12th May, 2005

currently in orillia, canada. using public library free internet access

well the days have been rather peaceful so far ever since hitting brechin with norman and alice on monday afternoon (during which normypoo tested my "infinite" patience by mistaking our "exit on 404North" instructions for taking the 404 Exit instead. but anyhow... my navigational skills aren't that great either, which accounted for us getting jammed on the 401 last night. whatever.

been going down to toronto for the past two days... went to eaton centre and the C.N. Tower which reminded me of the time that mom dad daniel joshy and i went just about 4 years back. things haven't changed much, just that i'm a lot more careful with how i'm spending my money. almost got some overly-expensive bath soap at sephora yesterday but on account of the fact that my wallet was in joe's bag and he was off shoe-shopping dunnowhere/loo-visiting and that i didn't have my handphone with me either, i didn't spend in the end! talk about rare. been eating chinese food non-stop ever since i left penn state on wednesday, too. i don't miss local food anymore.. been stuffed to the gills with good dimsum over and over again already.

yesterday morning normy alice joe and i went paddling on the lake... the resort is just off brechin along lagoon city, canada and the scenery just outside the room is really nice.. in the morning people drive their cars way up just next to the bank and start fishing. i could get used to this kinda lifestyle, only that i need to lose the waist flab so maybe i should just start paddling everyday - well, until we need to leave this saturday, that is.

okay. i'm running out of things to say basically because i'm slacking off. this is gonna be a good relaxing holiday and i'm doing nothing but reading books i borrowed from the university of iowa library before we left. carl hiaasen rocks.

  posted by juice.susceptible @ 11:31 PM

 
6th May, 2005

and when it matters, things work out. they really do.

i'm in joe's apartment (heh, sounds like that movie with the huge cockroaches huh) typing on his computer... it's been a whirlywind of two days of non-stop travel. well, kinda. i feel like i've concentrated so many experiences within the past two weeks that i hardly know where to start to update my beautiful public (yeah that means you *points at reader*).. been to new york city twice in 2 weeks, been to lake erie over the previous weekend and stayed at bohdan's place.

we start from yesterday, the hard goodbyes and the reason why my eyes still hurt.

i did cards for the people who mattered, though it took so much time and i really didn't have it, as a result of which poor darling angie my roommate (best roommate in the world - see, i didn't forget to mention your name!) has so many errands to do for me.. and normypoo as well.. he's gotta pay mil and sharon back for the twennies they lent me when i forgot to visit the atm. he's picking up extra novels for me to read while i travel... i'm halfway through arundhati roy's book already. okay, so see, on tuesday night i'm trying to pack.. 2am already and jiwonyboo and yeemeybaby come in to say bye.. they hand me jessybaby's little book of wisdom. i read it, start laughing like mad, collapse and burst out crying. i never knew myself capable of such trauma when it's not as if everyone around me's gone forever, never knew myself so sappy and full of tears. you'd think i'd be wrung out like a dishtowel after a day of crying but nooo... the body finds water in crevices of the heart. i keep the neon book inside my wallet... i know if i look at it again i'll cry buckets, so i don't. i do my laundry, and pack everything slowly but methodically, while angie gives up on staying awake with me and i pack till the dawn lightens but my head tells me i can take it no more.. and that i ought to sleep in my comfortable bed one more last time before it's time to go, take off the sheets and leave the bedpad on, take away the color that occupied my life for 4 whole months.

so i sleep from 730am to 10am.. berating myself for all the sleep i've gotten while i ought to have done other things. i visit the mail room and send a package to my darling yannypokes in redondo beach (sorry yins i didn't have the time to write a letter to go with it i shall do it soon... i was really busy and tag me when you receive the books)... send a package back home as well. too many things has this person with the gold bars. i weighed the suitcase in flushing, ny today and it was 94 pounds (hey mil it really IS heavier than sharon!)... so i brought only a small suitcase with me to iowa city.

took lunch with my closest buds in school... i'm so sorry i didn't have enough time to take one more last photograph with you guys.. but i really couldn't even eat the food stuck in my throat and everytime i looked at each one of you i couldn't swallow anything solid. right now i imagine each one of you looking back upon empty barren rooms, thinking about the good times we had, such good times they were! the memories will last forever, fresh photographs always, never fading in this mental scrapbook of mine. during the greyhound bus trip up (during which i passed by tussey mountain ski slopes all brown-colored and everything... *wistful sigh of remembrance of snowboarding days long past) from penn state to new york city, and during the two flights from la guardia to chicago o'hare and then on to cedar rapids, iowa, i played my mp3 songs over and over again. they remind me of spring break, bouncing in the car to the familiar tunes, they remind me of studying in washington lounge and in the 3rd floor mcelwain lounge with tons of food and warm hugs and love suspended like so many dust motes in the sunlight - cosy atmosphere. there's edwin mccain's i'll be (remember to keep that karaoke dvd norman), there's leann rimes please remember (which i sang as a voicemail to jessybaby and i wanted to post lyrics here but she beat me to it on her blog so go there to see how the song goes), there's the freshmen by the verve pipe and there's paula cole's i don't want to wait amongst other songs. the greyhound mix. the tears-inducing audio poison.

and once again i was high enough to see the cloudshadows.
like so many inkblots spreadstains across the tiny container trucks that looked like sticks of chewing gum stacked neatly in rows

got gail's and kim's letters in the mail just before i ran from pollock commons to my room to pack the final things.... fantastic timing gals. i shall write you two when i go on my summer travels... well actually i'm on my summer travels already, i'll write you in the week to come. anyway. i got picked up in a mercedes clk 500 (or was it 300?) and this wonderful wonderful couple aunty jasmin introduced me to in ny let me stay in their cosy basement for a night.. even brought me to dimsum this morning before my flight which i "tapao-ed" back to iowa. university of iowa is pretty nice, but quiet. the campus isn't as pretty as penn state, but the downtown nightlife is rockin'. went to play pool for awhile and there were so many groups of people dressed in matching tshirts going bar-crawling... totally nuts i tell ya. finals week is next week for them and they're busy getting drunk. some getting drunk while upside down. weird.

eyes are feeling sore. i'm going to get some rest. if you guys ever want to contact me, i'm accessible through my singaporean number or through my friend's number (from now till 30 may only! hahaa) at 319-3311-266. okay. i'm feeling kinda bad about how my luggage is spread out across the country.. about angie toting stuff back to pittsburgh.. normypoo carrying a novel and my vitamins from pennstate to toronto.. my hugeass mint antler in nyc. like at home where i couldn't stop the plague of hannahstuff from spreading from room to room... now i've infected US of A with my rubbish! haha.

  posted by juice.susceptible @ 11:29 PM

 
22nd April, 2005

currently in the new york public library using free internet access

yesterday was a harrowing experience courtesy of greyhound
got stuck in the middle of nowheresville literally. allentown
and the bus brokedown, overheated or something and the replacement
from philly took about 4 bloody hours to reach us
as a result of which I arrived in NYC at 1.30 am when I was supposed to reach by 8.45pm.

