part 3, pemberton

it and its friends had a tuft of shimmery blue-green-purple feathers tucked under the brown ones, which shine when it flies, which is seldom, as this is a lazy duck who paddles here and there nearly always

Elvis' house guest

(Since my baby left me, I've found a new place to dwell, it's on the end of lonely street, Heartbreak Hotel)

firewood collector

they live in the Hidden Valley there


Darcy, the goodest dog I ever did see, who is now across the seas. We stayed on an estate in Pemberton with Darcy's owners.

<*:-)

part 2, wildflowers

my nature days part 1

From our balcony in the fremantle apartment. There were boats with names like meerkat, cloudy bay, sundancer, bronzewing.

From the living room of our house in Margaret River, a purple house among a few others in colourful Australian bush. It makes you feel like you could go trekking for hours starting from your backyard.

Fishing in the Indian Ocean

Lonely Seagull No. 1

Our laundry hanging out under the stars, which were MARVELLOUSLY BRIGHT

danny

My father put a match to the wick of the lamp hanging from the ceiling and the little yellow flame sprang up and filled the inside of the caravan with pale light. "How about a hot drink?" he said.

"Yes, please."

He lit the praffin burner and put the kettle on to boil.

"I have decided something," he said. "I am going to let you in on the deepest darkest secret of my whole life."

-Danny the Champion of the World, Roald Dahl

He was so romantic, I could not resist

Snow White sounds rather like a lunatic in an asylum, in her padded cell, singing her heart out to no one in particular (maybe the little scurrying animals). Scary, which is what i suppose love will be like.

And Pocahontas sings 'JUST around the riverbend!' quite madly aggressively.

Oh yes grandfather long legs did not die. The next morning, I brought him down in the dustbin (covered by my primary 5 science notebook) and released him into the garden. He crawled out and teetered on the edge, contemplating crawling back into the dirty dustbin but luckily decided the fresh carpet grass was better for the rest of his life.

In the suburban evening, in gravelly neighbourhoods all over, people are watching television in the descending darkness as their maids cook dinner. And my grandmother is obsessed with making my brother eat whenever he comes back from NS. She is so afraid that he will go out with his friends without a word, that he will not try what she has cooked specially for him. She shouts frantically and desperately for him to try this and that, and he replies rather monosyllabically and eats some while watching television as she sits hunched staring at the english show she cannot understand, and watching him eat.

In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness that starts to set in about 2:55, when you know you've taken all the baths that you can usefully take that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the newspaper you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul.

--Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

Watching Jamie At Home, the show about Jamie Oliver in his wonderful sunny home with his backyard of tomatoes, pumpkins, fresh vegetables, magical herbs (cinnamon sticks he grinds over food) old outdoors stone stove, mushrooms (but never pluck them, for they may very well kill you) and flowers, watching this show is sheer torment and bliss. It just tortures me madly with its insanely divine plucking of fruits from the backyard and then vigorous fresh zesty fizzy cooking (from him in colourful knitted winter hats). He made pumpkin fairy cakes (also called muffins). It was even worse when he had to go into the forest with the mushroom expert and they plucked fat mushrooms from the cold forest ground and then sat down with a portable stove and a pan and fried mushrooms with butter and herbs and then toasted their bread on the pan and scooped the juicy hot sticky concoction of fresh forest mushrooms onto the damn bread and crunched it right there in that lovely cold forest!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Sweet peaceful restful dreams to all the tired children who got their psle results today. (including my dear sai sai)

tom

Tom died. Tom the gangly swaying tree that I see from my huge window, in the next next door neighbour's house, a tall lean tree with fluttering leaves that are so high they are against the clouds from where I see it. One day I was just pottering around my room, I turned and saw that tom was sawed in half. It was a horrendous realisation, like finding out

OH MY GOD THERE IS A PRAYING MANTIS IN MY ROOM ON THE FLOOR, IT LOOKS LIKE THE ONE IN A BUG'S LIFE, IT IS WALKING LIKE A HUMAN BEING.

