fresh black grass

My hands are shaking
From carrying this torch
From carrying this torch for you

The end of the fizzy hair adventures
It went from electric blue to light blue to blue-grey, then to inky rich blue, punk blue, dragon purple-blue, magic purple, sweet purple-pink, taffy pink, light pink, to light pink with purple-white and condensed-milk-yellow strands. I cut it all off and now it's fresh black grass. Fresh black grass on a rainy day is marvellous to touch and marvellous to feel. Also, I bought a Belle chop for elysia which leaked pink ink from a grumpy hag who doesn't let people test it and a pack of 56 glow in the dark dinosaur wall stickers which turned out to be 7 dinosaurs and 56-7 stars = 49 stars smaller than a thumbnail. Ants are crawling all over my walls and suddenly I feel like I could be standing at the door of our motel room at Martha's, on a rainy day when we get sent back from work because the go-kart tracks are wet and squeeging them won't help and we're all wet and soggy in our electric blue shirts that have The Great Escape stitched small and white into the left breast and big khaki pants and Desiree is watching The Biggest Loser in the room and I open the door to see that there are people riding the red and yellow Boomerang and screaming their heads off in the white sky in the cold summer rain. Oh please cut my hair again in a bathtub, at least I still have my red raincoat though you threw away your green one dear witch.

P.s. Adding footnotes in microsoft word is AMAZING

rainy day women

There is a tree I always notice while driving to and from school. It's between the Choa Chu Kang and Brickland exits and seeing it is always special, at 100km/h, speeding past. Most of the other trees are lush and green but this one is all bare, with its branches twistedly growing out, gnarly and twiggy and mad and gentle and sad. But then the past week I thought it was gone, there were empty spots along the middle section of trees and I thought they had cut off my favourite tree. But then I spotted it again, with less of its main branches left, like a good friend who had a haircut. There's another one, at the exit to the BKE (is that what its called), bare and all its branches and twigs are spreading out and form a hannukah candle kind of shape, all growing upwards. Driving to school and back, with johnny cash, the wind howling, fun foreign workers on the backs of lorries listening to music with pink towels on their heads, sheltering themselves with umbrellas, laughing, looking at me as i look at them. Construction workers with their boots and spades and hats and mud and hands are so cool.

ring of fire

I fell for you like a child
Oh, but the fire went wild

I wish to think of everything at once, remember everything and imagine everything: my grandfather, the beatles, my film script, dinner, my grandmother, what to paint next, james dean, what to write in a letter, french conjugaison, japanese characters, the clouds, the trees, my part for the percussion ensemble, fauvism, futurism, dada, songs, the beach, the cosmos, fairies and forests and circuses. But my mind just thinks of things like Itchy mosquito bite on my leg, or I should probably go pee in a few minutes. And you?

wet bendy needles

O I wish I had a river I could skate away on

It finally rained for a long time, in the night, and I missed it while sleeping. It's still raining now, like wet bendy needles or feathertips and I wish it would pour and storm sensationally. Something is wrong with my faithful 6-year-old speakers, so that The Mamas and The Papas sound like they are singing Creeque Alley in an empty room with no happy jangle of guitars. And the horse clip clops of God Only Knows are soft. At least the proclaimers still sound awesome.

In the pictures on my wall, James Dean is always looking at me no matter which part of the room I am at, and Paul is always holding a teacup, looking out the train window, and in another he is at the piano, and Ringo poses in his polkadotted shirt. John is looking out from under an umbrella.

At percussion class yesterday we continued practicing for the little concert exam, and we played pieces related to weather. One is Hurricane (and I'm supposed to play the steel drums except we don't have them so I have to use this malay instrument of heavy golden bells like a mini royal xylophone) and there's the weather movement series, of which we're playing Spring Wind, a light and lovely piece with a jungle feel, and Storm Warning and Dance, an intriguing and rather mad piece. I never really could follow a conductor perfectly. But it's amazing. People standing in front of instruments, with someone leading them all. And out of nothing, they all enter a counting of beats and create a something that came from the mind of someone they've never met imagining how weather or a big happy green field on a summer's day would become music, and mutter '1, 2, 3, 4' under their breaths, and somehow enter this other world, all following nothing but this intangible counting of beats and try to play their loudest when the score reads 'ffff' like someone trying to type a bad word on a typewriter. And I hit a gigantic golden nipple of a gong. And then kiap the big mallet under my armpit like an auntie and grab my drumsticks so I can play the tomtom part coming up very uncoolly. And dainty girls' arms float up and down above the xylophone, marimba, with bouncing red and yellow yarn mallets, playing lovely sounds. Someone else scrapes a suspended cymbal. And I hit the middle of the gigantic golden nipple with all my might.

evening garden bliss

Do you want to hold johnny or sharkie?

My evening garden bliss is sitting in the mad coloured inflatable swimming pool with mr krabbs, spongebob, plankton, patrick and sandy, with the adults watching tv and eating fruits and chinese new year goodies inside the glowing living room, us outside splashing and shouting and eating ice cream and pretending. Except my grandmother thought leaving the pool on her grass overnight will kill it so she watered the plants and grass immediately. Does shining a torch on glow in the dark stars that aren't bright enough recharge them?

I can't wait for it to rain for days. O please come in the night tonight, howling and mad, till i awake and then fall back deep into sleep with dreams of jungles and smoke and hands and berries and then wake up suddenly in the morn with a deep sigh of madness.

During the christmas sleepover esmonde left his black toiletries bag here. I was following an ant trail from my dustbin with a torchlight when I found his bag under a small wooden table. And a whiff of Nomad soap and shampoo from crabtree and evelyn sent me to heaven. I saw a car bumper sticker that said 'HEAVEN. Don't miss it' with clouds. What does it mean?

