and in my dream i was fighting a war in the backyards of my house. my family had left by the front door oblivious, and i stepped out into the back and the war was developing itself before me. i was in my uniform all of a sudden. the sar21 felt so real in my hands. i found loaded magazines in my webbing. we hid behind pillars and fired at enemies who drove by on trucks. they were exposed and so were we. i recognised familiar faces amongst both hostile and friendly troops. the trucks continued going by and we fired incessantly. non of the trucks stopped to confront us. i remember having to remedy IAs countless times. i remember making a mental note to clean my rifle properly should i get the chance. mortar shells were going off about me and cars were burning everywhere.
we were no longer fighting to win. we were fighting to survive in this revolution. a revolution that marked a shift in the balance of power where lines are drawn that indicate your allegiance.
i'm fighting a war with myself everyday. my enemies are unclear and they assume no fixed identity. i think i'm fighting myself most of the time. and in every war you need faith. faith in your comrades, and more importantly, faith in yourself. i'm losing the war then i guess, having no faith in neither you nor me. shrapnel's flying and the smell of gunpowder and singed flesh tingle my nose. my stomach lurges when you turn around, point your rifle at my head, and shoot me point-blank, giving me no opportunity to retaliate. and that's when blood, tears and flesh become a part of the earth that you tread on.
it's half past three and i'm home from zouk, music wasn't exactly the best i've heard these days, and the crowd wasn't as spectacular as before. and they have retarded rules these days. claud and i went to the toilet and we ended up having to queue up from outside. munchies got to us so we bought a chilli dog which was actually very good, and whilst queueing, gave up because the music was already boring us inside before we went to pee and so we headed to farasha for our long awaited mushroom and cheese prata. excellent shit as usual.
and now there's this unsettling feeling in the pits of my stomach and i feel it churning. the last time i felt the same way, my sixth sense proved me right and it was a devastating truth to confront. words of reassurance fail to take effect and all my mind's preoccupied with this disturbance. and all i can do is head to bed with all the uncertainty looming overhead, and believe in the words you've promised, that we should not over-worry and risk losing all that we have. so i'm praying and hoping that i won't have to wake to news that may disappoint.
but you. juno has to be the best film i've seen in ages. it helped that i caught it in the comforts of the a380. someone told me the film made her wanna be pregnant. haha ellen page has to be the cutest dot alive too. oh and the hamburger phone too.
mambo last night was possibly the bestest night out i had in the longest period of time. excellent music, excellent people, excellent fun. it's a satisfaction satisfied with such happy happiness. ah summer rain and love in the first degree and dying inside to hold you and square rooms and together forever. such geeks we are. dig it chew!
dinner at changi village today with people from 36. food was good as usual. caught up with the latest developments in the unit and all the politics as usual.
i really need to get down to revising for the exams.
a capacitor is an electrical device that makes use of electrical charges with the same magnitude but opposing polarities, and stores and builds up energy between two conductors. we are poles apart with dissimilarities so apparent, that we give so much to make up for this disparity. the energy, the effort, the restraint envelops us like a shroud and i feel the weight and pressure of it on my back. we're two electrical charges heading towards each other at the same speed of attraction, and what we're building up is being stored, waiting to be unleashed when both sources meet. i know my sunburnt shoulders will make me stand tall against the load that's bearing down on me, i'm just wondering when you will cave in. coz right now, you're eating away into my head like a disease that's spreading from my heart to my head. it is shifting away from the core of emotions to the seat of sensibility and under normal circumstances, these two faculties seldom settle for a peaceful coexistence. so yes. warn me before you cave in. tell me should you ever cave in. and set these two conflicting entities apart before they start the process of self-rejection.
it's just too contradicting to trust someone and protect yourself at the same time.
the rain smells different here. there's such a distinct smell to it, like when it hits the hot asphalt and it sizzles slightly and gives off a slight burnt but very enticing scent. i love the rain, but not in its excesses.
the news says that the japanese are trying to launch an origami space shuttle into space. says that it's a breakthrough in technology that could impact the way space shuttles are designed in the future. tell me i'm not the only one who thinks this is a joke.
dinner at newton circus with diana and dimitri followed by drinks and shisha at shiraz last night. pretty weird seeing someone from warwick here, in a totally different context and environment. but it was a good experience talking to them about singapore and we were debating whether it was better to live here or back in moscow where they come from, and i think diana's pretty convinced that she might jump start her career in the banking sector here in singapore, and work her way back towards moscow.
