i love* arsenal

i hate arsenal. just when i thought they would stand up like men and be counted....the pussies rolled over and instead of giving Southampton (who are second lowest in the league) a damn good rollicking at Highbury, they allowed Southampton to break up their play, fannyed around on the ball and decided to leave all the tackling to Pascal Cygan and Toure.

people like viera forgot how to tackle. people like henry forgot how to score penalties, even if he did make up for it by scoring a goal later that looked suspiciously like he was offside. bergkamp reminded me of myself with his first touch flying away to the touchlines and reyes was the inimitable punching bag again.

arsenal have hurt my trust in them. its like finding out your wife has been having sex with the air con repairman when all this while your relationship with her seemed to be going fine. i placed -2.5 goals on arsenal cos i thought they would rule at highbury. furthermore, after getting eaten by Man U last week, that they would put their hands up and go "ok, no more bullshit" and set about demolishing the pretenses of Southampton.

but noooo, all they could do was cause my five bucks to go to waste. once the first half ended without goals, i was thinking "thats it man. thats five bucks down the drain" looking at the way they were playing, southampton didnt need to park a bus in fron t of their goal. their goal keeper could have took a lawn mower and started cutting the grass in the 6 yard box and still they wouldnt have scored.

thus, you can see why, perfectly, justifiably so, that i hate arsenal. May God Bless Them.

Another one is Chelsea. basket, i thought those goons cant score so i placed 2, 3 goals on them and suddenly they started becoming arsenal and plumped 4 past west brom. what the faaakk.

but seriously guys. i have learnt my lesson. i will not bet again until after the A levels. my temperament and my pockets cannot allow this to go on. i resist eating too many meals for the whole week so i have cash to bet and then....arsenal and chelsea let me down. so yes, screw them and ill go have a burger now.

*contrary to what he has just said, Tim really does love arsenal. really. if youre name starts with a J, please do not be too offended. Tim will treat you (J) to ice cream.

Reminesce (girl of my dreams)

they say that people tend to reminesce about their childhood cos thats the only time when they were truly happy. maybe this is true to some extent but i think its also cos its in the past and thus it can never be revisited again; like some magical Secret Garden that has been forever sealed up to you.

one of my very first tuition centres (being singaporean, i had lots of tuition) was this one called Morris Allen. some of you may have heard of it or even been to it. i went there for English tuition, not that i needed it haha but i had lots of fun there so i wanted to stay (odd huh, having fun at tuition).

basically i was taught by ang mohs and they were good teachers. if u didnt listen they would ream you out and they were typically direct in their quaint ang moh ways. i remember my teacher was impressed that at primary 4 i knew about Adolf Hitler. i wonder why. lots of kids know lots of things anyway, maybe she came from the dark ages. its sometimes funny how the older generation fails to realise that kids are getting smarter these days. i know ill probably make the same mistake next time. like mistaking my two year old son for playing with a "dangerous" toaster when he's actually repairing it. or something.

but the real experience that impacted me at morris allen wasnt some teacher or some arsehole. quite funny, but it was actually a girl and the full extent of it didnt strike me until years later.

you see, there was this girl in my class called Phoebe. at that time i was damn swakoo (mountain tortoise) so i thought her name was pronounced "Foe-Bee" instead of "Fee-Be" (phonetically, at least)

well, morris allen has its own "gifted" programme and i happened to be in the class of "gifted" pupils, the only exception being that while the rest in reality still went to mainstream schools.
but that is a small matter, cos i guess Phoebe was as gifted as they come.

you know, its interesting when i look back in child hood and think of all the different people that ive met and how lots of them are actually gifted, or more gifted than i am. it always amuses them when i tell them they could be in the GEP. maybe they dunt believe me; or maybe they just dont see intelligence in the same way that i see it. academics is a rather small matter. only singapore makes it out to be the be all and end all of everything. sad to say.

but i digress. Phoebe...she was one spunky, fiesty girl. she was short. shorter than me, which at that time (and now still) is quite an accomplishment in itself. i wasnt used to having people shorter than me so i guess i made the fact very obvious.

