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i'm not alright

Saturday 31 January 2009 by ranon

10 weeks of work went on stage last night and i breathed an air of finality after the last words of the play - 'and i'm not sure i want to be married', were uttered. for my first theatrical production in warwick, performing with such an internationally diverse cast before a foreign audience, it was an exhilarating experience.

the culture project

a one world week + codpiece theatre production

The notion of culture is everything at once: colourful and mundane; confident and unsettling; obvious and elusive. Join us in this devised piece as we explore the topic in an intimate and subtle setting of the everyday life.

Witness the interaction of the multi-cultural cast as they depict, through physical theatre, their journey through culture in its stereotypical and nuanced forms.


i guess part of the experience was coming to terms with your own culture and what it means to you personally. but more importantly to me, the play was for you and you weren't there, and all i've ever been to you was to be supportive of all that you did. today i was reminded of what it was like to lie in with someone and do nothing with all this time in my hands and i realised how tired i was. my mind strayed away and i was selfish but my heart wasn't in the right place. i'm tired of all the chasing and loving and the committing. i don't have the energy and strength anymore and i think you made me this way. and now i know of things and i cannot see you in the way you were before. i can't find explanations to the lie i believed in so much when we were together, except maybe i chose to be blind to it all. all it says is i just cannot push on anymore and i've resigned myself to my lot. i'm exhausted and spent.



i'm not sorry there's nothing to save. i'm glad i held back those words.

we both understand that this is where we belong

Wednesday 28 January 2009 by ranon

i believe in the present. i believe in now. the sayings of the old tell you to be mindful of what is to come, but what if being mindful means you have to give up on the chance to savour the beauty of the moment. what if thinking ahead means you have to let go of what could be the best thing you've ever had thus far? where is the balance that needs to be drawn to decide if letting go is really worth it? i don't need a guide to steer me in the 'right' direction because i am the best judge of my faith, and right here, right now, i want that happiness.



forbidden love or global warming?

december is darkest and june is the light

Thursday 22 January 2009 by ranon

today i was reminded of the impossibility. i saw what it cannot be, and why it could never have worked out. i am happy for you and for what next year will mean to you, yet there's this reluctance to be happy. it's selfish but you have to know deep down, i am sincerely happy for you and that i share the joy that you must surely be absorbed in. i just wish i was there next to you to partake in this celebration of yours. i see why i could never fall in love here again because of this uncertainty in our future. yet, what is to stop me from wanting that split second of joy and momentary warmth? if the future cannot be told, who's to say it will not turn out the way we want it to? isn't living in the moment and giving the future a shot all that matters in life? that being said, the thought of graduating without you around casts an elusive shadow that seems painfully unbearable. not seeing you for the whole of next year multiplies the pain. yet what difference is there when i don't see or talk to you in days when you're still around? right now all the things that i thought was easy just got harder and harder each day. i don't show it, i don't say it, i deny it. but the truth is that getting you out of my head gets harder and harder each day, especially now that i know that in my last year here you won't be around. i need to sought out that inner peace i thought i had acquired in morocco and bring it back closer to me. i need to distract the mind.

the play is progressing i guess with each rehearsal. and thai boxing's picking up pace as i ready myself for my first match in week 9. where else can i channel my energy into? i need to find an outlet to let it all out, to invest my mundane mind and mute the distractions within. i need to find a reason to drag myself out of bed to school. i cannot be shackled to this life, and i will not allow myself to. the heart needs to be tamed first, and you play such a crucial role. so tame it please.

this song's been replaying on my itunes for the longest time ever.

make me feel like the one

Friday 16 January 2009 by ranon

i have a voice in my head that's been talking to me. it seems to be a ghost from the past, summoned forth by these deep stirrings of my heart, to ensure that the heart remains banished and in exile. It's not that the heart is reluctant and stubborn, it simply cannot resist the temptation of the land the body treads. Every place on campus has a significant memory - the benches outside social studies, the grass behind the library, the field behind claycroft, westwood cafe, the library. they're there haunting every step i take and i fight them only to be met with immense futility. yet on days when i am victorious, it is but a momentary one. some days are filled with a longing and desire for you to fill the void that permeates my surroundings, so that i can regale you with tales from training and rehearsals. i want you to be there to share these memories of mine. then there are days when i wonder what is to happen to us 10 years from now? will i realise that this was all just a hopeless obsession of my youth, or will i shut out the world waiting for you? finally, there are days when i don't seem to think of all the pain and longing, and deliberately seek a way out by way of avoidance. i am weakening each passing day but at the same time, i think i'm growing stronger. there are two opposing forces at work here in my body, pulling towards two extremities. my mind tells my heart to channel all my energy towards that one specific end, but the heart is a disloyal creature to the mind and body. yet i think i'm a fighter. i will fight.