I half expect it to turn around and start giving me grandfatherly advice.

Back to tom. I will find pictures of him, before and after. Actually he isn't really dead. He's just...half gone, but what I liked most was his tallest branch. Actually tom was more that than the tree. Goodbye Tom. I didn't even see you when you left.

Praying mantis is crawling up old filthy ikea wooden kids chair. It has reached the top, it is praying to the lights. It is looking out for friends to talk to, because he will soon be lonely and has to pass the whole night by himself, in a strange room and not a garden. What shall I do?! He looks like he is preaching to a crowd, his legs seemingly gesturing, but there is no crowd on the seat under him! Sad, little mantis. I admit he scares me alot.

There is a concert this saturday at the vivocity amphitheatre. Old bands from the 60s and 70s from Singapore and around the area (including one nicknamed the beatles of malaysia) will be playing their songs, and BEATLES and rolling stones and other oldies. Even though its not really the beatles playing, watching someone sing the beatles is...very special. Like the beatles tribute band concert we went to, the wigs they wore, the fat fish-and-chips-sailor ringo, Hey Jude, the grass we sat on, That Feeling. Oh my, will there be many people who grew up on records and kampongs and old singapore there this saturday night? People who listen to GOLD 90fm (where I by luck found out about this concert). Lucy and I will put on our sixties clothes and have a psychedelic nostalgic sweet time. I can't wait. My heart flutters and melts at the thought of the music.

The praying mantis has scuttled off somewhere! What if I try to leave my room and he stops me, and starts speaking to me?



ARRRRRRRRRRRR the mantis just flew on me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My heart is beating like mad.
And then it went into the dustbin and I covered the top of the dustbin (and as I did, it looked at me with two maroon-brown googly eyes).
I shall tell myself I am leaving it there, for a good night's rest snuggled among the mucus tissues and whatnot tonight.

Okay?


Night you silly grandfather praying mantis!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


but...will it die? I don't want to kill dear grandfather mantis :-( If i wake my grandmother up I don't think she will bother releasing him in the garden, she'll probably just slap him dead with her bare hands, saying 'Aiyah, like that also scared'. How? This is grave, a life is at stake. And the ethical decision rests with me. If only I could enclose him in a padded bubble and then throw the bubble into my house garden, upon which the bubble would dissolve and he would be free. Oh no grandpapa, what is going on in that germ-filled dustbin now? I think there are some crumbs of caramelised molasses biscuit inside, as long as you don't die of lack of oxygen. Golly no wolly. Damn my insecty room. Horrible notes: 1. there might still be ant nests in the pictures on my wall. 2. there might be many many ant/hopefully-not-other-insect eggs lining one of my bookcases. 3. there might really be, like my grandmother said, cockroaches under my bed. 4. i found a dead beetle carcass in my backpack in the food compartment.

Yikes.

roger mcgough

Poems by Roger McGough

Snow and Ice Poems

(i)

Our street is dead lazy
especially in winter.
Some mornings you wake up
and it's still lying there
saying nothing. Huddled
under its white counterpane.

But soon the lorries arrive
like angry mums,
pull back the blankets
and send it shivering
off to work.

(ii)

To
boggan?
or not
to boggan?
That is the question.

(iii)

Winter
morning.
Snowflakes
for breakfast.
The street
outside
quiet
as a
long
white
bandage.

(iv)

The time I like best
is 6 a.m.
and the snow is six inches deep

Which I'm yet to discover
'cos I'm under the cover
and fast, fast asleep.


Cinema Poem

I like it when
They get shot in the head
And there's blood on the pillow
And blood on the bed

And it's good when
They get stabbed in the eye
And they scream and they take
A long time to die

And it all spurts out
All over the floor
And the audience shivers
And shouts for more

But I don't like it when they kiss.


A Poem Just For Me

Where am I now when I need me
Suddenly where have I gone
I'm so alone here without me
Tell me please what have I done?