Phoebe was loud. she was brash, like me. we were pretty much the same. competitive.(i always beat her at worksheets anyway) outgoing(yes last time i was a LOT louder than i am now)

Phoebe always happened to sit next to me in class. this fact was not apparent to my pre-adolescant mind until i told my mom of that "irritating girl who keeps sitting besides me in class". my mother, being the conservative, and hence perceptive chinese woman that she is, told me not to "get involved with girls at this young age". to which i replied "huh??" in any case, my mom made me promise not to sit next to Phoebe anymore.

so the next lesson i went back and Phoebe as usual was going to take the seat next to me so i just moved to another seat. please realise that i was still a staunch christian at this young age so sex and girls were no-go areas for me. besides, the hormones werent at work yet.

i cant really remember what the reaction of Phoebe was because i honestly didnt take notice. i mean, if u were in my position, you wouldnt take notice either. but the time came for "book borrowing". every week, we are supposed to borrow a book and bring it home for reading. the books were colour coded according to reading difficulty and i always picked the most difficult books. not to suit my ego mind you, but cos the rest were simply to pussy to read. no, seriously.

so anyway, i settled on this Mensa Brain Book thing or something like that and along comes Phoebe and wonder of wonders, she wants the bloody same book! well of course you cant have it, i took it first! but Phoebe wanted it, oh yea.

after class, i went to get my bag from the locker and Phoebe kinda followed behind. being short, i mistakenly placed my bag in the topmost locker and so i was having a hard time reaching the lock with my keys. Phoebe had hers on a lower level so she got her bag out pretty fast. and seized her moment.

she grabbed my book from me. that wanker.

so of course what do you do? you act like a gentleman and let her have it right? fuck no!! i wrenched it back from her but she was pretty strong for a small girl. and for some reason there was no teacher in sight. theyd all gone home or were having sex in their office or something. even the receptionist was gone. it was just me and her. mano a mano.

so we tussled and she grabbed the book to her chest and bent over a chair. and so i encircled her from behind (yes i realise that this is very graphic but hey i was an innocent kid ok) and i managed to get it free. but she came up behind and started scrabbling for it again.

looking back. that was the very first time i ever felt a girl's tits on me. (but of course in the middle of a savage fight for the book you love you dont think about this)

so in the end i was damn frustrated. look, if u want it so badly you can have it! for God's sake. so i just let her have the book and i got my bag (finally) and i started walking down the stairs.

in a moment she was out after behind me as well. "here, Take Your Stupid Book Back!!!" and she promptly flung it down the stairs. i picked it up and walked away. bitch.

Phoebe didnt hang around for long. after a few more lessons she was gone. to where i never really did find out. its strange cos i felt a loss when she left. the classroom was a bit too quiet. but i didnt think much about it. 10 yr olds dont really think about people coming and going. at least not this 10 yr old.

looking back one day on the whole incident, i wonder what made me remember, i realised that Phoebe liked me. the evidence is there. competition. outward expression of hate but with no real substance behind it. she grabbing me. hell man, i was hot.

heh, its funny how nostalgia plays funny tricks on you. ive wondered if i somehow met Phoebe on the road today....would i recognise her and she me? would i like her? i guess i would, always liked fiesty girls with a zest for life. maybe she's changed, maybe not.

i lie in bed sometimes and i wodner where she is, and what shes doing. you know, mindless, aimless adolescant wondering that probably has no use and no purpose. and i sit and sigh (i wonder why i sigh too). if only i could meet Phoebe, the girl of my dreams, literally haha

i guess its really through rose tinted glasses that i remember Phoebe fondly.

where ever, you are now Phoebe, bless you. and i hope we somehow meet again. if not for the fact that i think ud be really good in bed.

but hey man, i was hotttt

still am....OKAY?