8 feb 2009. one year on and look where we are at now. take your cue from eliot reed, season 8 episode 1.

out of touch, out of time

Sunday 11 January 2009 by ranon

there's this self-indulgent game that we play of feigning and ignorance. the word ignorance shall then be taken to mean the refusal to acknowledge rather than the lack of awareness. ignoring would therefore be a better word. and in this game one aims to elicit some form of attention or affection from the other player in the game, through a series of avoidances. cheating is allowed in this game and the player can therefore make use of his preconceived suspicions and more importantly, frustrations, to justify his actions - in this case, the lack of any decent form of proper conversation over an extended period of time, thus reflecting a somewhat blase attitude in the other player. based on this, the first player will then determine the best course of action to deal to the second player mainly to vent his pent up emotions, but scratching beneath the surface, his real intention might simply be to construct the distance to sustain his great enlightenment obtained from a foreign land. bottom line is, he wants to be heard, and for the second player to know that 'you can pretend everything's as before and go through the routine of dispensing courtesies when required, but all i really want is to know why haven't we talked properly? why do i not see you online at all? why do you not text or call to ask if we want to meet for lunch and catch up on what we've done over the break? so don't expect me to reply to some random cheeky message in a lecture after maintaining all that silence for a week since we've both got back. in all honesty, i am not regressing back to the way i was before the break. i'm just angry at you for not being the friend you promised to be.'

there are no winners or losers in this game. the end's hard to determine because most people give it up after a while. no one really knows where the game, or themselves, are headed towards to.

stop talking to yourself

Saturday 3 January 2009 by ranon

it's a new year and i guess it also means it's a brand new start. 18 days of solitary confinement in morocco did indeed change alot of things. it started out as an adventure sought after to quell the wandering lust of my heart, but it ended up as an expedition to the deepest and farthest recesses of my soul. it was an awakening and a stirring. it was 18 days of pondering and reflection, by transplanting myself into a foreign land and challenging myself to live by myself, for myself, and to survive.

the silence was screaming to be heard and i heard it. it grabbed you by the neck and forced you along, not knowing that you were no helpless victim, but a voluntary sacrifice. so i did not trudge along, i ambled, and i came to peace with this silence. and in it, i found myself and the answers to the questions that drove me to the state of being i had been stuck in for so long. i found a glimmer of hope, and a shot of life. and more importantly, i found humanity in the people i met along the way. they showed me that we're all pretty much the same. we're all people looking for something and that life is not very much dissimilar from where we all come from. because if silence and solitude was the natural human condition, it must also mean that there exists people fighting to break the mould. i saw the good in people and i learnt to trust again. travel guides and people warn you to be careful of the hustlers and touts in morocco, and that more often than not, people approach you with some hidden motive. yet, your gut and heart is a much better judge than you think, especially when you're all alone. it becomes a much better judge and now i'm reassured that i am still human - still capable of discerning between the good and the bad. i've learnt sincerity and what it truly means to be unpretentious. it's all about taking the risk to let your guard down for just that one moment, and then to reap the happiness of what is to come. it's always taking the first step and i've come to believe that should the time come, i know that i'm fully in control of not only my emotions, but the courage to take that first step again.

i left my house for morocco with no plans in sight, no itinerary and no hopes. i made my plans on the go, and changed it whenever i liked, simply because there were no restrictions. the only end state i had in mind was to get to malaga in spain by the 29th to catch my flight back home. so yes, i was driven by this unknown. i think halfway along the way in 2008, i lost sight of where i was going, of where i wanted to end up at. and in the in-betweens i got lost, i got confused and more importantly, i got wrapped up in myself. i got so involved in the uncertainty and the unknown i lost myself. i found myself again in morocco.

the effect of the natural beauty of the landscape cannot be put down in words. no words can describe the sense of insignificance and awe while standing in the sahara desert at night, amidst the dark silhouettes of the sand dunes, and upon looking up, encounter a vastness so immense you tremble at its greatness. the infinite amount stars that were scattered across this vastness somehow seemed to reassure you, telling you not to quiver under its shroud simply because life is looking after you. you're nestled in comfort under this astounding beauty. and then you travel southwards, through the green mountains, and then snow covered ones, before reaching the coastline, and you marvel at what one country has to offer. it then reaffirms the fact that there is so much in the world left to see and it stirs in you further that sense of inner turmoil of not knowing of where you're from, and where you're going. all you know is that you want to see as much of the world as you can, as best as you can.

i came back a changed man, i hope. i choose to believe that i came back stronger and more decided. i came back having moved on. and all i can hope is that this feeling's not a transient one, because i like how i am now and i'm not ready to go back to the way things were before. i'm awakened now from a slumber i've been stuck in for too long.

i have a shisha corner in my room now where my two-piped shisha pipe sits atop my moroccan silk carpet. heh. and i'm way too tanned for my own good. skin cancer beckons. lol