was I tired while waiting? I guess so... yet another story to tell the grandkids, if I ever have any that is.
made new friends and penpals and such.. this 67-year old man is compelled to create a gmail account because of me and the bus driver was reminiscing about his saigon days and his thailand experience during the vietnam war
and there were these two half brothers... one man was chinese and one looked hispanic and they shared the same father... we got to talking about politics and they were seriously anti-bush
there was this 32-year old californian limo driver who was extremely friendly but this other gal from state college was so apprehensive of me talking to everyone so freely she got all motherly on me
we watched SATC on my laptop... thank goodness for that sort of mindless entertainment during the long hours of waiting in a deserted parking lot

so yeah. i'm wandering aimlessly about the streets of new york city searching for a good photo essay... and i'm scared to approach people to ask them if i can tag along for the day and see their lives and tell their stories. seriously though, why am i so frightened?

there was this beautiful spring market fair inside grand central station and mom called while i was browsing through the handcrafted items and i wished she was there because, well, only moms can appreciate these things the best.

  posted by juice.susceptible @ 11:27 PM

 
14th April, 2005

life in short spurts of snapshot sentences: not in chronological order

playing frisbee in the pollock fields with people of different nationalities
eating pizza and drinking sangria as the sun sets on a black and white war movie
falling asleep in schwab with half a headset on and my head upon jon stewart's america the book
while someone lectures upon globalization
climbing to the rooftops to adjust the shades on the ceiling lamps
cotton candy insulation fluff sticking out everywhere in the moth eaten walls
immense irritation felt while watching sankofa and the history of black slavery
sin city: neon glow graphic portrayal done quentin tarantino style - booya! i see this one running the gamut for film analysis in the years to come
lying on my yellow blanket in the sun and listening to my laptop's tunes with friends
cutting my own hair (and what a chunk we cut!) with belinda and anya in my dorm toilet
getting told i look like "a rock chick" "a japanese girl" "something out of the flintstones" and "yebuda" (oh thanks dearie jiwony) in succession, thus leading to confusion as to what i look like exactly
thinking that this may mean the end of ever paying for a haircut
imbibing copious amounts of earl grey tea and honey water to avoid the onslaught of another sore throat
getting locked out by angie and being made out to be a poor thing "who has nothing, basically" on angie's answering machine
feeling weird with nothing in my pockets and strolling to the hub for a film project meeting in the cold wind, tshirt shorts slippers and all
climbing a tree beside the library for a photoshoot and getting scratched on the forearms
immense awkwardness as i keep on imagining how fugly i look and how i'm undeserving of being the subject of anyone's photography presentation
not being able to bleach my white shorts free of the strange yellow dotted stains that look like i spilled laksa on it (but how the heck, this place has no laksa)
jessybaby's angelic women's chorale concert in pasquerilla with the white and pink blossomed tree just outside
walking to carnegie at half past midnight alone in the knife that cut cold wind
beeyan's place making me feel wistful for something like that of my own where mom could run free with her imagination and design the interior whichever way she likes
playing taboo out in the open grass, saving a leaf for memory's sake
shannon allowing me to carry her everywhere, her hands full with a musical horse
working in eisenhower with my fingers full of splinters, operating the orchestra pit lift
learning that i should say "ahora, estoy despierta!" in spanish class to show i'm awake
watching little black book on my laptop and getting morbidly thoughtful
not believing in happy endings
director of life's photography - me! manual camera taking makeshift soccer team
getting primary-school-like grades
tilting my head in yihpin's car to look at the black expanse of sky diamond-studded
feeling insignificant yet very much alive
every second estoy despierta.





  posted by juice.susceptible @ 11:26 PM

 
8th April, 2005

the most bizarre situation of the night

a singaporean girl sits alone in the lightroom, wearing an old-fashioned pilot-like headset leaning against a metal cupboard trying to focus but still falling asleep on jon stewart's america 'the book' while pretending to be focused upon the lighting situation on some guy's talk about globalization, talking about friends' phoebe's "smelly cat" to george surya and marty on the phone

i got a free dinner today! put papa john's on the tab

i've climbed up to the light loft where the insulation padding sticks out in cotton candy colors in tufts, adjusted the panels to fit the spotlights onto the stage. remember thinking "man, this'd be one of the wackiest make-out spots in school, especially when there's the actual danger of plunging several feet down into the empty audience seats below"

and now, tonight i shall NOT sleep. i'll do my work till daybreak and sleep after class

  posted by juice.susceptible @ 11:24 PM

 
2nd April, 2005

i'll be the greatest fan of your life

today was great. edged with bittersweetness. knowing that with each weekend that comes and goes so quickly, is one more weekend lost, one more weekend closer to our departure and saying goodbye to the people we've lived with, breathed the same air and experienced the same joys and sorrows with. you find yourself wishing so hard that you could somehow freeze time in an instant. it's funny how the more i want to preserve a memory, that's when i leave my camera behind. i'm going to rely on my eyes and ears to take mental snapshots of you and you and you. from the way mildred crosses her eyes and sticks out her tongue and sets me off giggling nonstop till my stomach hurts so bad to the way faizal let me tickle him for 5 long seconds straight during dinner today to the way jessybaby and i just act all immature with one another and play a breathless game of chase all the way to pollock commons.

i forsook work when i finished my book essay at 3am in the morning and had a long chat with mildred on the phone for 45 minutes in the darkened washington lounge, my private large space, my discovery, somewhere i can breathe on my floor without disturbing others. then there was sleep, and then there was class accompanied by a garlic bagel courtesy of nice russell frank my professor. i didn't do my questions on zucchino though, and there was a sort of liberation in that i didn't complete all my work FOR ONCE. why am i slogging so damn hard? i've been handing in every single assignment on time and done it till i've lost so much beauty sleep. one tiny piece of misplaced paper won't hurt, i'm sure.

had a heavenly vanilla malt milkshake at baby's with floriaan, caught up with stuff and learnt about his 3 sisters and his pet cat that will miss him so much while he's here and away with us. he talked about how much he's going to miss faizal and how he's never gonna have another roommate like him. i wonder how we're going to say goodbye to our own roommates, hanwei and i. ag burst out with an "i'm going to miss you so much when you leave" when i came into the room yesterday, and angie declared "you're not ever gonna leave you're going to live here forever.". what do we say to these things? i'd sing the ernie song i love so much from sesame street.

boy i'd like to visit the moon, but i don't think i'd want to live there

and this is my moon, the place i'd never thought possible in my lifetime. the people are perfect and the days are so fine (despite the weather playing it's wonderful tricks on us - supposedly later today it's going to be a mix of rain and snow... SNOW???! it's april! a late april fools' day joke.) i'm going to try and cling on to every droplet of us, every sensation, every thought and heartbeat and hug.

back to today. we played a mix of frisbee, soccer and volleyball in the pollock fields. the sand from the volleyball pit felt like gritty snow and soon our feet turned pale white due to the numbing cold but we didn't care, we were having so much fun. maj and susanne's power serves helped our team (norman sharon me and the two danish gals) win. funny how sporty everyone's being, how much time i'm actually spending outdoors. in singapore, it'd never (well, rarely) happen, because of the mucky humidity. here, we unanimously agree that the natural airconditioning uplifts the spirit and just makes you wanna dance and play and hop and skip and kick. i think i'm gonna invest in a pair of rollerblades - i don't care how many times i'll fall already, in this semester alone i've probably fallen about a thousand times snowboarding and such.

