i have a theory

i have a theory that most people are currently in denial.

christmas was not fine. everything isn't, either. and nothing will be alright.

there is a reason why depression rates go up in the holiday season, and there is a reason why this is the time where everyone is reaffirming their beliefs and restating for themselves to see that everything is alright. that things are better.

in their blog, in their diares, in their journals, to their friends, to their familes, to their church, to their congregration, through text messaging, through phone calls, through email, though instant messaging, on television, on radio, in the newspaper, the books we read, the music we listen to, the television we watch and the movies we choose.

in the shower, in the mirror, in our heads, to ourselves, on our blogs.

black plastic (not a PowerBook G3)

the mousepad my Apple Wireless Mouse is sitting on? an IBM ThinkPad 240X.

how much do i rock?

atarax versus vicodin

cool. according to wikipedia, i'm addicted to painkillers. now if only i was a genius diagnostician. then i would be something.

though "Khoo, M.D." really isn't as catchy as "House, M.D.".

2006, onwards and downwards

In the year 2006 I resolve to: Slap stupid people in the head. Get your resolution here

problemo

i can't decide what to do today.

my sister and mom, my sister and mom

WHY IS EVERYONE SO BLOODY THICK-HEADED?

what-fucking-ever

what fucking ever. this is what happens when you try. when you expect. when you plan. when you have hope.

you get disappointment, from being disappointed.

from your aunt's boyfriend, who wouldn't pick up his phone when he said he would, to your sister, who needs convincing to help collect a movie voucher for you and then leaves the area you're supposed to meet her in without so much as telling you that she was going to, to the entire nation watching the same fucking movies at the same fucking times, to subway suddenly being the ultra-cool, super popular food joint, all tables constantly full.

i fail to see how deigning to come down to town and risking my sanity to go out with and watch a movie with my friends should result in me being so smited by the powers that be. is there not one thing that can go right? i've read about people who always make it a point to find the one thing that's happened in their life each day, that makes that day worth living. always look on the bring side of life and all that. now i know that they must lead charmed lives. i find doing the same rather difficult.

everything blows. season's greetings. merry christmas. happy fucking 2006. onwards and downwards.

school is cool

it's the place to be during winter break.

"if you're not here, you're not cool!"

--Syed Shameer Shah

it's weird that only now am i in school during non-school days. oh well.

three am in the house of khoo

"wah, so long never shave already" --samaria khoo

grey's anatomy

please don't watch it. i don't want several thousand people watching the show i picked, liked, followed and loved before any of you even heard about it.

is nothing sacred any more? this isn't the first time this has happened.

Multimedia message

Multimedia message
Originally uploaded by aklw.

I was going to say something about this being a bit too early, but i was told that they have been up since last chinese new year.

Multimedia message

Multimedia message
Originally uploaded by aklw.

This is what i'm babysitting right now.

Multimedia message

Multimedia message
Originally uploaded by aklw.

See?

Multimedia message

Multimedia message
Originally uploaded by aklw.

Facing southwards, this is what the sky looks like now. It is not going to rain.

bah, humbug

get off your sled and go to bed
don't you ever tire?
throw a bone i'm finally home
curled up by the fire
snow is falling from the sky
like ashes from an urn
sweet dreams my little one
now it's my turn

well christmas is going to the dogs
we'd rather have chew toys than yule logs
and things aren't looking very good it's true
so i'll just lay here and chew

now when i sleep i like to dream
of rabbits in the snow
jumping right into my jaws
from their rabbit holes
take one home and set him down
right next to you shoes
wake up to a big surprise
my gift to you

and christmas is going to the dogs
we'd rather have chew toys than yule logs
and things aren't looking very good it's true
so i'll just lay here and chew

and christmas is going to the dogs
we're scarfing down the turkey and eggnog
and things aren't looking very good it's true
so i'll just lay here and chew
so i'll just stay here and chew

dollars. not monkeys or donkeys.

it was eight-sixty-five to get home.

wow. amazing how one little thing like missing the last service thirteen bus can throw your entire day off.

it was already balancing precariously on the precipice, now it's gone over and down.

hey, i'm supposed to be at harborfront in less than nine hours. this means that i should have gone to bed over three hours ago.

cool.

three months ago

three months ago
Originally uploaded by aklw.

