We had fun at the office, had quite a bit of work and the boss seemed to like my slides. More importantly, I got home in time for dinner, hurray!
A lot has been going on, ASES Summit is work-in-progress, but lots of things are being rapidly settled. I have faith we'll have fun, I'm already learning a lot. It was a temperamental kind of day, one moment warm, the next cold and wet. At the same time it was fun, watching the sunlight filter through the slats, beaming that slight tinge of lemon at the end of a good weep.

For the company cat *gurgles like a baby*.

Franklinstein (Monochrome Moment)

Wound up tight on its hunches, ready for flight,
deciding,
Gray on white,
Tension, intelligence, instinct,
caught in a monochrome moment.
Someone said you are evil,
That sublime tilt of your head catches me,
I wonder.

But your expression changes as it encounters mine,
The eyes slowly growing softer, rounder with wonder.
Its pure trickery, perhaps,
so when your claws get caught in my skin,
draw blood on my clothes
Franklin, little angelic devil,
I’d forgive you anyway.

An Antagonist is Me!

Somehow I find this week getting darker by the day. The anger is balling up inside of me, taking the form of a big black lump of despair. Threatening to envelop me. To unleash that monster that resides in all of us.

I desist.

Self-containment figures a lot in this. I'd like to drown right now, in an ocean of aquamarine. My old, morbid thoughts have resurfaced; Really, I'd be surprised if they stayed dead. But I think I'll just live and let be. Eventually everything will blow over, I just need to sort my head out, and keep quiet and low profile in the meantime. Don is right, I need rest, that elusive creature.

Speaking of which, I've talked to Don practically everyday recently: he's been a good sport to put up with me. It's good to have you home, dear! Hurray for you, and thanks for the blouses!

Ever so once in awhile, bad things that happen becomes my liquor of silence: a pool for me to drown my sorrows in, until I lose all ability to articulate what I feel, what I think, what I want. and lose all ability to speak. Crying mutely in some small ball inside, living my life indifferently on the outside.
The world isn't about me after all. There is a bigger picture, much greater things to come. I smile as a way of showing, I don't want to fight, I want peace amidst the chaos. Old lyrics from a song. Sometimes it is that leaden heaviness that prevents the pain from seeping in.

But inside my head, I cry as I walk myself out to sea in a give-all embrace. In the end I'm either damming everything inside or preventing it all from coming inside. The only way may be to surrender to the forces of gravity and time and God and let myself be washed away till even the grains of sand on the shore forget I ever stood there.

Back From The Expedition

I've lost my earring again!

There is something about me and jewellery: they must really hate me because they seem to spend every moment they can plotting to run away from me, and when I find ways to keep them on me, they revolt by giving me rashes. Unfortunately I love them. This is one of those relationships that you know will come to no good end.

This time it was my topaz earrings I bought for Christmas. True it wasn't very expensive, but it was still blue and happy and shiny...
...Alright, I'm bordering on sounding like a crow now.

Well, there was the good and the bad with the expedition. The good thing is I was very at home there. So at home I almost settled down with a dog and three kids. To my parents' relief I decided against it since I didn't have money for the dog.
I also did manual labour. And laughed a lot. And I had lots of nature, which made me feel absurdly hummy-hum kind of happy. Of course there were moments of frustration but flip-flop it was a minority slice of the major pie. "Think open, think open," as Lavinia once wrote in my script.

Today itself is a grey day awash with lambasts from my dad (who's been picking on me again) and groans of lingering sadness from the wind, whipping the curtains about. Sometimes I feel like I could take off and fly into the wind, but I remain, as ever, firmly rooted by my mortal responsibilities.

I now present to my most revered readers a chapter by chapter report on my Compartmentalization 2004, complete with appropriate headings and footnotes. I will try to keep it as objective, clinical, precise and concise as possible (although I will make no promises about my dry humour or lame attempts thereof). Feel free to comment in my tagboard and respond in kind.

Pain (Chapter 1)

I had an attack today.

One of my greatest lessons learnt was my capacity for pain and how I deal with it in different situations. Observe the careful way I handle it (gloves, tongs, mask, cage with one-way door, Cisco security) when it is my own. Observe my careful documentation (precisely marked charts and figures, I even know the precise cycle of my pain). And even my ability to differentiate what will potentially be a cause, actions to take and foreseeable consequences (with some friends I will never share, with some others I will inevitably whine. I have aggregated my friends into the different kinds of response they provide, hence saving me the burden of trial and error).
When I was still in the early stages of this whole "event", I simply told my friend that I wanted to give up, simply to save myself the pain. She answered,

"Women always say that, but eventually we will do something that will cause ourselves pain again. You can't avoid being hurt. But we are also a lot stronger than we think: we get hurt, but we also have a strong ability to recover."