we played pool in the hub and i think i'm getting slightly better at it. i'm determined to be really good before i come back home, no more embarrassment for me! we then headed to the board games where i taught the guys how to play risk 2210 a.d. .. admittedly i wasn't a very good teacher but still they managed to quite thrash me. wasn't thinking straight by 130am, i can tell you that. the blur stupor i was in also made me game for that karaoke thingy with mildred and norman... we sang for fun and the result was 2 dvds of our performances. time preserved in a goofy singing session. but you know what, i'll never regret it, and i sang it for us.

on sunday mil hanwei sharon and faizal are going to accompany some weird cornell guy out to philadelphia. i thought i'd be going, in fact, i really really want to go, but it's crazy, not everyone can fit in a regular-sized car anyway. i'm sad but it can't be helped, i'd better save up anyways and take a raincheck on the experience. fragmentation is the ultimate inevitability for us all, not everyone will be able to go through the same situations together anyhow. it's just a hard fact to digest. meanwhile, be huge beacons in the backseat for me!

one more month. no more long naps and sleeping for me... there just isn't enough time for all that i want to do.

  posted by juice.susceptible @ 11:22 PM

 
Thursday, March 17, 2005

it's a funny thing, being a human being

you yo-yo between extremes of feeling, from immense depression where talking hurts the chest and thinking simple thoughts seems so tough, to happy grins plastered right across your face and you laugh at the slightest thing. right now, i feel guilty for moving on so quickly, for thinking such self-centred thoughts like "how am i going to get all my stuff back to singapore the cheapest way possible" and "how the heck am i gonna finance my 2 months plus of travelling when i'm so broke after 9 days of spring break?".

i sit here with a heavy heart.. having just watched the movie far from heaven and had my heart wrenched out by its autumn-toned perfection turning to ugly depression.. how can i be so involved in something so unreal as film? if it depicts reality i get tired and unhappy and jaded. if it depicts cheesy fantasy, i get disappointed because i know nothing of the sort is ever going to happen to me. i should stop being a film student, seriously. i go and have dinner at simmons with my dearest friends here in penn state and they're like veritable rays of sunshine... i think i'll cry for days on end when i leave them. funny how attached you grow to one another in the space of a few short days, funny how easy it is to share everything with people whom you never knew a few months ago. funny how they're my friends, and funny how i know they'll be my friends for life.

the past few days since coming back from spring break have been really hard days... somehow coming back from florida sunshine into this dreary cold biting weather (the sides of my lips are already sore and chapped and it's only been three days!) gets everyone down and depressed. nobody smiles as much and everyone needs hugs periodically. so i'm happy that today's over and done with. i thought i was adaptable and that i wouldn't mind coming back to a snowy place... but no. i think i'm through with winter and i don't mind if the sun's back to play.. the fields just outside my hall are full of people playing various games now. spring is edging its way into my vision and i'm happy if it'd just come a little bit faster.

i remember sitting in the front of the car on the passenger side....staying awake most of the time but the possibility of a car accident occurring never once flitting through my mind (or perhaps it did but only for the fraction of a second),, reading my carl hiaasen doublewhammy book with its cutout coupon arabian nights makeshift bookmark... following the "toad" or the "jazzy" car... i forget whichwas michigan and which was indiana but i know the two cars had these license plates. was i ungrateful for not remembering to thank God for safety? the possibility of accidents or something happening to any one of us ... 13 in all from start and 8 at the finish - was so great yet we all got back here in one piece. (save for travelling on the bikepath accidentally when finding our way out of state college but that's another story)

spring break, march 5 - 13 2005. 13 people, me jess yeemey jiwon jinny sharon mil norman hanwei faizal taka floriaan nang. travelled over 3000 miles by car, through virginia, georgia, north and south carolina down to florida where we spent our days in daytona beach, orlando, miami north and south beach and key largo. 9 beautiful days spent with priceless company. we're all truly blessed to have such a fantastic time with one another.

and then i got back to reading my mass emails (what is IT with people and updating online address books which i'm sure they don't usea nyways) and found out that one of my hallmates from taiwan passed away in miami in a car accident... i felt empty that night, sunday night, with my bags all surrounding me and angie's television blaring away (yeah, now we have a television i gotta go somewhere else and study) and me deciding to head down to alice's room to see if it's really ethel that passed away. and it was. what do we do now? nothing, there's nothing you can do.

so i give her a moment now and then, of thought. of remembering her saying hi everytime we bumped into each other. of that short conversation we had in the corridor while i waited to pass a message to mil and hanwei before their spanish lesson. of that unfulfilled promise to go out with the taiwanese group for a study session or for dinner someday.

and time moves on relentlessly, callously

even while strolling these barren paths throughout the university to my classes, looking at the scrawny fragmented remnants of snow that fell while i was in balmy weather, i still stick my hand out to see if it's real. kinda like michael j fox in back to the future.... i expect to see a hole forming in the middle of my palm... a patch of invisibility. this is just a very long dream that i just haven't woken from yet. and then my mind wanders to so many other places that i've yet to see, just looking at the roof windows of the student apartments makes me think of other countries and all the other places in which i'd like to live before i go, believing with my innate sense of being invisibly protected... that innate feeling i've had all my life and have been taking for granted up till now. and then i think of ethel, and what the article in the collegian said today, about her being remembered forher outgoing love for travel. i got angry at the title of the article... it was "student recalled for love of travel" and i hated the word "recalled" because it should've been "remembered"... only that they wanted to make the words fit the column. the sports sectionhad a front page article that read about some medicine being"recalled".. . yeah. so you know what i mean. bad choice of words.

how come it's so easy to just pack things up and move on? would you do the same thing if it were me?

right now, i'm here for you and you're here for me. let's treat each other tenderly, please be there to listen to my grievances and i'll be there for yours. i'll ask no more after we part this may, but somehow i know this'll be true forever beyond this semester, at least for me. i'll always be there for you, and any time you need a hug, you'll know where to look.

serial dreamer had time to talk trash at 8:46 AM

  posted by juice.susceptible @ 4:00 PM

 
Monday, February 21, 2005

i'm so tired and i'm feeling lazy and everything aches and i don't wanna do my work

you know how we're supposed to be on exchange and thus passing is the only issue, we don't really need to get As? yeah well. there's tons of readings to be done by the week and unlike in NUS i can't really postpone all my readings till reading week (duh so THAT's what it's for!) simply because they have quizzes and such every single week. sigh... so yeah us sophomores seem to be just barely surviving while the guy seniors are cruisin' their way through everything. nofe'air.

summary of the week

thursday: went to watch this reaction to the vagina monologues, guess the name (duh, of course the male counterpart) and it was tremendously funny... ange and i managed to score the second row seats despite griping about being so far behind in this snaking queue around the forum building ... and bitching about people who just try to melt into the crowd BEFORE us by entering through the side doors and jumping queue... well we got prime seats! HAH! (and this is for a free performance by the way). anyways when angie and i came back to beaver we realised that there was this big crowd gathered in the hallway. apparently racist and homophobic insults (really bad ones) were being yelled at people in the stairways... and so the police came and there was a big hullabaloo (bet you haven't seen this word for awhiles) and we all have to attend mandatory hall meetings with our RAs (resident assistants who're usually students) and the police and the residence management.. which we just went for today because they take attendance. whew.

