainty and relevance intrigues me. and tt is just the half of it.

i suppose after 3 years of playing around, it's finally time to get serious.

BRAND NEW COLONY
- The Postal Service

I'll be the grapes fermented,
Bottled and served with the table set in my finest suit
Like a perfect gentlemen
I'll be the fire escape that's bolted to the ancient brick
Where you will sit and contemplate your day

I'll be the waterwings that save you if you start drowning
In an open tab when your judgement's on the brink
I'll be the phonograph that plays your favorite
Albums back as your lying there drifting off to sleep...
I'll be the platform shoes and undo what heredity's done to you...
You won't have to strain to look into my eyes
I'll be your winter coat buttoned and zippedstraight to the throat
With the collar up so you won't catch a cold

I want to take you far from the cynics int his town
And kiss you on the mouth
We'll cut out bodies free from the tethers of this scene,
Start a brand new colony
Where everything will change,
We'll give ourselves new names (identities erased)
The sun will hear the grounds
Under our bare feet in this brand new colony
Everything will change

the weekend was one mainly of pain. how do you choose your parentage? i wish i could have chosen mine.

he was a brief respite; i understand the solutions but i don't find them possible to carry out. i envy those who have the freedom and space and the respect to live their own lives and to carve out their own dreams; i feel like a caged bird forever trapped; wanting to fly but still my wings are tethered. and i fear they may be broken.

people assume a lot of things. people try to give you help; try to interfere. but i have come to realise tt this is of no use. because all they want to see the picture-perfect unit; they want to see outward harmony. there is no focus on the cracks, on the microscopic details. we could have suffered for years, but all would have been well as long as i chose to accept subsistence over life.

i cannot accept subsistence any longer.

we were at sin ming today. they had pet shops selling puppies. the shi tzu and snauchzer puppies are incredibly adorable. looking at them really cheered me up and made me feel better. if only they were not caged. i want to have my own dog to raise when i get my own place. i guess for an apartment, it will have to be a small dog, although i would love a german shephard or a golden retriever. i think it will be difficult to within the first few years when i have to concentrate on forming and consolidating my career, but maybe, when my time stabilizes or i am able to find someone who is willing to love a dog as well...

i am fortunate tt he loves dogs as much as i do.

i am...

Your Love Element Is Earth

In love, you have consistency and integrity. For you, love is all about staying grounded and centered. You attract others with your zest for life and experiences. Your flirting style is defined by setting the scene, creating a unique moment in time. Steady progress and stability are the cornerstones of your love life. You may take things too slowly, but you never put your heart at risk. You connect best with: Fire Avoid: Wood You and another Earth element: need each other too much to build a good foundation

and so is the bf.

i wonder what "need each other too much" means? ;)

anyway in other news...

Your Taste in Music:

90's Alternative: Highest Influence 90's Hip Hop: Highest Influence 90's Rock: High Influence 90's Pop: Medium Influence Adult Alternative: Medium Influence

You Are 48% Lady

You're part lady, part modern woman. Etiquette is important to you, but you brush aside rules that are outdated or silly.

You Are 84% Grown Up, 16% Kid

Your emotional maturity is fully developed, and you have an excellent grasp on your emotions. In fact, you are so emotionally mature - you should consider being a therapist!

we haven't had any major fights yet, thank god. we're both more or less easy going, and he indulges me when i get grouchy. and even when he does hurt me, it's never intentional and he always more than makes up for it later.

but i wonder what will happen if we do have a major fight?

all couples usually go through a few of those throughout their relationships together, and i wonder (and fear) what ours will be like.

my earliest memory of a bad fight was when i was four. tt was between my parents, when my dad was still violent. i covered my ears to stop the screaming but i couldn't tear my eyes from the scene before me. or when i was 12 and my mother demanded a divorce.

i suppose if there had been a prize for the ugliest fights between couples, my parents would have won it. and i swore from then till now, tt i would never be like tt. i would never provoke to hurt, never be verbally abusive, never become physically abusive.

strangely, developments in time, education and wealth, is no deterrent to violence. abusive relationships are still not all tt uncommon. and we have all heard of couples who have really ugly fights tt turn violent, where a lack of reasoning somehow crops up, where couples break up and make up as though breaking up is just another commonplace activity in a relationship.

i don't believe in breaking up. not as a commonplace activity. to me, a break up is a last resort solution, sort of like how suicide is to a really fucked up life. there is no going back, there is no taking back of, there is no make up session.

i guess different people with different characteristics have different types of relationships. some people have very intense ones; when they're happy, they're in this unearthly state of euphoria, but when they're mad with each other, it's like some kind of war and everything looks immensely bleak. others are on the other hand, relatively stable. the emotions don't bounce from one end of the spectrum to the other; of course, the absence of dramatics doesn't mean tt the fights don't evoke a much better response, tho.

interestingly, we witnessed a confrontation today. one tt was civil; in a civil setting. there were no dramatics, no screaming and crying, no harsh or loud words. yet the hostility, the conflict, the tension in the air; was visible.

and even though it's a civilised confrontation; i don't think it's still a conflict tt i would ever want to see myself embroiled in. interestingly, my other half professes to thrive on situations of conflict. yet he himself admits tt a conflict with me is not something tt he would like to be involved in. he says tt tt is the one conflict he does not want to have.

and nor do i. but to be honest, i don't see us having any situations of confrontation, civil or otherwise. for one, if there is a conflict, we will both be emotional, and he knows how emotional i can get. i can't reason rationally; not for long. i have a very strong avoidance tendency; in arguments tt i can't win or where i feel likely to betray a position of emotion or weakness, i get the fuck out of there asap.

so i guess it will be difficult to have a full-out confrontation when 1 party is conspicuously missing.

but still, i do try to avoid confrontations. we all do, i guess. it's just not fun. i don't like to pick fights. i don't see the point in unhappiness; either mine or the other party's. i am a very proud person, and for a long time i have sacrificed or compromised a lot of things to preserve my own pride, and i have come to realise tt i was rather foolish.

pride is one thing, but sometimes you discover tt it might just be empty. and when you lose someone tt means a lot to you, pride just doesn't seem to be so worth it. you can always have your pride, it stays with you so long as yuo don't betray your principles; not so much people.

i have come to realise tt his happiness is my happiness. i am happy when he is happy, cheerful when he is. i am thankful tt he no longer guards, not against me; i appreciate the sacrifices tt he has made for me and how he constantly indulges me with a willing heart.

i know my entries are undeniably mushy, but the feelings and emotions tt i express, i can't change the way i feel or put them in any other way. i may be cynical about a lot of things, arrogant and unforgiving about others, but when it comes to him, no matter what i say, i cannot deny the effect tt 'us' has on me.

i love him. and i hope we don't have a confrontation for as long as possible. and when we do, tt we will deal with it civilly. and still make up (without the break ups).

it's friday night and i'm at home. god i feel like a no-lifer. but oh well. we all gotta make the best of things anyway.

i've been having strange and realistic dreams every night for the past few nights. i'm not very sure why, but they usually seem very real. even though the circumstances are absurd, such as a situation where i dreamt tt one of the law school students was a social escort by night and tt his pairing with another law school student was merely a cover. hmm.

but tt is out-of-point. i like my lessons, but i feel like a slacker. reading itself isn't all too hard; my problem is tt i hate having to look for books and photocopying them. my ideal world would be a place where every single article is available online. unfortunately, tt usually isn't the case. if it is, you have to pay for it. goddammit, coz i don't have a credit card.

speaking of which, you can rent lockers at law fac from http://www.rent-a-locker.com/nus. it's $21.00 for 1 year. problem is tt i don't have a debitable credit card. so please any dear kind soul who is willing to share a locker with me (okay, dear kind soul whose name begins with 'b', ends with 'n', and has a debit card, can you *please* apply for the locker so tt i don't have to lug around a bag about as heavy as your army signal sack all day? *innocent wide-eyed look*), can you help me apply for a locker online?