And so I pressed on. The effect of which was that I made discoveries about myself, about my capacity to feel when I thought myself no longer capable of it: to experience additional pain, and yet persist, leading to more pain.

In October this year, I was shopping with my mother at Mango in Tampines just after lunch, when an acute pain shot through my chest, the centre of which seemed to be my heart: it pierced like a needle going through the centre of my heart and seared like an acid burn, causing immense pain. I didn't want to alarm my mother and kept on walking silently. All too soon it became unbearable and I was forced to sit down as the pain grew and all sounds were blocked out. I measured out my breath in eight counts, and staring at the cold, shiny, white tiles, forced myself to relax. At that moment, it suddenly hit me that I might die. I closed my eyes and waited for it to come.

But I didn't die that day. The attack went away after 5 minutes, and I was able to go on again, as if nothing happened.

Today I had another attack, a much milder one: so mild, in fact, I kept on watching TV while I counted out my breaths. Somehow it seems increasingly wrong to me to express pain to the outside world. I would like to smile and go on with what I do. To politely refuse my own emotions existence. To bravely surge forth with my head held high when inside I am crumbling with the weight of pain. Is it pride or foolishness?

But at the least, my foolishness has led me to many experiences, many lessons, to meet and love new people. I open myself to hurt, undoubtedly, but also, to this brave new world. That I might not be the John in Huxley's classic (one of my favourite books), but a fully instituted and knowing Miranda, who exclaims in "The Tempest",

"O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in't!"

My latest, and last choice coincides with a careful deliberation of my priorities. In the end, I cannot compromise the happiness or freedom of another person, just to get my way. I accordingly chose to be hurt. I felt no reason to escape it. Life is a package trip with no manual that you get upon arrival, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't make the best of it.

Meanwhile, cause of action decided is, as I told my friend "to move on with as little emotional baggage as possible". I shall laugh and pretend nothing ever happened. It will take time no doubt, but I have absolute conviction that I am doing the right thing, and never to waver, come what may: the pain only serves to remind me to maintain the strength of my resolution.

The only way it could end otherwise is if I manage to get amnesia without killing myself. I almost wish it would happen.

Beautiful

I went to Rhea's wedding at the stately Raffles Hotel today: I ran into Charmaine and Melissa, two Seniors from school, in front of the East India ballroom where we waited for the solemnization to take place. There were wooden side tables scattered around, with candles and flowers. The guests mingled in small, close groups.
"Those ladies over there, they're Rhea's sisters aren't they?"
I looked over and realized the ladies at the reception did look exceptionally like her (as usual, I was too clued out when i handed the wedding gifts, a pair of Laura Ashley champagne flutes from Ben and I, to them). Charmaine and Melissa also directed me to the photo album and I leafed through. Inside were images of dreams captured in an instant. One that struck me was of Rhea gazing out into space, as if dreaming: like an image from a fairytale, how whimsical and beautiful!

At that moment, Peter's voice came on, and announced the beginning of the solemnization which (I found out later) was conducted by the Justice of Peace. I am still a young lamb who has yet to be initiated in the ways of the world: but I was awed by the love overflowing. The goodwill from everyone, the quiet Christmas air, the carefully constructed paradise as the night fell in that beautiful courtyard, and of course the couple's obvious love for each other, so aptly expressed by the theme "Blessed Union of Souls".

The moment the doors of the ballroom opened, there was a heady scent of the bouquets of white roses and lilies that were set in wreathes around candles at each table. Ford, Eric, Charmaine, Melissa and I found our places next to each other, and spent the rest of the night talking. Once, Ford, Eric and I caught ourselves talking about work, and we went outside to finish our conversation. I knew they wanted to extract information from me, but it was merely personal and harmless information: proposals to what changes they needed to make immediately to secure student confidence. There was still a hint of bitterness, a hint of disillusionment, maybe even a hint of ruthlessness, but also a burning will belied by their calm nonchalance.