caught up with kelvin today and he's now a PAEDOPHILE. you hear that dude. you're a PAEDOPHILE. but yes, you're still the bestest friend around. haha
couldn't get to bed last night, and i think this was the reason for it
it reminded me of you and i couldn't go to sleep knowing you were up awake, probably at work and here i was, crawling into bed without you. up in my lonely room, when i'm dreaming of you, oh what can i do, i still need you, but i don't want you now this painful longing and waiting - therefore i don't want you now.
i love them. you never really appreciate what has become an everyday utility till you've been away. went for a swim today, making full use of the sun. walking there, i took the chance to take in the neighbourhood that i grew up in, a place where i spent the better half of my life in. the hdb flats, the kids getting out of school, the school uniforms that remain instantly recognisable even after so long. unwittingly, i made an unconscious move to compare the life here in singapore and the uk. and it dawned on me then that they cannot be compared! both hold such distinct and succinct differences that they are wholly individualistic. set in two separate spheres, commonalities are hardly evident. and i guess the best way to approach them is to identify that they will never be the same. my experiences in warwick cannot be replicated in the same vein here in singapore. the same applies to the reverse. so perhaps the ultimate satisfaction that can be derived from being caught in between, is to experience both countries in their unique qualities, and avoid settling for ubiquity.
and diana from warwick is here with her boyfriend on a holiday. they're heading to australia tomorrow so i'm heading off in a bit to take them out to dinner at newton circus to satiate theirs, and my tastebuds for authentic local food. the silly russians wanted to club tonight, but seeing it's a monday, we'll probably just be hitting the bars. no mambo for them coz they're leaving tomorrow, oh how i would love to take them. haha.
after 5 films and 13 hours mid air, i'm finally home in singapore. the ecstasy was evident as we flew below the cloud cover, above islands unknown to me. and as singapore came into view, you could literally feel my heart racing. the airbus was undoubtedly beyond criticism. the service and facilities were impeccable and it was massive. terminal three was sorely disappointing. lacklustre ammenities and such silence, it was literally a dead city. i was overwhelmed by the people around me. the distinctly singaporean accent, the singlish, the hokkien and chinese and malay that peppered personal and transactional conversations was a change from the crisp british accent your ears have accustomed themselves to. ordering at the drink counter in the foodcourt was intimidating seeing that the self-conscious effort to control the 'lar's and 'lor's had ingrained itself so deeply it was hard to avoid. ordering in chinese was a speech impediment.
after breakfast at the airport and on the taxi ride home, i felt like a stranger in such a familiar land. the landmarks, the greenery, the sights were all taken in with exclamations of wonder and that little budding sense of pride, i was positively sure the driver thought i was a tourist. it didn't help that the route taken was such a familiar one, having memorised it by heart last year as i travelled to and fro camp and home. the ikea at tampines, the exit that led into jalan kayu and seletar camp seemed like distant memories from the past fighting its way back into the present. it was almost conflicting as you tried to reconcile what you knew from the past, and what was passing by your very sight. turning into the exit off the highway led to the road towards home. the strongest sense of nostalgia hits you as you recognise the roads, the schools and the junctions. in your head, you're tracking the route home, creating a mental picture of the traffic lights and knowing at which ones to turn. the uncertainty mounted as each passing car brought you closer to the warmth and familiarity of home.
stepping through the doors of the house, you immediately shed away all uncertainties and it's replaced by a curiosity. my room was left pretty much the way it was, slightly spruced up, yet retaining all its character and simplicity. moments were spent picking up what was there and what wasn't there, and it's this process of assimilating the knowledge and history of a past, with a not so familiar reality, that made the whole sensation so dynamic and exhilarating. it's about piecing the new and old together to recreate a new sense of being and presence. so i showered and nestled myself into a comfortable position on the new sofa with my laptop, watching a not so familiar scene outside my window. the bendy bus looked strangely different. a funeral procession just went by. and it struck me how oddly familiar and strange this whole world was to me. it stood in such contrast against the world that i've grown so used to in the last six months. the green pastures, the sea view and the animals that littered the landscape provided the best view from a room in darren's house in wales; a street of neatly lined up cars, opposite a row of houses built to mimic itself was what north london could offer at annie's place; students and ducks strutting pass your window in utter oblivion best depicts housing in university. the contrast was undeniable. yet it slowly sunk in. that i was home to familiarity, and that's what home truly was. it's about living with the hot and humid weather and not having to put on an extra layer everytime you step out of the house; it's about trashy singaporean tv shows like crimewatch that have ah lians screaming 'we need to beat her up coz she was staring at me and she gave my boyfriend a condom' (this i am not kidding); it's about hearing the imperfections of english on tv and know that it's ok because we get it - and that gives us our identity. i am home now. somehow, home seems a little surreal right now.