1986

why is it that we sometimes want to hurt the people that we love the most? its funny how the pain you feel is both a part of you and yet not a part of you, that when you look at the person walk silently away, that some empty black hole somehow seems to open up inside of you and it sucks at your innards, like some greedy baby suckling on a teat.

and then you think: hey, this can get better. all i have to do is ....... and then you realise that some part of you doesn't want to do it because somehow, if the memory stays painful, not pain painful mind you, but nostalgic painful, then it would somehow be immortalized inside your memory.

sometimes i think familiarity takes away that air of mystery. familiarity takes away the rose tinted glasses and the soft-spoken rememberences and leaves us with the bitter reality. somehow, by breaking the connection forever, we can both have our rose tinted memories to fall back upon. we'd always remember ourselves as those who loved and were loved.

i guess you kinda get hurt both ways, but one way is bitter reality, the other is different. its like flying away on the clouds. flying so so far away and leaving everyone behind. and though you know that you'll have new experiences and new, wonderful things happening to you in the clouds, that the feeling of leaving youre loved ones behind, leaving your life behind...its like a double edged knife that cuts through you on one blade and soothes you with its cool metal on the other side.

i bet everyone feels this way sometime or other. i bet you've felt it too, as you read this post, you're wondering what's so special about this one, what's so different?

the point is that it isnt different at all. its all the same. but then again, thats also what makes each and every experience so different.

am i making sense? i dont think so. not many people will read this post and understand what i am trying to convey, maybe you think you know but youre thinking of something else. but hey, dont let that stop you. you perceive this post as you would perceive a flower blooming. some see beauty and potential for a full life; others see nothing more than another life cycle.

i suppose life's all about cycles, isnt it? we are born, we live and then we die. somewhere in between we fit in meaning and change and growing up and all the other multitudes of things that a life can hold. such fullness, such ripeness, such pity.

the pity of it. of leaving something you love behind. love is like holding water in the palm of your hands. if you grasp it too hard, it will just flow through your palms. sometimes you just have to relax and cradle it and only then will it fit nicely.

sometimes you have to let go i guess. you have to say goodbye so you can fly off into the clouds and maybe over there you will find what you are looking for. and if you dont then i guess its a long long fall all the way to the ground...

but we pick ourselves up again and we try, like Icarus, except that we never die. there is no ocean to fall into because we've used the droplets of water to build our dreams in the skies. how quaint.

cycles of struggle and trying. isnt that what epic poets dream about? isnt that what Calliope gifts us? monumental struggles of human existence, and somewhere, between a cup of coffee and a smile to yourself, you believe that it is all worth it. and it is.

and you wake up one day and you find yourself...where? in the clouds or on the ground? another struggle to fly again, to search for that castle in the sky. it never ends, maybe thats why it fascinates us. it also never really begins, thats another reason why we are drawn to it. the whole struggle. the whole existence.

so i guess its time for us, for me, to fly. and leave you behind. but dont worry, youll never forget me and ill never forget you because we have our rose tinted memories and in the end thats all that matters.

how far do you think it is to the sky?

what i learnt about myself today

i realised today, that i am a wuss. not your everyday wuss mind you, but i well bred kind of wuss. if i were a dog, i would be a siberian husky kinda wuss, not a mongrel kinda wuss.

today was the day i played soccer (field) in Bishan Park with my cousin's friends and some army regulars.

well, the army regulars played like arsenal and we played like liverpool. they had one touch passing and dribbled past our defences like nothing. and appearances are indeed deceiving. they were mostly fat, old man (lotsa indians) and these fat, old man had more strength, stamina, skill, pace, power than our team, which comprised mainly of young punks; with me being the youngest punk.

i realised field soccer is all about vision. or rather my lack of vision. i didnt know where to run, who to pass to and as a result ended up taking on people as a last resort. with the ball merely rebounding off the black wall every time. sian man. i think my team was quite sian of me as well haha.

but that does not sum up the wussiness yet. everytime the ball was with the army guys, i somehow lacked the balls to challenge for it. when they do a lofted pass in front of me, i bend down and squeeze my eyes shut.....what the fuckkk??!!

look, i also dunno why the hell i kept doing it. its like your mind keeps telling you that you should stop and youre being an ass but your body responds out of some primal-fear like instinct.

geez.

so i had to find ways to "prove my manliness" and like a little kid i set off running about. although the game was more or less not a physical one, rather one of skill, i picked some poor sod who happened to have the ball and i dived in two footed for the tackle.