I have decided to make peace with the unfathomable amount of ants in my room and feel like they are my friends inhabiting the same space as me, that they enjoy the deep blue and robin-egg blue of the walls like me, that they are happily and hardworkingly living their lives here and i should be happy for that. I simply cannot kill them anymore. Why is that?

And I'd like a pig as a pet! Fresh pink skin and GLORIOUS MUD and poo and grunts. This is like how I'd prefer an ugly chunky looking mashed up cookie or cake to a pretty prissy delicate one anytime. Does anyone else want a pig? We could make our pigs be friends and hang out with each other sometimes. Give them sunglasses and star tattoos and separate them everytime they are on the very verge of mating and then laugh about it. Evil taking over. NO, Olivia, don't worry, you can sleep with me as long as you don't release yer bowels in my grandmother's beautiful king-size bed but as you are a pig no one will blame you.

23rd february is a very special date and today my father got me a rugged blue and brown timberland backpack that will stay with me for years on all future adventures and travels.

When does it rain cold and when does it rain warm?

typewriters part 2

We wrote love poems in french class yesterday; tomorrow is the day for 'recitation with feeling'. Ah secret loves and desires.

typewriter tip tip tip

A is for Apple
























These are making me very excited

The Remington Portable up there was the one desiree found in the antique shop in glens falls and nearly bought for me for my birthday and when i finally saw it...it was like buttered peas and fresh flowers and strawberry tea in my blooming mind. I think I will get off my arse and do face painting and use the money to buy it. Bumblebee yellow keys melt my heart.

fly free duckies

Suddenly I turned around and she was standing there
With silver bracelets on her wrists and flowers in her hair

Lucy Clementine, I am feeling strangely excited about lunch today, because we are having nice clean porridge with warm vegetables and carrots with fried egg and the day is bright and windy. The past few days, we've been having curry and rice and mee siam and prata and sweets and spring rolls and beehoon and chocolates and sugee and help i can't stop my hands from reaching out for another biscuit or nut. But I have been getting better at catching nuts in my mouth.

Adult relatives who come to my room usually stand at the doorway with their arms politely folded behind them, faced with napoleon dynamite and the beatles, they gaze with heads slightly tipped up and nod. And nod. And nod.

TIME FOR LUNCH -jumps up like tasmanian devil-

I ran down the stairs shouting 'PORRIDGE!!!!'

Mother: PORRIDGE?

It turned out we had to finish last night's copious amounts of mee siam and popiah. They had their NJC gathering last night here. For the past 2 decades and more, my parents' NJC friends have been meeting at one guy's house for on Christmas. But last christmas the tradition was broken, and now it's going to be at my house every chinese new year. My parents met in NJC. They were both in council. When their friends meet it's always a jolly time. I spoke to one of them in french about what my father was like then. Il ne change pas. Il est toujours pratique!

Enough with the lunch story, now onto my hair. O the whimsical topics in life. It was inky punk-blue and one morning I awoke to discover that it was mainly blue and purple on top, with a small patch of light purple (turning lavender) at my forehead, and a small patch of light robin-egg blue, with ocean blue across mixed with magic violet, with the sides blue-green with brown and black roots. Wondrous! It's protecting me with magic luck.

This evening if the weather is lovely I shall lounge in the inflatable swimming pool on the fresh garden grass, with my grandmother miles away in china and not able to see that my pool is killing her grass just by Being On It.

Fly free, duckies

love him in the noontime

Where are you going to I don't mind
If I live too long I'm afraid I'll die
So I will follow you wherever you go
If your offered hand is still open to me
Strangers on this road we are on
But we are not two we are one

Hello friends, and hello void! I feel like doing this again. What are all of you doing and what do you think of just before you fall asleep in bed? I wish we were more connected and lived facing the same forest and can play there everyday, make up plays and burn leaves.

The Darjeeling Limited made me sad at first but now it fills me with a tiny but hopeful pulsating excitement. The music from old indian movies are light, dreamy, pulsating, a little mystical, funny sometimes ("TYPEWRITER TIP TIP TIP TIP TIP TIP TIP").

The Super-Adventure of January (l'aventure super-fantastique de janvier)
Claire, Vivi and I went on the tree tops trail. It was peaceful with lovely green leaves protecting us overhead ('secret affinity with the trees') and I forgot any troubles. Being in nature is so wondrous and easy. We took turns kicking a lump of rock for a few kilometres. When we had a quarter of the way left, when we knew it was going to pour madly soon, my grandmother kept calling in panicked tones and asking me to take a cab home, but we had spent all that time...kicking the lump of pain! Finally we heard a ssshhh sound of the rustling of leaves, or rain chasing, and we ran. Claire first, vivi second and me last. It felt like we had plunged into a children's adventure storybook, twisted and exciting. The trees were all around us and the soil was littered with big elegant orange flowers. It rained so hard we were completely drenched, and ran with madness, I couldn't stop smiling (though also scared that we would die from lightning anytime) and we were all dripping water from our faces and everywhere. We also almost died when we decided to run across an open area with lightning and thunder very near then huddled under my red raincoat (oh yes, i had a raincoat in my bag all that while!) to call a cab and go to my house to dry off with milo and biscuits. YAHOO for this madness which saved me from another kind of madness.

I trust in the secret affinity with the trees.

single eyelid

Someday, when I'm awfully low

Help, the time has come for me to acquire a double eyelid. On my left eye. The one that stays open when I wink. Blame it on my half hearted single eyelid. My mother got double eyelids in her thirties, they just came with the wrinkling of her skin and decades of...sleep, i suppose. Why is it so early for me? I don't wanna get a double eyelid, help! I want to be a single eyelidded asian girl for the rest of my life! It usually comes after a long night of sleep, and disappears within a couple of hours, but today it has stayed all day, still there, and the feeling is less obvious now, almost as if my skin is moulding to it and getting used to it. No! I must resist!

