It seems like I have a knack for ending every year feeling rather downcast. Maybe it’s the realization that a year has passed and I’m essentially pretty much the same. Perhaps it’s the feeling that I am falling into a pattern of things being the same. And then it could be the fact that I am essentially a terribly pessimistic person and remember all the nasty bits easier than I do the happy ones. Like instead of thinking I have successfully established myself in a new city, I think I am all over the place now.
2009 has been especially reflective for me. Maybe it was the end of a continuous stream of academic nonsense, or maybe it was having to live in a new city, or even maybe the entrance of someone that reminded me of another one who I let slip through my fingers. Either way I keep thinking of the past, and all that had brought me to today. I think and I recall, and hope by doing so I will finally be able to let go and free myself. Maybe one day I will be less depressive and upset (though I doubt my neuroticism will ever fully go away). Maybe one day I’ll finally be free of my spectreing past, maybe one day I will be free of me.
2009 has also been my most traveled year. I traveled to Bali, Nepal, the USA and to various countries in Europe. I rode on 8 new different subway systems: New Jersey (well sort of one), New York, Washington, Naples, Rome, Barcelona, London and finally Paris. I went on a cruise ship. I went trekking in Nepal. I rode a Donkey in Greece (definitely a bad idea). I lazed by a beach in Bali. I bumbled about a drizzling Paris with my mother – our first trip without the father. I probably spent the most I ever have on shopping too :/
2009 also ejected me further out of my comfort zone. From working in another law firm without a familiar face, to being shuttled about by Lauren with her friends in the USA, to working with customers I wanted to badly punch in the face during my sales job and finally to being dumped in London to fight with banks, grocery shopping and handphone providers. It also probably explains why I have been so crazy as of late, having to finally confront the idea that I’m not a little girl anymore and I need to support and look after myself out there.
2009 indeed. 2010 will have a tough act to follow in terms of new experiences. Hopefully it’ll be a more peaceful and stable new year.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
Top Ten Reads for 2009
2009 was a strange year for reading. It started out with much reading, and then when university started for me, went along limpingly. There was simply too much already to read for school and my eyes were strained (though evidently not strained enough to stop me playing Warcraft III). Nonetheless the last 3 slots of my list still managed to be filled up sufficiently during that time period. Thus with much effort, I present my Top Ten Reads for 2009. Last’s years list is present here.
The List (not in any order, though some obviously take precedence in my mind):
1. Ha Jin’s War Trash
“Below my navel stretches a long tattoo that says “FUCK… U… S…” The skin above those dots has shriveled as though scarred by burns. Like a talisman, the tattoo has protected me in China for almost five decades.”
I haven’t even finished reading this one yet. Yet there was a part about the prisoners of war being separated under the watch of the mini Nationalist movement in their POW camp and how the protagonist was unable to signal to his friend that he decided to stick with the CCP group despite all the threats and violence of the Nationalists,
“Later I heard from a fellow who had joined us in the afternoon that after Daijain returned to my former company [had decided to stay under the Nationalists], he kept asking others, “Where’s Feng Yan? Did you see him?” They all shook their heads. For hours he wept quietly alone. What had happened that morning was that before entering a screening tent [to determine where they’d go], he was sandwiched between two pro-Nationalists, who had told him I had just made “the wise choice”. So Daijian declared to the arbiters that he would go to Taiwan too.”
The matter of fact manner in which the narrative was done blew me away. You can feel the sorrow in that incident, and yet not once does the narrator’s voice break. I found it strongly reminiscent of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day. Despite of the huge disappointment I found Ha Jin’s Waiting, this has more than redeemed him in my eyes – and I’m only midway through this book.
2. Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
“What about a teakettle? What if the sprout opened and closed when the steam came out, so it would become a mouth, and it could whistle pretty melodies, or do Shakespeare, or just crack up with me? I could invent a teakettle that reads in Dad’s voice, so I could fall asleep, or maybe a set of kettles that sings the chorus of “Yellow Submarine,” which is a song by The Beatles, who I love, because entomology is one of my raisons d’etre, which is a French expression that I know.”
Another heartbreakingly beautiful piece by Safran Foer. I cried. From the young narrator boy, who keeps distracting himself with quests, trying to connect in his own way with his dead father, to delude himself that he’s still alive and merely hiding – to his grandmother, the heartbroken woman still in love with a man who disappeared out of sadness years ago. Most poetic and memorable still is the old man so sad that he cannot speak anymore, so he carries around a sketchbook so he can still communicate with the outside world, thinking about the woman he fell in love with and lost to World War Two. Centered around momentous events like Sept 11 (how the boy’s father died) and the upheaval of World War Two with the characters all richly fleshed out, this is one hell of an ambitious and successful piece of writing.
3. Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children
I think I left my copy at my Aunt’s place in the US, which is a pity since when I read the first lines to retype here, I remember all the exact emotions I felt when reading the book. I remember a few things, more well fleshed out characters, more personal tragedies (for some reason I remember a Doctor friend with delusions of grandeur who died tragically and sadly, without his intended mark in the world), more interlinks with History – the formation of Pakistan in this case, more excellent narration. I think I spot a trend here in my preference for books.