"woauh lau eh!!"

and i got an elbow on my head.
then another guy came over to help out and i was bundled over. mighty heroic eh?

so let me sum up the game. i was selfish. i was an arse. and i was super-duper unfit. within 5 minutes i was dead already and panting like hell. the other people looked at me like i was some lunatic.

yea well, but i guess there can always be positive things about such situations. playing against a higher opposition will always make u improve and i guess we can all learn a few things about ourselves in the process.

see, its all about being positive!

yea right, im still a wuss.

on white horses and elitist bastards and squash

the realization that we were elitist bastards came a few days ago when we were sitting in the canteen. joseph, jianwei and myself came to the conclusion that we speak in an acrimonious way concerning ITE people and poly people because of the fact that we are surrounded by people from the upper social strata. it was then that i realised that from my secondary school years, that i have been an elitist bastard. the only person who only became a current elitist bastard is jianwei.

so how did it feel? well, i guess its politically incorrect to say that it felt good but hell it did. an upon writing this, i am struck with the sudden fear that should i wash out and end up selling 4D tickets on the roadside, that i will look up one day, at the man in the posh suit and go"elitist bastards...all of 'em!"

upon learning that Alex was reporting on the same day as me, i was struck with the sudden realization....could this be it??? could i, finally, be in a White Horse Company? the holy grail of army life? there is a high chance that we could end up being in the same company and it would be interesting to see company commanders lick alex's boots, and by association, ours.

the saying goes : if you can't be a white horse, then be in the same area as a white horse.

so what exactly is a white horse. well, conspiracy theorists and friends in army selection reveal that a white horse refers to someone whose parents are prominent members of society. for example, if you're father is a diplomat, minister, or owns some fricking large commercial venture, then u'd pretty much be certain that you would be a white horse.

so what do white horses do? everything. everything's the same as normal army life except that you get a lot less abuse and cut more slack , more tuanging, more siamming, more slacking, all of which is music to our ears. who the hell wants to go dig ditches and shit in a designated shit field when you can have it all the better.*

*the author's claims are ludicrous. please do not believe them, especially if u are a government official.

acjc is a haven of white horses. you turn left, you turn right, everyone''s daddy is rich and working in the civil service in high positions. ok, thats an exaggeration but i could name you at least 4 or 5 white horses that i know of and that is no small number , considering the fact that they dunt all go in at the same time. so you could be lucky and be in the same company as one. dont give up hope. i know i havent.

i discovered the game of squash at Ben's condo yesterday. Ben's condo is tucked in a charming corner somewhere in Toh Tuck. if the alliterative nature of the name isnt enough to charm you then the sprawling (by singaporean standards) vistas and lush greenery would.

we started out by having a 2 hour game of pool in which we had much fun jacking alex. we kept putting jianwei's balls into the pocket when he wasnt looking an we kept replacing his potted balls on the table. blur alex didnt even notice, at least till we started laughing.

so after that, it was time to break my virgin squash cherry. squash is a terrifying game, i can tell you. there are so many instances where you can get hurt. i classify it as a game that is more humcheefying than soccer. if youre opponent hits you with the ball, he gets the point. how spastic is that? you experience pain but salt gets rubbed into the wound even more. so it was that alex's ball struck my arm and left me with a nice blue black haha. there were also a few instances where the returns would whizz apst my head, narrowly missing. scary indeed.

but all in all its a very tactical and fun game. but its still scary, mind you.

i am trying very hard to study but somehow it fails me. i keep thinking of life after the As. i guess my worst enemy is myself. sigh. time to get back to selling those 4D tickets....

i love new toothbrushes

ive been fucked!

well, the title above is to do with my army posting.

but lets digress for a while.