I have a fantasy of working in an office. The clean, sterile toilets, neat cubicles, insanely obsessive sick cleanliness of the place, the smooth carpet with barely a piece of rubbish, sharpened pencils, clicking pens, printers making that churning sound, office workers huddled at their work, their secret selves hidden within them, seemingly boring, but with secret office romances and enemies. (I watched too many shows) But why is that in a way so attractive? Because it gives you many things to resist. And one has to resist things.

My mother baked a recipe I found at allrecipes.com (an amazing site)- banana blueberry quick bread, which turned out more like cake, and she didnt like it but it was wonderful. Bits of soft gooery banana and sour or sweet juicy blueberries with chunks of walnut. Anyhow, I suddenly got an idea! I told her, practise baking so that when I open a cafe someday, and you retire, you can bake for the cafe and your life won't be meaningless after retirement! Yay, be my slave baker and your life will be full of meaning! My sister added, "I want to go there and study".

In fu man ren jian today, zheng guo ping/xiao dong, a beatles-mad guy, one of the chef disciples of his father, lover of sixties dancing (scuba move and peace sign across the eyes, and hip-wobbling), most frivolous disciple of the four, mad laugher, wearer of black and white checkered pants, danced a lot, and went mad when he saw chen xiu li/margaret ma dancing in a record shop. It was wonderful. He pined after her in his room filled with beatles pictures. i profess his dancing was hilarious and fun to watch like nothing i've ever seen (though madonna in the 80s papa don't preach mtv, in a black leotard and short spiky blonde hair was sensational).

My cousin, my special friend, my ex-everyday-buddy and holiday pal, who would play the computer as I asked him whether my clothes matched, who would follow me around the house as he had nothing to do, who sat on my knees when he was 2 and I screamed as i put my finger in his ear and felt a huge ring of earwax surrounded by cobwebs of...earwax, who used to run around the room naked before bathing, with his cellulite butt and cute big tummy, who can explain scientific phenomenon better than i ever will be able to, who yesterday explained lots of first aid to me, who is also a cancerian and also nostalgic, who went around with his childhood blanket till he was 12, my neurotic isaac, is now officially taller than me.

Goodnight Sunday.

zhong qiu jie

I just went to upper seletar reservoir to join my grandmother and her gang of reservoir friends (friends who jog at the reservoir at every morning) for zhong qiu jie. They were seated in the dark, like the other groups of people there, on the stone benches lining the place, and chatting, all jolly, and there was a table of their combined supplies, like mooncakes, agar agar, red wine, pee-colored wine, chinese tea from a hu zi, and other things. One of the women wore one of those lights around her head and looked like an insane coal miner and the other women laughed at her for looking like she works at a rubber plantation. She looked mad indeed. They had to make comments about me (any grandchild would have been subject) and said, in hokkien, 'wah, so big ah!' and 'so pretty, like ah ma!' and 'now you look more like a girl'. I could sense my grandmother's pride. I'm glad she has such a group of friends. They go on holidays together, to places like helsinki, and china mostly. And I met that man, the man who films their holidays and then goes home and burns vcds for everyone. Yes, the man who filmed a building for a few minutes before it chooted with smoke. The man who films his old friends getting off the tour bus, and films them taking turns to take pictures at places. And who goes home enjoying his videos of people taking pictures and then burns it for his friends. And he was surprised that I, grandchild of one of the group, would know of the video-er. One day i shall go on one of their old folk holidays. On holidays my grandmother wakes up at 5am to scrub underwear in the toilet.

Oh yes, my father just came back from his work trip to korea and japan, and got me The Most Expensive Umbrella You Ever Did See, and high socks. One pink and white striped, one ahma canal-water colored with black and maroon lines, one rainbow striped. Sigh.

We went to nokia today to collect my phone and i told them not to upgrade the software so my things wouldn't be deleted but as i secretly guessed they did and everything was gone, almost 200 numbers and 500 messages. My father was mad, or acted mad, and spoke to the manager and demanded a letter of apology, which i will frame. It was hilarious and i wish i could've filmed it. Damn technology!

Remember?

I'm sitting here in a boring room
It's just another rainy Sunday afternoon
I'm hanging around, I'm waiting for you,
but nothing ever happens,
and I wonder

Happy zhong qiu jie, the childhood festival of glowing lanterns and playing with fire, wherever you are.

ginger snaps

I watch and wait

On Saturday we (me and the old friends) went to booksactually and to a japanese teahouse, then chinatown. Chinatown is fun then, all sun and silly tourists, silly middle aged caucasians with sunglasses, fanning themselves, fascinated by cheongsams and name chops. teenage girl tourists, in huge vintage sunglasses and thick cotton vintage dresses. what fun to watch, them sweating like flushed pink pigs searching for the oriental items that are most exotic to buy.

On Saturday night we (me and some of the family) participated in a silly lantern procession and it struck me, what were all these adults doing, walking absurdly around, holding lanterns with little children? What was the whole damn point of everything? To make the children happy, to give them the experience of ti-deng-long! Gently glowing paper balls, gentle pink, red, orange, yellow. This glowing, dangerous, beautiful thing they have to hold outstretched, with their tiny arms and it represented something, though they don't know what, but it just seems like something to be proud of, innit. Then we, 6 of us, played noodnight (what elysia calls midnight catching, catching in the dark) and she giggled all the time and got caught because she kept holding her rustling beloved stickers that i got her, 180 different tiny squares of anythings (mad turtles, crazy eggs, apples). the kind of thing that really fascinates a kid. it kills me. and that han read pride and prejudice at 13, and shann gobbled up the 3 chocolate bars i got him the way i knew he would.