today wasn't too much to talk about. for one, i'm home early on a friday night. bleah. and i'm alone too. bleah x 2. yucks. this dependency thing is kinda bugging me. last time i could be my own best friend (oops! no offence to all my best/good friends) and hang out with myself; now i feel a little lost, like i'm without my other arm. something like tt. i guess the only upside is tt i'm not the only one (i hope *crosses fingers*). i think the btc campus is better when you're rich - or if you have a car or unlimited access to cabs. otherwise braving the sweltering heat and humidity to walk up the slope, such tt by the time you reach the cafeteria you've lost enough water to fill up the pond in the botanic gardens... it can be a bit of a damper on your spirits.

we studied in the library with diana before lecture. or rather, i tried to study with her until mr. sleepy dog came by and proclaimed tt he wanted to eat. then we spent more time at the cafe than we did upstairs, and diana helped us get a big plate of free broccoli. yay! we love broccoli.

after lecture, diana had insurance law, so together with reformed ah beng gangster kk (i.e. mr. sleepy dog's kwan), whose name mr. sleepy dog purposely continues to misspell, we trooped off to al-azhar (once again) for pre-dinner food. i order the plaster prata and tissue prata; and i still think their milo dinosaur is perfecto. yay!

after tt, mr. sleepy dog and kk sent me back, before going off together to mastur... *cough* i mean... gamble. yesh yesh. play poker. tt is it. so while i'm having dinner with my parents tonight, the two of them are happily gambling their friday nights away. yay!

and my mom still thinks tt i am demonspawn. whoopie. i'm actually curious as to how long i can hold a non-verbal relationship with her for. it's been going on for at least a month now. all i have to do is keep this up long enough, and then i can fuck off. yay! :)

thanks to vic, an outing at wala's, and shirlyn tan and her band; this has become one of my new fave songs to listen to:

TIME IS RUNNING OUT
- Muse

I think I'm drowning
Asphyxiated
I wanna break this spell
That you've created

You're something beautiful
A contradiction
I wanna play the game
I want the friction

You will be the death of me
You will be the death of me

Bury it
I won't let you bury it
I won't let you smother it
I won't let you murder it

Our time is running out
Our time is running out
You can't push it underground
You can't stop it screaming out

I wanted freedom
Bound and restricted
I tried to give you up
But I'm addicted

Now that you know I'm trapped
A sense of elation
You'd never dream of
Breaking this fixation

You will squeeze the life out of me

Bury it
I won't let you bury it
I won't let you smother it
I won't let you murder it

Our time is running out
Our time is running out
You can't push it underground
You can't stop it screaming out
How did it come to this?
Oooooh

You will suck the life out of me

Bury it
I won't let you bury it
I won't let you smother it
I won't let you murder it

Our time is running out
Our time is running out
You can't push it underground
You can't stop it screaming out
How did it come to this?
Oooooh

warning: mushy entry ahead.

today was a happy day.

we only had to go to school for a 1-hour lecture on evidence; before tt we met for a japanese lunch at bugis before going to collect my laptop. i had the nabeyaki udon; he had the chicken nabe set.

and yes, it was an amusing affair attempting to order our food.

after the lecture we went to catch sophie scholl: the final days. we also popped by the new vila'ge - which is essentially marche renamed - at the heeren for an afternoon snack. some afternoon snack it was; we had calamari fritti, sausages and fried broccoli (we both love broccoli and he was craving it for quite a while), followed by designer coffee at tcc.

i fell asleep during the movie. it was ambitious, no doubt abt it, and an interesting biography and tribute to a german who dared defy the regime; but the movie wasn't particularly dramatic or exciting. they definitely kept true to the biography; but the climax of the show trial was a mere 10 min in a 2 hr 10 min movie, a large part of which was interrogation.

but the most interesting part of today, was this: for the first time since school started, we were happy.

i attribute a large part to the fact tt we weren't in school for more than an hour. but still.

we were happy. and it was interesting because ben would tell me periodically tt he was happy, in a way tt made it seem as if he were surprised to be happy.

later in the evening, he told me tt happiness scared him. 'happy' just didn't seem to be a so-called normal state. i asked him if it was due to the fleeting nature of happiness. and because by opening yourself up to the ability to embrace happiness, you inevitably open yourself up to the potential of feeling great pain.

we're not very different, he and i. our fears are similar, which is why the fact tt 4 months into our relationship; we're still as happy as when we first started out, we're still not at each other's throats, we're still not cynical and jaded... it unsettles me. i don't know if it's normal, if it's supposed to be. and i fear the time when we will no longer be happy, when we'll have arguments, when we'll be upset with each other.

but i am glad tt we took the chances together; to allow ourselves to feel happy. i guess for myself i've learnt tt there is no point in guarding your feelings; i have shielded myself from pain, but i regret the chances tt i never took. but i'm glad tt he took the chance with us, inspite of all the misgivings he might have had.

no matter how stable we are, the fear doesn't go away. the fear of the transient still remains. yet i feel extraordinarily secure in his arms. extraordinarily happy. he says tt contentment is halfway unto death, but i believe tt contentment is a fundamental tenet of life. there are things tt you must do and feel to in my opinion, have truly lived, and to allow yourself to be happy, is one of them.

it sounds strange to have the words 'dear' come from him. you cannot reconcile the big bad wolf with an endearment like 'dear'. i suppose tt is why it sounds extraordinarily sweet.

ah yes. school has officialy started, and we're now based at the bukit timah campus.

it's still under construction; and it's amusing to give cab drivers the location: "nus - the bukit timah campus".

the first response tt you get usually sounds like this: "HAR?"

anyway the campus is lovely, or will be lovely when it is completed. it feels the most unlike nus; with a real overseas-type university feel. the 4 blocks of law school surround each other with a giant grass patch in the middle in this slightly colonial architecture thingy from the old buildings. but inside it's all new.

unfortunately, construction is still ongoing and there are a lot of things tt aren't settled yet. the wireless isn't up at every place; seminar rooms don't have tt many power points; we have only 1 cafeteria tt is almost perpetually filled with people, thus making it somewhat difficult to get lunch sometimes...

you get what i mean.

but tt being said, i don't have the same adverse reaction to the new campus tt many people have. i do understand tt it is incomplete and tt construction is ongoing, but for the most part i have no major complaints. i can see the charm and the beauty of the place; it reminds me a little of ubc coz of the grass. and besides, compared to the curtis law fac building and tt old gray lib in vancouver, this campus is beautiful already; construction and saw dust aside.

even things like the long walk from the bus stop; i do agree tt it is a bother, but 20 min walks from your hostel to class in ubc prepares you for walking almost anywhere. granted, ubc doesn't have tt heat and humidity tt makes people ask me if i have a medical condition coz i sweat so much in this goddamn heat, but i guess my only problem then wouldn't be with the walk per se, but just the weather. which you can't change, here or in kent ridge.

i guess the only thing tt i am uncomfortable with; is proximity. walking from the entrance of block b past the cafeteria; and i say hi at least 6 times to 6 different people. law fac is so small tt you know literally, everyone. and you have to say hi to, everyone. which is nice because it's nice to have familiar faces; but the proximity makes it uncomfortable. it isn't like kent ridge where i can just disappear into the annals of yih without knowing a single person; here you just can't hide anywhere. hahaha.

and it's official in law school; EVERYONE knows tt ben and i are a couple. if it hadn't already spread by word of mouth, our holding hands in the cafeteria made it pretty much so.

interestingly enough, people comment tt ben is a "changed man"; whatever tt means. wahaha.

i was talking to joanna during my islamic law class this evening, and she was asking me how he was like. seeing tt we seemed so diff; he was so 'bad boy' (yes, she said exactly tt) and i was, well... me. and oh, she'd never talked to him before coz he always looked so unapproachable. the first time she'd ever seen him smile... was when she saw him with me.