As I was telling JLC when I saw him on Sat during a class outing, there was a part where his mother goes to meet her old lover. Her marriage was a bad one, and she evidently still loved her old flame. They would meet in a café in back alleys, and all they’d do is hold hands. I remember the phrase he used was something along the lines of “talking hands” and how by that mere touch they contained all the love they had for each other deep inside, but that was all they could do. Damn I hate not having the book with me. Either way that paragraph alone sealed its place in my Top Ten list for this year.
4. V. S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr Biswas
“Ten weeks before he died, Mr Mohun Biswas, a journalist of Sikkim Street, St James, Port of Spain, was sacked. He had been ill for some time. In less than a year he had spent more than nine weeks at the Colonial Hospital and convalesced at home for even longer.”
Mohun Biswas, is the saddest loser you will ever read about. Nothing ever goes right from him. From an accidental marriage, to being dominated by a matriarch, to his numerous attempts to find a house to call his own, he goes through life constantly disappointed with little high points here and in between. Saddest though, was his son who experienced and saw first hand all these disappointments that his father carried around with him. A son the father loved so much, but yet ceased contact after leaving to study abroad. Hilarious for the absurdity, mollifying for the schadenfreude, saddening for all the disappointments, this is a wonderful book. Thank you Arjun for recommending it to me.
5. Rob Thomas’s Rats Saw God
“Though I tried to clear my head of the effects of the fat, resiny doobie I’d polished off an hour before, things were still fuzzy as I stumbled into senior counselor Jeff DeMouy’s office. I had learned the hard way that Mrs. Schmidt, my physics teacher, was less naïve than her Laura Ashley wardrobe suggested. I made the mistake of arriving in her class sporting quarter-sized pupils and a British Sterling-drenched blue jean jacket.”
A dark horse, this one almost didn’t make the list. This in fact dethroned Krauss’ A History of Love from the list (more on this below in Honourable Mentions). A coming of age story, this grows from the happy care free optimism of the teenage years – amusing Dadist society wrecking hell on the school’s annual homecoming float to disappointment and a sad forceful ejection from bliss at the betrayal of a first love and betrayal of a friend, and the realization of a son that he had wronged a father. Unconventional, yet readable and memorable, I remember the sinking feeling I felt as he discovered his girlfriend cheating, and the tears prickling at my eyes.
6. Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Interpreter of Maladies
“At the tea stall Mr. and Mrs. Das bickered about who should take Tina to the toilet. Eventually Mrs. Das relented when Mr. Das pointed out that he had given the girl her bath the night before. In the rearview mirror Mr. Kapasi watched as Mrs. Das emerged slowly from his bulkly white Ambassador, dragging her shaved, largely bare legs across the seat. She did not hold the little girl’s hand as they walked to the rest room.”
A richly written book, Lahiri’s narrative is the quiet-covering-disappointment-and-sadness sort of narrative I associate with Ishiguro and the other Indian writers I have read. Perhaps it’s an Asian thing. She possesses evocative yet straight forward language, but the feminine touch of digging into the inner painful and disappointing emotions of the soul. I once said in a presentation (probably earning the ire of a certain John Connor, not of the Terminator sort) that Rushdie could never have written The God of Small Things, simply because he was male. I am reminded of that rather strong statement when I think of Lahiri. She knows how to relay enough to make one sorrowful, but not tear up.
7. Natsuo Kirino’s Out
“She got to the parking lot earlier than usual. The thick, damp July darkness engulfed her as she stepped out of the car. Perhaps it was the heat and the humidity, but the night seemed especially black and heavy. Feeling a bit short of breath, Masako Katori looked up at the starless night sky.”
Possibly the scariest book I read all year, Out was less elegantly crafted than Grotesque from last year, but nonetheless equally thrilling with it’s succession of characters seeking to break out from their bleak and disappointing existences with violent consequences. Out had one of the most unforgettable characters ever, Masako Katori, and the ending with her and gangster Satake is equal parts horror and equal parts darkly insightful of the darkest depths of human minds. There were also points of time that I couldn’t read the book right before I slept, because it created such an adrenaline rush in me that I was unable to sleep – such was the impact of the book on my psyche.
8. Donna Tartt’s The Secret History
“Does such a thing as ‘the fatal flaw,’ that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside of literature? I used to think it didn’t. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.”
Yet another book I found near impossible to put down, The Secret History features yet another host of unforgettable characters in their flaws, idiosyncrasies and intelligence. Similar but yet dissimilar enough to Out, the book is centered around the build up to the death of Bunny Corcoran, his death, and the consequences faced by an increasingly paranoid group of friends who soon start to break down mentally. The writing and pacing were thrilling and the characters were nicely and plausibly woven together, though the part about the Bacchanal was at best dodgy. Also features an unreliable narrator (as Daryl pointed out).
9. Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondorous Life of Oscar Wao
Another book that has been left somewhere but home (London in this case), I am sadly unable to quote the opening lines once more. Featuring an interesting narrative (multiple narrators, distinctly different styles of narration for each, plentiful sprinklings of Spanish) and a wonderful plot (historical links to the Dominican Republic, semi-tragic characters and the tragedy that surrounds them), this was yet another wonderful tome. I remember thinking of how similar it was to Eugenide’s Middlesex when I was reading it, of how there was a passing of narrative from Grandmother (I think) to Mother, Mother to Son.
10. Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go
“My name is Kathy H. I’m thirty-one years old, and I’ve been a carer now for over eleven years. That sounds long enough, I know, but they actually want me to go on for another eight months, until the end of this year. That’ll make it almost exactly twelve years.”
Yet another one of those really sad but in an indirect way sort of writers, I started sniffling when I reached the poignant ending where she drives off and steps out of the car to feel the air whirling around her. Set in a dystopian future, I initially found following this book rather confusing. Yet the circumstances of the book made it infinitely more interesting, bringing up the concept of cloning (and also humanising an current ethical issue) and how it vastly constrained the lives of the characters to their fates – making it all the more sadder. They are sealed in their fates, and though they try to prolong their lives, it does not change their situation the least. Another quietly heartbreaking piece.
Honourable mentions:
Yoko Ogawa’s The Housekeeper and The Professor (novel inclusions of mathematical formulae, well constructed characters and their connections)
Irvine Welsh’s Porno (same mad cap gang, but less mad men narrating and more uncomfortable Begbie violence)
Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger (smooth and well written, enjoyable)
Steven Galloway’s The Cellist of Sarajevo (horrifyingly vivid, jarring to read on a flight back to Philadelphia)
Ken Follet’s Pillars of the Earth (wonderful yarn, kept me awake)
Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron (mostly because I can say I’VE READ IT!, though it was an enjoyable and amusing read, all 797 pages of it)
Nicole Krauss’ The History of Love (reads like a Safran Foer wannabe, especially his Extremely Loud and Incredibly close. I also just found out they got married. I want to read the books of their kids. On another note, I think my edition might have hampered my appreciation as I was told there was a special arrangement to the typography of the text that I do not remember when recollecting the book)
-----
And thus 2009 is almost finished hurtling towards its end.
The List (not in any order, though some obviously take precedence in my mind):
1. Ha Jin’s War Trash
“Below my navel stretches a long tattoo that says “FUCK… U… S…” The skin above those dots has shriveled as though scarred by burns. Like a talisman, the tattoo has protected me in China for almost five decades.”
I haven’t even finished reading this one yet. Yet there was a part about the prisoners of war being separated under the watch of the mini Nationalist movement in their POW camp and how the protagonist was unable to signal to his friend that he decided to stick with the CCP group despite all the threats and violence of the Nationalists,
“Later I heard from a fellow who had joined us in the afternoon that after Daijain returned to my former company [had decided to stay under the Nationalists], he kept asking others, “Where’s Feng Yan? Did you see him?” They all shook their heads. For hours he wept quietly alone. What had happened that morning was that before entering a screening tent [to determine where they’d go], he was sandwiched between two pro-Nationalists, who had told him I had just made “the wise choice”. So Daijian declared to the arbiters that he would go to Taiwan too.”
The matter of fact manner in which the narrative was done blew me away. You can feel the sorrow in that incident, and yet not once does the narrator’s voice break. I found it strongly reminiscent of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day. Despite of the huge disappointment I found Ha Jin’s Waiting, this has more than redeemed him in my eyes – and I’m only midway through this book.
2. Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
“What about a teakettle? What if the sprout opened and closed when the steam came out, so it would become a mouth, and it could whistle pretty melodies, or do Shakespeare, or just crack up with me? I could invent a teakettle that reads in Dad’s voice, so I could fall asleep, or maybe a set of kettles that sings the chorus of “Yellow Submarine,” which is a song by The Beatles, who I love, because entomology is one of my raisons d’etre, which is a French expression that I know.”
Another heartbreakingly beautiful piece by Safran Foer. I cried. From the young narrator boy, who keeps distracting himself with quests, trying to connect in his own way with his dead father, to delude himself that he’s still alive and merely hiding – to his grandmother, the heartbroken woman still in love with a man who disappeared out of sadness years ago. Most poetic and memorable still is the old man so sad that he cannot speak anymore, so he carries around a sketchbook so he can still communicate with the outside world, thinking about the woman he fell in love with and lost to World War Two. Centered around momentous events like Sept 11 (how the boy’s father died) and the upheaval of World War Two with the characters all richly fleshed out, this is one hell of an ambitious and successful piece of writing.
3. Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children
I think I left my copy at my Aunt’s place in the US, which is a pity since when I read the first lines to retype here, I remember all the exact emotions I felt when reading the book. I remember a few things, more well fleshed out characters, more personal tragedies (for some reason I remember a Doctor friend with delusions of grandeur who died tragically and sadly, without his intended mark in the world), more interlinks with History – the formation of Pakistan in this case, more excellent narration. I think I spot a trend here in my preference for books.
As I was telling JLC when I saw him on Sat during a class outing, there was a part where his mother goes to meet her old lover. Her marriage was a bad one, and she evidently still loved her old flame. They would meet in a café in back alleys, and all they’d do is hold hands. I remember the phrase he used was something along the lines of “talking hands” and how by that mere touch they contained all the love they had for each other deep inside, but that was all they could do. Damn I hate not having the book with me. Either way that paragraph alone sealed its place in my Top Ten list for this year.