On Sunday afternoon we (me and my mother and the whining work-fearing one with the halo of curly hair) baked ginger snaps. they had lots of cinnamon in them and were rolled around and coated with raw sugar, magical little golden crystals that give them a chrismassy glow. the kind of biscuits i always wanted to make since i was a silly naive girl believing in chrismassy cookies.

Tonight we baked more ginger snaps! My sister said, "next time, when you open your cafe, you can do it in my room!" what super silliness. the girl next door played Noel beautifully on her violin and her mother caned her younger brother. she works from till 11pm nearly everyday, is wanted by her mother to get 100 marks, practices the piano and violin a lot, hardly plays and is almost forbidden from watching tv. she told her maid that she wishes her mother would die earlier, so she could play, or something. how can an 8 or 9 year old girl think that? maybe some ginger snaps, spongebob and harry potter would help her. i hope she gets piercings and tattoos and becomes an insanely intelligent delinquent who does something madly extraordinary someday. go little girl. (who is obsessed with tinkerbell and disney princesses, she showed me her room once, excitedly) i'd like to think that if i start a plan and invite her over to do work and we become friends i can be the one to slowly liberate her, her neighbour jiejie.

I have been having mad dreams every night and does it say something, the kind of thoughts you are swathed in, or people you think about, waking up, or rather, half-awake, under the safety of the plush blanket, like floating in a dream, or rather wisps of floaty thoughts. These days sometimes my thoughts at this time are about the park, especially the morning routine and walking to the park in the morning, jaywalking across the road in the hot sun, with a view of country inn and suits across the road, our wallets and sweets or whatever in our pockets, in the electric blue shirts, walking along the rather foresty road to work, and twice or thrice john was on the top of the tower, or climbing down, against the clouds.

I don't mean to sound rambly or measured because the holidays have not been like that, they have been kind of awesome.

Oh yes, one day, a woman and her two young children alighted from a bus, and she just stood there at the busstop while they ran away to a nearby grass area. I thought she was letting them play while waiting for the next bus but guess what, the children, a boy and a girl, pulled down their pants/panties, next to each other, right there next to many cars passing by, and peed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cha cham bo!!!!!!!!!!!!!

from FOUND











my grandfather's tombstone











funny happy picture that i woke up to one day in a dingy charming room in vermont











my father, mister earnest, mister righteous, mister once ns man of the year, with japanese people presumably in japan. see how they are adorably suited and seated with tiny meals. mad asian men!!!!!

SCHOOL'S OUT

I am wriggling with excitement. Saw people parachuting down from the glorious sky blooming with big white clouds. Some things i must surely do: put facepainting flyers around my neighbourhood, bake, sew, read, cycle, find tsachikis. Lying on a couch with desiree watching movies and eating potato chips the way we used to would be SPLENDID too. Swimming under the hot sun too. Even waking up would be grand. I love the holidays.

"wow, canary yellow, the perfect colour for me wizarding robes!"










the magic 8 eye original doc marten punk boots of my friend Sunflower (that which is her pirate name) with magic yellow stitching and black jeans for that look. ah.....

Speaking of pirate names, here is the list so far (we really should call each other by this):

me- Mary-Jane Sea Ruby
vivienne- Violet Phoenix Tide
yinren- Edward Black Bones
ling- Rose Coral Bertrucio
claire- Lady Kathleen Shale
desiree- Polly Sue (we aint sure yet)
yeehan- Sunflower, or Helianthus Kylin Kore

All else, please use comments box to give yerseelves a real gritty tough olde magical pirate name. it vill be written in the emerald seas!

ARRRR

(suggestions: use the name of a precious stone, or a sea element, or a fish species, like turquoise, or wave, or kingfisher. put this with a name that will make the sea rumble, like LAURA or ALBERT, and add a dash of something else like Sue or Seed. Make sure every word means something to you. and there ye have it mate, yer pirate name. be proud of it.)

This is me and michael, my kindergarten friend. One of the few things i remember of kindergarten was him and that we liked each other. This picture was taken at my 6th birthday party, where the adults forced us to take a picture and I was feeling incredibly hand-clutching-dress shy (hideous frock), and worse when the photo was developed because my white underwear was showing. I always wanted to find my old tiny friends, and i found him! Ol paddington bear. Do you remember the neon yellow snake poison they put around the bungalows?

Dear reader, don't you miss being a tiny being, with all the adults looking so big and tall? And wondering what you'll be when you grow up, thinking you can be anything you wanted? And running around naked, eating peanuts sweatily and washing the car (playing with water) was such a treat. Clap if you believe in fairies or tinkerbell will die!

I bought All Things Must Pass, george's first cd after the beatles split. It's rare and the sky on the cover is done with watercolours, you can see the gentle water spots. George is a gentle india-man with gentle words like 'because you're sweet and lovely girl i love you, because you're sweet and lovely girl it's true. you looked at me that's all you had to do' and 'here comes the sun'. he would never pose naked like john did with yoko. he would never be wacky as ringo, or sing like paul at last year's grammy's. When he died i remember there was a book and it was sold in secondary school at a book sale at the family lounge, but i didnt know him then.

My heart has wings, and it can fly
I'll touch every star in the sky

We used to sit around the tv in grimy pajamas (mine polkadotted, his with ninjas or something) and with toasted peanut butter bread with sugar, and milo, and watch cinderella. The mice trying to crawl up the stairs to give her the key was the scariest part. And richie rich, dumb and dumber, honey we shrunk ourselves, the little mermaid, sister act 2, home alone 2. We used to rewatch all that like crazy. Which one shall we rewatch today?!