and in any case; ben has gotten his fair share of ribbing. 2 people have told him tt he has gotten 'soft' and 'weak' respectively; someone deleted him from her msn on the basis tt his nicknames were too mushy for her to take. wahahahaha.

and ben himself admits tt he seems to have lost tt (hostile) 'energy' tt he once had in year one. he was telling me tt he also had to keep saying hi to people here all the time; he didn't remember having to do tt so much in year one. in year one he could just sit himself at a bench, put on his perpetual scowl, and everyone would steer clear of him. now... he has to say hi to everyone.

i told him tt it's because now he seems to be so smiley and friendly; a complete change from last time.

last time, even *i* wouldn't go say hi to him. wahahaha.

it seems tt love can really change a person. i hope (and i would like to believe) tt it is for the better, tho. hee hee.

interestingly enough, ben's presence makes everything about school bearable. :)

joanna asked if we were still in our honeymoon period. i suppose 4 months does count as the honeymoon period, doesn't it?

but within the space of these 4 months, i find being without you almost unbearable.

i seriously think tt ben and i need loyalty privileges at al-azhar.

anyway i love tt place now; i've always loved spicy food, curries and pratas; and i believe tt al-azhar's is a godsend.

this afternoon we went there again coz i was really really hungry; i ordered 2 pieces of the plaster prata, the soup kambing, and the milo dinosaur.

which are currently my all time fave indulgences.

i love the plaster prata at al-azhar; the egg yolk isn't really cooked, so when you cut into it the yolk oozes out over the prata and tastes absolutely heavenly on its own, or when paired with the curry. and then the soup kambing is also amazing stuff. it's thick and rich and blatantly sinful; the chunks of mutton meat are soft and tender and come apart in your mouth, and there is no soup hotter and more delicious. finally, the milo dinosaur; sweet but fantastic, with a generous amount of milo powder on top and more than enough ice to keep an ice-maniac like me orgasmically-happy.

i have finally discovered my ultimate comfort food menu. especially when school starts and i have my 3 hour islamic law classes tt end at 9.30pm 3 times a week; i can foresee myself at al-azhar ordering this exact set meal.

trust me, no matter how down or stressed you are, this set will definitely make you happy. fatter, but happy.

(but it helps a lot if your company at al-azhar also happens to be you-know-who. *muakz*)

school is starting tomorrow. and i have just realised tt i have a fuckload to do and i have not done anything at all.

oh well, the life of a slacker thus resumes its natural momentum.

BTC. i have 4 buses there from home tho. unlike somebody. *evil wide grin*

2 words: hard candy.

ben and i went to catch it on sat night - the 10.05pm show -; and it was m18 for a very good reason.

the synopsis of the movie is simply this: 32-year-old guy with (hinted at) paedophilic tendencies meets 14-year-old girl on internet chatroom; but instead of the usual older man rapes and murders poor young innocent girl; 'poor young innocent girl' turns the tables on older man and effectively tortures him in this psychological thriller.

the good thing about this, is tt there is no violence or gore. there is a scene where the girl performs a castration operation on the man, but you don't see the actual castration. and the dialogue is amazing. life! gave the movie a not-too-good review, saying things like there was too much talk and tt the movie hinted at but did not reveal anything concrete.

but then again i doubt the quality of the life! reviewer of this movie, as i felt tt he/she completely missed the whole point of it. the beauty of this movie - if you can call it tt - is in the dialogue; how it rivets and engages you and makes you wonder who is playing who; what is happening; who is the cat and who is the mouse. things are hinted at, but nothing is obviously revealed; you are left to speculate.

and tt is what makes this film so intelligent.

unfortunately, coz of all tt dialogue, you can't watch this if you want a no-brainer film because as with all intelligent movies, this film really drains the mind.

but it is worth it; if you root for the girl, if you want to see the tables turned on the evil paedophile, and especially if you might have paedophilic tendencies yourself.

this movie will probably educate you properly on the dangers of being paedophilic - you never know who you might get. ;)

however, this movie is also seriously disturbing.

from the first frame where the girl starts her subtly-adult seduction of the older man, you just can't help wondering tt it is wrong wrong wrong. you just thank god when the acting stops and the torture begins. and no, there isn't really tt much torture; just a lot of mind games.

it's a bit disturbing, but all cool if you're a girl.

if you are a guy however...

prepare to be freaked out.

girls with irritating boyfriends or guyfriends who laugh at them when they cry at soppy movies or or when they scream at horror movies, you won't regret bringing them to watch 'hard candy'.

because you can literally watch you guy squirm in his seat, especially when the castration scene is about to and does come on.

amazing stuff.

this was the first movie where i saw my brave and unfazed game-for-anything boyfriend actually look everything from disturbed to nervous to freaked out. although he would try not to make it look obvious, with every scene he would go from his starting of an upright position, to slumping lower and lower and lower in his seat.

by the end of the movie, his head was halfway down his seat, in fact.

and the best thing, all the guys in the theatre had exactly the same reaction.

there were 4 guys sitting to my left; when the lights came on they were all similarly slumped in their seats. and when i turned to look back; the same thing for all the guys in the rows behind.

no snickering, no laughter, no smart talk.

i suppose because movies like this, and especially castration, really can hit a guy where it hurts the most.

wahahaha.

saturday was an eventful day. it marked our first encounter with a real road bully.

i suppose you do see road bullies on the road a fair bit; singapore does after all have a pretty real problem concerning road rage. i believe tt all drivers will definitely encounter their fair share of bullies - barring the fact tt they do not fall into tt category themselves.

nonetheless, i did not expect my first such encounter to be quite so soon.

i was with ben, cl and my; he was driving us from town towards the west via the aye for zhi cha dinner. at the point where he wanted to exit, he needed to filter out from the middle lane to the left lane to do so.

on his left lane somewhat behind him was this large new silver volkswagon passat; when ben signaled to filter left, as to be expected of singaporeans, the driver instead of slowing down, stepped on the gas and accelerated, thus forcing ben back into his lane.

nevertheless, ben tried to filter out again to the left and succeeded; this time he exited and unfortunately happened to end up to the right of said volkswagon passat. as you turn towards the right following the curve from the aye towards buona vista road, the car has a tendency to drift left; as cars do all over the road internationally. ordinarily, this is an acceptable thing because if you happen to be driving faster than the car to your left; you will just end up a little in front of said car. in any case, the car on the lane to your left will probably drift a little more towards his left.

tt is of course, if everyone is driving at a nice acceptable speed.

unfortunately, mr. volkswagon passat decided tt he would not drive at a nice acceptable speed. altho ben started out a little in front of his car when exiting the aye, mr. volkswagon passat accelerated once again, such tt as both cars were turning right following the curve ben started flitting a little into his lane, thus causing him to have to brake to avoid a collision.

hence, mr. volkswagon passat went mad. as in, seriously imh i-need-anger-management-courses type mad.

first, he started following the speed of our car, accelerating till he was in front of us. he wound down his window and started hurling an amazing amount of vulgarities at the top of his voice, all the while first flashing us the middle finger and pointing his index finger.

although i could not really hear what he was saying, i could see tt mr. volkswagon passat was a middle-aged man, possibly relatively well-heeled (and add tt to the fact tt his car was obviously relatively expensive too).

anyway dismissing him as feckless raving lunatic, cl and ben gave him 'what the fuck' type responses. but i suppose because he probably assumed tt just coz he was older than us, we had to bow down and kiss his feet, or do something to tt effect. *shrugs*

so obviously the 'what the fuck' responses didn't go down very well with him. coz there happened to be a traffic light tt turned red just after the exit and we all had to stop our cars (he in lane 3; us in lane 1), he opened his car door, got out of his car, and strode across the road to our car. ben flicked the autolock button on the car in time, because he was ready to open cl's door (cl was sitting on the passenger side next to ben); i can only speculate as maybe to hamtam him or to do something to tt degree.

