Friday, April 29, 2005
3 limbs, 2 people and a neckbrace
u know when u have to squeeze 6 people in a car and the smallest, skinniest and shortest just had to be in front? yea?
anyway that's not what's important. wednesday, we were going to the alfred to see yeeleng and then after, royal melb for dinson. big car accident, car total loss, a broken leg each, he with an arm. i wonder why they're in different hospitals, and cj theorized that they probably needed 2 emergency teams. he also told us that on his first visit, they joked about how dinson had to let people cut up his car. cj is a nice guy, just full of shit.
at the alfred, i met a handful of sklians and coincidentally, the girl who works at coffee on cardigan. yeeleng, with neckbrace off (those things make me feel uneasy and vulnerable), was temporarily half-deaf and thankfully, still in good enough humour. i heard when she first awoke, she said "what's the time?" and "i got presentation." she said something about how news travel fast. and the kind of people who visited - besides her close-knit circle - cj was 3 years her senior, kevin 2 years... and me, a junior. no matter that she and i were strangers short of name and face. standing in that ward made me realize a greater significance of school.
see, sharing passions and ambitions bind u closer becoz they're of the future, which is unwritten - u probably decide u wanna write that future together. sharing common interests gives u an easy friendship foundation. it gives u something to talk about, the intensity of said interest determining how long u both can rave on. sharing a School, however... is sharing a past.
u know u've suffered the same teachers, lepaked the same manner, pontenged at the same venues - every sklian i know remembers with great fondness our courtyard fixtures of green marble. school translates to a substantial portion of your teenage years, and that creates understanding. the bond is nowhere near personal, just a light understanding beneath the surface, which makes it that much different from sharing present ideas and future causes. it's all about that much-watered-down sense of kin. the idea that there's a pretty-strong srikl community in melb, thriving well, just makes u go warm and fuzzy.
until we arrived at royal melb after visiting hours. we never saw dinson, but cj asked just to make sure he was still in the same place same ward and nurse checked her list and said, "what's his surname?"
blank looks all around.
anyway that's not what's important. wednesday, we were going to the alfred to see yeeleng and then after, royal melb for dinson. big car accident, car total loss, a broken leg each, he with an arm. i wonder why they're in different hospitals, and cj theorized that they probably needed 2 emergency teams. he also told us that on his first visit, they joked about how dinson had to let people cut up his car. cj is a nice guy, just full of shit.
at the alfred, i met a handful of sklians and coincidentally, the girl who works at coffee on cardigan. yeeleng, with neckbrace off (those things make me feel uneasy and vulnerable), was temporarily half-deaf and thankfully, still in good enough humour. i heard when she first awoke, she said "what's the time?" and "i got presentation." she said something about how news travel fast. and the kind of people who visited - besides her close-knit circle - cj was 3 years her senior, kevin 2 years... and me, a junior. no matter that she and i were strangers short of name and face. standing in that ward made me realize a greater significance of school.
see, sharing passions and ambitions bind u closer becoz they're of the future, which is unwritten - u probably decide u wanna write that future together. sharing common interests gives u an easy friendship foundation. it gives u something to talk about, the intensity of said interest determining how long u both can rave on. sharing a School, however... is sharing a past.
u know u've suffered the same teachers, lepaked the same manner, pontenged at the same venues - every sklian i know remembers with great fondness our courtyard fixtures of green marble. school translates to a substantial portion of your teenage years, and that creates understanding. the bond is nowhere near personal, just a light understanding beneath the surface, which makes it that much different from sharing present ideas and future causes. it's all about that much-watered-down sense of kin. the idea that there's a pretty-strong srikl community in melb, thriving well, just makes u go warm and fuzzy.
until we arrived at royal melb after visiting hours. we never saw dinson, but cj asked just to make sure he was still in the same place same ward and nurse checked her list and said, "what's his surname?"
blank looks all around.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
multiple reads?
i've always held to monogamy, but today i decide to go where no jook has gone before... to start Eight books simultaneously. that's eight different authors, different genres, themes voicepacecharacters. how?
i've never had real shopaholic tendencies, but on detour into borders, i came out with three new books. now, problem is i already have three unread books, all the way from last year - guess no need for details on my procrastinating tendencies. add that to the two tattered, ancient volumes borrowed from bro from summer, and u get eight. why?
a decade has the power to change many things, among them childhood hobbies. today i realize again, there's not enough time. i've re-realized this fact so many times that the irony completely eludes me now. so, not much to think about, except - get reading! crash and burn! i took the road less travelled by and that has made all the difference - my pastime had become a chore. what?