friday: went to IFH for a party... it was hilarious the way jiwon tried to escape tawon's advances... the clingiest of the clingy superglue kind! we would form a halo around her while dancing (they had turntable equipment... so cool.... and poor floriaan was so sad that not many people liked his brand of eurotechno but seriously i was okay with it) and he'd manage to weasel his way in. amaaazing. so we ended up hiding in faizal's bedroom with absolut vanilla (and sharon's transported to vodka heaven) and firework rockets going off from the frat house next door... and jiwon going fearfully "whOZAAt!" everytime someone knocked at the door... so yeah. we left the place at around 245am to get canyon pizza and partake in the age-old penn state late night tradition.the weekend seems to have just dissolved into nothingness... it being THON weekend (the largest student-run charity program, a 48 hour dance marathon) and me going to photograph it twice for photojournalism class, friday night/saturday morning i met kathy at 415 am at rec hall... it was utter chaos i tell ya. i hope my photos come out okay and that it's someone i have the name of or my friends know... so i messaged mil bon voyage at 6am and turns out she was still awake.. so i stayed with her till 745am when she left for her greyhound nyc-bound bus and i just crashed into bed (sans contacts, i still had presence of mind for my eyes) in the same outfit i'd worn the entire day... oh. so tired!

saturday: i wake to jessica's phonecall at 130pm and reluctantly take a shower to get ready for the malaysians' chinese new year gathering at east beaver... someone has actually put on the traditional music tape you hear at oriental emporium (or whatever it is now) and chinatown shops... jianmiandiyijuhua jiushigongxigongxi and there's LOTR on cable tv.... the mix seems rather surreal. i gratefully chomp down jess's beehoon and they've got red bean drink, good stuff!i then do laundry and spanish homework

later on in the day i head with norman to alex's (a swiss girl he befriended through salsa and we went to IFH together) place at blue course st... it's a beautiful cosy homey apartment and there's people from her IECP (or just english) class... everyone's from a different country! i meet people from japan (sent here by honda corp. to study engineering here as visiting scholars and they're delighted to know dad's car's from honda), korea, brazil, turkey, germany and of course there's alex from switzerland and norman and i are from singapore... there's 3 older people... two are a couple from the states and one's a lady from taiwan... when they leave the younger people (meaning us) start gelling really well and the turkish people start jamming on the guitar.. i think i like turkish music! haha. the atmosphere's really great and i love alex's homemade swiss bread and the fairy lights strung out about the whole place makes for a relaxed setting. linda's job as an au pair here in the states makes me want to be an au pair too! (mental note to self: probable job after graduating from arts if i don't pursue an honors/masters degree)

sunday: i wake real early to go for this combined churches service at eisenhower auditorium... it's HUGE and it's my first time being inside. i go with kim and her friends again from christ community church and there's 4 other churches there... (too lazy to look for the bulletin from today) and i'm amazed to see that down the rows way up at the front on the left side there's a sign-language translator.... her hands moving a mile a minute keeping up with whatever's being said on stage. the service was unique, people very much into worshipping and even the preacher's the sort you see sweating it out at the pulpit... getting so into the message that his forehead glistens ...you get the idea.

i then go back and head to THON again with alice... saw digger outside doing a promo for a local rock radio station and he hands me a free lunch card at some local steakhouse (all riiiight!!) it's a wait to get inside and light snow's falling... we get in just in time to hear the last two families talk about how THON's helped their kids suffering from cancer.. people are getting emotional and i feel something welling up inside too.. how this community is just so close-knit that people don't mind working together for the cause to fight cancer.. it's all about family and everyone knows everyone else and the tradition's going strong.. how come we don't have that sort of thing in singapore? for one, i can see singaporeans sneering at how cheesy the dances would be.. but seriously if everyone doesn't laugh but dances with all their might, i don't see how it could be deemed cheesy at all. we really lack bonding in our society i guess. maybe because we're all caught up in our own lives and if we interact with others we start making judgements and everything, not being able to look past dress styles religion skin color mannerisms sexual preferences - you get my drift.

alice and i head outdoors and the snowfall has intensified... everything's carpeted with a light layer of white and i happily crunch around making footprints.

serial dreamer had time to talk trash at 11:14 AM

  posted by juice.susceptible @ 9:41 AM

 
Monday, February 14, 2005

this is gonna be a quickie post right now because i'm in the beaver hall com lab and i'm waiting for my friend kim (yeah! made a friend with my dear cousin's name ;P) to come... we're going down to irving's .. one of the local cafes to do homework and read our books for my honors class, literature in journalism. i'm gonna be reading this book called "the right stuff" by tom wolfe.

yeah well it's been really fun so far... we had steamboat barbecue at norman's place on friday night to celebrate Chinese New Year and i'll be posting pictures on the same ofoto website soon as i get round to doing so...we had a great time and bought stuff from this place called the international market where i bought guo tie (dumplings) which were good but nothing like the real stuff from down at queensway and the hawker centres. sigh. i'm really busy right now with homework and such and my camera on loan from school keeps conking out on me it's so irritating! on thursday i went snowboarding and the ski slopes were melted and then refrozen into chunks of ice so yeah, my legs are again covered with multiple bruises. any day where the grass grows green on the ski slope is bad for the snowboarder.

went to a new church with kim this morning and made quite a few new friends while eating brunch (goooooood brunch, fresh strawberries, french toast, good ham, chocolate chip muffin... etc etc.) and the service was really interesting.. i think i'll continue going there. there's a van that picks students up from behind pollock halls so that's great for me and during service there were skits and movie clips and people dancing during worship whenever they felt like it... i really liked the relaxed atmosphere and it feels good to be back within a community that shares the same faith as i do. they use NIV Bibles and have no denomination, the worship team has 3-4 backup singers and the drummer's real good! so yep, things're looking up.

oh yeah, and they've deducted the money from my bank account for the insurance (524 bucks, i'll probably use the insurance if i ever get injured from snowboarding... my left ankle's been twisted so many times it's feeling rather weak) so i'm a poor person now... it's gonna be a great help when the transfer comes over on monday. thanks again ;)!

what i learnt today in sermon: 6 ingredients to sustaining a marriage communication, commitment, consideration, compromise, courtship, Christ and seeking Him first. got that mom and dad? happy valentines' day all! (though i'll be quite alone heh xoxoxo still from me!)

serial dreamer had time to talk trash at 3:30 AM

  posted by juice.susceptible @ 9:01 AM

 
Tuesday, February 01, 2005

it's 1130pm at night right now and i have tons of work but i feel like i should clear up some misconceptions

well basically i didn't know that my parents were having a bit of a major heart attack till daniel told me they read mil's blog (yes actually maybe i shouldn't link it but i can't post pictures and mil and norman's blogs are the places to go if you wanna see pictures so....) and then i went to check her blog out and oh yeah. i would be scared if i were my parents. well, firstly i'd say that it's all part of being in a new environment and partaking in a whole new culture. whatever you've read about and seen in the movies HAS to be true somewhere. now. for the comforting part, it DOESN'T take place in my dorm... all that excitement anyways. mil and sharon stay in mcelwain which is part of south halls which is about 3 minutes walk from my hall, beaver, which belongs to the pollock tribe. SO. completely different, and i have been having perfectly wonderful nights where i sleep straight through (and very nearly miss my alarms, so much like home, i've really settled down!). yes. every hall here is co-ed and sometimes even on the same floor, but BUT BUT there has been no instance of whatever mmhmmms going on my floor. okay? capisce? breathe easy now?