a friend of mine called me up today to well, air his grouses. i guess he has a valid point and im glad we sorted things out. i do hope he's doing well and doing what he wants to do. i guess its not easy to hear unpleasant things about something which you truly love so much but you cant have everything in life i guess.if i offended you then im really sorry but i believe i was expressing my emotions and how the impression of the incident was applied upon myself. my reality is not the same as yours, obviously and i write this merely for myself, not as a reflection of you or your company.

so now thats settled lets move on to the larger issue, which is the army.

i have been nicely posted to BMTC 2 (basic military training centre 2) at 12.45pm on 8th January 2005.

this is bad. cos i have less time to slack away (i had hoped for an april posting) and also cos i will be spending my birthday in an army camp (9th jan)
coupled with the fact that tekong is one of the elast savoury places in Singapore and the fact that i dunt particularly want to meet other adolescant half males or macho-wannabes THAT soon, it pretty much made my day today when i found out the news from my parents.

(They allow 5 tickets for family members to Send You Off)

i never really understood the significance of sending your kid off to NS. i mean, youre gonna see him in 2 weeks time anyway, whats the big deal? i feel like a caged animal, being hauled away in a 3 tonner while my relatives smile an go "look at him! hes gonna be a man now!" yea, if sharing your private space with a few retards means youre gonna be a man then i guess army is one big Adventure! well, at least ill be tolerant. just hope no one has body odour.

i mean, theres much too much importance dedicated to such sending off ceremonies. its like suddenly, you seem to transform and rocket into another stratosphere of your life. category switched from school-going adolescant into low-life army half man-boy.

anyway, the next reason why im fucked is cos i bet on the wrong team.

now, i am , i was, a virgin bettor. at least till yesterday. i decided to try betting on football, a la Singapore Pools cos well, making more money is always good, especially if your allowance doesnt cover your lifestyle expenses. so off i went to the singapore pools outlet near my school in Dover.

upon entering the shop, i surveyed the interior with a cool eye, then directed my attention to the screen above showing the various odds and teams. trying my very best to look professional in my acjc canoeing tanktop, i saw that Fenerbahce vs Lyon appeared to have great odds of 4.65 for -1.5 goals(fenerbahce). thinking "wow! shit! are they kidding? lyon will never plump 2 past fenerbahce at home!", i went to the counter and said "champions league, fenerbahce, minus 1.5 goals"

the net effect was the woman looking at me as if i was an idiot and saying something in mandarin.

so i took a look around, and i discovered, horror of horrors, everyone was holding a betting slip with the exception of yours truly.

so thats how you place a bet. i went over and shaded in the nice circles and plunked 10 dollars, figuring ive just made 46.50 thank you very much.

i met my friend outside the shop. "hey, theyre offering fenerbahce minus 1.5 goals. why dont u bet sure win one. lyon will never score 2 goals plus."

my friend: "huh? -1.5 goals means fenerbahce has to beat lyon by 2 goals."

me:"ohoho. really?"
me thinking: "nahbei cheebye"

well, at least i can say i contributed to charity. for those not in the know, singapore pools is linked to the community chest! so do your part for society now and place your bets at the nearest local betting store!

meanwhile, the match is tonight. im a fenerbahce fan! you should be too!
we're playing at home and boy are we gonna plunk 2 past Lyon; those french wussies wont know what hit em.

the importance of being earnest

funny isnt it, how people only really start thinking about their lives when they hit a crossroads. it could be at 20, 30 or 40, anytime youve got a zero behind your age that means nothing other than the fact that you havent done anything with your life yet.

or it could be at any of those "crossroads" ages, like sweet 16, or 18, or 21, or 50. you know, ages that society plays up, ages at which u magically metamorphosize into some other being.

its funny how values change as well. we both have so different values. at least youre firm in yours. mine's so unstable that one moment i tell myself that safety and security and earning lots of money is what i should do in life and another minute im telling myself that its a sell out. that they dont tell you that once you start making money, you dont want to stop cos you cant.

on the spiritual front, its another ongoing battle inside for the property of Timmy, batteries included. christianity or the new age movement? and somehow timmy still believes that both can be reconcilied even when his pastor and his devout friend have told them they are diametrically opposed to each other. timmy wonders why there are no new age-christian pastors or why there were no new age guys who became pastors or pastors who became new age guys just so he can talk to them. he doesnt think they exist here in Singapore, oh no.