here was this guy, wearing a polo shirt and shorts; reasonably prosperous, middle-aged, and possibly moneyed; and here he was behaving like a goddamn petulant 5-year-old kid.

but anyway when he realised tt he couldn't open the door, he vented his frustrations by slamming both his palms on the side car window in front of cl; effectively leaving his big palm prints on the glass for the rest of the night. the car shook a little with the force; but i suppose besides tt he was an otherwise toothless tiger. by this time a lorry had pulled up in lane 2 and he had no choice but to walk back to his car and accept the fact tt he now looked a bit like an idiot (probably because i and my were giving him these relatively nonchalent "crazy old man" type looks).

it was actually quite frightening at the instant when he was getting out of his car and walking to ours. i am actually grateful tt ben had the sense to lock the door and tt none of us got out; the bully was made to look helpless and foolish at the end of the day. oh, and we have his car plate number if we want to report him, even though we don't really see the point in taking tt kind of trouble.

but nonetheless, it's one of those things tt just confirm how... well, how uncivilised we can be. you can call it unhappy, too stressed, a total lack of social grace... i can understand tt this guy probably had a lot of reasons for why he was behaving tt way; maybe he was rushing off to somewhere, maybe he had a really bad saturday, maybe his wife just served him divorce papers and threatened to sue for half of his property including tt new volkswagon passat...

a million and one excuses... *cough*... i mean reasons we can dream up to explain road rage and the existence of road bullies like himself.

i mean, road rage is after all, little to do with things like wealth or educational status. you have rich well-heeled and possibly educated people acting like low-class brutes on the road. a large percentage of road bullies are actually middle-aged and reasonably well-heeled or educated. while my father might contend tt 'youngsters' nowadays are *insert operative word here*, he can't escape the fact tt a lot of people around his age group don't behave like they are of tt age group.

it makes you wonder what is wrong with our society.

i mean, road rage does exist in countries other than singapore; like for example the states. but for the most part... singapore has a reputation for having really bad drivers. not bad like made crazy drivers ala mexico, the philippines or even vietnam, but bad as in goddamn selfish to the core. drivers tt will knock pedestrians down so long as there is no zebra crossing (coz they will never stop for you), drivers tt will always accelerate whenever someone is trying to filter into their lane when the person flicks the signal, drivers tt never hesitate to press on the horn at every little incident or to flash amazingly vulgar signs and scream phrases insulting your person and your whole goddamn family in a single stroke.

and the best thing about this, is tt most drivers are like tt on the roads, whether they are in a legitimate rush or not.

if there is anything tt needs to be taught on the circuit by the tp, it isn't about safe driving per se. i think it should be about basic courtesy.

coz things like this and incidents like this make me downright embarassed to be a singaporean.

one of the passing comments tt diana made last night while we were driving was of interest to me. i suppose because the night before, yw and kai were discussing the length of and the stability of their relationships. not in these exact words per se, but with enough referrals to suggest a long-time plan.

long-time plans make me apprehensive. i suppose because i've never had the experience of a long-time relationship before.

diana says tt he and i are v stable. this was in spite of me pointing out to her the fact tt he and i were only 4 months old (our established bond together, not our physical ages). and i suppose if you look at it tt way, we are quite stable.

we don't really argue tt much, although i worry tt as we become more familiar with each other tt might change. but right now it really is a give and take type situation. there were many things, big things, tt we had to accept about each other before we could venture into this together, particularly from him about me, and yet we managed to overcome tt hurdle. and yet there were still others, like my parents' paramount disapproval.

the biggest hurdles haven't come our way yet, i must admit. school hasn't started and our varying studying styles and the differences in our goals haven't yet manifested themselves. the realities of the working world with his heavy schedule and my erratic one haven't yet come into the picture, what with all the corresponding temptations tt will follow.

these things feel too far off to contemplate. so for the most part, apart from the usual hiccups and things like learning new things about each other, and getting accumstomed to the little things tt you never really knew or realised might have been tt important... things are stable.

it feels like we have been together for a very long time.

at this juncture i now understand why couples like to co-habit, even if they do not intend to marry at any time soon. there just doesn't feel like there is enough time in a day to spend with each other, regardless of the amount of time you do already spend with each other or the activities tt you do or do not do. going home to an empty room without his presence there, without him there to hold you, or to say 'goodnight' to you before you sleep... you actually feel the absence.

now i understand why they call them 'other halves'. they really do become a part of you.

i suppose tt is why i find it mildly amusing everytime, tt now every 2nd question tt everyone i meet asks me, isan almost-expectant: "where is he?"

we eat anywhere and everywhere. kopitiams, hawker centres, food courts, fast food outlets, coffee joints, restaurants; literally, anywhere and everywhere. we have a similar penchant for local food, although i do crave ang moh food more than he does. but he likes starbucks coffee, so i guess in tt aspect we sort of even out.

yesterday i had a pasta craving - namely, pasta, meat and cheese, so we had tunch at coffee club; coz they had baked spaghetti bolognaise, which literally has everything i crave. and he had bangers and mash, which in spite of it's slightly vulgar name (okay, it's a generic term for sausages and mashed potato and inspite of the visual representation does not have anything to do with any part of the male anatomy or with any orgy situation), was kind of small and light (compared to my healthily large portion of pasta; i am a happy girl).

dinner i had at home; when ben decided he would wake up later, and coz diana was feeling frisky (in an 'i-want-to-go-out' sort of way; what were you thinking?), we decided to go get her and go out for supper/coffee.

well, it was a toss-up between both, but diana wanted coffee more than food. so after a certain amount of time spent on driving around (i.e. my bf's natural ability to repeatedly hor lan, such tt we end up passing tt siemen's building near the pie at kallang way at least 3 times even though our destination has no relation to tt building or tt particular location even), we decided to go check out the tcc at clarke quay. which probably closes at 5am, since its last order for food was at an amazing 3.45am.

diana ordered an oreo mocha frappe; ben ordered his usual blue mountain coffee, which i felt was too diluted to do justice to tt particular blend; and i had a raspberry tea freeze and tt strawberry mousseline thingy coz i also have a weakness for desserts. and for the next two over hours, we discussed issues from police entrapment to the chemical castration (tt is entirely my idea) of husbands who stray on their pregnant wives with evil money-grubbing prc students (in response to tt new paper article); the current situation in lebanon and even the intelligence of the british police (now vs. tt time where they accidentally shot tt brazilian guy to death).

in short, little different from our time in vancouver, where we sit around at starbucks after dinner till the time it closes discussing the differences in the law and the political system between singapore and canada, or where we are 'pretending' (at least in my context) to study at tt coffee joint near ben's place. both have really yummy iced caffe mochas. i don't understand why apart from starbucks, i cannot get a decent iced caffe mocha in singapore. oh, and the starbuck's venti here is pathetic. i miss the ventis of canada. those were really real ventis.

after conversation degenerates to a point where it's past 3, such tt our minds (or at least mine) have partially shut down and we are now flipping through wine & dine magazine articles, diana decides to eat rochor tau huey. so we prepare to leave, but the poor girl, unused to the even later hours tt ben and i sometimes keep (him more often than me naturally), decides tt she cannot stay awake long enough to survive the rochor tau huey experience for the night, so we send her home.

oh, and guess what babe? after we send you home at ang mo kio, we hor lan and end up travelling through serangoon, hougang, sengkang, punggol, and finally taking the tpe all the way up to changi before finding the pie route to come back to my place.

in ben's defence, he says it took him a grand total of 20 min from ang mo kio to find the pie.

i think there is definitely a much shorter way to get to the pie from ang mo kio, now isn't there?

oh, and we passed tt damn siemens building again on our way back from changi to my place.

before hor laning from the pie to the bke, ben was a little hungry, so we had supper at our fave after-hours hangout of al-azhar. and even though it's hotter, less cleaner and much less posh and comfy; there's something ultimately comforting about the food it serves.