one more thing mom and dad, i don't need any more stuff, i am completely comfortable with whatever i have right now (though i keep wishing i had those waterproof downfilled coats with the big hoods but i will survive) and if i got anything else from overseas i would literally have to pay hundreds more to ship them back. i am doing my laundry on a regular basis, did my bedspread washing today and even gave the room a quick vacuum so yes, i'm ALSO doing my housework like a good girl should.

homework is piling up fast and examinations are on a weekly basis (well, almost. fortnightly?) and i went to the school library to study awhile yesterday (yeah on a SUNDAY) and i sat in a comfortable armchair facing floor-to-ceiling windows which overlooked the snow-strewn courtyard, a lone airplane streaking its way through the clear skies and the trees barebranched looking rust-red in the sunlight, as if the snow melted on metal. i went to the creamery today in school for the first time as well (yes the university has their own creamery) with my spanish classmate and tried this peanut butter swirl flavour... the people here are totally generous with their helpings of virtually everything. i see why the freshman-15 rule would come into effect although technically i'm a sophomore...

weekends are my only oasis in the onslaught of continuously waking up early so forgive me if i'm been lazy in trying to get up on time for church... i've been TRYING... okay this time i'll set 4 alarms, howzat. it's so much more difficult without parents hollering down my back to wake me for church and such, on weekends i wake at 1pm or later while on weekdays i always have to drag myself out of bed at 8-9am ish. sigh yes i know bad girl. enough, i berate myself adequately without others doing it for me.

lastly, i honestly don't know how to operate the online posting of photographs thingy (i HATE picasa i don't know WHY it doesn't work for me) and so everyone who knows me please email me for the password to www.ofoto.com and type in juice.susceptible@gmail.com for the email address. i have uploaded photographs to the first month in the states so far, yup it's been exactly a month and it doesn't feel that way, it's longer in certain aspects (like experience-wise because intense experiences make time more worthwhile) and shorter in some (like when i have 2 essays due at the end of the week and haven't started yet). i haven't really been missing people (this may make me sound coldhearted in contrast to mil's sentimentality) but i HAVE been surrounded by others, as apparent from photographs which you will see if you visit the site as instructed. it's not like i don't have a roommate that's never around or classmates that don't befriend me... in fact people from back home who're here with me are making me miss local food more than anything. ah well. that's it from me for now, straight up and honest.

takecaregottagobyes.

serial dreamer had time to talk trash at 1:28 PM

  posted by juice.susceptible @ 8:59 AM

 
Saturday, January 15th, 2005

i have many things i need to get used tothe key to the lock on my door turns left to lock. the taps in the bathroom turn inward.the cars drive on the other side of the road, and i got in at the driver's seat accidentally on my first day.it can be fresh and spring-like one day and the next, my lips and nose feel like they're gonna drop right ORF.they still play ddr here, two mats at a time, just like we used to eons ago.the skies are clearer, i can see the entire horizon stretching out before me with its burnished yellows and purpled reds. any random blurry photograph turns out to be beautiful by chance.you call adults by their first names here. well, usually.they have game nights on fridays and saturdays, i just played penn stateology. yeah, the monopoly kinda game, only this time it WILL cost you to go to the school library.my time is entirely my own.starbucks bottled frappucino costs 40 cents at the nearest dining commons.i keep bumping into the people i know over and over again JUST when i need to go for lunch.my lecturer provided bagels and cream cheese for the honours class in lit journalism today.there's 4 different flavours of icecream for every meal.there's 7 different flavours of coffee for every meal.i eat fresh salad everyday.abercrombie and fitch is less than 10 walking minutes away.i can leave breadcrumbs and sweet stuff out in the open for hours and there's NO ANTS whatsoever. maybe they're hibernating in the mushy grass leftover from the FIRST snowfall of the year, which left big brown balls (erm.) of slush lying on pathways for days till they all melted.everyone wears makeup to class except me. i just wear lipgloss. haha!i am underage. i cannot go into a bar without flashing my passport, which i believe will make my parents quite happy. the biggest basketball stadium i've ever seen in real life so far is just less than 10 minutes away and i've been there TWICE.i am so filled with school spirit and i've only been here for a week. i now know why we are so far behind in everything inspiration-related.i am feeling slightly better about myself because everything is swaddled in layers, therefore invisible.my friends' are ALL walking distance' away.i take vitamins and water more often than i ever used to back home.the singaporean group is divided by gender with regards to a silly game of collecting state-specific quarters. so far the sneaky guys are winning.i pay for everything using one card, and it gives me 70% off everything. granted, i forked out a 1000 buck basic downpayment.i feel panic with regards to photography, because now i cannot enjoy everything without thinking if the thing i am enjoying would make a good feature photograph.i let people on my bed in full dirty attire without thinking twice. now, THAT is something completely different.i get zero on a quiz but people urge me to just hand it in because "he just wants to see your name on it"i have free talktime on my plan after 7pm to 7am my time and on weekends, call/sms me at 814-222-0814 (notice my birthday occurs twice) if you're willing to pay international charges and just miss me so bad.my homework assignment for lit comedy class is to find out as many words as possible to describe/substitute for "drunken". i plan to educate my lecturer (who looks like a cross of hagrid from harry potter and gimli from lotr) on the word "seh". any more contributions besides "wasted", "gone already", "cannot make it", "ke liao" and "stoned" would be much appreciated.my eBay package arrived today bearing my textbook for less than half my school bookstore price.the skies bear their beautiful constellations, planets and manmade satellites in the crisp frigid air with a velvet dignity i haven't felt since that starry night in northern thailand.the days are flying fastand forgetfulness sets ini don't miss any thingonly you, and you and you.

serial dreamer had time to talk trash at 3:29 PM

  posted by juice.susceptible @ 8:57 AM

 
Monday, January 10th, 2005

the days are fraught with biting cold winds and not a sign of a snowflakei'm at the beaver hall computer lab... haven't gotten round to actually trying to connect my laptop to the lan extension in my room. it's been a really really busy few days so far... socializing with the other foreign students and settling in (FINALLY!) to my dormitory. it's rather cosy and my roommate just moved in this morning, she seems like a rather sweet person although she's super into rock music... nirvana, johnny cash and anti-bush posters adorn her walls while my side of the room remains blank. maybe i should buy some magazines and rip out interesting pages to stick everywhere... unlike my room back home which is full of my photographs and that sole poster of audrey hepburn which jovian gave me...if anyone wants to send me anything (except rotten food) send it to 402 Beaver Hall, University Park, PA 16802, U.S.A. i would totally love receiving anything in the mail...

well. so far i've attended one pennstate nittanylions versus michigan spartans basketball match at a huge stadium... i have never supported nus basketball before and there i was rooting for the penn state people... which sadly lost 50-something to 84. it was painful to watch and apparently the referee was super kayu... though i bet if we were to stand up and shout it into the arena people'd think we were totally mad. went broomballing the 3rd night at pennstate (it's like ice hockey without a puck, with a ball instead and broom-shaped sticks and normal shoes instead of skates) and fell smack on my knees... i've officially gotten the biggest bruise of my entire life. the right knee is all the colours of the rainbow and it's an interesting conversation opener.. good for making new, sympathetic friends. and last night, we went to this housewarming party thrown by two danish girls.. they're actually korean but don't speak a word of their native language as they were adopted since young. our music tastes unite in harmony though. music makes the world go round man.