At the end of the night, I managed to hug Rhea and give a few words to her, affectionately expressing my hope that we could have tea together when she returned from KL. I had earlier in the day written an email to her, already wishing her the best. Charmaine and Melissa who had already talked to her, waited for me a little, and the three of us walked out to the porch. I bade them both goodbye and merry Christmas, then strode out into the night, filled with the incense of frangipanis in full bloom, and yellow lights dangling from the branches as my curtain. Back into the streets, the onslaught of cars, the press of crowds, the pollution, the hard lines of the city. Smiling at the tiny, delicate wreath in a box that was our takeaway from the wedding.

I wonder what 2005 has in store for me.

The Summoner's Dream

It was a huge warehouse. All I remember was that there was a massive game going on to hunt out the civilians and kill them. They were playing games with us: Driving us to pure mental hell. The sounds of killing all around us, and all over this warehouse was these huge flat screens, with a player in the front. The only way to drown out all the sounds of people dying was to switch on the TV and the player and get immersed in the show. And the show was always on, always playing. It sucked out all the pain and torture, it made you forget. But it also made you an easy target: alerted them to where you were. Still you couldn't resist: How could you?

I remember starting out in my house, my mother was lying on the bed, heavy with child. She was in pain, but also smiling, and I smiled at her, held her hand. She handed me a phone and showed me pictures on it: of her and my youngest sister hugging tight together. Mum in a black one piece swimsuit, Letitia in a pink swimsuit with pink floats. They were sitting in the middle of a lagoon with a sandy bottom, and clean turquoise waters that darkened into azure, speckled with black rocks like islands far away. The sunlight shone in spiked, clean rays to the left of the picture, just out of sight in a deep blue sky.

Paradise.

Then the war started. I bolted the door behind me, hugged my mother and quietly swore my life on protecting her and the baby. (The next part is a blank, something bloody happened, but I saved them. Maybe I died and reincarnated. I couldn't tell.)

When I woke up, Wynne and I were lying face down in another part of the warehouse. I woke and saw bodies around us: Instinctively I shielded my sister's eyes with my arm and guided her out of the room. The next room had a television. We couldn't resist. We switched it on, and hid behind some huge cartons. And slowly we lost our senses, curled up like foetuses to each other, being slowly suffocated and drowning in the show. We could hear them coming, but we couldn't move...

I guess we died, because that's where my dream ended. I woke up with a start, gasping for air: my eyes still convulsing in their sockets, the smell of blood still in my mouth, my mind still coiled in disbelief that I wasn't in the war game.

I ran down from my upper bunk: but as expected of a Saturday, Mum and Dad were out at the new house, Letitia was at her creche, and Wynne was sprawled out on the lower bunk. The house was silent. I sat down, pulling my soul back from the other realm, grateful for the peace I am blessed with and the chance to be still alive.

"A dream has power to poison sleep" - PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Shiroi No (The White)

The day wasn't all bad though. God rewarded me with my weekly Japanese class with Yan-sensei: a chain smoking old man who sports a toupee and malformed checked shirts, and reminisces about his days in Japan: almost like a Murakami character. There's something about Sensei that grabs my loyalty and it helps he teaches well (although slowly).

I sang softly to myself on the way home: my body felt strangely light, like it was a toy plane that at any moment would be carelessly carried away by the wind. It strikes me how very small I am...

Meanwhile, compartmentalization has come along nicely. I wonder what it is that has made it all happen: the sunlight, the mundaneness, the quietness, the simplicity of each day? I feel exquisitely happy. As my mental spring-cleaning proceeds, I presently exist in complete dissociation of all outside events and emotions, except being somewhat liberated not talking to anyone for a few days: as if I finally didn't have to explain anything, as if I almost don't exist. If I could, it would be just nice now to sail off into the blue oblivion and disappear.

And maybe... just maybe i'll make it back in time to Earth in time for tea.

My dad's been at it again.

The day started off well enough, except Wynne was giving me a lot of attitude over my using the Internet. Professedly I'm a boring person, but I hardly do anything online except for checking emails and research, despite parking unabashedly there. The latest addition to my nucleus of Internet activities is blogging. And that only when I feel like it.
Wynne, however, was nagging me to get off because she was bored and wanted to chat with her friends and play games. I calmly told her I had work and she kicked up a tantrum (the controlled kind. "Fine..." *march march march* "Go ahead..." *march march march*. Wash, rinse, repeat). I eventually gave up, let her amoeba the laptop, and went to nap.