Once I did most things together
I went for walks hand in hand
I shared my life so completely
I met my every demand.

Tell me I'll come back tomorrow
I'll keep my arms open wide
Tell me that I'll never leave me
My place is here at my side.

Maybe I've simply mislaid me
Like an umbrella or key
So until the day that I come my way
Here is a poem just for me.

America

America- A song by Simon and Garfunkel

"Let us be lovers we'll marry our fortunes together

I've got some real estate here in my bag."

So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner pies

And we walked off to look for America

"Kathy," I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburg

"Michigan seems like a dream to me now"

It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw

I've come to look for America

Laughing on the bus
Playing games with the faces

She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy

I said "Be careful his bowtie is really a camera."

"Toss me a cigarette I think there's one in my raincoat."

"We smoked the last one an hour ago."

So I looked at the scenery

She read her magazine

And the moon rose over an open field

"Kathy, I'm lost," I said, though I knew she was sleeping

"I'm empty and aching and I don't know why."

Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike

And they've all come to look for America

All come to look for America

All come to look for America

this songs reminds me of last summer, the train rides and this place, a creaky musky room that the giraffe and i stayed in when we accidentally landed in the wrong town. the best thing about the room was the sink, just like in mr. bean's room. there was no air con and it was still and sweet-smelling. the corridors were quiet and orange, with a corn painted at every door, and we locked ourselves in the toilet to bathe in the two cubicles with the cool night air outside in a strange quiet town. Has anyone tried Mrs. Wagner pies and what are they like? If this were a song about Singapore, they'd say we boarded the sbs bus in jurong, orchard seems like a dream to me now, and it took me 45 minutes to hitchhike from tampines.

Work is piling up, decisions to be made, I feel like burrowing in a hole like a wombat (do they actually do that?), or a mole, and hibernating warmly in the soil for the winter and waking up for ginger cookies in spring. The internship promises a pay which I will give a part to my grandmother, a part to my parents and a part to getting an armchair and table for my record player for my room. THAT! IS EXCITEMENT.

clara meadmore

Please read this wonderfully ____ article: (can't find the word)

Clara's century without sex
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1790791.ece

My neighbours hired workers to tear off the layer of grass (strange, a layer of grass, but i guess that's what most people have now) in their garden and they might have put back on the old layer (it's now too dark to see) but they now also have a bunch of 2-storey tall plants (those with the vermillion stalks and coconut tree-like leaves) and I wonder how they put them up, too bad I was in school and didn't witness it! I was cycling around my lane and asked one of my little neighbours (he is maybe 4 years old) to race with me on his glorious dark-red Retro Red no-brake bicycle and his family was encouraging him, 'Go, race with Jie Jie!' and he said, 'don't want. so scary.'

I wish cars were more communicative, rather than a horn that is almost always probably taken to be hostile. Why can't there be a horn that goes 'thank you!' or 'stop being such a road bully, you idiotic nincompoop' or plays a short happy tune or blows out sweet-smelling bubbles into the polluted air, or says 'HI' to all the construction workers sitting on the backs of lorries and looking around at the drivers facing them, going past them. Why o why. Maybe if the horn system, buried deep in the bowels of the hot sweaty greasy engine area, were rewired in some way it would be possible.

Poem of the day: The wish of a pottery person
I wish I had an oven
to glaze my clay pots in
Then they would be shiny
Never melt into wet white dust
and I would be able
to make a living out of them

Another poem of the day: The wish of a busker
I wish a beautiful girl would come by
And listen to my music
I wish she would just stand there
And watch
And I could play her songs
For us to fall in love
on the street where I play

train

Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt,
Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee,
In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night,
Kindling a fire and broiling the freshkilled game,
Soundly falling asleep on the gathered leaves, my dog and gun by my side.

-Song of Myself, Walt Whitman

I eat
red beads
that gleam
and shimmer
to my stomach.

