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.