Lo and behold, I was rudely awoken by World War 3. The Mad Chinaman himself (and I don't mean Dick Lee) was Educating Ignorant Masses on Abuse of Communicating Devices (i.e. busting handphone bill). Brash Hawaiian Cream Puff was trying to Assert her Rights as stated in the Human Rights Charter. Mad Chinaman then decided to remove Communicating Device from possession of Cream Puff, as well as demand repayment for Costs Incurred, resulting in a messy and emotional screaming match.

I calmly got out of bed... and got hit by the firing squad the moment I walked out. You're evil, you're stupid, you're useless, you're a liar, etc.
Well, I opted for complete silence for the rest of the day. Not because it was safer, but there was no cause in participating in a war of words. Any contribution would have been fuel to fire to a man who sees it as "him against the world". Blame is a monster which eats anything it can get its hands on and grows.

I analyzed it, but couldn't pull myself to any point of view: too bad, they were both at fault. I didn't like my baby being screamed at, but I knew she deserved it for her frivolity.

"There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it" - GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

Muse

My new home is chock full of contradictions: it is almost completely inaccessible and yet completely accessible (only one bus runs by it, but it goes from one end of the island to the other), it is a new building in an old district, a cauldron of wealth tampered by the restraint of historical poverty, full of the lack of memories.

Today I hung out at Bugis ("again!" you exclaim. But while Singapore lacks variety, it makes up for in soothing constance. I respect both novelty and tradition, and require both in equal portions). Of course, this time, with a different companion: Marcus - a close friend from NY, who happened to join SMU this year. He mentioned at tea time that Mr John Lim passed away.

John Lim, FYI, was one of the PE tutors at NY... not that I knew the guy personally, but it came as a shock nonetheless. Memories came flooding back. How transient life is! Like a membrane: One prick and it rips apart.

I feel like I'm drowning in a sea of thoughts, and it gets darker, the further in I go.
I feel like an anasthesized butterfly with one wing removed: Something important, something essential is missing, but it hasn't hit me what yet.
Keep thinking, keep drowning, keep experiencing, until I feel nothing. My emotions are soup. Too many things have been happening recently.
But at least I know what I need. I need to sort my organs out. I need a good, long sleep.
A few more days...

"In the long run, we're all dead." - JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Suspended

After four days and three friends over two dinners and one afternoon coffee, I do feel my regular self again. I found myself for the longest time ever not thinking about "that". And as to what "that" is, only my close friends will know. I have dissected and analyzed and compartmentalised, I have emoted and denied and whined and mulled over it: In other words, I have gone through every single emotion and phase possible, except laughing over it, which I know will soon follow.

I finally had the good fortune of meeting Weng over dinner, and we spent three hours in one of those boardgame-cafes, eating average a la carte, fantastic dessert, talking about our past loves, pet peeves and...

... strategizing how to win the games. After a mediocre score of -3 and -20 (he won, as the waiter kindly put "by losing the least"), I announced, "You know, we could cooperate and maximise our points. Just like free trade!" The next round I won, and our scores were 80, 75. Just as we started our third round, he smiled, "Are we adopting the same strategy?" "Of course!" and he took the final round with his 177 over my 150. As we paid the bill (both in fits of laughter), the waiter smiled and asked who won. Weng paused and replied, "Well, I wouldn't technically say anyone won when we cheated." I smiled amiably, "Against the system but not against each other to maximise your score! Face it, it works." Oh the wonders of business school.

We took a long walk around the Bugis area, and Kenneth popped into our conversation. It was liberating to force the thoughts into words: It made me think through everything twice over, and weigh the accuracy of each description. This word and it was too harsh, that word and it was too mild. Murakami wrote in South of the Border, West of the Sun, "Because memory and reality are so closely interlinked, sometimes they get mixed up... In order to pin down reality as reality, we need another reality to revitalize the first. Yet that other reality requires a third reality to serve as its grounding". (More or less, I can't remember word for word, and I did my best to search for the actual quote. Another thing to prove this theory. Did I read those exact words? It seems so, but I need to re-read those exact words again to confirm that previous memory.)

In the meanwhile we agreed on one simple thing: that in his disillusionment, we are going to keep feeding him heavy doses of optimism and whimsicality. Let's just hope the both of us don't get affected in turn, lol.