How do fortune tellers read people's faces? When I interviewed the older people for our project they seemed to remember their childhood so clearly, even the rules of the games (ball-throwing game, catching). It comes to me in patches, strange patches of me and my brother, like being in our pajamas and unfinished cold toasted bread with peanut butter and sugar and milo on the table, sprawled on the sofa watching richie rich or dumb and dumber. and one of the best, when i hid outside his room and booed him when he came out so he jumped up and down like he was skipping rope. HA. This December I will live as close to the forest as I have ever gotten when we go on holiday in the australian countryside, though this a definite poo fake thing, as we will be in modern houses designed for tourists except with the forest is our backyard, though nothing can be as magical as gene's more-than-100-year-old wooden house with soft toilet paper, paintings by kirsti around the house, a musky old smell, a forest behind with berries you can pick and eat and soft bottle green grass that made me feel like it was alice in wonderland (which desiree and i sneaked into for a walk when we were supposed to be working at the park). (and Bismak is such a funny name) Actually the forest is metres from my house; the row that faces mine has a forest at the back, with cobras hiding in big straggly bamboo trees and monkeys flying among tree tops eating rambutans. That whole world is less than 100 metres from my house, golly gee. I think I got my ideas about living in the forest mainly from The Dharma Bums. But let's try it someday! We have to. Will I still use my computer when I am an old granny? Time to enter the dream world. Funny a few years ago I remember thinking how sad that the dream world is more exciting than real living...! Seize the day, seize the night, seize it all....! And kill the mosquitoes that plant their proboscis/probiscus in your soft skin. Goodnight stars and sky.


ah choo, somehow i suddenly remembered that night when the park opened till late and something special was happening (or was it?) and it was night and we were at the turbo bungy and there was a pigeon that kept coming and james and robert were running around playing catching and then james came to lie on the trampoline and there was bird shit we were all trying to avoid and we talked about how he neatened his eyebrows and then probably, as usual, we tallied the amount of visitors for the day. squiggly. and the mad dancing bowing couple at white river junction that night with the folk music! hahaha!! she was barefoot and had long flowy hair and big googly specs and he looked like a neat pervert and they were ballroom dancing right in front of us remember? and there was a plump spiky-haired girl in the room, and a brown-haired lady in a red dress with a bandaged eye and sunglasses. i loved the cucumber-green sweet-smelling room with a sink, where you threw away stuff that wouldn't fit. and how we dragged our luggage in the rain to the shabby train station after a breakfast of bagel and cream cheese and strawberry tea. O why am i feeling so strangely nostalgic tonight!

me and my canary

My canary :-)

It fits into my backpack (though records are too big)

It sounds crackly at times, blary at times; sometimes both. I wish it wouldn't be blary sometimes because I can't hear the loud bits properly but it's portable so the speakers aren't very good. I still love it.

He (Adrian, the gentle man from the shop) said this was from maybe 1967.

Bob Dylan's Blood on the tracks plays best; Elvis' Golden Hits plays worst. Hound Dog is like a piece of messy madness! And the song that plays best of all is...Her Majesty :-D

rocket man

Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids

Last saturday, as I was walking to my sewing class at the cc, I noticed a few serious adults standing around a long table and on the table there was the sign, Humourous Speech Competition. After my class I popped in (People's Association 5th Humourous Speech Challenge!!!!). It was a small auditorium with a few people in the audience besides the judges and the other contestants. One auntie made a speech about Love, introducing it as the 4-letter word and swaying her hips as she started, 'You must be wondering what 4-letter word I am going to talk about.' She said she asked a little boy what love was and he said, 'Love is when your eyelashes move up and down and stars come out of...you!' (i think she wanted to say 'your mouth' because her hands were gesturing so but the words wouldn't come) and she said someone else said, 'Love is when a girl tells a boy I like your tie, and he wears it every day'

Love is when my grandmother makes sure I have food everytime I want to eat, and when she wakes up at any time of the night to apply her mosquito-bite-soothing wine concoction on me.

