there are so many things i have to say to you about you and about us. but i don't know how to say them.

the weak and frail body is a contradiction. when your body's hot to the touch as a radiator would be, the inside of you is trembling and cold and all you wanna do is to just stay in bed, under the sheets and not move a muscle. you lose all appetite and throwing noodles away after boiling them and not eating them must be a terrible sin. and having haagen dazs ice cream the moment you wake up can but only be greed (and the unconscious desire to do justice to the sale it's having now). so yes, kiwis and tropicana essentials multivitamins drink shall be my lonely companions these 3 days you're not around.

the amplification of one's inner emotions that is paralleled against the external environment is sometimes known as the pathetic fallacy. the sun's up and we're taking to the fields and lazing about in the spring sunshine yet an inner contradiction within threatens to drain the life out of you. and when things end up unresolved and left hanging, you feel like a stranger under the sheets, waiting for sleep to take over while your eyes watch that familiar face, your fingers tracing its contours, and it lingers for a tender moment, before you draw your hand away knowing that it's not getting through. the pathetic fallacy cannot hold ground here now.

you don't know what i need now and that scares me.

and it's as though the bluest sky, the darkest night and the yellowest daffodil had settled in your eyes. so keep looking and keep staring because i keep falling into it.

the time's half past seven in the evening now and the sky outside's as bright as day. and daylight hours are supposedly gonna last longer and longer as summer approaches, till it reaches the point when the sun still refuses to set at 9 at night. and it's precisely this light that refuses to go away, that makes eating dinner when the sun's still up so weird. and drinking alcohol to prepare for a night out doesn't actually seem right because, i mean, only alcoholics pick up their bottles in the day time. the time will come when queueing to get into a club here will mean standing outside in the sun waiting for your turn and it therefore gives you more reason to dress up because whoever said 'no one can see you inside the club because it's too dark' obviously hasn't been to the uk yet. this brightness is just unnerving.

only because i have you here, that this unbearable cold spring weather seems sensible, and the daylight that persists till 8.30 in the evening seems to be normal. sharing the same blanket takes it all away and puts everything in its right place, except my heart that has found its way into your possession. uncertainty can be a disease like this damn cold that's been plaguing this body of mine, and hopefully with the right amount of strength i put into blowing it out and extricating the mucus from its nasal nestling place, it'll fade away into the darkness that descends at 9 at night these days.



If I was a flower growing wild and free
All I'd want is you to be my sweet honey bee.
And if I was a tree growing tall and greeen
All I'd want is you to shade me and be my leaves

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

If you were a river in the mountains tall,
The rumble of your water would be my call.
If you were the winter, I know I'd be the snow
Just as long as you were with me, let the cold winds blow

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

If you were a wink, I'd be a nod
If you were a seed, well I'd be a pod.
If you were the floor, I'd wanna be the rug
And if you were a kiss, I know I'd be a hug

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

If you were the wood, I'd be the fire.
If you were the love, I'd be the desire.
If you were a castle, I'd be your moat,
And if you were an ocean, I'd learn to float.

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

because i have packed and my luggage feels as heavy as my face, i've decided that i'm not gonna sleep tonight seeing that i've to be up in 5 hours. and because i feel like being the good son that i haven't been these last few weeks, i've put myself out there and told my parents to stay home tomorrow morning coz it's too early to be up and about and therefore, i'll send myself off. but then dingwen offers his hospitality as an easterner and decides that because changi airport falls within the jurisdiction of 'the east', he has valiantly proposed breakfast together before i zip off. so yes, no person with an hour of free time on his hands will reject such generosity.

and because the bunnies have left and the easter holidays are coming to an end, there comes a need to stop and recount all that has happened in the last 4 weeks since i arrived in this sweltering heat that threatened to melt my chocolate eggs. but no words seem to cross my mind at this point in time. yet i think it can all be summed up quite simply but again, vocabulary fails me and the only profound word to accurate describe it is humility.