4. V. S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr Biswas
“Ten weeks before he died, Mr Mohun Biswas, a journalist of Sikkim Street, St James, Port of Spain, was sacked. He had been ill for some time. In less than a year he had spent more than nine weeks at the Colonial Hospital and convalesced at home for even longer.”
Mohun Biswas, is the saddest loser you will ever read about. Nothing ever goes right from him. From an accidental marriage, to being dominated by a matriarch, to his numerous attempts to find a house to call his own, he goes through life constantly disappointed with little high points here and in between. Saddest though, was his son who experienced and saw first hand all these disappointments that his father carried around with him. A son the father loved so much, but yet ceased contact after leaving to study abroad. Hilarious for the absurdity, mollifying for the schadenfreude, saddening for all the disappointments, this is a wonderful book. Thank you Arjun for recommending it to me.
5. Rob Thomas’s Rats Saw God
“Though I tried to clear my head of the effects of the fat, resiny doobie I’d polished off an hour before, things were still fuzzy as I stumbled into senior counselor Jeff DeMouy’s office. I had learned the hard way that Mrs. Schmidt, my physics teacher, was less naïve than her Laura Ashley wardrobe suggested. I made the mistake of arriving in her class sporting quarter-sized pupils and a British Sterling-drenched blue jean jacket.”
A dark horse, this one almost didn’t make the list. This in fact dethroned Krauss’ A History of Love from the list (more on this below in Honourable Mentions). A coming of age story, this grows from the happy care free optimism of the teenage years – amusing Dadist society wrecking hell on the school’s annual homecoming float to disappointment and a sad forceful ejection from bliss at the betrayal of a first love and betrayal of a friend, and the realization of a son that he had wronged a father. Unconventional, yet readable and memorable, I remember the sinking feeling I felt as he discovered his girlfriend cheating, and the tears prickling at my eyes.
6. Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Interpreter of Maladies
“At the tea stall Mr. and Mrs. Das bickered about who should take Tina to the toilet. Eventually Mrs. Das relented when Mr. Das pointed out that he had given the girl her bath the night before. In the rearview mirror Mr. Kapasi watched as Mrs. Das emerged slowly from his bulkly white Ambassador, dragging her shaved, largely bare legs across the seat. She did not hold the little girl’s hand as they walked to the rest room.”
A richly written book, Lahiri’s narrative is the quiet-covering-disappointment-and-sadness sort of narrative I associate with Ishiguro and the other Indian writers I have read. Perhaps it’s an Asian thing. She possesses evocative yet straight forward language, but the feminine touch of digging into the inner painful and disappointing emotions of the soul. I once said in a presentation (probably earning the ire of a certain John Connor, not of the Terminator sort) that Rushdie could never have written The God of Small Things, simply because he was male. I am reminded of that rather strong statement when I think of Lahiri. She knows how to relay enough to make one sorrowful, but not tear up.
7. Natsuo Kirino’s Out
“She got to the parking lot earlier than usual. The thick, damp July darkness engulfed her as she stepped out of the car. Perhaps it was the heat and the humidity, but the night seemed especially black and heavy. Feeling a bit short of breath, Masako Katori looked up at the starless night sky.”
Possibly the scariest book I read all year, Out was less elegantly crafted than Grotesque from last year, but nonetheless equally thrilling with it’s succession of characters seeking to break out from their bleak and disappointing existences with violent consequences. Out had one of the most unforgettable characters ever, Masako Katori, and the ending with her and gangster Satake is equal parts horror and equal parts darkly insightful of the darkest depths of human minds. There were also points of time that I couldn’t read the book right before I slept, because it created such an adrenaline rush in me that I was unable to sleep – such was the impact of the book on my psyche.
8. Donna Tartt’s The Secret History
“Does such a thing as ‘the fatal flaw,’ that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside of literature? I used to think it didn’t. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.”
Yet another book I found near impossible to put down, The Secret History features yet another host of unforgettable characters in their flaws, idiosyncrasies and intelligence. Similar but yet dissimilar enough to Out, the book is centered around the build up to the death of Bunny Corcoran, his death, and the consequences faced by an increasingly paranoid group of friends who soon start to break down mentally. The writing and pacing were thrilling and the characters were nicely and plausibly woven together, though the part about the Bacchanal was at best dodgy. Also features an unreliable narrator (as Daryl pointed out).
9. Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondorous Life of Oscar Wao
Another book that has been left somewhere but home (London in this case), I am sadly unable to quote the opening lines once more. Featuring an interesting narrative (multiple narrators, distinctly different styles of narration for each, plentiful sprinklings of Spanish) and a wonderful plot (historical links to the Dominican Republic, semi-tragic characters and the tragedy that surrounds them), this was yet another wonderful tome. I remember thinking of how similar it was to Eugenide’s Middlesex when I was reading it, of how there was a passing of narrative from Grandmother (I think) to Mother, Mother to Son.
10. Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go
“My name is Kathy H. I’m thirty-one years old, and I’ve been a carer now for over eleven years. That sounds long enough, I know, but they actually want me to go on for another eight months, until the end of this year. That’ll make it almost exactly twelve years.”