Life was actually exciting. Or, it was going to be. I miss China.

Multimedia message

Multimedia message
Originally uploaded by aklw.

I feel like going back to get my black jacket.

sweet home alabama

fricking weird people. i've been awake for less than ten minutes--i'm still on my fricking bed!--and they come in to tell me to come out and eat lunch.

hello? i'm still in my bed (read: thin mattress on the floor)? how about i brush my teeth and clean up and get settled into the idea of being awake before it is decided that i force-feed myself?

in related news, shocking truths uncovered about a couple of movies and a television show: sweet home alabama and legally blonde share female leads, and dr. mcdreamy from grey's anatomy is one of the male leads in sweet home alabama. the male lead from stealth (you know, the one who didn't die?) is the other male lead.

uh. okay.

i wonder what's for lunch, if they're so excited over it.

the red sea

"mine's over already. you still on your period ah? you started before me leh!"

four a.m. in the house of khoo

you can take your s and stick them up your arse.

i am not in a good mood any more. and the medication is kicking in, so i shall proceed to sleep for sixteen hours. see you on the dark side.

the chronicles of ikea

"I wanna watch the lion, witch
and the wardrobe.
From: Kenneth Foo
3:47am 12/21/05"

my first response was: "yay for cs lewis and god."

samaria khoo came up with a better one: "then you should go to the zoo and ikea. the witch i don't know how."

i added the last bit, because my sister couldn't think of where one would find a witch in singapore, then appended my original response.

whoo. we khoos are hilarious.

gutted

i think i've decided to give up photography, and stop taking these bloody little buggers they call photographs.

life is exciting.

teppanyaki burger

Hooray. They forgot about me, and I get fries and a teppanyaki burger instead.

hotcakes with sausage

This is appalling. I’ve been waiting over fifteen minutes for my Hotcakes with Sausage. Where are they?

"skynetglobal"

This is sad. The McDonald’s at my place finally gets wifi, and my mac can’t connect to it.

Like I previously said, there is no place more soulless to eat at than a McDonald’s. Anyone with half a brain knows that if you’re not eating with family, you’re with a group of friends so unimaginative they can’t come up with somewhere else to eat. Otherwise, you’re a sad loser who doesn’t have anyone to eat with, and fast food is the only place where the servers and the other patrons won’t look at you funny when you ask for and sit at a table for one (partially because you don’t need to ask for a table). There’s a third option, and that’s that McDonald’s is having a promotion and you’re just here to sample its new wares. But, really. Your idea of new culinary experiences is checking out their new rice burger? Go to Mos Burger.

When will my hotcakes arrive? When will sham arrive? All great questions that I can’t ask anyone outside of my Mac, because I cannot connect to the wifi network here.

shock, horror, depression.

believe it or not, i wanted to be part of orientation this year.

popular

but i needed to buy blank CDs.

a wake

what am i doing awake?

i don't know, do i.

can't sleep. must sleep.

must try harder.

video killed the radio star

roland lim is extremely unattractive, and has no sense of color or style. he needs to do radio and get off television.

route thirteen

Now that i have my powerbook back, what? What am I going to do? Go back to school every day or every other tday? Sit at home and mope the days away? I no longer have real motivation to leave the house, with my powerbook and my xbox. I could stay at home all day long.

Diana Krall doesn’t sound llike she means it when she sings jingle bells. Which is all and good, but it’s not the attractive kind of uncheery singing. It’s the kind that’s painful; and difficult to listen to.

It would appear that no one has ever seen anyone with a powerbook on a bus before. The shinty glowy apple is new to them. The soft clacking of the keyboard. The subtle balancing of the powerbook as the bus shifts back and forth. The person sitting under it, typing away.

What’s he doing with a powerbook on a bus? Is he showing off? Maybe he’s from Nanyang Polytechnic, doing his homework. Or he’s a writer. Or he’s some very important business-type person, typing up a contract on his way to a client meeting.

Can’t be, what. I’m dressed down today. Polo tee and jeans. I half feel like making fake letter-type formatting at the tops and bottom of what I’m typing so that people will feel thrown off and the woman seated next to me won’t realize I’m actually writing nothing more than a blog entry.

Bishan Park? Man, have I chosen a weird bus route home or what?

Oh, and speaking of Diana Krall, I’ve decided I hate Jamie Cullum.