i've been humbled by the friends i have here. they've taught me how to be a friend to someone they do care about. and i thank them for choosing me, for choosing the companionship of my reckless and senseless actions, and for choosing to listen to my endless rhetoric that very often do not make sense. and there are the silly ones who willingly allow themselves to be subjected to my self-delusional belief that i know the roads of singapore well enough to get me home from anywhere. i've clearly proven a few of them right. i cannot conclusively say how they've touched and moved me, because they've done so in many ways, and when one feels greatly appreciated, humility steps in because the realisation that you matter that much to these people can indeed put lotsa things in perspective. so you take a step back and reassess what you have and when it dawns on you they're all you've got, you're humbled by the unconditional faith and trust they've invested in you.

thank you

american idol ended for me during the heydays of kelly clarkson and clay aiken and reuben studdard (whatever became of him afterwards), and maybe even carrie underwood. no one else really got that far as best as my memory serves me, or maybe i really couldn't be bothered after the whole franchise became so disengaging. but watching an episode of its latest season on tv tonight, keeping in mind the harsh reality that i wasn't at mambo, i was blown away. who turns mariah carey's ditzy cringe-inducing whiny voice in the horrible horrible pop song disaster 'always be my baby' into a rock sensation?!



wow. a very veritable performance indeed.

wrist slashers come in many forms. and there are those who are circumstantially forced to stay home and wallow in self-misery at the dearth of friends and company who would normally join you in square rooms, mimicking the dancing queen. blame the exams and blame the cruel necessity and practicality of part-time jobs. so on the last wednesday night back home in singapore, i will ponder about life, not in the soothing cold of summer rain thinking that heaven is a place (called zouk) on earth, but rather, figure out life in the last 4 weeks at the onset of the ridiculously long journey back to warwick. and there is no way to condense my thoughts into paragraphs that accurately and effectively capture my appreciation to those who have made an effort to catch me live in singapore, and in particular people who have accommodated my whims and sometimes demanding requests to mambo. so yes, for all the mahjong sessions and lunches and dinners and suppers and mambo, i'm going back in three days a much loved, much satisfied person.

munchies attack at weirdest time. like NOW.

there are times when people over-promise. then these people continuously fail to deliver. and it reaches the point when you realise you no longer giver a fuck. so fuck.

it's 4 days and counting. sometimes it feels like you're fighting and struggling to hold on to something that has been within reach for the longest time. now there's almost an emptiness and you're just wrestling in the dark for something or someone to hold on to. so right now i'm just floating along and being passed down the line waiting for handouts. the irony, when you feel more at ease away from home.

just 4 days to home.

it's times like these you learn to live again
it's times like these you give and give again
it's times like these you learn to love again
it's times like these time and time again

and you know that some things never change. that people may grow apart when we all tread different and sometimes conflicting paths to pursue our diverse futures, moving away from that shared experience, away for the common faith that held us together when we were in school and in the army. yet at the end of the day, we all find our way back to each other because that was how it all started. that was how it all began. when you and i were young and unworldly where we stumbled through life not knowing where we were headed, only to find ourselves slowly growing up and stepping into the real world. we come to see life as an adult intimidating and the responsibilities immense, but we know that that we'll always have something to fall back upon, no matter how disagreeing our realities may be. we grew up together. we fought together. and that defines who we become. we shared the most defining moments in our lives. and we may be scattered all over the 750 square kilometres of land that is singapore, or even all about the world. new people may come along but one thing binds us as friends and it never changes, is that same vein of experience that runs through all of us.

i learnt to live and give and love today.