yet, part of me is longing for the people back in warwick. i'm sorely missing them. i'm heartachingly missing you. and it doesn't help that we're 2 continents and 13 hours apart, that when we're asleep, they're awake. it doesn't help that part of me cannot be at ease, and a couple of minutes each day on skype seems to be the only form of connection we have. it's probably the best we can get and all we need is faith and belief, that you and i won't go wrong. as uneasy and unsettled my heart may be, as flustered i may get when you tell me you're heading off to somewhere and that i won't be hearing from you for days, know that i am trying my hardest to get over it. the hardest obstacle is getting over myself first, and i'll do it for us. i don't know how to ask of you to make this easier, coz i wouldn't have the answers for that. i wish you had them and gave me the wisdom to see me through this.
coming home has been such an emotionally charged experience. not thinking too much might just seem to be the best way about it till the 19th of april.
p.s parents are so cool about the tattoo and piercing. thank you.
i'm packing and blasting my footsie playlist on itunes and i'm kinda stuck on now you're gone by basshunter. brings back memories of countless nights at lava and the amazing lights, and cruising up the mountains in wales. haha. i've surprised myself with how little junk i've accumulated over the last two terms. everything fitted nicely into my luggage and didn't require me jumping onto it just to fit every last bit in. so i'm a happy man now, munching down the last of my kit kat chunkies.
everything else is under the water now i guess. yet it's undeniable and almost uncontrollable that your mind replays and recreates scenes it's not witnessed and it's scary and revolting all at the same time. it makes you sick and your skin tingles from the mere thought of it and you go all out to collect pieces of fact and information to fix into this imaginary scene you've spun. and with each piece falling in place, you start picking at the flaws and search for loopholes in the narrative given. it gets more real and the feeling sinks deeper into your stomach and when it gets as true as it can get, you realise that you wanna leave it all behind but because it's become so undeniable and concrete you find it hard to get out of your head and you fight even harder to move ahead. but you will because you're fighting for a happiness and a life so new to you, you'll fight tooth and bone for it. yet at times, you know it will return to haunt your insecurities and mock your gullibility and the only thing you can do then is to resist it with all the sensibility and trust you can muster. sometimes knowing every single detail helps but will you be brave enough to bare it all and share?
it's conflicting that part of me wants to go back home so desperately after being away for 6 months, to see everyone i've left behind. but another part of me is yearning for the holidays to end soon just so i get to see you once again. so i'll wait, as patiently as i can, for as long as i can hold out, for 19th of april. another part of me doesn't know what to expect back home. things have changed since i left and so have people. the awkwardness and the displacement can be intimidating at this point in time, but i'm pretty sure it's me over-worrying. so yes. one more day before my butt's seated comfortably on an a380 headed for singapore. i'm feeling the heat and humidity of home already, not that it's been sunny these days according to friends back home.
so it's goodbye to warwick for 4 weeks. like i've said before, it's a sadder goodbye this term coz everyone's closer now. goodbyes and hugs mean something this time round, and you know an attachment and fondness has developed, amidst all the essays and work. this term's made you much surer of what you want, and who you want. last term was centred more on settling in and getting to know the place and the people. this term's more about furthering these friendships and strengthening the bonds. it was a term of connections and new found surety and certainty. it definitely flew by faster than the first term and ended with an almost unbearable reluctance to let go. so yes. my second term in warwick has come to a close, a summation of never-before experienced joy and friendships that have plumed and cemented itself together. term three's gonna be tense and overwhelming with furious studying for the exams, and once it's over, there's just the summer break to look forward to before yet another academic year starts all over again. i'm graduating in no time at the rate we're going! so yes, warwick's never been better! :)
and when i thought it was all going wrong, and that i could do you no more wrong, you took things by its nose and went the other way. i was all prepared to leave to see you, even if it was just for a few hours. but you tore it apart. i'm amazed at my gullibility and my foolishness. at least i knew when to turn away. you didn't. and it doesn't matter if it happened when we were unsure of us, because deep down, the fact was that we knew we both felt something despite the circumstances. and you betrayed that. i actually do remember that day when it happened. i was leaving your place in the morning and you said you were heading to coventry to repair your phone and meet your friend. never did i expect this to happen. i don't know what to feel. betrayal seems to fancy my company. yet, despite all of it, i still wanna be next to you right now. just that i don't think i have the courage to leave everything here and hop onto a train anymore. i need you to tell me it's gonna be ok, it's all still sinking in.