Fu man ren jian is showing again on channel 8 and it's great. Living in 60s singapore must have been awesome. Kampongs, good oily singaporean food, cotton pajamas, tin buckets, a-go-go dancing, rock and roll, playing marbles, hopscotch, big spectacles, tight dresses, innocence and madness, life is a blast.

Life is a dream!

shooz

Tu es l'envie et moi le geste
Toi le citron et moi le zeste

On friday i painted that dirty old ikea kids table evil pink and did delicate restoration work on the dollhouse. Then all of yesterday afternoon was spent painting those white canvas high-tops. I never felt quite so alive recently as when I was done with painting and ran around showing them to everyone at home, which tells me about Things I Should Be Doing With Me Life ;-)

sunday night

If I can't have you, I'll throw my love into the deep blue sea

The good olde fresh rainy days are gone. But now that they are I can see clouds blooming from my window.

When I read about postmodernism and structuralism and all the things i thought i'd never care about, i realised it was just like the things that have been bothering me like a nagging stormcloud. And after endless rambles it all means, how do you live your life? Do you eat meat even if you can't kill a chicken? Do you shop at Gap? Do you really need to use a computer? Why did you think you had to go to university? And why the hell did you need a feature wall in your garden that consists of rectangular stones? And what does it all mean? Oh shut up.

If I am penny, I made friends with a lucy who cut my hair and orchid incense was burning in the toilet while olde chinese songs played, that seemed to come out of a moldy old grammophone, sung by women with black curly neat hair, red pins and tight cheongsams.

I tested my phone card and called Ibrahim in new york, he was still working in the park. It was a pitter pattery friday. 'Ello, it is Ibrahim' which made me squeal and jump. 'OH- XJ! How arr yoo!' And then after a while he passed the phone to Sakir. 'XJ? Where arr yoo! Where arr yoo! Where arr yoo! OH- Singaporr!' and then after a while he passed the phone back to Ibrahim. 'Where. Is. Desire? Thank you forr calling. I vill call yoo soon. Okay. Take care.' Then I called Nelson. Desire wasn't there but when i called her right after to tell her about it she knew how exciting it all was. It made my day.

When I swam with elysia last night she (wearing a body float) alternated between ordering me to let go ("I count 1 2 3 you swim away okay?!") and then clinging onto me like a baby duck ("Euh I scared!") and ended up clinging since her brother kept scaring her and when we neared this thing that shoots water out in a gentle arc of a stream into the pool, which I told her once was urine to get her into the big pool (though i don't understand the connection anymore) i said 'Eh let's go touch the shi shi!' 'I don't want!!!!!' 'Wait. Do you really think it's shi shi?' -looks around like a lost duckling, not answering- 'Do you really think they will put shi shi in the pool?' '....No.' 'Then do you think it's shi shi?' '....Yes.' When she finally touched it she smiled and said, 'Like shi shi leh.'

Here's the mail it never fails
It makes me wanna wag my tail
When it comes I wanna wail....
MAILLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

:-)

881

sticking yellow chrysanthemums and white flowers in my grandfather's gravestone grass on national day, his death anniversary. Elysia (wearing the magic pants i got her) never saw him or knew him. She is holding her storybook/sticker book.

I took my father and grandmother to watch 881 today (i say that because i was taking my grandmother and my father came along at my persuasion) and it was great. Not just because it was local (which already kind of makes it awesome). Anyway, we watched it at GV Yishun, and it was buzzing. The cinema was filled with families, ah pehs, ah sohs, people who brought their very old parents. It was nice that they came specially! (except bad GV played english ads and my grandmother who doesn't understand started yawning) And this will never be witnessed anywhere else in the world: (as we were finding our seats. read carefully and imagine hor) an ah-peh holding, like a kid, a packet of popcorn in the semi-dark, digging his nose with his pinky, then looking at me with a blank look as he realised i saw him at it. Tsk tsk tsk...ah-peh......li jia mi kia ah si ai aw pi sai ah?....AND THEN HOR, at one of the most climatic parts, this man's handphone rang and he answered it and started speaking loudly in hokkien and lydat not enough, he must still turn to his wife and ask her somethings in hokkien and den finish talking on his phone leh. People on the screen dying still want to talk. Make me want to shout, 'diam lah!!!!!!!!!!'

:-)

Sometimes it's the most grotesque and crudest parts of singapore that make me love it here.

nelson and rain

I LOVE LUCY


Me and Nelson, at my friday the 13th surprise birthday party, that desiree did, at the yellow umbrellas behind martha's ice cream, with twenty tiny red fluttering hearts and twenty candles on a peanut butter ice cream cake that was in danger of melting because when she told me to 'go buy ice cream' with her i told her i needed to pee. I really thought we were going to fry plain omelettes for dinner that night. I love lucy! I blew all the candles out in one breath after taking some time to make a wish. Nelson came though he wasn't feeling too good. He was extremely proud of the card he picked out, of an ape picking her nose, and on the inside it said 'XJ, I picked out something really nice for your birthday. Love and peace, Nelson.' And he gave me The White Album (!) which he knew i always wanted. Anyway, I miss him. He was one of the best friends we made there. Though when we 3 go out for dinner we sometimes don't know what to say, and he is tired and grumpy sometimes, but when it was nice it was wonderful, seeing him in the park after a tired day at work, and he shouts at us across the summer air 'Hello ladies!' or 'Hello beautifuls!' and always wears mad ties with his food safety thermometer in his front pocket. He's an olde hippy (well not that old). The only time we took booth photos with anyone else we took 2 with him, squeezing into the booth and had to do it twice because the first time you couldn't see us. And he took us to the drive-in and read my palm. And he told us about Edy's strawberry frozen fruit bar. So anyway, even though he hasn't replied my email I will find him the taschikis i promised and if the snail mail gets to him he will send us dreamcatchers made from natural materials he picked up, and read desiree's palm when she sends him a paint impression of her left palm. Some people are meant to meet, and Nellie, we miss ye. You have to believe in some things in this crazy world, and as nelson edward always thought, friendship is something to believe in.