in some secret recess of his mind, timmy is scared. of what he doesnt really know. maybe its hell, maybe its meeting a ghost. maybe its meeting a ghost on pulau tekong during his ns stint (cos christians cant see ghosts, or rather, they never meet them cos of the holy spirit's protection). timmy's seen some stuff before. it could be ghosts, it could be himself, he never really knew what he saw but its real guys, more real than u can imagine. and its not like in the movies. if anyone ever told you he saw clearly, a woman dressed in red or the actual face of a woman, dont be inclined to believe him. unless hes naturally gifted, theres no way ghosts look clear or solid. so maybe if he believed in God the ghosts wouldnt come anymore. what a reason to believe.

funny isnt it, how i never thought about them. no, actually i did, but i guess canoeing an school provided an apt distraction. school still does, cos of the A levels but after that, what now? firm grounds gone away, time for shaky ground to start. feels just like work again, back in sec 3 an 4. knowing your boss thinks youre an idiot. your co worker says that yea you work hard but the boss aint very happy cos you dunt work smart. all the itty bitty details of working life that your friends somehow fail to see. they all think its one big beautiful world outside where they can set up their businesses and make loads of money.

well, i guess to some extent its true for them. theyve got the contacts, theyve got the money from their parents. why shouldnt they succeed? the rich gets richer while the poor gets poorer. anyone who claims they arent rich are simply lying. the poor dont have to claim anything, they just look at you with sad sad eyes and laugh in your face.

just the other day on Sunday, ok yesterday, i was seated around a table in church with my cousin (whos 27) and some other 20 plus yr old guy. for some reason, although we could talk, i felt seperated from them. maybe its the vast difference in ages but if you think about it its not so vast. its simply cos we both belong to different social stratas. one which i am about to enter. time to start reading up about global and local issues. time to read every damn thing that man wrote.

its kinda funny isnt it, how we all try to fit into society when some of us want to et away from it and just live life far from the madding crowd.

i suppose its this innate desire to "see the world", to go places like the artic regions and the deserts, places where nobody lives, in the hope that somehow, by going there, timmy can save himself. how heroic. how empty. places are what you make of them. timmy isnt better off saving himself in Iraq and seeing the horrors of war than he is here in Singapore trying to eke out a living.

how to reconcile? when a part of you wants to go away an grow and touch the stars, maybe come back alive and with a little knowledge and the other part of you says stay here, contribute to society like you should, its ok to take the beaten path that everyone else takes.

there is no way that these two things can be reconciled. not now, not ever. timmy is dead. long live timmy.

graduation

as of yesterday, i am no longer a student of ACJC. its kinda funny, cos people are supposed to feel sad when these kind of things happen, and a few of my friends and teachers did the customary crying during the ceremony and afterwards.

for me, well, i guess you'd only cry if it really impacted you. i mean, my jc life has been so short that there has been almost no emotional stake involved in it. im not some guy who has been through 12 years of ac education like the rest. ive been to different schools so i guess ive always been more of a wanderer rather than a stayer.

another reason would probably be because there is a time lag involved in these kind of things. maybe next year, when you wake up at 7 o clock in the morning and you go "oh shit! im late for school!" maybe then it will strike you that you have no more school and that its never gonna be the same again.

right now, nope, nothing's stirring inside. the only thing ive really felt is a sort of relief, that it is finally all over and we can get down to what really engages us in life. jc in a way was stifling. jc was also damn fun. jc was short and that is good cos you cant be stifled all the time, even though youre having some of the best fun youve had in your life.

maybe it could also be explained by the lack of friendships i have in this school. hey dont get me wrong, i do have some really good close friends but when u look around and people all around are taking photos with each other, well, you cant help but feel a little left out sometimes. i mean, theyve known each other for 8 to 12 years and youve only known a few people for 2 years so i guess theres a vast disparity in terms of familiarity.