I don’t know how much longer I can take staying where I am now. Sooner or later something will result from the constant pressure, the constant watching everything I do and watching everything my siblings do., the weekends where going out is a danger, made to feel like a previllege.

I have now ascertained that Forza motorspot is included in the Christmas xbox racing pack, and now I want it. If only I had ninety0nine dollars.

How random one gets when one is on the bus, powerbook on his lap. The world is distracting.

Yio Chu Kang

Yio Chu Kang
Originally uploaded by aklw.

I now hate having to come to yio chu kang.

how you been feeling?

it was apparant already. i wasn't exactly in a good mood days before departure, and i skipped ice-skating, something i actually really wanted to do, because to many people were going and i couldn't get a straight answer from the one person i would actually have wanted to come along. had a manic episode, then ran out the hostel to walk in circles for hours.

and, then, when the day of departure itself came, i was a daze. a walking cloud. refused to talk to anyone, especially those i considered closer or i cared about. barely acknowleged those i don't, those not privvy to how i was feeling. oddly enough those that weren't close or i didn't care as much about made up the bulk of those who asked about how i was. so it got to the point when, sitting in my living room for the last time, i was asked by someone i did care about and i thought was closer to me, i was too far gone to respond.

sat on the chair, walked around the apartment, laid on the bed, sat on the balcony floor, thought, listened, nothing. brought my luggage downstairs, out by the street. the last time i would be standing there, and of all things i decided to open up my suitcase to dig out the strap that was meant to be attached to the handle of my suitcase. it was meant to allow me to pull it along without having to lift up one end of the case, but what possesed me to notice it at that instant i will never know.

of course, i was the first on the bus when we could board. i couldn't take it any more, i didn't want to stand on the sidewalk and slowly contemplate the life i was leaving and the life i was headed back towards. i didn't want to buy cream puffs that would just make me miss the place more, right away. i didn't want to speak to anyone, do anything, i just wanted to sit and, as it turned out, cry my heart out.

i don't know if anyone did, but it was of no concequence if anyone noticed anyway. what could they have done, but offer their concern or lame enquires of "what's wrong?" anyway?

every-bloody-thing was wrong, dammit.

in the week before departure i decided to, against my better judgement, watch the series finale of Six Feet Under on my PowerBook, under the comforter, on the bed. it was comforting, but the ending depressingly sad, and made even more so by the excellent choice of Sia's "Breathe Me" as the soundtrack for the finale scenes, where they play out every character's death, intersped with Claire's Toyota Prius driving her away from her family, towards New York City.

Song 10: Claire leaves for New York. Everything Ends.
Sia : Breathe Me

guess which particular song i put on repeat on my iPod right after i got on the bus? i had her debut album and had already fallen in love with the song. i don't know how it happened, though, and whether it would have happened if i'd chosen something else or went without my iPod altogether, but like the clichéd dam bursting, it all came out. for the entire hour-odd ride to the airport, i let everything seep out, and bleed out, and cry out.

don't ever let it be said that you haven't seen me cry, if you weren't looking when i did.

when the airport loomed, i shut down. realizing that time wasn't going to turn itself back, the bus wasn't going to make a u-turn, i would have to get off and board the plane that was going to take me a step back towards the great nothing that was my birthplace, i switched everything off, got my luggage, collected the passports, and pushed myself on.

and that was supposed to be the end of that, but i guess i haven't yet let everything out yet, have i. right now i feel like i'm going through some weird menopause/mid-life-crisis kind of breakdown, except it's happening much slower than it's supposed to. when moods change often enough to confuse yourself, and you're paranoid, and uncomfortable in your own skin, you often anticipate a physical change to accompany that as well, and failing that you hope for something horrible to happen to compeltely devaste you and legitmize how you feel and let you show how you feel.

failing even that, you take things into your own hands.

my Eyes don't want to Open any more

It’s six-twelve A.M.

What am I doing? Writing the speech for the opening of “Eyes Wide Opened” (I didn’t name it), the exhibition put on by the students that went on the exchange trip to China.

Is it wise for the speech to be written less than five hours before it’s meant to be read? No.

Is it wise for the work for the exhibition not to be ready yet? No.

What happened? I don’t know.