it was a short moment of folly that i walked away from before it got too far. i was a mistake nonetheless, with the unlikeliest of persons. and i am compelled to defend myself and attribute my actions to the influence of alcohol, but that would be incredibly irresponsible and seemingly self-righteous. i do not want to become a lesser person in your eyes, and i may have already done so, but i do not blame you. i blame my moment of weakness and my inabilities for this fork that's wedged between us now. being upset and disappointed is but only natural, and it's not an over dramatization when i say that you may hate me. for i know i would. i've been hardened to feel that way, but i thank you for not hating me, yet. i walked away. it took a while but i walked away because i know there could only be you. the depth and nature of us struck me the moment i said no, and i knew what we had between us was real. i could have kept it from you, hoping for the rest of my life that you'd never find out, but i couldn't bear with living a lie. i needed to tell you the truth because you meant so much more to me. and as i hear your disappointment over the phone, all i wanted to do was give a hug so big and a kiss so deep just to tell you how sorry i am. yet, you're too far away for me to do any of that and i have to resign myself to the fact that you'll never feel the extent of my apology. 4 weeks is too long a time to wait. get me a train to where you are now.
school's officially out! last week of term was spent rushing out an essay by wednesday. the nights that followed were packed and crazy. first it was jue's 21st birthday dinner treat on wednesday. singsoc social and evolve on thursday. birmingham shopping and end of term beach party on friday. heading down to wales today to crash at craig's place in llandudno. it's a family road trip and maddie's driving and it's gonna follow with nights of booze and partying and of course, the mountains, sheep and goats. again, it's the time of term when families jam the roads all about campus and people busy themselves with throwing out uneaten food from the kitchens, fishing out lost notes and clothes from under the beds and behind cupboards, and lugging bags impossibly filled to the brim with stuff that have accumulated over the last term or so. ming and bwendy are leaving for their morocco hitch on monday. jue's gone off to chinese-lands for 3 weeks and almost everyone in the house has left. it's a sadder goodbye this term i guess. the first term was spent settling in and getting yourself comfortable in a foreign land. this term's more personal. you develop a sense of self and in the process, understand where you stand on many issues. you grow a little more with each passing term and the end of this term marked a milestone in life. a greater reflection on this term when i get back from wales next tuesday, before i start packing for my first trip home in 6 months! :)
it's a strong sense of compulsion, so endearing and so tempting. it feels like a perfect fit and every moment waking up together justifies it. i feel like i'm sinking in too fast, too fast to comprehend anything other than the fact that you might possibly be the one to open up this world to me. yet, i'm afraid because each day seems to draw us slightly further apart. ironically, each day also seems to dig deeper into our hearts. yes, i am afraid that i'll never live up to your expectations and that the 5 weeks apart may make you realise that. i am afraid that the 5 weeks apart may change all that we have now. so tell me everything now is real. that the passionate storm brewing between us isn't just a moment of intense and unassailable emotions threatening to rupture with sensibility. perhaps, all i'm asking for is honesty, and perspective. all i know right now is that i wanna be with you. just sitting there watching you work could possibly be one of the greatest pleasures a man can enjoy these days. watching your commitment and dedication to the causes you fight for is inspiring and gratifying. the yearning and desiring you put me through is torturous, if only you could see that. but there are just too many emotions running high now, and if i had to pick one to describe this feeling, it would be love :)
the torture of one more essay could probably be less unnerving if i could just put you out of my head for once and actually get down to writing.