and when all was going well last night, i was cornered against the wall, like the hunter and its prey, where i was but anything with a shotgun in hand. questions were fielded in the most awkward of positions and it was when i realised that i felt nothing within me, no hatred, no anger, that i figured i had truly moved on. i mean, she was there physically right before me, but unlike before when i would choose to avoid contact or conversation with her, i was ok with just being around her and entertaining her. and soon she had become another mere figure in the crowds of zouk - distant and foreign. she was just another girl in a club and i was just a guy in club. and when her attentions shifted back to the guy she was with, her best friend stepped in and this i was willing to accept because she was always someone i could talk to. and there she was trying to convince me that x wasn't over me and that even after more than a year her feelings didn't go away. so i told her to turn around to watch x and the guy make out in front of me and she tried even harder to convince me that it was her way of moving on. and then again, i realised, that nothing in me was fanned or inflamed by what i had witnessed. perhaps a year before i would have been greatly disturbed and unsettled, but right now, i felt nothing. again, she was a stranger in a club dancing next to us making out with some random person. she had become a commonality in the club, her actions were nothing out of the ordinary. she had blended into the scene entirely and i would not have picked it out as something that stood out because it was a common occurrence played out all over the club.

so yes, i've moved on. and going to warwick hasn't made me atas. in fact, it's made me grounded and aware of who i am, and what i really want.

conversations can be redundant at times. the end of a conversation merely marks the appreciation of each other's presence. words need not be exchanged to express an exact account of how you feel. it's the wordlessness that matters the most sometimes. hearing and feeling something out of nothing speaks volumes. knowing that you're able to feel how i feel, to detect what i hide tells me that the step i took 9 weeks ago was the wisest i've taken in recent years. thank you.

shopping today shipwrecked me totally on river island.

thinking ahead and envisioning what may come to be in the future can be one of the most intimidating and heartwrenching activities a human mind may choose to participate in subconsciously at any point in time. it's scary to think of how fast my first year in uni is almost coming to an end. with the passing of the easter holidays, it brings me a step closer to not only the exams, but towards the prospect of being away from warwick for three months in summer. the inevitability pursues the reluctant mind so relentlessly, latching itself to your back and refusing to jump off, causing a stir and an assault of emotions so powerful it rocks the very ground beneath your feet.

i can think of so many things that makes leaving so difficult. what's 5 weeks in comparison to three months. the emotional baggage and attachment provides the strongest force that's holding me back. and i'm not denying the existence of anyone or anything at home here in singapore, but warwick has opened up what has been held back. it's given me the space and the liberty to pursue ideas and alternatives that were contained within before. and even amidst this newfound intellectual and emotional free space, there has never been a lack of support and faith. they took you by your hand, paving an entirely surreal world before your feet, and as you took calculated footsteps, uncertain and very wary of its potential repercussions, they accompanied you down its path with absolute trust and care, not judging and with an unmistakable partiality. it's given me an identity, and it's given me a world to live in, a life to live. so yes, forgive me if i cannot bear to transplant myself from a foreign land to home, because there just is too much at stake, and too much to put aside for that 3 months.

you were a force to reckon with. i should have known that taking that step forward would ensnare even the bravest soul. but i did, and you conquered. i'm trapped in you and there's no way out, not that i want to. it's just unsettling sometimes.

unsettling.

and as much as i wanted some r&b ass-shaking action in phuture last night, bobbing along to low and tambourine, the queue was hardly encouraging and we ended up at mambo, which was excellent as usual. i mean, no matter how old the songs are, and how cheesy the moves may get, it cannot be denied that everyone has fun at mambo. it's the hyped up energy, the bubbly and spontaneous air that seeps out of zouk. mambo's one of those places where you just let it all go and lose yourself to the unbelievable tunes of the 80s and 90s.

and on the cab home, there came this insatiable craving for carl junior's portobello mushroom burger. so i texted cass and told her to give me a wake up call if she wanted to lunch together today. and so the ringing of my phone at 12 in the afternoon woke me up as i dragged my ass out of the house. it was drama over lunch as some guy like hit his fist on the table and threw his cup of coke into his girlfriend's face. i was sitting behind her so i had like coke over my back too. asshole. and he stormed off, leaving her all alone. she looked so helpless while everyone just stared. and she left quietly and solemnly, like a defeated and beaten soldier. sent my camera for repairs and it's costing me 221 bucks! freaking hell. my stupid mistake, big price to pay. damn. window shopped coz we were broke and made a list of things to buy. haha.