the food selection at the nearby dining commons is completely crazy. now i know why i'm bound to gain weight before returning home. mil and i have pledged to do 50 situps a day but i sorely fear it will be a lost cause... imagine having a ponderosa selection times 3 for meals EVERYDAY. there's like 6 different kinds of dessert, soft icecream, hard scoop icecream, yogurt, 8 kinds of cereal, dunno how many kinds of fruit, icecream toppings, and all the main courses are absolutely LADEN with carbs but it all looks so damn good that i can't help but point to this and that... even the bagels are accompanied by 4 different spreads ... strawberry/blueberry/light/normal cream cheese.... ack. the coffee's fantastic as well, from seattle coffee company and the milk they provide in the containers ALSO comes in various flavours... i tried out hazelnut cream and irish creme today.

okay enough about food. school starts tomorrow and i fear being left behind... lost in my lack of experience and inspiration from singapore's lousy, monotonous scenery. the college here is a constant source of architectural fascination for me... i don't think i'll ever get tired of the mountains surrounded by low fog, the ski slopes in the distance and the mix of trees, some green-leaved and some totally bare. when the icestorms hit a few days back my friends and i acted like total suakus, touching the icicles that formed everywhere... on tree leaves, branches and on chain link fences. not a winterwonderland but an iced fairytaleworld. i'm still in a suspended state of disbelief.

serial dreamer had time to talk trash at 3:36 AM

  posted by juice.susceptible @ 8:54 AM

 
Tuesday, January 4th, 2005

well i'm now sitting in a newyorkcity starbucks... yes, starbucking as a verb, something i always wanted to do in this chilly weather and my peppermint hot chocolate and sesame seed bagel with cream cheese constituting my lunch, using the unstable spilloff from someone elses' wireless account as the one starbucks provides makes you pay (poo!). am missing people like joshy and family but not much else... the weather here is perfect, not a drop of snow though.hard to believe that so much time has passed and our short stint in nyc is over (for now at least). i'm finally alone without feeling guilt from making someone else wait for me... the victoria's secret sale just started today and the queues are crazy and the clothes not really that great. went to visit fao schwarz as well, got shown an interesting display of handmade kaleidoscopes and puzzles by a nice salesgirl (who wouldn't want to work in fao?) and goggled at the real life kid-sized ferraris and mercedes (only 15,000 USD!) and that huge sort of keyboard where people can stomp on to make music... only 150,000 that one. hahaa... makes you wonder how many kids have that sort of toys in their apartments. *shudder*

we went to visit rockerfeller center, the lincoln center and the natural history museum and we went to times square for the highly overrated new year countdown (think bad music throughout the entire wait of standing 7 HOURS STRAIGHT (mom would've collapsed i bet), bad logistics and oft-not working machinery and lindsay lohan being the only live act in the entire show... dick clark not showing and some fat geezer trying to be a mediocre emcee (NOT WORKING!!!... the crowd would boooo whenever he appeared onscreen and TRUST me when i say we were in desperate need of some entertainment) yeah... the ball was teensy and i don't care what they say about it being some special event... i think sentosa would've been better, at least they'd play more contemporary music instead of lousy 50s-80s music which would totally not get the audience bopping at all. what a disappointment!

anyway. it's been a wonderful few days, without any schedule whatsoever and no stress or running about to and fro... i'm finally getting my deserved rest. hard to believe that in a few days time we'll all be plunged into studies again. it all seems rather surreal to me.. am getting paranoid thoughts that i'm gonna arrive at penn state and be chased away with a "what are you doing here? you're not meant to be here!" kinda thang i'm just over-worrying, huh. meanwhile, we've been following the news on the tsunami here in US.. i hope nobody i know has loved ones affected. well the weather outside here isn't that frightful, and we leave tonight at 230 am for pennsylvania. take care everyone and ciao till the next update... bonne annee!

serial dreamer had time to talk trash at 3:57 AM

  posted by juice.susceptible @ 8:52 AM

 
Friday, December 24th, 2004

christmas eve at ours: not for the faint-heartedthis year we've been too busy to put up the christmas tree, so the wine fridge is happy to stay in its place. and i've been holding off writing christmas cards, somehow there's a terrible inertia to doing so, i have a feeling i won't be able to pen significant stuff to anyone this year, so why bother? decision: am cutting down my 100+ christmas card list to about 20+. i will get down to writing them LATER.

first alarm: someone calls me from an obviously bustling office, i hear fax machines and photocopiers beeping all over the place. i'm going for lunch at anthony bourdain's les halles, the menu's just been emailed over to me. it's starting to feel surreal, like living someone else's life. i go back to dreaming, where a weird image takes over my mind... my family's bought a new place overseas, we've migrated and i'm being stalked by an eerie doorman. i've left my school academic records back in singapore and am forced to return to get them back.

second alarm: i awake to the sounds of my mom getting hysterical: the porridge is boiling over! i haven't finished wrapping my presents yet! take the clothes out of the washing machine, i don't want them to soak too long! mental reminder to self: photocopy academic results JUST in case. my mom's blasting, where's the christmas book of songs? see, way back in '98, i typed out around 20 christmas carols and gave them nice backgrounds and images and everything and collated it into a booklet and photocopied about 20-30 books so we'd have something to pass around during christmas carol singing. and now mom says she's lost it, she doesn't know where it is. she looks at me: is it okay if i park you over at aunty audrey's today, can you churn out a whole new book in 2 hours?cut to horrendous mental picture of me hunching over computer at kim's place furiously typing

nonononoononoo.

i hurry downstairs to meet dad's car with my lazybumsbro and pick up dad's office presents and a huge pot of curry for later. there's about 5 bottles of wine as well, which i help mom pack into the wine fridge (which, by the way, is ALSO stocked with daniel's stash of a&w rootbeer, funpacks of m&ms, and bottles of gnc vitamins - don't ask.) aunty audrey calls to say that we left the books over at her place from LAST YEAR - how quickly time has flown! see, 6-7 months won't be so bad, you won't even know i'm gone!mom tries to clean out the second fridge (i have THREE fridges, one for food to be cooked, one for junk food and medicine, one for wine) and digs out mooncakes (?!!) and a huge mrs. field's cookie (the kind that's as big as a cake).. she asks daniel and i to break up the cookie as it is taking up too much space. daniel and i refuse to and prance around the house singing renee olstead's breaking up is hard to do... no wonder we drive my mom crazy.

i open the suitcase we just bought, a mint-green antler biggie. i throw in random items: boxes of contact lens solution, a fleece blanket from ikea, my pencil case. there's plenty more space. don't know why i've left it till now to start packing... it's like a sort of disbelief that i'm leaving i guess. and sharon's already finished packing and last night told me that she was trying to close the suitcase.. !!!! i haven't done anything yet, oh wait. i've finally managed to get the nus doc's signature on my health form... if i run into complications over there in pennsylvania i'm positively going to scream.