Yet another one of those really sad but in an indirect way sort of writers, I started sniffling when I reached the poignant ending where she drives off and steps out of the car to feel the air whirling around her. Set in a dystopian future, I initially found following this book rather confusing. Yet the circumstances of the book made it infinitely more interesting, bringing up the concept of cloning (and also humanising an current ethical issue) and how it vastly constrained the lives of the characters to their fates – making it all the more sadder. They are sealed in their fates, and though they try to prolong their lives, it does not change their situation the least. Another quietly heartbreaking piece.
Honourable mentions:
Yoko Ogawa’s The Housekeeper and The Professor (novel inclusions of mathematical formulae, well constructed characters and their connections)
Irvine Welsh’s Porno (same mad cap gang, but less mad men narrating and more uncomfortable Begbie violence)
Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger (smooth and well written, enjoyable)
Steven Galloway’s The Cellist of Sarajevo (horrifyingly vivid, jarring to read on a flight back to Philadelphia)
Ken Follet’s Pillars of the Earth (wonderful yarn, kept me awake)
Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron (mostly because I can say I’VE READ IT!, though it was an enjoyable and amusing read, all 797 pages of it)
Nicole Krauss’ The History of Love (reads like a Safran Foer wannabe, especially his Extremely Loud and Incredibly close. I also just found out they got married. I want to read the books of their kids. On another note, I think my edition might have hampered my appreciation as I was told there was a special arrangement to the typography of the text that I do not remember when recollecting the book)
-----
And thus 2009 is almost finished hurtling towards its end.
There's no Twilight Galaxy
I have that strange feeling again whenever anyone mentions returning to London. That little downward flowing feeling of liquids in my chest cavity. The feeling of a little black hole forming between my lungs and my heart. While there is someone I dearly miss there, I cannot help but think of returning albeit sadly, that the little taste I have been given of home and all it’s familiar trappings will soon be once more taken away from me. Then it gets me in a tizzy all over again about my conceptualization of home.
I am a very strange, neurotic planet.
It is like just as I have settled down into the idea of being home, I have to prepare to leave it again. Not fair! Why must everything be so far away from each other? Why couldn’t I just hop on a bus every three weeks from Rhode Island to New Jersey every weekend, like my cousin does? Why does the family that I dearly love have to be so far away from me? It sucks.
And then there is my brother. All I hear is happy sounds when he hears my voice on the phone. I imagine him jumping up and down, like how he does when he is very happy. When I am at home, he goes to the bathroom and runs out without washing my hands, looking for me. He waits just to hear me yell at him to wash his hands with soap. It is our special routine that he does to no one else. I wonder if he runs about with unwashed prehensile digits when I am not around. I wonder what he makes of me disappearing and suddenly reappearing like that.
I want everything, everything. I want all my loved ones to be in one area, so I can always miss one place – not three like the way I am now. It is tiring wanting to be in three places at the same time. I think one day I will deliberately move so it can become two places. It sounds like a deliberate thing I will do. Two places are definitely less tiring than three.
I strongly dislike missing things. Missing things makes me feel anxious, it makes me feel worried. It makes me feel like part of my heart has withered away. It reminds me of how limited my time is really with these people, that they won’t be around forever. It reminds me of their (and my) mortality. For being separated from your loved ones and missing them feels like one step closer to losing them forever to Moirae’s scissors.
There are lots of little dead things cluttered in my heart this year.
I am a very strange, neurotic planet.
It is like just as I have settled down into the idea of being home, I have to prepare to leave it again. Not fair! Why must everything be so far away from each other? Why couldn’t I just hop on a bus every three weeks from Rhode Island to New Jersey every weekend, like my cousin does? Why does the family that I dearly love have to be so far away from me? It sucks.
And then there is my brother. All I hear is happy sounds when he hears my voice on the phone. I imagine him jumping up and down, like how he does when he is very happy. When I am at home, he goes to the bathroom and runs out without washing my hands, looking for me. He waits just to hear me yell at him to wash his hands with soap. It is our special routine that he does to no one else. I wonder if he runs about with unwashed prehensile digits when I am not around. I wonder what he makes of me disappearing and suddenly reappearing like that.
I want everything, everything. I want all my loved ones to be in one area, so I can always miss one place – not three like the way I am now. It is tiring wanting to be in three places at the same time. I think one day I will deliberately move so it can become two places. It sounds like a deliberate thing I will do. Two places are definitely less tiring than three.
I strongly dislike missing things. Missing things makes me feel anxious, it makes me feel worried. It makes me feel like part of my heart has withered away. It reminds me of how limited my time is really with these people, that they won’t be around forever. It reminds me of their (and my) mortality. For being separated from your loved ones and missing them feels like one step closer to losing them forever to Moirae’s scissors.
There are lots of little dead things cluttered in my heart this year.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
"Graham was a very strange planet"
I am back to reading silly old soppy Shojo manga again. I read three lines of Machiavelli and my mind blanks out. I am in a bad bad way. Though of course it could be argued that this happened even when my mind was in full studying mode in London.
On another note while out today I bought Calcium Made Interesting, a book with excepts by Monty Python's Graham Chapman. Amusing stuff. I wish the Britain I thought was awesome from old clips of Blackadder, Mind Your Language and Monty Python was still around - not the boring fusty place it is proving to now be.
