pidyn cox. you know i love that name. and as i sit in my room listening to R.E.M's imitation of life play on, i was compelled to write you something. a simple message that requires no response.

you know your heart has been moved when you start worrying about the possibility that the one you've grown so fond of might actually find someone better and skip off into the sunshine leaving you behind. it's even more worrying when it is I, starting to think such thoughts. truth be told, as i lay sprawled on my bed blasting my itunes at its loudest, all that my mind was preoccupied with, was the thought of having to know that you've finally moved on. and that is a good thing i guess, because part of me wants to know that you've found the closure you needed to take the next step forward. yet part of me wants to deny such a possibility because the selfish and reluctant heart refuses to acknowledge departure.

but yes, should the day come, i know that only then, would it signify the end. till that day comes, let me indulge in the happiness of last friday, as we lay in bed together without a care for the world, ignoring seminars and lectures and whatever was thrown our way. all we had was that intimate moment shared between the two of us - a lazy afternoon spent in each other's arms as we slipped in and out of slumber and persistent snores. spooning and resting my head on your chest as i felt it go up and down, resisting the urge to touch those untouchable ears of yours.

and the memory of last thursday when we both jumped out of bed and rushed about campus submitting our essays and finally settling down for lunch before heading off to lectures together. who could forget the 'innocent' flirting texts we sent and looks shot at each other from across the lecture theatre. those were times i can only look back upon. i remember sending you a text saying 'stop being so irresistibly distracting pidyn cox', and that's how i'll remember you. the curls and the name i gave you that means penis in welsh.

itunes is playing 'time of your life' by green day. you said it made you think of college. it's making me think of you now. and as i struggle with writing my ridiculous essay, my mind has drafted an incredible fable where you actually knock on my room door and then walk in with that cheeky grin of yours plastered across your face, while i sit in my chair stunned and in disbelief. it's but a dream and reality stinks, but essays-induced delusions are always permitted.

and as i sit here contemplating the relationship between religion and politics and attempt to come to a conclusion and judgement between these two polarities, i felt the world shake beneath me. yes, it was my first earthquake tremor. and seeing that only two known fault lines run through the uk, and that the last recorded earthquake here was in 2002, it was pretty amazing. so my laptop shook, and my windows rattled, and my table shifted slightly all within a span of a few seconds. it took me moments to register what had happened. we gathered at the staircase outside my room, curious and questioning. i thought people were jumping in the room above mine. others thought neighbours were having hot, heavy sex in the room next door. but we all felt it. and so did people in liverpool. and now, we're all going to bed without a clue as to what actually happened. reuters and bbc aren't updated as yet, but i'm pretty sure we'll get a clearer picture tomorrow, one that does not involve deranged insomniacs jumping about in their rooms and unclothed lovers staining sheets and splitting floorboards.

it meant letting go and never taking you back. for what is the undoable, is to be my future. and my life goes beyond the present. so as much as i want to say yes to what we have, and reject the part of me that is connected to a life of old, i cannot. for it is not the present i live for, nor is it for the impulse of the emotion. it is for what is to come, for what has been fought for and protected, and for the selfish notion of self-preservation. no, they will not know. they cannot know. and i cannot ask you to be a part of the lie, for the weight of falsity is mine and not yours to bear. it tears me apart to say no, but that is the fact of life, that we never really get what we want, that life will, and always, be a lie that we live through never really owning what truly belongs to us. and we shall labour on till we forget what we once shared, believing that this is for the best, and that i'm merely a selfish and cowardly shadow of a man who never really stood before the light.

one essay down and many more to go. been skyping with chew and cass over the last two days and it never struck me how much i missed everyone back home. not gonna bore every with mundane details of life this week, except that it's been exceptionally good and i've been carrying smiles with me around all day, save for the minor skirmish that made my mood go afoul yesterday and left me temporarily broke this month. but yes, all's sunshiny in the land and with a good dose of scrubs, everything's just so much better.