Why is rain so nice? Yesterday I had a strangely fulfilling lesson learning how to use, in a basic way, an intermediately advanced videocamera. It felt like once you know how to use it, everything else depends on your imagination and how you turn the knobs or press the buttons. Isn't it funny that all your favourite movies, be it the royal tenenbaums or amelie or anything, in a way go down to delicate turns of knobs and buttons? So a moviemaker has to love his/her camera. I was glad I learnt it for I just remembered that magical movie ending that came to me long ago. Today I drove to school at 40 km/h in super heavy rain and real slow traffic listening to Sondre Lerche (You Knocked Me Off My Feet). O why can't it rain more. Today after a lecture of which we hardly paid attention, vivi, ling and i went to eat hot waffles at canteen 2 when it was raining out. Then we drove to newton listening to some strange lush cd with french songs in it. They got off and I registered for french at alliance whoopee. And it rained nearly all day! And my cousin bathes at least 4 times a day! And he changes his clothes every time, causing a problem with hanging clothes at his house! And his father told him to bathe for one minute each time or don't bathe! And his mother said 'you put too much soap is it?! Why you take so long?! Next time don't put so much soap!!!!' And once he tickled his brother when his brother needed to shit but was drinking milk from the milk bottle and then he shat in his pants and cried saying 'ko ko make me da bian'.

home

my magic cave when I just came back

When I run dry, I stop awhile and think of you

Sitting here sweating like a pig on a cool evening (why is singapore so bloody hot?), I just remembered that one of the nicest parts about working at the park was when it's around evening, and all the guests (yes, they call the customers guests. 'guest service!!!!!') are slowly leaving the park with their gigantic soft toys (giant red lizards two people have to carry, giant spidermen, crazy fur hats, neon turtles, bright pink unicorns) and there's hardly anyone around. It's peaceful then, with golden clouds. And with little/no violent and reckless people at go-karts we get to sit and chat, fantasize about what we're going to cook for dinner (the best dinners were the fried rice desiree and i made), drive the go-karts around madly violating all the rules we repeat vehemently to the violent creatures, and if we're at the rockwall/trampoline, talk to the people passing by who are usually too busy in the day to stop for a chat, like Ibrahim (turkish guy, our good friend whom we took to the movies at the mall) and Kyle (Napoleon Dynamite). Life seemed simpler then, being at Queensbury during summer, which is an exciting time for people there, it seems like summertime is the special happy-time of the year, places are buzzing, things are happening. So we work almost everyday, at gokarts or at the rockwall and giant trampoline, make friends with romanians, turkish, old guys at the park, everyone, buy our groceries at wonderful wal-mart, go for a movie at night, go somewhere for internet or chop veggies and make fried rice or pasta, do laundry, watch stupid shows like the biggest loser and clean house, wait for our off-days, hop on the fire-engine-red summer trolley and for a dollar stop anywhere in the area. And think about life. Oh boy.

And now it is thursday and it is raining outside and it is a peaceful day. The strangest thing I've done since coming back is visit castle green though I now stay at springleaf. Driving into the carpark was so familiar, and then the sound of the lift, the smell of the house, the smallness of it compared to this monstrosity we're now living in, my peach curtains in my small room. And i felt sad thinking it was probably the last time I would ever be in the house.

There was a really special and beautiful obituary in the papers 2 days ago. The header was My Love, followed by a nice picture of a happy woman, and sub-headings 'The way you are, My Special Girl Friday, when will you return....' And then a strange little paragraph going 'The girl I love to be marooned on a deserted island 14/08/06, You left without saying goodbye, I cannot let go. You walk in front, I totter behind. Tail-end Robert' and Robert listed himself as 'Husband: Robert Teo Architect'

I hope that when university is over I won't feel as if I have awoken from a dream I wish I never had. Is it strange, to feel so far removed from what they are talking about in class? Actually i dont care (and never will) about the history of communication studies, or postmodernism or anything like that, dang it all the way to bukit timah shit. Do you, dear reader?! Oh my I'm not even halfway to finishing! Someone sweep me away to turkey or mauritius and let's get married there!!!!!

p.s. comments finally work here!

howdy doo

We are here in Albany now, a peaceful lovely place with crazy clouds, sunshine, wooden houses and quaint shops, purple flowers, dandelions, yellow chrysanthemums, wal-mart and an outdoor wooden-looking amusement park (where we're working). Flights are miserable, but it's worth getting to where you want to go! The best parts of L.A. were venice beach, a crazy bohemian hippy happyhouse asylum place that felt like the 60s and this guy sat near us as we ate fish and chips by the pacific ocean and sang beegees and beatles. He sang norwegian wood and octopus' garden and we got beatles posters, johnny cash shirts, and crazy stuff. And the SUBURBAN HEAT as we took the public bus for an hour to hollywood and downtown L.A., among the 'hood and where people live and the shops, and all the houses and shops are aqua coloured, salmon coloured, dark blue, red, yellow, with handpainted signs. It was like in napoleon dynamite. Anyhow, for full details and mad sounds see desiree's blog (i didnt bring my laptop and internet is hard to come by), iloveamelica.blogspot.com

YAHOO

Two of us riding nowhere
Spending someone's hard-earned pay

These past few days i have been swathed with harry potter and clouds. Good ol' harry potter. There's nothing like warm lights, fireplaces, 'flagons of pumpkin juice', lawns, lighted common rooms and wooden wands. Did anyone notice that saturday was an amazingly cloudy day? There were clouds of all kinds, the huge, glorious fiery ones that puff magnificently and seem nearer, the further away, more wispy ones, and the kind that streaks across the sky very lightly like a patch of feathers, made up of a spread of very organised wispy clouds, far and lovely. That's called cirrus i think. And there's also the kind that eventually joins up in huge puffs, like a very white pouffy cake. Anyway it was really amazing. Sunday was like that too and i took some amazing pictures. I just can't imagine anyone dying in the last harry potter book. Maybe Snape will, after harry finds out he's good. He'll hold harry's hand and cry out his last words, everyone reading will let out a huge sob, and then he'll just...expire. 'Barking mad.....!'