On another note while out today I bought Calcium Made Interesting, a book with excepts by Monty Python's Graham Chapman. Amusing stuff. I wish the Britain I thought was awesome from old clips of Blackadder, Mind Your Language and Monty Python was still around - not the boring fusty place it is proving to now be.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Take me to the ballroom
It sucks missing someone, more so when they're in a different time zone.
I have no idea how the long distance people do it.
I have no idea how the long distance people do it.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Zara
Last night was one of the first times I saw my mother cry. She was talking about how she was so busy with work the past few months she didn't have time to miss me. Then she spoke about the only time she missed me, when she went out shopping one Saturday by herself and she saw this mother and daughter pair shopping together. Incredibly I noticed my mother's eyes redden and some tears leak out to the side. She was never the open with emotions sort, nor a terribly passionate character like I. Needless to say it was a surprise. I teared up too.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Help I'm Alive
I was always interested in history as a young girl because I strongly (or pessimistically) believe that history has a huge impact on the present - if it doesn't repeat itself over and over again, it dictates how the world behaves in the present. People, whether consciously or not, are affected by history every day of their lives.
Everyone is subject to history and everyone has their own history. I've been deliberating for a while whether I want to undertake the soul searching (or perhaps navel gazing) task of writing down my own personal history so that perhaps I may best conquer it once and for all. I am extremely wearied when I think about the life I have lived thus far and wish to make a change properly. I would like to shed all the emotional baggage and worry that I have been carrying all these years, and I can only perceive do so by writing.
We shall see.
Everyone is subject to history and everyone has their own history. I've been deliberating for a while whether I want to undertake the soul searching (or perhaps navel gazing) task of writing down my own personal history so that perhaps I may best conquer it once and for all. I am extremely wearied when I think about the life I have lived thus far and wish to make a change properly. I would like to shed all the emotional baggage and worry that I have been carrying all these years, and I can only perceive do so by writing.
We shall see.
My neighbourhood has changed again
I went for a run today. I ran like maybe a kilometer, a far cry from my usual 2.5km-ish route. I already felt like I was going to die. My head was throbbing while being light headed. I couldn't breathe properly and started panting. I felt soft skin chafe against my garments. I felt like vomiting when I stopped, and felt like I had blacked out for a nanosecond. I am so unfit it boggles the mind. Hopefully this is the start to me running more :/
While out running I noted how the neighbourhood had changed. Similarly when I was out yesterday with Xianyi, I noted how much and how fast Orchard Road had changed. Then there was the car ride my grandmother gave me when I first came back - an old police warehouse near 6th Avenue which had been the same since the time I was a young girl had now been completely demolished with a new construction site on the area.
Times and things have changed.
While out running I noted how the neighbourhood had changed. Similarly when I was out yesterday with Xianyi, I noted how much and how fast Orchard Road had changed. Then there was the car ride my grandmother gave me when I first came back - an old police warehouse near 6th Avenue which had been the same since the time I was a young girl had now been completely demolished with a new construction site on the area.
Times and things have changed.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Halfway around the world
I suddenly feel like I really really miss someone in London.
I don't like the feeling ):
I don't like the feeling ):
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
I believe there's hope buried beneath it all...
...Yet it is so hard for me to remember and accept that.
Today I caught myself thinking "what am I going to do with all this free time? It seems to meaningless" as I was walking up the stairs to my room after breakfast. Then the feeling started to hit again, the initial dip in the fluids nestled in chest cavity, the slow beginnings of spinning of the head and mind.
I have a packed day today from Lunch to Tea to Dinner. There wasn't that much free time to begin with, yet I started thinking and felt that sensation again
I took my medicine quickly.
I'm very tired.
Today I caught myself thinking "what am I going to do with all this free time? It seems to meaningless" as I was walking up the stairs to my room after breakfast. Then the feeling started to hit again, the initial dip in the fluids nestled in chest cavity, the slow beginnings of spinning of the head and mind.
I have a packed day today from Lunch to Tea to Dinner. There wasn't that much free time to begin with, yet I started thinking and felt that sensation again
I took my medicine quickly.
I'm very tired.
Monday, December 14, 2009
I am an idiot redux
I left my mac charger in T103. I think. I hope. No wonder when I was at the airport the words "where's your charger?" was floating at the back of my head. I chose to ignore it, came back to Singapore and calmly searched. Calmly tried to contact London. Then the father came in and went HAHAHA YOU'RE SCREWED. Then I started panicking and freaking out. The bloody charger costs S$150.
-----
I realised today, in the few hours that I have come home how different life is. Like I haven't sat in a car in months, and I never pushed a shopping cart in a long time too as well. No air conditioning, no lactose free milk and no private room to myself (I think my room is 3x the size of T103, slightly smaller than T105). No more worrying about whether I am hogging the shower. It feels a little like I've not left, yet the odd signs are all there. Like how I scoffed when I saw Waitrose store brand cornflakes that I bought in Waitrose Brunswick for like 2 pounds 50 p selling for S$9.60 in Cold Storage.
I need to reconcile my concept of home again.