A Klee painting named 'Angelus Novus' shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned towards the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such a violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him in to the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.

singapore society chinese new year dinner at some posh cantonese restaurant in birmingham today and food was good. portions were pretty small and the manager kinda screwed up the dessert so we ended up having mandarin oranges instead of red bean soup. haha. but we were compensated with a free flow of champagne and wine which was pretty good, so no complaints seeing that alcohol trumps desserts in my world.

bye bye chew chew. and as of now, RCK has officially been split to conquer the world in three different continents and it will not be till july when we shall finally reunite to the tune of 'summer rain' and 'love in the first degree'.

so the eve of chinese new year came and went here in warwick, the first one to be celebrated far away from home. classes went on as per normal and i was duly surprised by chinese students who were gamely decked in all shades of red parading their festive joy all about school. the china dude in my seminar group turned up in garish purple-red-pink, i couldn't exactly place my finger on its exact colour, greeting me loudly and heartily 'gong xi fa cai'. haha. and i being the non-conformist insistently wore a navy blue shirt and a grey cardigan.

and there was the reunion dinner with the singaporean gang to look forward to. i produced two HUGE pots of curry chicken and it was excellent! prima taste packs rock and it was pretty authentic. so to stock take: fried rice, claypot rice, dim sum (that was the equivalent of 90 sing dollars!), more chicken wings, green bean soup (which i had a hand in making), tang yuan, sesame paste (which was extremely horrid and rancid) and mango pudding! it was a chicken affair but it was all good. and i guess preparing the food truly reminded me it was the process of cooking that made the whole experience so enjoyable. i mean, after 20 years of celebrating cny back home, i don't ever remember stepping into the kitchen to help, or at least being so involved in the whole procedure of preparing a reunion dinner. yet today, away from home, the whole process was so much more enjoyable and fun! the laughter and the tasting and the pinching of food. haha. it's times like this you'll remember beyond your uni days.

and yes, i was coerced to wear red. damn.

gong xi fa cai people! it's back to school tomorrow when it should be a holiday!

ranon's asian. he's in need of money. therefore it's the asian financial crisis.

looking at my bank statements and the letters from warwick accommodation today, i concluded that either a financial miracle needs to happen soon or i might have to resort to becoming a stripper because as matt says, i'm asian therefore i'm exotic and the brits will pay to watch me.

i wonder what happened to the plan of the sugar mummy.

i need my red packet money which my mum is going to contribute to the "buy ranon an air ticket fund". shit. on the bright side, the fund's providing me with an SIA return ticket and i'm flying home on the A380. heh.

i need to strike 4D soon. or the british equivalent.

i need the second installment of my book allowance to come in now, not to buy books obviously.

I JUST NEED MONEY. don't we all do.

point number one. never being good enough can be made tougher to accept with the fact that you want what you cannot have. and sometimes when you get what you really want, there's the gnawing reminder at the back of your head that tells you that you're not good enough and that you do not deserve what you finally got. but what is the point of all this rhetoric when neither is ever going to change or happen to you?

point number two. the smallest issues can have a predictive capability of foretelling the current state of change in the dynamics that you always thought were there right from the beginning. yet the slightest inkling of a shift can possibly be attributed to a personal lack of effort (and disdain for certain people), that was already picked up by yourself weeks ago but made no effort to remedy. it doesn't help when they decide to give up on a plan that has been set and planned for based on their whim and preferences, when you were all ready to give up on your own plans that were made with others to honour the tradition, and more importantly, the friendship and promise made. but what voice is heard should you decide to say something? the voice of a silent murmur perhaps because everyone is pretty caught up listening to each other's but yours.

things start falling apart because this apathy has grown in you and you start questioning yourself how it all came to this and then the sinking realisation that it could possibly be because of you, somehow doesn't surprise you. all it needed was a little effort and you failed. yet sometimes i think, all you needed was a little acknowledgement and a listening ear from those you thought cared to give you that push to reel yourself back in. but no one really did, and things just started deteriorating till they got beyond the point of reparation.

so yes, like a wise friend of mine said, being left alone is good and it doesn't seem like a bad choice to make now and to keep.

and that's how it is today when laziness conquers and sluggishness takes control. saturdays should be spent curled up in bed with the music turned up loud and you don't give a damn about the world. and so you toss and turn under the sheets and soak up the comforting cold of the bed as it seeps under your skin. that's life as it is, and should be now. right? of uncaring freedom amidst the soothing company of the music, your room and nobody else in a pure and unviolated environment.

perfect songs for a saturday.

so after a whole bottle of wine last night and a smashing headache this morning, i would have thought that i had learnt my lesson but looking at the glass of wine i have next to my laptop now, i highly doubt it. it's the ministry of sound anthems tour tonight at the union. it calls for a celebration doesn't it. plus it snowed today while i was walking to tesco. it was beautiful so see it fall about you and settle on your nose and in your hair albeit temporarily. it was a snowstorm with gales that truly threatened to blow me off my feet but we came back with the cake and dinner just fine. so yes. off to another night of mayhem now that my essay is 90% complete and all that's left is the bibliography which will be easily taken care of tomorrow. and there's the post party coz it's alima's 21st today. god knows when i'll hit the sack tonight.