Lou: Are ye sure ye don't want an ice cream?
Andy (staring at the floor in his wheelchair): Yeah.
Lou: But you said it was the perfect compliment to a hot summer's day!
Andy: Yeah i know.
Lou: So do you want an ice cream?
Andy: No.
Lou: Are ye sure? Because if we went away and you say you want one, it would be a right kerfuffle.
Andy: I don't want one.
(they go away)
Andy: I want an ice cream.

midsummer night's dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream

there's nothing quite as magical and splendid as outdoor theatre in nature. tonight there were throngs of shrieking and hooting st nicks girls, people who brought pillows, cheese and red wine, babies dressed like fairies with wings and glitter, damp grass, trees, a few stars, clouds and a full moon. along with sweaty running actors and their sprays of spit under the glaring light and wonderful words floating and booming around. it was super lovely. nay, in some way, it was glorious!

*:-D

beatles video

The Beatles- Real Love

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Dpns-QspX04

the most splendid beatles video ever

elvis makes me cry

Elvis makes me cry

I never thought i'd say this but consumerism is evil. Despite how you might think you can't deny your desires to shop or possess things, and how the shopaholic series might make it all seem rather adorable, and how it's sort of funny that women love/need shopping (well men do too now, my brother has more expensive taste than me now, imagine that), it's still sort of evil and unnatural. The desire to enter big bright malls with made-up sales people, consciously-dressed shoppers, big price tags that would give your grandmother a heart attack, and clothes that so did not originate from there (indian, hippie), so as to search for clothes that would make you feel good about yourself, can't be a very splendid thing. And actually the vehement way i'm putting it makes it feel kind of revolting and senseless.

I will try to stop feeling so emotionally attached to the old house though it's my favourite place in the world, so that one day when and if it ever gets sold my heart won't break too much.

"Life is cruel, protect yourself."
Mary Smith

But no, that would be silly too.

huckleberry

That would be a pretty howdy-do, wouldn't it?

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn will make you feel like a boy on a crazy adventure. Which is one of the best feelings in the world.

My brother is back from bmt for a bit. We picked him up for the first time last night after his first 2 weeks. A clump of parents were crowding around the bus door, yes the door where their boys (oh i mean men) emerged, no doubt to manly slaps and motherly hugs. We stood rather far from that scene, in front of the mrt station, with another group of parents/girlfriends/grandmas/siblings. It was lovely because there was an old indian man standing by the side, barely lit by the street lamps, but his music just floating through the night as all these people awaited. He played on his electric guitar some early rock and roll, some elvis, donny osmond (a song about paper planes). He played so simply and his singing was nice. Oh it was lovely and nostalgic. What made a man come out of his house on a friday night to stand in a dark corner and play, when it's obvious he won't get much money at all? I guess he just loved doing it, which is the loveliest thing of all.

We watched Elvis: The Lost Performances in my auntie's room and baby was dancing, they were all dancing. Now Elvis is cool. That white suit! With a v all the way to his stomach, and the bell bottoms. And his hair with those sideburns, and his mighty gold rings. "you ain't!" (nothin but a hound dog) Elvis the Pelvis. Elvis is lovely.

We're leaving in 2 weeks. And you can say that i am very desperate to get my hands on a beautiful hardcover copy of harry potter and the deathly hallows, oh to touch that embossed cover and see the tiny stars in the book and just paying for the bloody book and i am very desperate to just sit and read and not know the ending from any little kid i'm buckling up on a rollercoaster. does it sound crazy? but you have to be irrational, or what, risk hearing 'Harry died! Snape killed him!' and then you can just knock your head against the wall. so, dear friends, pray for our success in this important quest. and though i may sound irrational, it is the last book of the series, which i've read since i was 10 or 11. there's just going to be madness when it comes out. someone won't leave her house till her mother goes out -to the danger zone- and buys the book, they're setting up counselling helplines in case someone important in the book dies, people might get arrested for revealing the ending (hopefully!!!!!!!!!), tv stations forbidden from mentioning the ending. crazy things are going to happen to the muggle world, beware!

lumos!

earthlike planet

Scientists find most Earthlike planet yet

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18293978/

Mankind's rarest view: Earth from afar

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18202449/

libre!

keeping an eye on the world going by my window

Is it fer real?! I just had me last exam. Of the first year of university.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I still feel like it wasn't long ago I was sitting in literature class in jc and everyone was stubbornly staring downwards as Harris posed a question, or sitting around the garden tables in the magical sunlight.

Ah.....!

French words are swirling in my head as the last exam was French and the comprehension passage was horoscope predictions. And one of the later questions was something like, Quelle exactement vous commencez a etudier pour cette examen? And the answer was Depuis le___. So i filled in 'matin aujourd'hui'. And some other thing i wrote water from the hill. Je ne sais pas! Je veux acheter des choses pour ma nouvelle chambre mais mon pere ne me permets pas. Je veux lire les livres 3,4,5,6 de harry potter et vivre sans ma famille, donc je peux faire de la cuisine, faire la maison, rester a mon lit pendant la nuit et penser des choses. Nous allons demenager et cette maison, il me manque. Ma chambre est merveilleux pendant la nuit.