My record player is finally ready, I am just waiting for the day to collect it. The day after all these years! My oh my. It also happens to be red, the nice man in the shop randomly pointed at the only portable record player he had left (it sounds contradictory, but that's what it felt like). I wish I had some sort of special place for it in my room. Which is why I can't bear to collect it yet; it needs a special place in my room. Dreams of warm fuzzy crackling record-player songs. Ah Choo, if I go to your place this weekend I could bring it along; it's portable :-) I think the first record I will put on is Bob Dylan's Blood on the tracks, then rubber soul. This is super exciting. I've wanted one since secondary school and now that is is finally happening it feels warm and thrilling. I wonder if having a baby will be like that.

In a corner of my car, Elmo got lost and Bert lies on top of Zoe.

I had Filipino Martial Arts class (Kali Majapahit) tonight; it is awesome. We work with long wooden sticks, a wooden knife, boxing gloves, and empty-hand fighting and self-defence too. It's funny, all these rules that become real in a classroom when everyone puts on the uniform and holds their weapons, techniques and lessons passed down from decades ago, created by filipino villagers I think. We also did some qigong at the start of the class and grabbing energy and pushing and exhaling. I felt dizzy from breathing so well; apparently it takes more of such good breathing. Inhale. Exhale. Breathing is one of the most important and goodly magical but overlooked things. My grandmother breathes and snores very loudly at night then scratches her big stomach with her pink-painted nails and turns.

Lucy let me try a strange, wondrous, bitter (not in taste just in feeling) sweet today. Jujubes.

in my room

I've missed you guys



















but i was listening a lot to















today i feel






















and have you seen

and

teachers day eve eve eve eve

My mother was right. There was a jam going into thomson plaza tonight because everyone was desperately buying presents for teacher's day, which is going to be celebrated tomorrow. There was a stall in the middle of the first floor selling super nonsensical presents like a puffy cloth heart saying HAPPY TEACHER'S DAY and horrible fake flowers. I forced them to steer away. We went to the flower shop. Okay, who do you have to buy for? A male chinese science teacher. Why not a turtle, and tell him he looks like one. Fake flowers abound. A little girl started taking a long glass stalk of rose. Her father asked her to stop and she said, 'But my teacher likes it!!!!' He said, 'No, she doesn't like it.' The father looks very absorbed in trying to choose something as the girl walks around in a white and pink dress. They eventually (i think) choose small bunches of small flowers. A little boy twirls around the shop saying Flower. Flower shop! We go to popular after paying (as we enter I think I hear a boy asking his father where his sister is and he says, put-put!) and so begins the search for cool stationary. Like...post-it flags? Pencil box? Bunch of chops that say GOOD WORK, DYNAMIC, CREATIVE. My sister is the english monitor but doesn't really like her english teacher and doesn't want to buy anything for the teacher, doesn't care really. What about anonymous adult diapers, or bras, or something. My mother eventually finds nice net bags and a cow clip and a teacher's day card that gets her stressed because she can't find its price (and one can't get the exact same thing for teachers, what if they compare?). All over the shop people are desperately hunting for silly presents. One mother (american?) showed her son the pink stuff toy (pig?) she chose for Miss ___. He says, yeah!

All I remember from past teacher's days are desiree staying over to bake chocolate chocolate-chip cookies (pre-mix bought from ntuc), the old kitchen late at night, shifting the drumset away so we could sleep on the blood-red carpet floor of my old room in our old house. Do you remember, ah choo?