i ordered plaster prata - the egg yolk was half-cooked, so it oozed out onto my prata and it tasted heavenly with the curry - and teh halia; ben egg prata and teh ping. and strangely, i find supper more substantive than coffee. it's not just tt it literally is; but rather, i find tt while coffee joints and restaurants are all well and good, in singapore there is a certain amount of frivolity attached to them. i find frills and decor and ambience while comfortable, innately and undeniably frivolous; nothing hits as close to home with me as the nitty gritty of outdoor kopitiams with cheap rich unhealthy and undoubtedly shiok singaporean food.

especially when it's with the one you love.

curiously... out of all the things tt we did yesterday, the most memorable moment was sitting at the brown table outside the nus co-op facing you; eating from a tiny cup of haagen daz belgian chocolate ice-cream - mirroring the one tt you were eating from.

haagen daz is ridiculously-priced in singapore as compared to the states and canada, which is the only reason why we don't eat it tt much here. but i suppose it does hold a special place in my heart, even if i never really ate it tt much there either.

i equate haagen daz to indulgence. or rather, your indulgence of me. curiously, the 2 other most memorable times tt we had haagen daz, was at tofino and the rockies respectively. the first occasion was after my spectacular tumble and fall from my bicycle, where i'd sustained remarkable orh chehs and in addition to tt, sprained my finger. besides looking so worried for me when i was in my hysterical state of laughter, you braved the rain to get me spiderman band-aids to cheer me up (being injured while on holiday a few hundred km from vancouver is not a very fun feeling), and later you bought a whole tub of haagen daz strawberry cheesecake ice-cream for us to eat while we watched tv after dinner in our slightly-overpriced motel.

the second occasion was up in the rockies less than a week later, after a day of snowboarding in banff. where besides my 360 degree triple flip-and-tumble routine, i also cut my thumb and had it bleed all over the snow coz the blood couldn't coagulate, thus feeling absolutely miserable before 4pm; you once again cheered me up by walking to the convenience store outside our motel to get a tub of haagen daz strawberry ice-cream to eat while watching tv (coz besides boarding, there wasn't very much else to do tt we hadn't already done).

you weren't indulging me today. it was sort of a chocolate craving after a day of well... a little bit of running around with you being sweet enough to accompany on my book-buying errands in preparation for school. one of those things; mundane enough to be forgettable, yet strangely not. i suppose because of the association our memories sometimes make.

and haagen daz ice-cream and you... tt is one association tt my memory now makes whether i realise it or not. i don't love haagen daz all tt much, but because of you, you can say tt i do appreciate it a lot more now.

as your indulgence of me.

i'm not supposed to engage in any sporting activity for at least 2 weeks. but nonetheless.

i met him this morning for breakfast at bt market; trying the famous bak chor mee pok with tau huey milk. it was delicious, but worked better on my stomach than on his.

following tt, after over 2 months of wanting to attempt tt damned macritchie tree-top walk thingy since i came back, we finally decided to do it. so at around 11-something am, we started out at the macritchie reservoir park and began walking.

and walking. and walking. and walking.

the damn route is supposed to be 11 km. it feels a fuck lot more than tt.

perhaps coz we were walking, not running. but still.

and coz they'd closed the usual trail to the tree-top walk; we had to retrace 1 trail two times just to get to tt bridge and to get out of tt area. trust me, there were more than 1 confused family standing at the junctures looking curiously at the makeshift signboards.

but tt being said, the scenery made it worth it.

and the 250 m bridge made it worth it.

for one, we saw lots of live animals as we were walking, but none so interesting as the tortoises tt would perch on the grass by the water; when we walked by they would jump into the water one by one.

however, there were a few curious tortoises who, when i came and knelt down for a closer look, crawled out of the water and towards me on their four legs, looking at me with the most inquisitive of eyes.

meet cute tortoise.



ben says it's ugly; but i think the patterns on its body are pretty. and its curious mannerism is too adorable to resist.

close-up of cute tortoise.



and the whole group of them swimming around.



finally, sometime between 1 and 2 pm, we finally found our way to the top, though somewhat breathless and disheartened.

here is the requisite couple shot. ben looks naked.



he's not, really. but close to. whoohoo. ;)



and me.



the 250m tree-top walk was this narrow metal bridge suspended over the canopy of very tall tropical trees. and even though the distance to get to the bridge was almost fucking ridiculous; i have to admit tt at tt point in time, it was actually worth it.

i like this bridge even more so than the capilano suspension bridge in vancouver. and tt is saying a lot. :)

see, i'm even going crazy waving my arms and running along the length. yay!



after tt, we decided to fuck walking back to macritchie and get out through venus drive. feeling a bit lost, we asked a laboured caucasian where venus drive might be. he wasn't too sure but he did say:

"the reservoir is tt way." (pointing in the direction tt he came from) "it's about 4 k. you'll see it... eventually." the resignation in his voice made me almost want to laugh. it was ironically humourous. i didn't have the heart to tell him tt to go down the way we came from would take him another 7km.

but anyway we found our way out to venus drive, and we took a taxi out of the sweltering heat back to civilisation. i was supposed to rush down to school to collect one of my two spoilt laptops later, as well as buy a textbook tt i needed; but we later decided against rushing down.

plus he wasn't feeling too well; and a little too sleepy.

we left by dinnertime; i took a cab down to holland v to have dinner with yuwei and kai. i hadn't seen yuwei since the year before; somehow it always feels like things haven't changed tt much.

we had dinner at crystal jade la mian xiao long bao and coffee at coffee bean, and more or less just chatted and caught up on life and each other's lives. interestingly, yw was celebrating her 2nd year anniversary with her bf tomorrow; kai celebrated her 2nd year anniversary with hers last mon. and i was just asking them, how do they last so long?

to be honest, because my past relationships have never lasted very long, i always wonder, and fear, tt i can't hold on to relationships. i used to be commitment-phobic at one point in time; but now i don't believe i am anymore, not unless you start raising suggestions to me regarding future homes and joint bank accounts (which were raised in their contexts). but still, the fear is there.

i don't believe in trying too hard in relationships; but i do believe tt effort has to be put in. everyone will have their own differences and idiosyncracies; some one can understand better than others. but the thing with difference is tt it may always become a point of contention if there are misunderstandings about it. sometimes there are little things tt you have to learn to give and take; you just can't sweat the small stuff.

for the most part, i'd like to think of myself as easy-going. i don't care too much, i don't bother too much. but yet, as much as i'd like to say tt i am all tt, sometimes when it comes to someone tt you're in a relationship with, somehow you notice tt things are different. somehow expectations begin to change whether you realise or not; sometimes maybe you end up asking for more than you would initially have expected, or sometimes you end up expecting the other party to understand you without you having to say anything.

maybe it comes from taking someone for granted; expecting too much. being too irritable. it's strange; how sometimes you might not be particularly happy with something, but you don't want to mention it coz you feel tt it shouldn't be a big issue and you don't want to be seen sweating the small stuff, but in the end it does become a big issue with you and you end up being upset and the other party has no clue otherwise.

sometimes i think it's a girl thing.

i try to run away from the stereotypes of a girl. you know, the one in the relationship who's all emotional and dependent. the one who's more intolerant, the one who expects her other half to be psychic and to know what she likes and dislikes without her having to say it; the list goes on.

but i fear too, tt i am becoming what i don't wish to become.

interestingly, yw and kai would tell me their pet peeves abt their other halves. like how one could be exceedingly late, or oversleep all the time, or not really care. and i guess it's natural coz in singapore, everyone is late. it's a culture. yet punctuality is something tt matters to me. i don't like waiting, period, because i have a need to maximise my time in the most efficient matter, and needless waiting is the most inefficient use of my time, which i will always find better uses for. i don't know how they do it; i guess it's a matter of becoming used to idiosyncracies and growing to accept them.