-----
I realised today, in the few hours that I have come home how different life is. Like I haven't sat in a car in months, and I never pushed a shopping cart in a long time too as well. No air conditioning, no lactose free milk and no private room to myself (I think my room is 3x the size of T103, slightly smaller than T105). No more worrying about whether I am hogging the shower. It feels a little like I've not left, yet the odd signs are all there. Like how I scoffed when I saw Waitrose store brand cornflakes that I bought in Waitrose Brunswick for like 2 pounds 50 p selling for S$9.60 in Cold Storage.
I need to reconcile my concept of home again.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
I am an idiot
I just realised while looking at my air ticket today that my layover in Paris is exactly 55 minutes long on the return leg. I am going to be running, some crazy Chinese girl long hair a-flying, around Aerogare 2 Terminal E on the day itself.
I am so bringing extra clothes with me. And toiletries.
I am so bringing extra clothes with me. And toiletries.
rah rah ah ah ah
I'm trying very hard to understand how my life has become like this.
Yesterday I spent the afternoon hiding in bed. I thought about skipping the rest of the week. I thought about emailing the most ineffectual person this side of the world and saying "I can't do your essay Sir, because I am currently too melancholic in disposition." I drifted in and out of consciousness, meditating dreams of anti-depressants and Irvine Welsh. I noticed a little pock mark on the ceiling. I just wanted to stay in bed the rest of the week and stare at the ceiling. I wanted to sink into pocket springs and synthetic foam. I dragged myself out of bed and went to eat, yesIamtired/sorryI'mnotfeelingverywell/don'tworryitsnotcontagious. I am so overwhelmed and tired of work. I am so overwhelmed and tired of the complications of human entanglements. I am so overwhelmed and tired of life. I want a break from everything.
Today I woke up next to an emotional entanglement and left feeling more exhausted. I thought 2 pm was 12 pm. I looked at my essay after 3 days of not doing work (a record!) and felt a panic attack rising. I felt my temples start to throb. I typed off 500 words in 45 panic filled minutes. I felt like bursting out in tears and dashing things about. I took too much panadol on a empty stomach and my head is empty once again. I felt the tense nerves in my shoulder tingle and the tips of my fingers trembled as they touched keyboard. I cooked pasta for lunch. I felt the skin on my forehead feel strangely light and heavy at the same time.
I am very tired of life again.
Yesterday I spent the afternoon hiding in bed. I thought about skipping the rest of the week. I thought about emailing the most ineffectual person this side of the world and saying "I can't do your essay Sir, because I am currently too melancholic in disposition." I drifted in and out of consciousness, meditating dreams of anti-depressants and Irvine Welsh. I noticed a little pock mark on the ceiling. I just wanted to stay in bed the rest of the week and stare at the ceiling. I wanted to sink into pocket springs and synthetic foam. I dragged myself out of bed and went to eat, yesIamtired/sorryI'mnotfeelingverywell/don'tworryitsnotcontagious. I am so overwhelmed and tired of work. I am so overwhelmed and tired of the complications of human entanglements. I am so overwhelmed and tired of life. I want a break from everything.
Today I woke up next to an emotional entanglement and left feeling more exhausted. I thought 2 pm was 12 pm. I looked at my essay after 3 days of not doing work (a record!) and felt a panic attack rising. I felt my temples start to throb. I typed off 500 words in 45 panic filled minutes. I felt like bursting out in tears and dashing things about. I took too much panadol on a empty stomach and my head is empty once again. I felt the tense nerves in my shoulder tingle and the tips of my fingers trembled as they touched keyboard. I cooked pasta for lunch. I felt the skin on my forehead feel strangely light and heavy at the same time.
I am very tired of life again.
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Sunday, December 06, 2009
The roses on my desk are wilting, but I have fresh flowers to replace them with
I've always been bad with separation. Even the slightest thought of time that is more than a day apart makes me tear up a little. If it happened gradually then it wouldn't be so bad and I wouldn't think about it, but the idea of leaving or someone leaving to another geographical location just makes me tear up. The idea being of course that they are not physically there anymore, a phone call and a bus stop away.
When I was little I used to cry everytime my Mama took a day trip to KL. Just the idea of her being away and out of the country scared me and made me cry. But she also used to disappear for the entire day and come back only at night, spending the day out with friends. The duration she disappeared for was the same, but the effect on little-me so different.
I can't quite put into words the little thoughts floating in my head about this but I think it has to do with the idea of physical distance, of a distance that never used to exist. A distance that feels too long and makes me scared of the things that might happened when I'm not around. Little (morbid) thoughts like 'what if this is the last time I see them?' which make me panicky and sad inside.
I remember reading a line somewhere that having to leave someone and/or be left behind felt a little like someone had died, because someone who you have been used to having around in your daily life is suddenly gone, leaving only memories and little physical traces behind.
When I was little I used to cry everytime my Mama took a day trip to KL. Just the idea of her being away and out of the country scared me and made me cry. But she also used to disappear for the entire day and come back only at night, spending the day out with friends. The duration she disappeared for was the same, but the effect on little-me so different.
I can't quite put into words the little thoughts floating in my head about this but I think it has to do with the idea of physical distance, of a distance that never used to exist. A distance that feels too long and makes me scared of the things that might happened when I'm not around. Little (morbid) thoughts like 'what if this is the last time I see them?' which make me panicky and sad inside.