I wish there were teachers to bake chocolate chip cookies for in that way, school tables to put your presents on the lower rung under the table, school bells and chalkboards for someone to write happy teachers day on the board between lessons and all the silliest presents in the world.

robin egg blue car

for nobody else gave me a thrill

with all your faults, i love you still

it had to be you

wonderful you

9th august 2008

don't pass me by
don't make me cry
don't make me blue
cause you know darling
i love only you
you'd never know it could be so
i'd hate to see you go
don't pass me by
don't make me cry

i'm sorry that i doubted you
i was so unfair
you were in a car crash
and you lost your hair
you said that you would be late
about an hour or two
i said that's alright
i'm waiting here,
just waiting to hear from you

-don't pass me by, ringo starr, the white album

regles

You always were the one
to make us stand out in a crowd
Though every once upon a while
your head was in a cloud
There's nothing you could never do
to ever let me down
Just remember that I'll always love you

-minor incident, badly drawn boy


Hear ye, womenfolk!

Realisations with regard to that excruciatingly slow shedding of that thick nutritious bloody uterus wall

If a lady never has children, then the (48-13) x 12 = 35 x 12 = 420 approximate times she has her period (assuming she has it 12 times a year) will have been for nothing except that wondrous crazy possibility that it might happen someday. And siblings are the only people in the whole history of time, of the universe, of ever to ever have been in that same warm chamber that is the icky placenta womb of their mother, taking turns living in the same home for 9 months.

And my mother said they pump shit out of you before you give birth.

'What if the baby comes out with shit at the same time and there's shit on the baby's head?!'

'Yah, serious! It can happen!'

Yesterday, my first auntie in her late forties went to hospital for an above-related operation and my cousin (whose 6th birthday it was yesterday) called my second auntie and I tricked her that the first auntie was at the hospital to give birth.

'boy or girl? eh i want girl leh!'

'girl lah'

-puts phone aside- 'it's a girl! it's a girl!'

'oh! you have the same birthday as the baby! do you like that?'

-pause- (weirdly and properly) 'uh YES!'

her slightly older brother called later.

'where got so fast got baby one?'

'you see her stomach very fat right?'

'no.'

her big oldest brother called later.

'eh, jk right?'

today when the little one found out the truth.

'next time you tell me the truth i also won't believe you!'

Silly not-so-smug-anymore me.

family photos

the first people

kindergarten birthday

the balloon that flew to the crazy skies

The present from my mother that i saw when i awoke, that shot gloriously (actually horrifyingly) out of the car because the windows were down and the wind was strong. It had hanging stars and polkadots. Goodbye dear beautiful balloon!

But there, that was me on my 21st birthday, which was made wonderful by my bestest trustiest friends. And that my father walked around london (on a work trip) for hours trying to find LUSH for me, even silly-ly going into body shop to ask where LUSH was. Among other things I got a polkadotted swimming costume and a beatles card (with a spider on ringo's face and the rest watching) and a tarot card -Awakening your true self.- among other things in captain sea-ruby's magical bounty from wench lucy, a sweet cherry spice cake and green train pendant from janey, and we sent the ET with his japan luggages to the station, and from ah choo the maddest birthday party (partly due to the adult diapers) where elfie took me to the place blindfolded but when i was alone with the taxi driver for a few seconds i said, 'uncle, zhe bien shi na li?' and he said quickly, 'united square. bu yao jiang..!' (elfie later said he gave the uncle a thumbs-up and the uncle winked back) and blindly walking with elfie holding my hand the way it hasn't been held since i was little. to kindergarten of course where there were 2 tie-wearing lads singing Ring of Fire and I Saw Her Standing There (i think my heart exploded) and a glowing chocolate cake that said All you need is love and free flow of delicious ice cream and seeing everyone i hadn't seen a long time and everyone having ice cream -the bestest children's treat, except alcoholic- in that lovely glowing place where i will go back to thank mister chemistry-teacher-with-lab-glasses (though i wonder if he found out i wrote kimchi=placenta on his flavour board and the icecream scooper gave me a seductive scary 'happy birthday' wink before we left). ah choo wore the checkered dress that i 'made' (teacher did most of it) and we watched the video heartfeltly made by desiree. 'Let's go get the shit kicked out of us by love.' Poor conan (thanks for the colouring book and crayons!) burnt his hand trying to light 5 sparklers and zhi ying had magical green lipstick that wears on pink. And just the funny possibility that my stupid brother would turn up though he didn't. But above all i got a new feeling of courage to get better from the nonsensical worries in my head. Thanks for everything. Let's not ever grow up.