i remember once, i told someone tt i had a lot of flaws. i might be independent and outspoken yes, but with these qualities i am also self-centred and arrogant. i was asking whether my flaws would cause a problem; or result in a possible fall-out. he told me tt when he'd met me, he'd liked me for the qualities tt i possessed; and logically-speaking it flows tt you will have a couple of flaws tt represent the flip side to the qualities. to accept the qualities is to accept the flip side; sometimes one shouldn't pass value judgments. it is possible to love someone for everything tt he or she is; good, bad, and ugly.

acceptance is one thing tt plagues me. can he accept? i try to be a balanced individual. i never believed tt 'pms' was anything more than a convenient excuse coined up by weak-willed emotional wrecks of women masquerading as feminists to justify exceedingly childish behaviour; for this reason i never use it as an excuse for anything tt i do. yet i realise tt the times when i am most emotional - not irrational, but rather, seemingly given over to my emotional rather than to my rational self - are during tt particular time of the month. where i start getting more irritable, more sensitive, more easily given to the downs of sadness or anger. i try to keep this in check when i am observant, but sometimes i can't all the time, or most of the time, and it becomes a source of frustration for me. when you're too emotional, even the smallest things become difficult to accept.

i don't know. sometimes i find everything confusing and draining. communication is important because second-guessing is far too saddening a state to come to. but it just makes me wonder. i really do fear, tt maybe i lack something. somehow.

i left yw and kai to meet the girls at wala wala. the unexpected was playing live tonight; i went to watch for the first time since i came back from vancouver.

shirlyn is fantastic as a vocalist. so dynamic, and her voice. vic requested for this song 'our time is running out' by muse; this was the first time i'd heard it before, and i already liked it.

and better than tt, all the girls from my batch came. vic, wendy, mona, cheeling, meiping, geoks, and later angeline...

it was amazing.

and we just sat around and drank and listened to music. and somehow as we were taking photos i felt both a strange thread of joy and sadness.

joy tt we were together again. and sadness tt life had moved on, and the situation was no longer the same.

geoks was in heels. a phenomenon. meiping was brilliantly dressed. working or looking for jobs. graduated. grown-up.

it's scary.

it didn't seem so long ago, when we were all siao geenas, everyone of us. we all wore shorts and our training tees, rowed in one boat, and made the funniest jokes about blade angles and evil captains.

life was so simple then; and they were my family. they were my sisters. and i knew tt i would give everything for them, and vice versa.

and now, fast forward to present day; and no longer do we speak of the boat except in past tense. we look to life; the seriousness of having to work, make money, do our duties. the crank of the wheel of life has turned and it's like we've left tt happy place.

my girls bring me back to tt happy place. even when the situation is different; meeting everyone is a source of unbridled unexplainable joy.

with them, you know tt the bonds tt were forged in the best years of my nus life; are for life.

but yet... how long can we stay in tt happy place?

i feel like reality has knocked at my door, and i have to answer.

and i realise tt i really do fear having to grow up.

but for now...



meiping, geoks and cheeling. geoks is leaving for sydney for 2 months.

and...



mona, me, geok, wendy and vic.

and photos from the sat when i went to meet mona:

my beloved mona. ever so hungry. ;)



what we had at tcc.



and how things can fit together.



*sigh*

maybe this time of the month just makes me way too emotional, and therefore too melancholic, for my own good.

...and it won't be abt this country at all.

you wouldn't have guessed tt it was national day anyway; not until you went downstairs and opened the papers and saw tt bright mcdonald's-sponsored supplement with articles all red and white; persistently non-political posts written by persistently non-political people abt everything persistently politically-correct.

the parents and i went for lunch at tiong bahru market; it was newly-renovated and we wanted to check it out. the prawn mee was disappointing coz we ordered our food from the wrong stalls, but the layout was nice, airy-er and more spacious. and there was more tables and parking spaces too. ooh. and the market has chillers at every stall for meat and the like. more expensive of course, but definitely more hygenic i guess. maybe in wake of all the bird flu scares.

and having nothing (personal) to argue about, it being national day and all, we had to argue a little on politics. hee hee hee.

after tt, i came back and had a heated online discussion with the bf on more politics; at least, those involving the force. tt i felt blatantly obliged to defend with my dying breath because of my loyalties. sometimes i feel like my loyalties are almost blind, but i think tt the officers are some of the most underpaid and misunderstood people around. bah. damn all these ungrateful public people. bleah.

dinner was fish porridge at home, lovingly prepared. and then the bf came to pick me up to watch the fireworks. well, not the ones at the nat stadium, but of the different kind. we went to watch a play -

namely: the campaign to confer the public service star on jbj.

without giving too much away, i have to say tt this is one of the best plays i have ever watched so far! it is blatantly political, yet so cleverly done in a tongue-in-cheek way. the script is brilliantly written, and the timing of the actors is impeccable. both pam oei and rodney oliviero deliver stunning performances as the characters in the play. as long as you appreciate the political undercurrents and the allusions to... well... whatever cannot be named outrightly, intelligent humour, and all the other aspects tt make a play what it is, you will love this. i've never watched an eleanor wong play before this one, but this one alone has proven her to be an amazing playwright.

if you can still get tickets for this, i highly recommend tt you do.

besides tt, me and the bf drove around a little before he sent me back. we were discussing friendships; and what defined different categories of friends. it was good. coz i missed him a lot these past few days.

happy 4th month baby! i can't believe you remembered... first. *muakz*

it's one of those things you ponder, as the sun goes down on you, quietly, and almost unnoticeably; except tt when you look back up at the sky you wonder where day has gone.

it's one of those things you ponder, when he tells you tt he loves you. a few months ago, he once said tt he didn't know what love was, and he didn't believe tt people could love. and tt once, he didn't believe he could.

it's one of those things you ponder, when you think back to what his fave activities are, or were. once, they were things like dota and smoking. now he says tt while he likes to do them more often, his fave activity involves you.

sometimes, or more often that most, i wonder what makes, or made the difference. being a single for so long, it was easy to be on the outside looking in, embracing the empowerment of singlehood and all the associated freedoms tt came along with it, and yet wondering when i would be one of those sickeningly lovey-dovey couples holding hands and strolling along wherever.

you really wonder when you're single, whether you wish to admit it or not, why you are. many of us truly are single by choice; we choose to wait only for the right one to come along, and we refuse to spend our days sulking and moping like sad little losers. we live, we embrace life; but sometimes when we come back home and we face the quiet emptiness of our homes, we wonder if maybe there is something wrong with us, tt we can't find someone who loves us for who we are. perhaps tt we are too fat, too ugly, too outspoken, too unfunny; or maybe as i would like to think of myself: too independent, too domineering, and too intimidating. (hee hee)

so after a prolonged period of singlehood and the associated mindset, sometimes it's hard to accept being one of a pair when you finally are. not so much being one of a pair per se, but the sheer alienness of the situation. how both of you, young but cynical and burnt in relationships, can somehow let your walls down enough for the other to actually come in. how both parties can actually believe in love, and not just as 3 pretty words uttered to keep the other happy (because he knows i would never settle for anything tt isn't real), but words spoken in conviction.

to me, it seems natural tt i have built my life around him; incorporating him into my schedule, my mind, and my heart. i suppose it does come naturally when he was already in at least 2 of those places without me realising or being able to do anything about it. but yet, when it comes to the other side, it still comes a remarkable surprise to me, how he has somehow fit me into his life, his personality, his heart.

a lot of people think tt we are incompatible. and as mentioned before, it seems to go beyond the obvious height disparity, but also to things such as our lifestyle choices and apparent personalities. i don't smoke, and i speak terrible mandarin and even worse hokkien, and i have to be the worst (if at all) dota player this side of the world. he doesn't run with me. he doesn't run. period. or swim, either. or gym. (although recently he's been hit by a bout of slight madness whereby he actually used the words "run" and "swim" in a sentence construct involving himself as a first party). and this might just be the tip of the ice berg. but yet, us being together; somehow everything has just fallen into place.