meanwhile. it's christmas... somehow i don't feel quite christmassy this year, and i know why but that's something i ought to keep to myself. i'm not going to put any sort of christmas list out here about what i want... i can't think of anything i really need anymore (except money hahaa $$) so yeah. pretty content with knowing i'm gonna go somewhere else for a long while. so that's it.

serial dreamer had time to talk trash at 1:50 PM

  posted by juice.susceptible @ 8:49 AM

 
Sunday, October 24, 2004

i sit here in the living room on a drizzly october night simultaneously typing this and watching joan of arc, feet twitching aimlessly about in anticipation of milla jovovich's burning at the stake. i am restless, chewing upon salted peas which my father brought back from raffles hotel, i don't understand why people even like salted peas, i don't understand why i'm even eating them, they give me gas. having two brothers equals no instant food left in the house. my parents aren't even the stingy sort when it comes to food, it's just that my brothers are too good at scavenging all the instant soup and instant noodles and potato chips.. in other words, junk that i'd so love to be able to eat at this time of the night, especially with 3 essays weighing heavily upon my back.

just came back from the theatre studies dept's production twilightofthegolds, at fort canning's black box. my dad asked me how the play went, and i replied "oh, it's about the same old issues", and you know what, it is! perhaps it's too difficult to attempt the fantastic in plays. hmm. there's a thought. anyway. it was about abortion and homosexuality, coupled with the rapid advancement in genome technology. what would you do if you discovered that your unborn child would be a homosexual, but in all other things remain perfect and even, perhaps, be superbly sensitive and intelligent? (hmm sounds like quite a few gays out there ;P) would you abort the child? (aside: maann... john malkovich seems to be REALLY good at playing the twisted bad guy) seriously though, i don't know. i happen to think i hold quite a liberal stance on homosexuality, but it may be a different situation should the person in question be an immediate family member. still. i don't think i'd abort, unless the child is going to suffer from both mental and physical defects, or a debilitating disease.

my thoughts of late have been getting increasingly scattered. i have deemed myself the lowest of all my french classmates, i'll be lucky to even scrape a D. i smell french fries in my enclosed cave of a room, where the last food-like substance to ever enter for the past few days has only been cups of water. my right hip aches as if it's been dislocated and the joint is trying to get back into its sore socket. last night i dreamt of envelopes. everyone got a big one each. i dreamt of jumping from shifting coloured box to coloured box as if in a computer game, dodging hurtling trolleys presumably carrying more mail. i love my agility in dreams. and i don't dream in black and white, either. the thing is, i dreamt i got the envelope from PSU.. so clear my dream was, that i held multicoloured A4 sheets of paper and i remember one page had columns of things to sign for, and that the leftmost column was already signed by the authorities from over there. and when i woke up, my first thought was to call norman and tell him that i'd already received my package and did he get his too? until i realised that it was all but a dream. perhaps this comes from constantly sleeping at 5am.

i am doing this in denial of the essays that i am supposed to write. back to blasted microsoft word i go!
serial dreamer had time to talk trash at 1:36 AM


Thursday, November 04, 2004

For the past few nights, there has been a water-skater of sorts dangling on the inner wallsof my bathroom sink. it can’t be the same one, for each time i see it i flush it down withcopious amounts of clear water, followed by toothpastey water, followed by facial-washey water. Unless, like a sort of multiple-legged Indiana Jones, it surfs agilely on the vertical flow, finds a grip on the inner part of the drain-stop and there it clings, underneath the shelter of its shiny umbrella, safe from all the corrosive fluoride and garniér foam beads i can possibly throw its way. Or maybe it takes exactly 24 hours to climb up the pipe from wherever my torrent of water’s flung it, only to reach the slippery gray walls of the sink to meet my merciless gaze and the turning of the tap. Hmm. And then i go outside to take my nightly red cup of water from the marble bar countertop, for a brief moment imagining Norman Bates hyped-up-on-acid with his psychotic eyes and bloodstained sharp knife arising slowly from the murky living room beyond that marbletop to stab my hands as i reach for that plastic cup.

What can I say. It’s a kind of ritual, for these nights at least.

and then i think about the fact that there's three months (janfevmars) looming ahead, where the frost will probably gather upon the screen that i'm staring at now, the water in my cup frozen into ice, that i won't be able to use a cup at all, but a thermos, perhaps. yes, i'm going to pennstate, managed to get my package last week, felt like it was christmas come early. and so now i'm itchy-fingered, typing out my thoughts as they come. borrowed two anthologies of short stories (so good for toiletliterature) from the central library, one by muriel spark and one on jazz short stories(!). it seems to me so many have forgotten the actual pleasure of going to the library now, given the fact that most students go there for research purposes and not to borrow light reading..anyways. i digress. my flight's been booked, i fly on the 29th of december, at 1030pm, on korean airlines (yeah this may induce raised eyebrows but i don't care, apparently it's a limited seat period). so you heard it here first, don't say i never update you people. *winks at yanny* i shall spend new year's in new york city, am meeting karen and friends there. i expect the days to be transcendent, full of glittery-snowflaked bliss.

gail told me on sunday that i shall have to break tradition with my christmas present opening. i never thought of that before. but she's right. i always open presents one a day at a time, just so's the pleasure's prolonged. the same goes for birthdays. that way, no matter how dreary the day is, there's always a present waiting for me. like a light at the end of the metaphorical tunnel. and so i continue opening my presents into september from august, and into january from december. it's a fun ritual, but this time the cold crisp air i shall breathe will just have to tide over my days.

i just read this line."the greatest literature is the occasional kind, a mere after-thought... life, is the important thing." the seraph and the zambesi, muriel spark

amazing, that. i've always wished to be able to capture the essence of things within a single sentence, like the way i've told many how the body shop scent oceanus can bring back poo-caked paris to me immediately, like the way proust's tea-dipped madeleine brought his own memories flooding back (see, i DID learn something from university). i guess i've got a long way to go. that sentence, it summarizes what i feel about words i suppose. they've a sort of immortality about them, it's perhaps why blogging seems to take so much out of me. it's a chunk of my mind laid out here for you. it's not melancholy, i try to be subjectively objective (hehe now i'm just talking crap), i really DO believe that life's the important thing. that's why, though being melancholy sometimes feels quite nice (heh), self-pity CAN turn into quicksand, or a drug. it becomes a safe sort of feeling, an anchor, the bed that you don't want to get up from in the morning so that you'll have to face the day and its inherent dangers. but hey darlings, it's all part of the phenomenon called living. so wake up and take great delight in smelling the shite in singapore, because they have poo in paris, the same sort of dung in dubai... okay. you get the idea.
serial dreamer had time to talk trash at 3:23 AM


Monday, December 06, 2004

haven't blogged in quite a while, don't know why, perhaps i just felt sick of collating my thoughts and making them sound normal. been suffering these terrible headaches for some time now (the worst was the night before brit modern period) but it's been reduced to mild pressures, nonetheless i sense i'm still tired and some weird circuitry within me refuses to let up on the reading despite knowing i ought to take a rest and knowing (after a checkup today) that my right eye has increased by 75 degrees... what is IT with me anyway. can't stop reading. after brit mp i hiked over to the central library for goodness' sakes, and took home 5 thick tomes... haha well happiness is curling up in bed with a book and knowing that i can sleep in late tomorrow.