Whats-her-name and i are leaving in 18 days!! Oh my, oh my. Scuttle scuttle. Choose a suitcase. Make a list. Call America. Pack everything. Instruct family. Leave for adventure. Take 50 hours of plane rides. Have a lovely time. You know before you leave for somewhere there are things you unconsciously somehow fix in your head, things you think you are going to see? I keep thinking and being excited about...flea markets, quaint shops, people with mad hair, little theatre shows. I have also imagined new york through Catcher in the rye and Extremely loud and incredibly close. Holden and Oskar. Oskar....

There's so much to do you could just lie in bed all night, covered by your warm sheets, staring at the smooth ceiling, thinking about it.

rattail

Rattail braids














http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rattail_%28haircut%29
pictures from flickr people who like taking rattails

whoo

WHOOO

sheriff

A sheriff and her horse

mon frere et moi

Trees, swaying in the summer breeze
showing off their silver leaves
as we walk by

let it be

When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me

Mary in the song was Paul's mother. And when he sings 'When i wake up to the sound of music' he means Yesterday. The last time i woke up to any sound of music was C.R.A.Z.Y, drifting in one morning with peach curtains and light blue walls. I have to admit that I am extremely, maybe overly, seduced by the idea of a family home. All the cans in the kitchens, baked beans, pineapples, tuna, functional kitchen counters, toilets filled with crazy soaps and towels and littered with gross clothes, messy bedrooms with bookcases, ticket stubs and forms and letters strewn around. I don't really know why.

My grandmother bought her urn yesterday. (Insane!) It cost $8000 and she got one for my grandfather too, for whenever he is exhumed. She says it's normal and some friends do it. She found it shocking and weird when i asked about keeping her ashes like they do in movies. Anyway i just want to keep a little of her in a pendant, her mixed with my grandfather. But then it is crazy to think that someday she will be reduced to ashes. All those wrinkles, her moronic moles and icky curly hair and spider veins and fat hips and bunion.

Dammit.

NS

Gones are the day...

where boys had to queue up to call their family/girlfriend using 10 cent public phones in NS. My friends, my brother went to NS today! We took a ferry to pulau tekong (some parts of it that spread out from the island seemingly untouched looked a little like the beach in The Return, with all that sky). Oh but before that, at the terminal, when we just arrived, this guy was walking around looking rather severely at all the 'enlistees' and saying things. When he came to us (remember we had barely arrived) he ordered my brother, 'Tuck in.' in front of us!! I had to laugh. Boys around were tucking in their shirts into their low jeans or already had them tucked in. And there were all these huge photos plastered on the walls, the army's publicity. 'Every soldier is a leader'. Ooooh. And after that, as you walk towards the ferry, a whole stretch of such awe-inspiring words hung from the ceiling, like Perseverance, Professionalism, Courage, Human Spirit and things like that. Well my father started rattling on 'Professionalism! Makes me think of my NS time. Wah...they told me to take a week off and go to the library and research to write a speech for the minister of defence. in the end i was so proud when mine was chosen. he was saying his speech then wah, how come sound like my one ah?' Who knows how he did it. But anyway, he was being fascinated with the parents booklet in the ferry. Everyone was strangely quiet and he said 'Eh, to be chosen as an officer, you must consistently show your abilities leh' (i know he really wants my brother to be an officer. p.s. i found out to my horror and amusement that he was once ns man of the year) So when we got to the island we were given a tour around, and at the bunks, our guide said to all the curious family members and friends things like 'As you can see! there is a mosquito net above the bed! this is to prevent mosquito bites!' and 'the cupboard is designed well. it has a drawer for your son to put his personal belongings! he can put his wallet and handphone inside this drawer!' but the funny moment came in the auditorium after the lieutenant colonel (a nice guy, but who said things like 'building brocks' and 'gones are the day' and 'it is very importance') invited the audience to ask questions and this father stood up and said, 'I am for the concept of national service, but it is very discomforting to read of fatalities in the paper. how can you ensure that there will be no torturing and what systems do you have in place...?' Oh what a tickling moment. But no one laughed. And my brother just seemed fine with everything. It felt strange thinking that he was in NS. It is sort of an adventure i guess, going into the forest and firing guns, but a really long one that you have no control over. I just hope he has fun with the people in his section and if he gets tortured I'll kill 'em. He called back earlier and sounded nicer already. I miss him.

'Where boys become men'.....

home

Someone to run with

Today we went out for hours to many places looking at furniture and lights. I got a stained glass purple and blue mosaic hanging ceiling lamp from a man called john and a simple black chandelier (though this word makes it sound grand and pompous) from ikea where we measured bookcases and stood in front of wardrobes feeling sad. (Also saw a punk in a carpark with a mohawk and many piercings, cleaning out his car) This whole idea of a HOME...is so elusive and yet is something everyone has a warm image of inside. A place where you can just be. Maybe the only place in the world you can just be. And it's easy to get so worked up about what is going to be in it and where because that is what makes it your world and the world you are imagining inside and you just want it to look like what you are dreaming of, when actually, all you are yearning for is a peaceful and free feeling, and not exactly the furniture. Maybe it's like how everyone wants to be loved and how, quoting a book, 'Even your yearning for sex is really a dyslexic search for love'. I don't know how all this might explain itself but maybe that's why it makes me sad that no one in my family has any faith in me or my room and almost all think it will look awful and have no bloody fudging theme.