and this is reminiscent of some time last year as i sat and whiled the time away, waiting to go out. last year it was mambo. today's top b. specifically, the last top b of the term. so that's one last chance for 1 pound entry and 1 pound drinks. and i am still staring at a zero word count on my last essay due in on wednesday, but that shall wait till tomorrow. that entails me staying up all night to finish it but i couldn't care less, not when i'm going home in 2 weeks! so yes. 'the natural extension of liberal ideas to embrace the whole population. to what extent is this a fair summation of the contribution of feminism.' someone churn out an essay for me by wednesday and i'm yours. parents finally saw the tattoo over skype today and they were bickering over whether it was too big or too small. i say, it's my body. and it's just fine. ok ok. i'm ranting again.
someone find me an iron please. i need to iron my shirt before i go out.
a rearguard mechanism that's been in place for a year or so finds its way up again when everything has fallen into place. the doubts and the fears don't ever seem to go away and it doesn't take much to set it off - absolute trust and faith in anyone seems a near impossible task, especially when your cards have been laid out in the open. and so it consumes you. it gnaws at you from inside and all that you see in your head is contempt and disgust from that one night that took it all away. it may be some time before anything is reinstated and till then, no one comes close.
concluded my presentation today on feminism with a question that had inherently formulated much thought on feminist theory, and that was can men be feminists? the distinction between masculinity and femininity, is it correlated, the notions of female subjugation and the politics of power? my mind's too knackered to form a coherent strand of argument so i'm pretty amibvalent about the whole issue. essentially, i think feminism and marxism both recognise the existence of two dialectic and opposing forces in society. marx identifies the bourgeois and the proletariat. in feminism, critical philosophers like mary wollstonecraft identify the rational man and woman. these contrasting forces clash and work against each other, but unlike liberal femisists, marx sees the need for a revolution, for the dictatorship of the proletariat. liberal feminists urge for advocacy and reformation. socialist feminists encourages a cooperative sense of community. Fourier argued that men and women should live together polygamously in phalansteries, with children being reared collectively. Scary isn't it. and there are the various strains of radical feminism, one of them being separatist feminism that refuses to believe in the feasibility of a heterosexual relationship, that there are unresolvable differences between men and women.
which side are you on?
anyway, found these 2 photos of me in the office that cracked me up. denzil should know them pretty well. be warned that they are extremely unglamorous shots and may leave you in stitches for quite a while.
last night was probably one of the best nights out here. total r&b party at coventry which was good good good. dishing out an essay till 8 in the morning called for a major celebration. and now i'm pretty much hungover.
and as i sat reading the straits times online, i couldn't help but wonder how the hell a 1.58m man with a limp, escaped from a detention centre. it is even more worrying that he managed to outrun armed security forces in what must have been minutes after they realised he had taken off. the city's clamped down and with security stepped up, i could feel the imminent sense of dread that is looming around singapore reaching out to me through my laptop screen. what with the posters and news flashes and now mms messages with mas selamat's pictures being sent out by telcos in singapore, the building up of tension has to be nerve-wrecking. and deep down, we all know what it entails, seeing that he had planned to crash a hijacked plane into changi airport, possibly terminal three seeing the hype about it. the gruesome truth that there might be repercussions hits you, and you know that until the day he is caught, there is the undeniable possibility that he might retaliate. 36 and the whole brigade's probably on high alert. and it's times like these that i'm amused by myself seeing that even so far away, my thoughts are preoccupied with 36 and all. to say that i'm not concerned about these people and the threat they may face at any moment is a lie.
so yes. i might be overplaying the tension and general feeling of people back home. i mean looking at the comments on the channelnewsasia forum leaves you with nothing but an insight on the apathy amongst the people. truth is, something MIGHT happen. face it, live with it and deal with it. making racist jokes about the whole issue reflects not only an insensitivity, it just shows plain ignorance. perhaps denying the possibility of anything happening is the best form of escape from reality. fact is, singapore is an island with a land area of 704 square kilometeres with a population of 4.5 million. we are all somehow connected to someone else and if anything big happens, no one's gonna be unaffected. it's probably time to get real now. and who can turn a blind eye to the international uproar this has created. yes, there was a glitch in the system. they screwed up. but who hasn't? what about indonesia and mohd top? international papers rave about how the escape was unprecedented in the history of singapore, a country not known for security breaches. now imagine the impact made on the image of singapore. fact is again, we made a mistake. the pressing issue at hand is to find the fucking little bugger before things get blown out of proportion, no puns intended.
a somewhat nationalistic piece. i blame the alcohol wedged in my system. heading back to grey's anatomy for now while i digest lunch and process the alcohol out of my system, before it starts all over again tonight.