* i wasn't being sexist intentionally.
whispers at the back there? so most of them are light reading. that is the whole point. u wouldn't catch this jook in a bog of eight longwinded tomes a thousand pages each. not anytime soon. this will be a study period, that means notes and textual dissecting and whatnot, into fantasy, classic, young adult, comic, for reasons of explosive creative expansions.
btw, even wwf pitbulls can be writers. in the rmit bookshop i saw a mick foley. cue flashback to form 4/5... and chwanren in his sixxsense's-sarcastic-sarcasm days... and his obsession with mankind. "please vote him man of the year, not as mankind, but as Mick Foley, with the M and F capitalized." if u'd kindly ignore cr's gay tone, that was how i came to know the name. and... the book actually looks not bad.
i've never had real shopaholic tendencies, but on detour into borders, i came out with three new books. now, problem is i already have three unread books, all the way from last year - guess no need for details on my procrastinating tendencies. add that to the two tattered, ancient volumes borrowed from bro from summer, and u get eight. why?
a decade has the power to change many things, among them childhood hobbies. today i realize again, there's not enough time. i've re-realized this fact so many times that the irony completely eludes me now. so, not much to think about, except - get reading! crash and burn! i took the road less travelled by and that has made all the difference - my pastime had become a chore. what?
- dbc pierre - vernon god little
- mitch albom - five people u meet in heaven
- mark haddon - curious incident of the dog in the nighttime
- robert ludlum - the road to gandolfo
- terry brooks - magic kingdom for sale sold!
- david gemmell - wolf in shadow
- j.d. salinger - catcher in the rye
- melina marchetta* - looking for alibrandi
* i wasn't being sexist intentionally.
whispers at the back there? so most of them are light reading. that is the whole point. u wouldn't catch this jook in a bog of eight longwinded tomes a thousand pages each. not anytime soon. this will be a study period, that means notes and textual dissecting and whatnot, into fantasy, classic, young adult, comic, for reasons of explosive creative expansions.
btw, even wwf pitbulls can be writers. in the rmit bookshop i saw a mick foley. cue flashback to form 4/5... and chwanren in his sixxsense's-sarcastic-sarcasm days... and his obsession with mankind. "please vote him man of the year, not as mankind, but as Mick Foley, with the M and F capitalized." if u'd kindly ignore cr's gay tone, that was how i came to know the name. and... the book actually looks not bad.
Monday, April 18, 2005
"on the, top of the world looking..."
today i went for a morning walk. my friends had disappeared with my jacket and i felt cold, but i liked it. then wl hugged me and rubbed my arms, and i decided i liked that better.
it was about 0630. we went hunting for an open mcd's to have breakfast. we walked up collins with a vague idea of the mcds' location there, and found all the lights off. so we crossed down to bourke. halfway there we sat down for a rest between the tram tracks, right in the middle of the road, dead on midway-line of the city. there we watched a pink sunrise, with three gothic church spires silhouetted in the distance.
moving on, the nice little hardware lane mcd's was also closed. funny, i thought they were always open on sundays. so we walked down the brick sidewalk lane i knew so well, thought and decided against trying vicmart mcd's, and uphill for another three blocks back home.
all after a night in kandy. it's why i'd love to be a morning person.
it was about 0630. we went hunting for an open mcd's to have breakfast. we walked up collins with a vague idea of the mcds' location there, and found all the lights off. so we crossed down to bourke. halfway there we sat down for a rest between the tram tracks, right in the middle of the road, dead on midway-line of the city. there we watched a pink sunrise, with three gothic church spires silhouetted in the distance.
moving on, the nice little hardware lane mcd's was also closed. funny, i thought they were always open on sundays. so we walked down the brick sidewalk lane i knew so well, thought and decided against trying vicmart mcd's, and uphill for another three blocks back home.
all after a night in kandy. it's why i'd love to be a morning person.
Thursday, April 07, 2005
plight of the asylum seeker
750 words' fiction in a night. k people... time for shameless self-promotion. this was what i intended blogging for anyway, but no way in hell i can feel even remotely creative every few days. please comment, leave your mark, dada-dada, etc. this blog doesn't get enough, and the meaning of life surfaces when u make a difference =p
Stolen Childhood
Horror
Many people do not remember their lives before the age of four. I recall very well, and it is most vivid in the nightmares I still get.
I chased after my brothers. We were amusing ourselves over soccer, over my clumsy attempts on clumsy legs. My dad stood by the house, shouting encouragement. I turned, and my face lit up at the sight of the plane nearing, which dipped low, very low. It was the first time I observed a plane at such close quarters. And the last time I saw my dad.