he met me for an hour today; one precious hour for lunch at the hog's breath cafe, and he sent me home by cab fearing for my health. my father asks me constantly whether he cares for me; i know my father doesn't believe he does. i know my father thinks tt i am in a relationship with someone who is cold and nonchalant and in my father's words - very violent (?!). once, i used to think tt he was cold and nonchalant too. once, i used to wonder whether i could stand being in a relationship with someone who wouldn't care very much.

but he proved me, and continues to prove me, wrong. he cares. and it isn't just in the big actions or the things tt he does, but also in the small gestures. he cares. sometimes, it's difficult for someone like me with a lot of pride and a lot of independence, to let someone just care for me. it's difficult to swallow my pride because i fear being vulnerable, being weak. but with him, even with all these fears my trust has been complete, and he has never done anything to shake tt trust. he has instead shown me a side of himself tt no one else might ever see - his warmth, his caring, his thoughfulness, his love. he smiles with his lips and his eyes; he laughs in this cute donkey-like explosion tt can sound really unglam but we all know tt i am already unglam anyway; and he holds me with enough tenderness tt i do feel valued. not for my size, not for my looks, not for my humour or my intellect, but for who i am.

if you ask me if i know what love is, i still cannot in all sincerity define it. if you ask me how i know tt i love him, i cannot in all honesty give you a definite answer as to the hows or why. and if you pose tt to him, i know tt he will also be hard-pressed to give you a concrete answer. but if you simply ask me if i love him - and the answer to tt is 'yes'; and whether he loves me in return...

i would say 'yes'. because i know. it has made the difference.

i was reading thru the papers this morning, and there was a small advert abt some new discussion they had set up in stomp, regarding public displays of affection. basically the picture in question involved a guy and a girl (oh come on... i was hoping for some guy-on-guy action here!) embraced and in a lip lock on an mrt train, and the question was: is a short peck enough and a long passionate kiss waaaay out of hand?

and of course, i happened to bring this up with the bf while we were driving around this afternoon - partly because we usually engage in kisses ranging from one to the other while in the car (or sometimes elsewhere), and i found it highly amusing tt somehow this topic on pda had to be raised again. and what he found so curious, is how the fuck this actually has to become a topic, at all.

see thing is, in almost any other country like the states, aussie, or our fave, canada, kissing is a normal thing. it's like walking your dog in the streets, taking a drink, etc. you can have a couple standing on a street corner kissing and no one bats an eye lash or looks back. you can have two guys passionately kissing each other on a bus, and no one says anything or looks at all. no one is bothered at all.

whereas in singapore, it becomes an issue of public decency and morality.

my only explanation: goddamn narrow-mindedness.

tell me, how the fuck does kissing fly in the face of public morality? does a boy kissing a girl result in other people feeling pain or physical discomfort? in fact, all tt you might feel uncomfortable, but this uncomfortablity does not stem from the fact tt a kiss is simple a display of love and affection, but rather from your own narrow-minded mindset.

your only excuse in your defence is tt pda flies in the face of "asian morality". the way i see it, asian conservatism is, and if it is not, should be, dead.

people need to be expressive. and i think tt society should come to accept and embrace difference, expression, etc. instead of being affronted and complaining all the time. couples need to be expressive. i think tt tt is how relationships should work. what is with all this need for clandestine affairs? i mean, i think i would draw the line at watching some guy fuck his gf up against some building wall by the main road in broad daylight (okay, admittedly, i would be quite fascinated. but i'm sure a lot of people would be quite uncomfortable), but seriously... what is it with the whole "take the pda into the bedroom or the hotel or the home?" type mindset? i mean, if there is nothing seedy or sleazy, if it's just an expression of love, then i don't see what the big issue is.

furthermore, i think tt we tend to be major hypocrites. yes we can all pretend to be prudish conservatives and slam this and protest tt and complain and air our narrow-minded views like we have all the god-given say in the world, but the fact is... from what i'm seeing so far lots of men go into secret relationships with women, sometimes outside of their marriage. more women are straying as well. and i'm not talking my generation or the teens or the unmarrieds; i'm talking middle-aged people. the so-called conservatives. who on one hand protest pdas, but on the other hand fuck like jackrabbits when they think no one knows. if tt isn't hypocrisy of the worst sort, tell me what is?

narrow-mindedness isn't just in relation to this pda thing. raise any issue and i can talk about it. smoking, for one. all the smoking bans tt have relegated smokers to 20% of outdoor eating areas. smokers aren't complaining. my bf isn't complaining. cigarette taxes keep increasing. they don't complain either. but yet you have all these goddamn non-smokers who cannot stop complaining. don't know what the 20% of the seats for the smokers are in the best areas of the eating places; they should be relegated to some dinghy corner somewhere else; there is no buffer zone between the smoking and non-smoking areas; smoking should just be banned completely; smokers still smoke at bustops and covered walkways... once, it was raining and we were standing under the only covered area which was the bustop. and my bf wanted to smoke. in order for him to smoke, he had to step out of the bustop and into the rain and stand there to smoke. it didn't and doesn't make any sense to me. and i don't think it makes any sense to the smokers who have to face ridiculous sub-human conditions such as these, in addition to all the fucking selfish complaints tt those goddamn narrow-minded non-smokers keep making. it's not like people don't engage in other vices like drinking either. no one bans drinking coz there is no such thing as second-hand drunkness, but alcoholism tends to be one of the leading immediate causes for domestic and spousal abuse at home, as well as a major cause for traffic accidents on the road. smokers in contrast, don't get violent.

so therefore they should put a wholesale ban on drinking too?

then let's talk about the no eating rules on the buses and trains. there have been so many complaints and letters to the forums about people complaining tt others eat on the trains, and they demand the authorities to come and regulate the situation. my god. in the new york and toronto and vancouver subways, although eating is technically not allowed on the trains, people still eat sometimes. but you see, the difference is tt there, they know tt the reason for the rules is tt they want to keep the trains clean. so when they eat they make sure tt they keep the trains clean. and no one, no other commuter complains or disapproves.

whereas here in singapore, no one seems to remember what the objective of the rule is. black is black and white is white. just like no smoking is no smoking. when someone eats, everyone starts complaining. why? because he's eating. and why are they upset tt he is eating? because he is breaking a rule tt says he should not be eating.

even if it is maybe one bite and he might have been really hungry, and even if he did his best not to spill or drop anything onto the floor and kept the place clean; no. he cannot eat. he is breaking the law. he is bad.

i think i just saw a forum thread tt classed smokers who smoked at bus stops in contravention of the rule with rapists and murderers. the similarity being tt they all broke 'the law'.

some people don't understand rules written for technical purposes and rules written to uphold social order.

unfortunately, these some people form a large part of our society. and they are all goddamn narrow-minded.

if you ask me why i would want to leave this country, i would say tt it is because it is far too restrictive. the mindset of the majority here is so inflexible and narrow-minded tt to stay here would be almost akin to putting a stranglehold on my life.

my father and i had one of those once-in-a-while type heartfelt talks, whereby he would not end up scolding me about how *wrong* i was. which i can see is a huge struggle on his part.

he did, however, called me very conceited, because i essentially told him in not so many words, tt i have embraced atheism.

well, in my defence, he asked.

he asked how my relationship with god was. i said tt it was in the simplest terms, nonexistent.

he and my mother had given me a lot of literature to read to sort of regain tt kind of spiritual level in religion and stuff and to be tt guai catholic girl tt they so wished i would be. still wish, in fact.

i said straight out, tt the literature was useless for the 3 assumptions tt they make: firstly, tt there is a god; secondly, tt i believe in him, and lastly, tt i have an intention to want to know him better.