today i got my influenza and meningitis vaccinations done for my US trip, amazing how two pinpricks in both shoulders can make you feel sleepy and thirsty and trollish, by which i mean some huge thing with oversized arms. went to watch the incredibles with my family after that, and boy is it funny! i feel the movie's quite well done with very real human reactions and gestures (except all that superstuff, you know our lives are too drearily dull and don't include all that), and jack-jack's so cute!! haha. though violet's powers are probably the best.last night we came home from a long weekend at KL... last minute sorta trip but rather fulfilling... the day before we left i booked our accommodation online, yeah, THAT kind of last minute. well the accommodation turned out to be pleasantly surprising, perfect in every way (if you're not the fussy sort, demanding four-poster beds and renaissance art thingies) and i was extremely comfortable, we even had the disney channel and star movies (which we don't get at home). went shopping till we dropped (literally. my legs were screaming) and came to this unanimous agreement that in kl the shopping malls may be fearsomely huge but the toilets are so damnably small and are all of the infernal squat variety, meaning that m'sians must have very strong legs (to squat with), either that or they hold it all in during shopping and only release in the spaciousness of home. seriously... they even charge 30 sen for eensty cubicles that stink and all that... i just end up washing my hands to make it worth the cents. bah. sorry for my unhygienic rant on lavatories of the kl variety.

ooooh.... speaking of which, my bro and i invested in a whoopie cushion... it's totally hilarious... a different tone of fart every time! the first time daniel sat on it joshua fell down with laughter... i think i prefer the whoopie cushion fart... loud and long but odourless. HAHA.. XD oh, and we also opened the Xbox today, shoulda seen joshy's face! he couldn't believe it! it's christmas come early to our house in the shape of halo 2 limited edition.

yes... well, anyway. it's december already, how time flies! so many things have happened that i never imagined would have, things done TO me and things done BY me and things THOUGHT by me in the course of the entire year. worth it, all these perspectives changed, a little wiser about people, a bit more cynical (and j-j-j-jajaded) and therefore clinging ever tighter to the only solid institutions in life: family and God, yes, nothing else is stable or trustworthy, always watch your back for the snikt of unsheathed claws. and still, and still. made closer friends with more girls this year, how surprising. it seems i've shifted the loyalty of the thought that guys make better friends than girls. i change my philosophy after experiences this year... stuff that's made me disappointed in other people as well as myself. hmmm. suffice it to say that i'm so, so glad that at night when i can't sleep for nuts and my head is pounding fit to burst (with cartoonish birdies wielding mallets and thumping my temples spasmodically) i can crawl into my parents' laps and seek comfort... don't know what i'd do without them, seriously. i admit i'm still young and immature that way. can't be helped, i'm savouring every moment i have with these two (though they sometimes have SUCH shrill voices) until i gotta leave...only 22 days left to flying off day! meanwhile, call me up for coffee and buy me a book voucher if you want to make me contentedly happy, like a warm puppy, for awhile. oh, and get some of the holiday cheer here!
serial dreamer had time to talk trash at 11:18 PM


Tuesday, December 14, 2004

the doctors and nurses of the state are driving me crazy.

sorry but i really must gripe awhile. firstly, i headed to the clementi polyclinic to get my meningitis vaccination done (and don't know why, got cajoled into getting influenza as well, my body is teeming with billions of antibodies just waiting to punch the lights out of the germies), and the nurse and doctors simply REFUSED to sign the form that shows WHERE i got the jab. oKAY. i can still deal with this. i then head to the health promotion board at SGH to get my history of vaccinations report. it's not ready yet, and they CAN'T sign the forms either. i'm still breathing easy. i THEN head to YIH's UHWC (it's a stupid abbreviation for a stupid name for a clinic and don't correct me cause' i'm in a ranting mood) for a medical checkup which GOES UN-BLOODY-FINISHED because i have YET to take a mantoux test BECAUSE singapore is a high-risk country for tuberculosis.SO. tomorrow i'm going to tantockseng to GET my blasted mantoux test done, THEN off to SGH to get the history of vaccinations report. i am THEN heading to UCC to work for 7 hours straight. i am going to be TIRED. but that's good, because i've come to the realisation that i've been suffering from night-insomnia (note i said night because nothing bothers me from nodding off to sleep during lectures and sermons and bus rides in the day) for the past month or so, and can only sleep throughout the night sans interruptions IF i have had an extremely tiring day. so. besides the insomnia and the occasional period cramps i am a HEALTHY person. why do they refuse to verify me as so? chalk it down to the contortionist health system.

why do i always seem to be doing things the long way around, the wrong way? am i stupid or what? i don't know, but whatever's happened so far seems to point to that statement being true. other people don't have as much problems with these health forms as i do, that much i do know for sure. i just keep wasting time and money. speaking of money, i don't have any. haha! *crazed grin of the near-insane*... i keep spending my parents' money getting stuff for myself and the trip i'm getting embarrassed.. i want to hide in a corner and just say "i'm taking whatever i've got and sod it if my ears and fingers and other appendages drop off if i'm freezing in just three layers of cloth in subzero temperatures because i simply can't bear spending any more of your money, it's hideously shameful.."

but of course i won't. just like the way xiuxiu couldn't shoot her toesies off. (don't mind me.. i watched that utterly depressing banned-in-china-directed-by-joan-chen film in the central library today with baoyi and the mournful plaintive melody of nananaaa is reverberating around in my head like a demented remote-controlled car.. you know, the kind that some kid plays with in carrefour or some super crowded place and it gets snagged up in some trolley or pram wheel but i digress, as usual) anyway. the thing is, i'm sick of how this christmas is ending up to be memememememe. how the insurance costs 1K, how i have to buy a new suitcase because all of ours are too small and above two centuries old, how i need this and that. i'm sick of how i'm so totally broke and it's christmas and i've yet to write a single card for my everlong list of christmas card people, not to mention even THINKING of getting presents because it'll just mean asking my parents for more money and no way am i gonna do that. i am disappointed with december because it doesn't have 50 days, which is what i need at minimum to do all the things i want to do before i leave. i am also disappointed with people i am unable to meet because they're busy and so am i. i am unhappy, and that's an understatement for the way i'm feeling right now.

okay. i am done with complaining... now on to the good stuff

went to watch xiuxiu:the sent down girl and love's labour's lost with baoyi today.. it's amazing how friends from secondary school have endured till now and have become closer people instead of mere hi-bye acquaintances.. it was great talking to you (half of it was about food, what gluttons we are) and just spending time, leisurely talking about life and its mishaps and happy moments in the cool breezy central forum.. i'm gonna miss that.

thanks to my mentoring group for rearranging their schedules to meet tonight. it was a good time of fellowship and catching up that we had, mayfern sylvia jiating and xiuying... especially syl... haven't seen you for SOOOO long! sigh zan (if you see this), thought a weeknight was what you wanted, but never mind. take care at work and don't overstress. gonna miss you all (yesyes reiteration but heck i MEAN it) when i leave.

that's it from my verbal diarrhoea-suffering mouth for now. if you want to tell me you'll miss me (and believe you me it WILL do wonders for my badly battered-by-bad-docs-and-nurses self) just leave a post below. ta.
serial dreamer had time to talk trash at 1:04 AM


  posted by juice.susceptible @ 2:37 AM