He disappeared in an instant, in the great white-orange fireball, along with field and house, including my mother in the kitchen. The heat engulfed everything, consuming me, choking me. The bomber roared overhead, indifferent. Every inch of skin searing hot, I yet lived, and thought I knew desolation.
My remaining brothers and I joined an exodus on foot with no clue of the future. People carried all they could: food, cookware, rugs, children. Here I met a mother of six, who became our matron of sorts as well. Fear taught you selflessness but in some cases, the reverse. There was much infighting.
What child understands politics? We were to die for someone else’s ideals. We were not expendable but simply, casually, decided not fit to be. I thought life was cheap. Where was its meaning?
Survival
The following events seem dreamlike. We somehow ended up in a prison camp, surrounded by barbed wire and aggression. I hear of hidey-holes, a common British concept in childhood play, and am reminded of how we had mass graves.
I grew unafraid of the dark. We stole away one night on tiny fishing boats, about twelve to one. Hell became a familiar concept, not the picture of fire and brimstone, but darkness – the inky black ocean mere inches under me, which stretched to a 360-degree horizon and beyond.
We eventually parted. I was about eight and helpless, only able to watch and say nothing as my ‘mother’ bid farewell. Families separated, and thrust into further mercy of fate, were commonplace. I like to think back to the warmth of her last hug, because the next time I saw her face would be a decade later, in cold black & white on her equally cold gravestone.
The airport looked so clean, so sanitized, that I felt nausea. Our thoughts had been so perverted I even felt apprehensive when nobody deterred us. I boarded the plane with hope in heart, but with the evil scene of the football game replaying in my head, and I would wake uneasily many times, missing sounds of gunshots.
And still more was to happen, on an island across the globe.
Alienation
“Sorry”, I used to say to most things; “thank you” to some.
My English has come a long way since, but it was a dead end when no one understood you. At least they knew I was freezing in the British gloom, although not all were lucky. A woman was shunned everywhere, when all the English she spoke was “baby”. She was six months pregnant.
Everything was alien: food, buildings, even the daylight. People looked at us with scorn, and I saw a deeper fear. Our goal was just a simple future, since we had no past – not a decent one anyway. We didn’t come to steal your jobs; we just wanted to contribute to the society that took us in. Many sincerely grateful people became outcasts – this was no ‘asylum’.
British bureaucracy ate up more time than I had spent fleeing. Being hunted was one thing, being safe yet unwanted, quite another. We were destitute and despondent, and it was basically a waste of time, of my years; my life.
A few years into maturity, I found myself one day at a playground, amidst warmth and laughter. And the reality of it all drove home. The dread in realization made my smile phony, hypocritical; I had found the perfect two words to sum up my teenage life – stolen childhood. Still, I’ve learnt the hard way to look to the light, which I did. Gossamer threads of sunshine sifted down through the clouds.
My tale ends here, but not for other countless thousands, each one a more shocking life than anyone deserves. Heed your conscience, reach out – join any public event or simply click your way to www.refugeecouncil.org.uk, or www.asylumaid.org.uk.
Life has more meaning when you make a difference.
Many people do not remember their lives before the age of four. I recall very well, and it is most vivid in the nightmares I still get.
I chased after my brothers. We were amusing ourselves over soccer, over my clumsy attempts on clumsy legs. My dad stood by the house, shouting encouragement. I turned, and my face lit up at the sight of the plane nearing, which dipped low, very low. It was the first time I observed a plane at such close quarters. And the last time I saw my dad.
He disappeared in an instant, in the great white-orange fireball, along with field and house, including my mother in the kitchen. The heat engulfed everything, consuming me, choking me. The bomber roared overhead, indifferent. Every inch of skin searing hot, I yet lived, and thought I knew desolation.
My remaining brothers and I joined an exodus on foot with no clue of the future. People carried all they could: food, cookware, rugs, children. Here I met a mother of six, who became our matron of sorts as well. Fear taught you selflessness but in some cases, the reverse. There was much infighting.
What child understands politics? We were to die for someone else’s ideals. We were not expendable but simply, casually, decided not fit to be. I thought life was cheap. Where was its meaning?
Survival
The following events seem dreamlike. We somehow ended up in a prison camp, surrounded by barbed wire and aggression. I hear of hidey-holes, a common British concept in childhood play, and am reminded of how we had mass graves.
I grew unafraid of the dark. We stole away one night on tiny fishing boats, about twelve to one. Hell became a familiar concept, not the picture of fire and brimstone, but darkness – the inky black ocean mere inches under me, which stretched to a 360-degree horizon and beyond.