Love forever,
Mary Smith

richie tenenbaum tennis

A strong draft is blowing through my room and swirling around the neighbourhood. Close your eyes and you are in hogwarts.

*

From the Ministry of Health's booklet on organ transplant:

A person who is brain dead is truly and unequivocally dead and will never wake up nor regain consciousness again.

Brain death occurs when there is total and irreversible cessation of all functions of the brain in a person. When a person is declared brain dead, he will not be able to breathe on his own and will need to be artificially supported by a ventilator. Once the ventilator is switched off, the person's heart will cease to beat as his brain has already stopped functioning.

*

Last night i watched tennis for nearly 8 hours straight. I don't really understand this as I've never so much as use a tennis racket to hit a tennis ball. But i first got hooked one day a few years ago, when i turned on the tv on a school night and there was Roddick vs Federer and i watched for 3 hours straight though i had no idea about forehands or backhands or counting score. Now i do a bit more and why does everyone wear white at Wimbledon? And why does Nadal tug at his underwear nearly every time before serving? It was 3 in the morning but I perservered because I HAD TO SEE NADAL WIN. And during the darn rain breaks they showed the 1980 Borg vs McEnroe finals, one of the 'historic matches'. Here are Borg and McEnroe.

How i wish players today wore what they used to wear in the past. Small hard-material white shorts with zips and buttons, stripy cotton shirts, big red headbands (McEnroe). And the funny umpire sits on the same level as everyone and the some people in the crowd are mad women from the 80s with that side parted wave of a fringe and pinky lipstick cheering a bit psychotically, flailing their arms and looking madly self-amused. Watching the old match gave me a cosy feeling. I wish I could've shared the real match with my father but that 1980 match, my father was 20 when he watched it (like me now) and he watched it till his tv emitted smoke and burnt out halfway. He went to sleep (HOW COULD HE) and imagine how he felt the next day when he found out what happened ($!@%&*^%!!!) But I got to watch part of what my father didn't finish then. (Actually it was probably because he watched it halfway that he gave me a quite devastatingly inaccurate description of what happened in the match) When the real match resumed, my grandmother was still snoring loudly as I clutched Johnny and Sharkie, one in each arm. My feet were sweaty and my heart was beating fast. I almost got a seizure when they said '4th championship point'. Finally Nadal won. Johnny, Sharkie and I let out mad silent cheers. VAMOS!!!!!!!

alan

The frosty stars glowed while my cereal floated in a bowl of milk...

pencil case

'I love you from the bottom of my pencil case...'

theives market

Kan-ni-na!

Me and Mister Sailor went to the sungei road thieves' market today. Here's what i read of it:

More than 30 years old and a fascinating glimpse into Singapore's underbelly. A huge jumble of goods, often sold by grizzled old Chinese "uncles" trying to make the odd 10 bucks from their old record players, battered woks and shirts they wore to a wedding in 1971. There's the occasional amazing find lurking in there somewhere, but even if you don't buy anything, it's an absorbing way to spend an hour or two.

And i found a humongous 'The Magic Faraway Tree' badge, with a big black tree and a splattery colourful background; a 'I'm A SENTOSA Kid' badge (green words on bright yellow background, HA), a beauty and the beast record, and an evil egyptian ring (green crystal on gold band). And i also found a fandi ahmad pencil box, with a striped sharpener enclosed. But i didn't buy it since it's waiting for a fandi ahmad fan to stumble upon it someday and feel like a child discovering something magnificent. And we found old medals, 9 years and under swimming competition at the PA swim club, interschool table-tennis. And bright red jewelled high heels, child-size. Ah Choo, let's go there someday and bargain in hokkien. Siu dua lah. (referring to gargantuan ah-peh rings) And help me choose old chinese records when i get a record player!