the valedictory speech told us to reach for the stars and live our dreams. how cliche, even though it sounded good. not many of us will really live our dreams. not many of us will reach our stars. we might get bogged down with a day job that never seems to go anywhere. we might get bogged down with family committments (unless thats your dream). we might work so hard that we sacrifice everything else in life. so yea, i guess that its easier to say such things than do them.

so, with the cliched speech in mind i walked out of acjc. not for the last time mind you, i still have to come back an take the a levels. but deep inside, the feeling is that of a business deal. theyve given me so much in terms of life experience an oppurtunities and ive tried my best in return to give some back.

so i guess ill thank my teachers for their wonderful support and those friends that are true to me here.

and after that, what happens? maybe sometimes we'll meet up, maybe we'll drift away. maybe ill come back to serve the school, although that is highly unlikely. everything seems so transient, at this transitionary stage of our lives. no angst i guess, theres nothing to be angsty about. its just that, its a combination of jadedness and excitement, if ever such contrasting emotions can come into play together.

the knowledge that u can do absolutely whatever you want after jc life. and the knowledge that you too, are pretty tired of jc and pretty apprehensive about going into the real world, where politics are paramount and image is just about everything, as is connections.

ive always hated ac for the image driven aspect of it, but i realised that its what makes its people so adaptable and well liked.

haha, like a naive child that learns there is no santa claus, i step towards the real world. i leave behind more naivety and i take with me more hope that somehow, i can survive all this.

thanks for all the great times guys.

a time long forgotten

you know, it almost seems funny the way we met. i thought you were a nice, cute girl and you are a nice, cute girl.

and somehow it also seems as if we both knew it was just waiting to happen. couples that don't talk aren't very normal i suppose, even if we are both cordial to each other.

and so it happened today as i took the bus back to school from holland v, a nagging feeling plagued me that this was it, that it was gonna end today. was i scared? yea i guess so, you're always afraid of these kinda things, always afraid you wouldnt be strong enough to withstand it.

somehow the image of a roller coaster came into my mind. the moment just before you plunge into that dark dark tunnel, the wheels screeching, the coaster bending, turning like a deranged animal, throwing you around and around and you dunt know when its gonna end.

just waiting at the top of the drop, waiting for hell to break loose, i guess that was someting like how i felt just now. but somehow, i guess i also remembered that roller coasters had seat belts.

so i went back to school. thoughts in a flurry. went to the hub but my friend told me she was in the gym, so i guess there was where i went next. how ironic, that the place where i spent most of my time would be that place.

we talked. i cant remember about what exactly, details elude me, only the vague references to she needing stability and security and i being immature and playful. also something about her being cold naturally and stand offish.

well, i guess the only real words i heard came after i asked her a question:
"so, youre just waiting after a levels to end it lah?"

what does it feel like to have something which youve dreaded confirmed in front of you. yea sure, youre prepared for it but it still gives u a tingle, it still zaps you some.

i guess the past few months have been something like a premonition. what does it feel like to continue living in a relationship that you know is doomed to end one day? do you continue to put in effort in the hope that things might change? i guess i did this. do you just heck care cos its gonna end anyway? i guess i did this too.

ambivalence is well...a hard to explain sensation. its almost like a crush kinda love. sometimes you feel as if ure on the most absolute high when we both verify our feelings. sometimes, when tings dunt go so well, you feel as if its gonna end right now.

i guess tings arent very ambivalent anymore. but i hope we both left with fond memories. i know i have. things are hard for her as well and i hope i can be there to support her.

i think that it is pretty hard to convey just what i am trying to say right now. the feelings are all around me. its like a mini windstorm thats unfurling around you but you feel nothing inside.

perhaps the best way to remember this would be by feelings.

it felt like the sun on a rainy day
it felt like a moon on a cloudless night
like the trees on a stormy bay
like the fire that burns in the night

so i guess this is really it then. i dont think we'll ever go back again. i don't think we would want to be together again

its like two horses pulling in two seperate directions. one that wants to run far away and one that hopes to fly.

maybe in another world we could have been together. just maybe. how romantic.