cass and i realised how much we missed chewy. that fat boy was the one you could turn to when you feel like clubbing on a whim, or doing anything else like go for dinner or drinks. he's also the one who actually bothers to reply to my quite often brainless texts about things i see, like gross couples making out on the train. he's the one who drags you home when you're half-naked with puke all over you and shows your mum your half-exposed butt. he's definitely the one to cab home with after mambo and you listen to him whine about his broken heart and half-heartedly entertain the taxi-driver who asks the obvious question in chinese - 'eh you friend's out of love ah?' and in your mind you go 'DUH'. so yes. come back soon chew chew and i will show you my new idol, the new-age mambo king :)

that probably helped cass win at mahjong today. the guys ALL lost and she was the overall winner. had to be the bra and blouse. andre gamely sent james and i to woodlands after much persuasion, although i think the big electronic traffic sign sealed the deal seeing that it said it would only take 9 minutes to get from his place to woodlands. bet it felt much longer after we got lost due to my incompetence and inability to navigate the roads in the neighbourhood. in fact, it definitely took much longer than 9 minutes. haha.

it's been slightly over a year since life with x came to an abrupt halt. and there wasn't once in the last 14 months that i believed that i could do what i am doing now. faith spelt impossibility and no strength could be surmounted from within to re-open what was forcibly clamped shut. and for months there was a struggle to regain a confidence that had been toppled, and to tear down the wall that sprung up as a defence mechanism. no one came close. not even myself. and along came the unlikeliest of persons, in the newest of times, in the most unknown of worlds. it backfires at times when the insecurities and fears step in and it hurts the other person, but it's an uncontrollable emotion seeing that the body and mind's been trained to react as such. i've taken the hugest step i've ever taken and in doing so, everything's been let go of, but it's still masked by the thinnest and least translucent of veils. tearing it down brings me closer to the ground, closer to the crushing possibility of failure. so forgive me if i subconsciously take a step back, or i trip and fall. i will stand up, even if it means being swallowed by the earth all over again because this time, i know it's worth it.

the skype jingle that goes off when someone comes online and instant messages you has to be the second best sound on earth after your voice. off to slumberland i go now where you and i shall sit together and laugh at random things, going 'uh huh' and then laughing at each other for that.

uh huh.

:)

is it possible that after a week, one can still be suffering from jetlag? i mean, taking into account the fact that i've been going to bed at 2 a.m these days and not being able to sleep till 7 or 8 the next morning, i basically spend the rest of the day sleeping. take today for example, i finally got to bed around 11 in the morning and only woke up at 5 p.m to go meet wei liang and jet for dinner. maybe the mind's preoccupied with the what-ifs and the constant conjuring up of the different possibilities a mistake can be made, or how one reacts to failure and the acceptance of the undeniable truth. there are no grounds or basis for these disturbances, and all it points to is a weakness. my extreme weakness, of having once been robbed of faith and trust.

sometimes i wonder if i'm gonna be any good at my job. i mean people have been through the same system and they know what to expect of an officer. it's my career now, and there are times when you know that you are being judged by others about your capabilities and commitment. people who have left the army move on to fields not known to others, and it's a time of experimentation as they seek to secure a foothold somewhere in society. i'm stuck doing what they have done before, perhaps it's on a slightly higher level, but certain things do not change. the character and qualities of being an officer cannot be compromised, and it never changes throughout the years. so it's easier for them to judge you because they know what you can, and what you are supposed to do. so look beyond my hair and my eyebrow piercing and my tattoo, because i'm still me no matter what, and that the officer creed and values are still deeply imbued in me and nothing will compromise that.