20 November 2005

Staring at the crack on the wall of a friendship, a poet pens a poem about a gold ring. He dedicates it to his best friend. Title: "Safekeeping". Two words below it: "For Melvin". Ten stanzas. The number cannot be more complete.

In the comment box, this exchange struck me.


"From the age of 13, I used to call someone "best friend" but I realised I wasn't really his best friend during JC. But by then, it was no point regretting being on the losing end. In some way, we grew because of each other. The silence which followed caused the word "best" to die peacefully, leaving me with a normal friend. I stopped labelling friends as "best friend" after that, because I felt it was hard to upkeep such a claim alone, as it had to be reciprocal.

We all have our irrational moments when we say things we don't mean. Words can knife, but they can also resuscitate you in a heartbeat. He may have adulterated what was once pristine in quality, but I'm sure the effulgence of fond memory cannot be divested by words alone. They stay alive when buried, resisting the mind's coffin.

Chronologically speaking, it's just a passing phase, this whole thing. Why not try taking the good times, and the bad times. And let the bad times be bygones."

Reply:

"To take the good times means a recession into Nostalgia, since these good moments are not being replenished. I do hope it's a phase, but at the same time, my despair comes from the fact that the year is ending. A certain superstition perhaps, that the twilight nature of November portends the end of things. And all this irrationality, despite knowing full well the months are arbitrary"

My friends write so well.

So I use their words on days where constructing sentences are beyond my energy level.

Back to camp.

Loo, I hope you recover soon. Don't scratch!


D woke up at 11/20/2005 09:34:00 PM [comment]

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13 November 2005


Loo has a new blog!




We were looking for other pictures to launch his blog but nothing is more appropriate. Click click!

I hate courses, they make me feel really lethargic and my weekends are really spent on the bed, sleeping and recupperating for the next week. And I'm not even trying to ace the course. The worse part, bad outbreaks caused by dirty chin straps, grease stained sleeves, sun exposure, and polluted air. I haven't read at all this week too.
It is depressing.

Gosh I do need a break.

My brother offers to bring me to New York in December, for "as much as I can pay", after which he'd top up the excess.
And to that, I can only say "!!!!!!!!!".

As for now, it's booking in time, and I can also only say "!!!!!!!!" but for the reason that I've spent less than 24hrs at home and I've to leave this wonderful lotus position and it pains me.

I feel barely alive. (That is, if I'm awake enough to feel anything.)


D woke up at 11/13/2005 06:31:00 PM [comment]

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02 November 2005

I shopped with my Mom today and we spent close to $500 on Dad's credit card. She bought a gown for my brother's wedding, and my younger brother and I a shirt each, also for the occasion.

She tells me she hasn't seen Orchard for 10 years. Teaching in SCGS, she shuffles from home to school to the market and temple. She hardly sees town. She wanted to explore it that day, but she was afraid of getting lost, and she took a straight bus home.

I haven't shopped with my Mom for a long while.

I realised I'm no longer embarrassed with her holding of my hand.

I offer my hand to her as she descends the steps in graduated sighs - of tiredness and being old, and she complains about her knees, and how she worries it'd not carry her further than it had already. I offer my hand to her as we strolled through the speeding crowd, leading her on the right path, fearing she'd get lost, with a handphone that's almost always turned off. I offer my hand as she takes the steps; she's slow but only the others notice her speed.

I didn't know how to say I'm so immensely grateful to her and my dad.

I read some hand-written journal entries I keep stashed in my cupboards and I found this set that was written circa 1999. Primary school. And I kept laughing. I was really a complainer. Not that I am not now, I guess I am less.

I saw how friendships always mattered to me, how I got excessively worked up over what happened between Yoke Wei, Ian and Alexis, people of whom had since separated from my path in life, but weighed a great deal back then. I used to be such great friends with these kids in school and now, I do not even know their addresses.

On the coach, Loo says we have to exercise on Saturdays if we don't end up in the same school. I agreed. Perhaps I sounded less enthusiastic than I really was. I didn't want to lose such a fabulous friend to time again. And I thought I would fight to keep it at all cost.

I read some old chinese essay I wrote in JC, when I was still a Language Elective Student. The beautiful handwriting (that I've sinced lost), the topics, and the narrative voice brought back alot of what I thought was long gone. It was the quiet, almost dead-pan kind of voice you hear as voice-overs on Taiwanese films. And the topics, ah, I never thought creativity could die over age. I felt like an old mule, going through those scripts, awed by my own ingenuity.

I haven't written so intensely in a long while. My hand-written journal dates back to a month, and even that, was an obligatory incident report. I've lost so much of what used to be me now that I am wondering what has become of Dong. This thought sparked no more misery than losing a strand of hair. Really, I don't know what is wrong.

I am surrendering to lethargy.


D woke up at 11/02/2005 01:07:00 AM [comment]

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01 November 2005

Going away was a good idea. The chill did alot to me. It was a short time too, but defnitely one of the best I've had this year.




More to come!


D woke up at 11/01/2005 12:40:00 AM [comment]

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