We eventually parted. I was about eight and helpless, only able to watch and say nothing as my ‘mother’ bid farewell. Families separated, and thrust into further mercy of fate, were commonplace. I like to think back to the warmth of her last hug, because the next time I saw her face would be a decade later, in cold black & white on her equally cold gravestone.
The airport looked so clean, so sanitized, that I felt nausea. Our thoughts had been so perverted I even felt apprehensive when nobody deterred us. I boarded the plane with hope in heart, but with the evil scene of the football game replaying in my head, and I would wake uneasily many times, missing sounds of gunshots.
And still more was to happen, on an island across the globe.
Alienation
“Sorry”, I used to say to most things; “thank you” to some.
My English has come a long way since, but it was a dead end when no one understood you. At least they knew I was freezing in the British gloom, although not all were lucky. A woman was shunned everywhere, when all the English she spoke was “baby”. She was six months pregnant.
Everything was alien: food, buildings, even the daylight. People looked at us with scorn, and I saw a deeper fear. Our goal was just a simple future, since we had no past – not a decent one anyway. We didn’t come to steal your jobs; we just wanted to contribute to the society that took us in. Many sincerely grateful people became outcasts – this was no ‘asylum’.
British bureaucracy ate up more time than I had spent fleeing. Being hunted was one thing, being safe yet unwanted, quite another. We were destitute and despondent, and it was basically a waste of time, of my years; my life.
A few years into maturity, I found myself one day at a playground, amidst warmth and laughter. And the reality of it all drove home. The dread in realization made my smile phony, hypocritical; I had found the perfect two words to sum up my teenage life – stolen childhood. Still, I’ve learnt the hard way to look to the light, which I did. Gossamer threads of sunshine sifted down through the clouds.
My tale ends here, but not for other countless thousands, each one a more shocking life than anyone deserves. Heed your conscience, reach out – join any public event or simply click your way to www.refugeecouncil.org.uk, or www.asylumaid.org.uk.
Life has more meaning when you make a difference.
Sunday, April 03, 2005
now, if u're offended by nudity
u may take the express elevator down to hell.
so, heh heh heh. this was a good year for april fool's. well done babes, genuinely duped, and happy for it in a fetishy kinda way. i love a good joke. aaaaaand, not once, but twice! now, search your imaginations to find how the hell a new european union law affects me, a malaysian student down under. a sub-clause in the labeling of dairy products? shocking news. u know, i had this genius idea in 1st year uni for a bogus - not telling - when coincidentally i was - not telling - and i planned and plotted, but could never quite figure how to pull it off. nvm.
my bro calls me a mac wannabe. refer below.
this is natalie, or corinna or ruby, depending on where u saw her.
easter work: cbp new product, "plight of the asylum seeker", dreamweaver, quark layout for some volkswagen. all nada, well except for cbp, which i started just this afternoon (sunday). i salute myself, "gao-too" king. (gao being archaic teochew for clever, too being to procrastinate.) i salute giant for putting up with me. why am i not surprised. and i'm blogging too! really, why am i not surprised? better go, though.
so, heh heh heh. this was a good year for april fool's. well done babes, genuinely duped, and happy for it in a fetishy kinda way. i love a good joke. aaaaaand, not once, but twice! now, search your imaginations to find how the hell a new european union law affects me, a malaysian student down under. a sub-clause in the labeling of dairy products? shocking news. u know, i had this genius idea in 1st year uni for a bogus - not telling - when coincidentally i was - not telling - and i planned and plotted, but could never quite figure how to pull it off. nvm.
my bro calls me a mac wannabe. refer below.
this is natalie, or corinna or ruby, depending on where u saw her.
easter work: cbp new product, "plight of the asylum seeker", dreamweaver, quark layout for some volkswagen. all nada, well except for cbp, which i started just this afternoon (sunday). i salute myself, "gao-too" king. (gao being archaic teochew for clever, too being to procrastinate.) i salute giant for putting up with me. why am i not surprised. and i'm blogging too! really, why am i not surprised? better go, though.
Saturday, April 02, 2005
april fool's day.
Dinner: $15
Movie: $11
The look on jk's face when i played a april fool prank on him: Priceless
i totally forgot there's even an april fool's day until ty told me. and it's been a while since i last fooled someone on april 1st. so i thought, okay, let's fool someone: jk. and it turned out to be a good one... hehe =p
Movie: $11
The look on jk's face when i played a april fool prank on him: Priceless
i totally forgot there's even an april fool's day until ty told me. and it's been a while since i last fooled someone on april 1st. so i thought, okay, let's fool someone: jk. and it turned out to be a good one... hehe =p