Fresh thoughts, finally

...Like freshly chopped-up pieces of meat in the butcher window of my life, proudly displayed for all and sundry to survey. Not that I haven't been through anything recently, but that I've been quite busy.

Time then to just my thoughts into a basket.

At the moment, I lack the will to write: Emotions are blanked out from my head - All I see when I close my eyes is a blanket of unyielding darkness, my head is geared on my work, my body quivers with the small breaths of wind that exhale from the purple night sky.

Isn't it incredible how the person who can give you the most happiness, is ultimately also the one who can hurt you the most, even though that person may not be concious of this power? A woman is unfortunately, servant to her emotions: as a consequence we hurt ourselves. Sometimes in a subversive need to twist the seat of power to ourselves, we hurt others.

Yet we also have strong powers of recovery. To leave a place of hate, of anger, of destruction, and immediately start somewhere else: those are the strong instincts inherent in us - that our ultimate goal is to do "what is best", to preserve the family and society.

I think God gave me an answer tonight: One that came hidden, but was not unexpected. I know I asked for it, but I press forth, leaving no regrets behind me.

Haven't blogged for awhile. Well just a brief one, since my brain seems out of focus at the moment anyway.

Tonight things were quite ugly at home. We spent most of the time quite nicely, my girls and I. My dad riled badly when he got home. There's nothing unusual about it, except that his behaviour is occasionally unacceptable by any standards. The issues that get him angry, that see him throwing things at us, slapping us or hurling abusives (I can never make up my mind which is worse, the physical abuse or the mental one)... well despite the fact I sincerely believe in not fighting with him, and of accepting him the way he is... his "issues" just do not justify what he does. Many times it is "sound and fury, signifying nothing". The emptiness of that anger strikes me when he does.

I will not get bitter, I think I can do much better than that. But I must bear in mind two things, that firstly, as I wrote to an old teacher who asked me what my hopes and dreams were, I told him to do a service to this world that could make it better for the generations to come, to set up my own business, and the "extraordinarily mundane wish" of finding the right person, getting married and leading a quiet life. Issues like this harden that innocent wish: it makes me think ever so often, it's not possible is it? I must maintain both my naivety and my cynicism, that intricate balance, one way and I stand to be hurt, the other and I stand to lose myself.

And secondly, if I ever do have children, that violence is not the way to bring them up. True, it is effective: it is harsh fathers that seem to breed good daughters. But I do not do it with my girls, and I shall persevere in using it as a last resort. I cannot bear to hurt them, and mental abuse is no better. I do not want to be an example of what not to be to my children.

I forgot to mention, I popped over to my maternal grandma's today and saw my baby cousin Weihan. Oh goodness, he is so adoreable! Ack, I am in love! All I want to do is hug and kiss him and feed him and pull ridiculous faces over and over again... (hmm... now I think about it, it does sound like I'm in a relationship :D)

I am just going to blog a little.

Weather report: Rain-smudged.

Well the two main events were my Corp Reporting presentation, which went thankfully well on Monday... and my final drama production tomorrow. I have a bit part and I'm on the keyboards. Help! Hope I don't mangle up everything. My director's not helping.
Kelvin: I know it seems like a small scene but it's very important! We have to give it everything!
A little edgy, nervous, everyone's been brilliant really... again, I hope I won't mess it up.

Have got to study Intelligent Organizations (which makes me feel stupid) for the finals on Saturday, and get an early night's rest. My only consolation is that after that it'll be the weekend, and possibly a good night out with Pat on Saturday *teehee*

My usual rainy day poem the next time, when I can collect the strands of my thoughts and weave them together. And off I go, pray for me...

My cheerfulness, notwithstanding. There is a silent little sigh arising from the depths of my heart... I want to believe this is God's plan, I don't want to fight it, but these thoughts of being estranged from my friends because they are non-believers...
How can God, who is so loving, be so cruel?
That is a rhetorical statement, I do not actually question my Lord, but it disturbs me.

Talked to Lis, she always brings me hope, peace and comfort. God bless her. I love you Lis... you are my blessing.


A child of steel stands strong to the world
So new, so shiny, so structured, so complete,
Standing tall, tens of years, perfect form.

Lo and behold, cry the people,
That child of steel makes them quiver
With its sheer impossibility.

But time leaves none unscathed,
The child cannot bend, cannot show weakness,
Yet gets eaten away.

Slowly, slowly, forces itself to show no tear
Until with the last of its breath,
It collapses, lonely, into black oblivion.