two horses running away. two horses pulling astray.

i guess when we do look back on this 30, 40, 50 years later, we';d both laugh and think "was i really that silly? pwah!!"

or maybe it will be a time long forgotten. who knows, as time passes and we never see each other, maybe we'd be relegated to the dusty corners of memory....

but hey, i'd always have fond memories of you

spider sense tingling

about a few moons ago, (yesterday night) i went to a "recognition dinner" that was held in my friend's honour. apparently he works for some company and he had invited a few friends and myself for the company sponsored dinner.

so like your typical singaporean guy, hard up for free food, i went. well, actually, the main reason was to support my friend cos he's an old friend. i actually had better things to do.

so anyway, once i was there, the moment i stepped through that door to the company office, it felt wierd. i couldn't describe it. it felt as if it was a very poorly masked attempt to try and catch as many new heads into the company as possible.

"oh no, this dinner is not about getting new people to join" ---my friend

so it struck me as mighty strange once the company bigwigs started going up one after another and impressing upon us slogans like

"you set your own limits"
"6 people working in a room half the size of this can make 120,000 US dollars in 2 months!"
"do you believe that i can make 60K a month? its possible! cos i just said that infinity is the limit!"

ok, so this isnt about getting people to join, more of lure them with prospects of get rich quick schemes, "success" (do you want success? YES!!), and "friendships" (we have a lot of fun here! most of us dont even want to go home!)

its pretty ironic that they couldnt smell their own poorly thought out and executed rhetoric.

coupled with the fact that they made a lot of hoo-hah about the importance of grooming and impression, (look at this young man! when he first came in, he was ..... now, he's ....!!!) assuming that there was a drastic change of extreme-makeover type. well, what change i could see was that my friend was wearing a 150 buck suit from Topman, which is a middle class range brand for young adults with little cash to spend.

also, one of the MCs was this guy who spoke broken english, paused a lot, made funny jokes (ohohoho), and changed from jovial to serious when the business side of the company started to express itself.

so well, i guess they made a great impression on me. i promptly walked out with my other friends once a lull in presentation took place.

"i hope you live your dreams"

was the last words i said to my friend as i shook his hand. i dont really know how much hes making or whether he was enjoying himself or whether he himself has been fooled into beliving his company's philosophy of them being caring towards their employees.

u have to be caring i suppose, cos i think the more employees you got, the more money u make.

i really do hope he can "retire by 25, latest!!" and that his pursuit of success gives him happiness (and a lot of cash)

strangely enough, when they were all harping about success and how HongKong people went out and took it while singaporeans were flaccid, i thought about the book Kenneth let me read just before we went down for Junefest.

"you cant aim for success cos success is what comes after, it is a result, not a goal. aim at success and you'll just miss the point"

hmm....

well, i guess i will never be successful like them. not by a long shot. working 13 hours a day and not being able to see your kids (which is what their CEO does) is not something i would wanna do.

maybe im just lazy.
maybe im not ambitious.
maybe i just want to be a bum my whole life.

yea, i guess thats it.

this blog is back

about some time ago, i had deleted my old blog and the reasons were that i had outgrown it, that it was nothing more than an egotistical representation of my online self. yes, i still hold to that view, but as a result, this blog will have as little links as possible and only those that i trust will have access to this blog, my mind, possibly my soul.

the reason for its demise was that it was egotistical.

the reason why it has revived is because i have a gut feeling that i am about to go through an intensely difficult period of my life.

we all know how its like when its 18. with the world supposedly at your feet, with the world waiting for your entrance....

this has come with a few new issues, and more than a few challenges and i can only hope that somehow, by writing it out here, that i wil somehow comprehend the truth of the matter, not to make a decision of myself, but to maybe see a little more clearly where i am headed.

why not write in a diary? hell, i hate writing and my handwriting sucks. i do enough essays in school already. typing is faster and thus i can keep my own stream of consciousness when i type. dont believe it? why the hell am i explaining myself to you anyway?

so here goes...right back into the rabbit hole of my own mind, here we go, down the hole.