in my case, i do not believe tt there is a god. even if i do, if you pose me all the "who created the universe?" type questions; i do not see how i should develop a relationship with this god, or how he is to be relevant to my life.

everyone, especially my parents, utter tt everything is "god's plan". god is to thank for this and to thank for tt and god has a reason for this and god will bless you and protect you and you can always turn to him for anything.

my take is this: everything is cause and effect. there is a correlation between personal choice and circumstance. it is the interaction between an action and the environment tt so brings about the result. there is no need to blame god or hate god (which was one of the accusals tt my father levelled my way to comprehend why i would no longer be a christian); because in my case, god is not even in the equation.

he asked me then, how i could live, if i did not have a religion to guide my moral conscience. i directed him towards mills' harm principle. he hadn't heard of mills or tt principle before, tho.

he said tt christians were better people coz they had a god. i said tt the way i see it, i don't see how the people i know who aren't christian are any worse than the people who are. in fact, it seems the people who are christian - a majority tt i see just make me *not* want to embrace christianity at all. i mean, there are some nice good christians around, but for the most part, i don't see them as the majority. and the closest epitome of christianity tt i can see most clearly in my daily life is my mom, and i have not seen a more unhappy or suffering person (with no comprehensible reason for this unhappiness or suffering) in my life.

he then said tt you have to be jesus-centred, not people-centred. otherwise like mahatma gandhi, you too would not want to be christian, due to all the poor examples of christians (at tt time, the british colonial masters in india) around. but then this is a kind of catch-22 situation, coz considering tt i see no relavance or no necessity to develop a relationship with god or jesus, i have no inclination to make my faith jesus-centred.

he then asked me why i went to church on sundays. i repled: "because you asked me to."

and he looked horrified. he said tt blasphemy is a mortal sin. if i go to church to mock god, tt is worse than me not going (my point exactly, but when i last pointed it out, my father did say tt no matter what state my faith was in, i was *still* expected to go to church anyway). to my defence, i don't really mock god. how do you mock something tt doesn't really have a relevance to you?

so now my father ended this conversation with the conclusion tt i have no respect for god and no respect for my parents. he is partially right somewhere or other. i am sure somewhere i might have respect for god, or i will have respect for him or her when i finally can relate him or her to my life. and i suppose i do respect my parents because they are after all, my parents, and for the most part are older and at some point of my life were wiser than me and good educators.

but you see, the main thing about me, is tt i am firmly anti-establishment, and anti-authority. i question everything tt is told to me, and i refuse to accept the natural order of things. i refuse to accept unquestioningly. i refuse to be a lemming or a clone. i am an individual, and if i have to fight the system, the hierachy, and the natural order, to be an individual, then i will keep on fighting.

hush now, don't speak;
don't move.
the moment transient as it is,
delicate as it is,
must be preserved
for just that little bit longer.
stay where you are,
with your head cradled in my arm,
and your ear registering my heartbeat.
all is quiet and still with you;
the world doesn't stop turning,
doesn't stop moving.
but for this moment we are on our own,
away from the savagery.
away from harm.
don't move.
don't tell me that this will not last.
don't tell me that i have to walk away from you.
even if i know the distance doesn't last
and your presence lingers in my mind and heart;
there is nothing that replaces you as you are.
warm and real.
your smile, your eyes, your words, your touch.
the whispers into my hair.
the lingering comfort of your embrace.
transient.
like grains of sand we are too easily gone tomorrow.
and i fear tt as the world turns...
the turning may leave me far behind you someday.

i got sick of staying home and 'resting' last night, so we went for a spin. picked diana up and headed out to this old taiwanese porridge place at kallang for supper... they have hokkien-style porridge with sweet potato boiled into the rice. ate tt with yummy but sinful kong bak with the thick layer of fatty skin, as well as prawn omelette, which i was craving. then we sent diana back the long way, once again taking the scenic route all through kallang/serangoon and heading back down to thomson rd coz we missed the cte exit. but nonetheless diana was sent home safe and sound. then we went to see the pretty pretty lights on the west coast (pretty coz my left eye has tt halo effect and my right eye is almost blind to the extent tt i see double and blurred images). y le besé y le besé y le abracé y le abracé y le toqué y compensé todo ese vez de faltarle, mi amor.

goddamn mindnumbing restless.

being at home with nothing to do and with the power of msn, i introduced my boyfriend to the power of youtube and slutty songs.

like the pussycat dolls' 'don't cha' (which he can sing to), 'buttons', and his fave: shakira's 'hips don't lie'.



his comments:

are you in lalaland with me? says:
wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhh

are you in lalaland with me? says:
but cannot watch for long
are you in lalaland with me? says:
eye spoil

see? mtvs aren't all about modern day crap. heeheehee.

i love you.

i miss you.

and i cannot say tt enough.

Ladies and gentlemen, anyone who's lived in Singapore long enough - which isn't long at all - will know - or have it drilled into our subconscious, that we are what is known as a 'multi-racial' society. It is for this reason tt 'special care' has been devoted to keeping the various races living in 'harmony', such that we have events such as Racial Harmony Day, a lot of 'National Education' lessons on the two famous (and only) riots in our country's past, and also, the justification on the qualifications on our freedoms of speech and expression.

However, anyone who has travelled out of Singapore, or who is not originally from Singapore, and has been to the metropolitan cities such as New York, London, Chicago, Vancouver (which has a minority population of almost 40% Asians comprising of Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, and Indians, among other races), and even Mexico City; will realise tt while these cities do not proudly tout themselves as multi-racial, the wide and varied mix of different races - all of whom see to co-exist together, is blatantly obvious.

Even though there are no such measures to promote 'racial harmony' or to qualify restrictions of speech and expression.

So my question is, why the difference?

Inspite of the ignorance of individuals who claim that racism is more rampant in those cities than it is here, I would like to say that while it is true that in the past, there was certainly more racism there than there is here, and while it is also true that there is no guarantee that even now, a traveller in such a city who looks different from the majority will still encounter a racial slur or two from the older folks who still harbour tt prejudiced mindset; for the most part, most people, especially the younger ones who have been raised to be more accepting and more tolerant of diversity, do not practise racism as much anymore.

So seeing that Singapore is in actual fact little different from its 'metropolitan' counterparts, is there really such a need to instill the various top-down safeguards towards ensuring racial harmony, especially when ironically, racism is being practised and perpetuated to some extent by the economic biases already inherent in our meritocratic system.

Someone was telling me that Singapore was a better place to live in as compared to somewhere like Australia or the States where they might still practise racial prejudice. But for the most part, this can be rebutted as firstly, prejudice isn't a big thing in the cities anymore. It might still exist in some places where the towns are smaller and where the existing migrants there have given the rest of us a bad name, but for the most part, the people are generally warm, friendly and welcoming.

Furthermore, I think racism practised by another race is to me, more acceptable than racism practise by your own race. Hands up, whoever has gone to a store or a restaurant in Orchard Rd or some fancy hotel, and have the ang moh next to you served first, or with a bigger smile? How about when you and an ang moh both turn up in shorts at a fancy restaurant, and the ang moh gets allowed entry while you get denied entry, simply because you are the same skin colour as the person serving you and the ang moh? What about on Singapore Airlines; as long as you're not first class, you're not going to get better service or a brighter smile than the ang moh next to you.

Isn't that the case here in Singapore? And isn't it sad, tt our own people discriminate against us? Even the higher-ups discriminate against us. An ang moh expat doing the same job will command a higher pay than a local - why? Because of his skin colour. It's not just the financial sector, even ang moh teachers command more than local teachers. The justification for this is 'foreign talent', but truth be told, talent can never be as measurable as the foreign element.

So in this so-called multi-racial society... are we really living in so-called 'harmony'? Or should we just wake up from this myth and realise tt we're being spoon-fed too much rubbish for our own good?

hello there
the angel from my nightmare
the shadow in background of the morgue