If this were ten years ago i might be the child in the story longing for a summer neighbourhood playmate, to sell lemonade with, to go to the swings with, to buy popsicles with, to cycle around the neighbourhood with, to play frisbee at the reservoir with, to run out after dinner with.

When my cousins were on holiday, they came over and we watched cinderella and painted our faces and played pirate and went to the swings. But now, my summer playmate is...my grandmother, we play a game of timing every night. I finish bathing, open the toilet door and she says what she has been waiting to say, 'open the window, let the air in' and i do it, and i quickly adjust the floor mat before she tells me to put it properly. If i do it before she can say it, i win.

Sharpened pencils.

armchair

Why, sit yourself down!


This is the armchair you have been waiting for all your life. Like something from a childhood dream though there never was such an armchair when you were tiny. Maybe all chairs felt big and plush and marvellous because you were small and it felt so fine to just lay back with pillows with your feet sticking out, reading a book after dinner with mummy's room lamp. All those adventures in enid blyton books and fizzy roald dahl stories and tiny facts about dinosaurs and colours. Now there are hard wooden chairs and cloth chairs but nothing warm and safe. This armchair has tiny goldy rusty studs and big arms for you to rest books on and if you lie back hard enough a foot rest pops out. If you fall asleep in it on friday the thirteenth you might wake up somewhere else. Buy this and guard it and one day you will be an old person sitting in it, it will be disgusting and mouldy but it will be the bestest chair in the whole wide world.

bazhang

I tried to wake up at 5 am to film my grandmother making bazhang. This year it occured to me to do that, like growing out of being a child eagerly awaiting, and knowing that this is something precious that might not happen many more times. Anyway, my grandmother's bazhang is my favourite food in the whole wide world. One year I had 7 in a day. When we were young, it was one of the most exciting things that happened only once a year. We'd run down in our pajamas and go into the outside kitchen of our old house (it's still on the same spot of land, but it's not old anymore) and sit at the sticky pseudo-wooden table, but not before wearing slippers because the floor would be oily with bazhang oil, and we would be presented with a bazhang that just came out of the giant tin pot cooking on the glowing charcoal. And when we split it with a fork, steam would flow out and up, and the smell is wonderful! It's a brown bazhang with rice, pork, mushrooms and a big fat chestnut. I remember one year in primary school where my grandfather was in the outside kitchen too, and he was dressed for work with his heavy golden pen and white shirt and black pants, and it was 7 plus am with glowing sunshine, my bazhang just split open, and I felt blissful. My grandmother is an expert at bazhang and it's very hard to make, you have to twist 2 banana leaves in a certain way, scoop and pat rice into it, meat, throw in a chestnut, finish it with rice, twist the leaves, and tie the whole thing to a hanging bunch or bazhangs. Then put it in the giant pot for 2 hours, then fish the bunch out by the strings. This year she made me vegetarian ones, with hae bee hiam (shrimp paste) and strangely they taste nearly like the meat ones. I hope when I'm 64 I'll still remember the taste of her bazhang and sit in my rocking chair looking at my grandchildren but feeling like a child again thinking of the sweet chestnuts and early morning darkness and her knobbly hands patting the rice into the leaves.

ah choo

Bon anniversaire, sorcière folle

Je ne sais pas si tu aimes les moles

Tu as vingt-et-un ans aujourd'hui

Vas sentir les fleurs de la nuit

et quand les fleurs t'enivrent follement

n'oublies pas de manger un bon-bon

appelles-moi quand tu vas accoucher

je peux te preter une bouche pour crier

et quand tu dors sur les fleurs bleus

sous les etoiles et la lune et le feu

j'espere que tu reves à l'amour

et tu respires comme une petite ours

cartwheel

Yahooooo!

If I never do real cartwheels at least I can cartwheel in my heart.

Guavas and strawberries!