I remember reading a line somewhere that having to leave someone and/or be left behind felt a little like someone had died, because someone who you have been used to having around in your daily life is suddenly gone, leaving only memories and little physical traces behind.
Saturday, December 05, 2009
Boulevard Raspail
Things I have eaten in Paris so far:-
1) Little Madelines
2) Pain Au Chocolate
3) Applesauce
4) Plain Crepe
5) Fresh grilled salmon roll
6) Italian chocolate
7) Alsace Baguette
8) Bite of Foie Gras Baguette
9) Macaroons
10) Crab Ravioli
11) Beef Tatare and Fries
12) Some white fish
13) Creme Brulee
I am going to be fat.
1) Little Madelines
2) Pain Au Chocolate
3) Applesauce
4) Plain Crepe
5) Fresh grilled salmon roll
6) Italian chocolate
7) Alsace Baguette
8) Bite of Foie Gras Baguette
9) Macaroons
10) Crab Ravioli
11) Beef Tatare and Fries
12) Some white fish
13) Creme Brulee
I am going to be fat.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Random Things on a Thursday Afternoon
Last Sunday (29th Nov.) I made cooked a pot of Bak Ku Teh for 7 hours, running up to check it every 30-45 minutes. It was really yummy. Looks I am a better cook than I originally thought.
This Weekend I am heading to Paris for a 2 days with my mother. She is there on a business trip and I'm going to visit her. I've already printed out the reading I need to do on the 30 Years War to read on the Eurostar and printed the photo I want to hand to her. Also bought the Long Johns and other things she asked for.
I finished my Christmas Shopping yesterday. Well, majority of it. Yesterday it was also raining outside and I had to keep telling myself to stop spending money :/
Today I talked to my Dad for 45 minutes. I was also a fool because I ducked out for an errand lightly dressed. More lightly dressed than I had been in weeks. Somehow I thought it would be fine. I hid indoors mostly and speed walked all the way back to Passfield from Marchmont.
I went for a Law Cocktail party on Tuesday night. There was chocolate fondue, which was yummy. There was breadsticks and white chocolate. Together it was like the most awesomest Pocky on Earth. The setting itself was more like a hobbit house though, and after a drink I felt like sleeping.
Yesterday the guy who served me at Primark was from Indonesia. I ended having a short conversation with him. He looked really happy, and I felt happy too thinking of home. Just over 1 week till I fly back.
I signed up for a Photography course from 9:30am to 12:30pm on Tuesday mornings for next term. I shall be running from Keeley Street to the Hong Kong Theatre for EH101 lecture next term.
I want to do a Sculpture course in Central St Martins, and a (clay) throwing class in YMCA/wherever is cheap. I realise how much I miss art and creating things. When I get bored in lectures I draw the backs of the heads of my coursemates in their various stages of concentration or boredom.
I seriously need to buy a daily planner. I realise how much I need one now because events are all weeks in advance and there are so many of them. Juggling them in my head is getting exceedingly hard, what with my memory deteriorating thanks to the weird lengths of days.
I have 2 essays due next week, and they're the worst subjects possible. I feel stressed thinking about them, but at the same time cannot bear to think of them. When I look at the question titles I feel sick to my mind and cannot process the information. This should be interesting to see how it pans out.
This Weekend I am heading to Paris for a 2 days with my mother. She is there on a business trip and I'm going to visit her. I've already printed out the reading I need to do on the 30 Years War to read on the Eurostar and printed the photo I want to hand to her. Also bought the Long Johns and other things she asked for.
I finished my Christmas Shopping yesterday. Well, majority of it. Yesterday it was also raining outside and I had to keep telling myself to stop spending money :/
Today I talked to my Dad for 45 minutes. I was also a fool because I ducked out for an errand lightly dressed. More lightly dressed than I had been in weeks. Somehow I thought it would be fine. I hid indoors mostly and speed walked all the way back to Passfield from Marchmont.
I went for a Law Cocktail party on Tuesday night. There was chocolate fondue, which was yummy. There was breadsticks and white chocolate. Together it was like the most awesomest Pocky on Earth. The setting itself was more like a hobbit house though, and after a drink I felt like sleeping.
Yesterday the guy who served me at Primark was from Indonesia. I ended having a short conversation with him. He looked really happy, and I felt happy too thinking of home. Just over 1 week till I fly back.
I signed up for a Photography course from 9:30am to 12:30pm on Tuesday mornings for next term. I shall be running from Keeley Street to the Hong Kong Theatre for EH101 lecture next term.
I want to do a Sculpture course in Central St Martins, and a (clay) throwing class in YMCA/wherever is cheap. I realise how much I miss art and creating things. When I get bored in lectures I draw the backs of the heads of my coursemates in their various stages of concentration or boredom.
I seriously need to buy a daily planner. I realise how much I need one now because events are all weeks in advance and there are so many of them. Juggling them in my head is getting exceedingly hard, what with my memory deteriorating thanks to the weird lengths of days.
I have 2 essays due next week, and they're the worst subjects possible. I feel stressed thinking about them, but at the same time cannot bear to think of them. When I look at the question titles I feel sick to my mind and cannot process the information. This should be interesting to see how it pans out.
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