Everything seems last minute, bad decisions made left and right, the wrong attitudes all over the place, lackluster and poorly arranged photo exhibition, meaningless journals on display, uninteresting-at-best artifacts gleaned from the few people who bothered to contribute any. People who turn up to do nothing beyond reading other people’s journals and fucking around with the music on the laptop. All work compressed into the last two days before the exhibit.

A committee of one is not one at all.

My biggest fear? This turns out to be worse than the PID exhibition. Now I never went to the PID exhibition, because no one would go with me, but I have a suspicion we might not make it.

And to be worse than a PID effort? Is really, really, sadly, pathetic.

Multimedia message

Multimedia message
Originally uploaded by aklw.

Leftover melaka trip shot. Should have used a proper camera.

07-17-05_2303

07-17-05_2303
Originally uploaded by aklw.

hey, you know what? i don't know!

point a gun to my head, or twist my arm, though, and i'll venture the guess that there isn't one.

The Rain's A Pain, When It Does This

The Rain's A Pain, When It Does This
Originally uploaded by aklw.

What the fuck does it rain at night for? Most people are asleep so no one's going to be able to enjoy it. It's already cooler after the sun goes down. So, what the fuck for? Save it for when the sun is in the sky!

me, to me

i see we're flying high on the bullshit tonight, aaron.

kids, listen to aaron: don't read

i read too much, into too much, and too well.

i devour books, the newspaper, The Economist, magazines, read too much into awkward social situations, body language, tone, choice of words, reactions, apparent intelligence levels, what clothes they wear, what car they drive, what mobile phone they use, if they chose which mobile phone they use, Mac or Windows, kopi-peng or mocha latte, Gilmore Girls or Channel 8 dramas, HDB or condomium, music or popular culture, Pink Martini or Perfect 10, when my parents are fighting, when my father is being ridiculous, when my aunt is tense, when i'm not supposed to go out, if everyone's looking at my Motorola and drawing their own conclusions as to where or how i got it, who's waiting for my grandfather to die, who's waiting for my aunt to die so they can collect on her insurance and CPF and assets, when my mom is being normal and human-like, which my mom is being unreasonable and unfathomable, why i have to hide my PowerBook when relatives are over, why i have to stay in on weekends, why i have to endure the weekly sunday lunches, why i "was in Malaysia" when i was in China, when my parents are getting divorced, why they should have done it when i told them to do so when i was in primary two, religous: who is, and who isn't, and who will try to force it on you, who likes me, who doesn't, who confuse me, who's interested, who wants to fall asleep, who needs to get out more, where we all are headed.

it's one thing to be able to understand why China's bubble is going to burst, and why Apple can commandeer so much respect and marketshare when its core business isn't even ten percent of its market's marketshare, why some things are worth reading and some things i put down or never touch no matter how high they are on bestsellers' lists or how much i hear about them or how critically-acclaimed they are, or how Motorola is shamelessly catering to whoever will buy their phones, even why human beings act the way they do or do what they do.

it's another to spend your life overanalyzing everything from a one-word text message to everything little thing someone does or how someone treats you through an entire week, month, or life.

every little thing that you say or do; i'm hung up, i'm hung up on you.

chicken stuPID.

i paid ten dollars in cab fare to make it to Chicken Little (a complete and utter piece of filth missing one ingredient: PIXAR. bye-bye, Disney.) five minutes late.

this on top of being shouted at over the phone for not taking the train (i don't recall a train station being anywhere near Temasek Polytechnic. is it part of the Circle Line?), waking late and with this horrible crick in my neck, plus a migraine, plus allergies, plus being useless in school, plus not getting to see the video, plus, plus, plus.

i am so going to disappear.

What are you doing here?

What are you doing here?
Originally uploaded by aklw.

What am i doing here? Waiting for my grandfather to die, so that i can kill myself, guilt-free.

it's a wonderful feeling

it's a terrible feeling, not being needed.

speak for myself

 


i've spent the good part of an hour establishing that the cd kenneth and jinghui (eta: dawn had a part in it as well, apparently) gave me for my birthday isn't copy-protected. i've even run it through four different Windows-based audio players. it's odd. this release, on this label, should be copy-protected. also note the big scary FBI warning label on the back. it features on the CD's cardboard cover, as well.

well, at least i won't have to exchange away the one thing i got for my birthday. not that i wanted anything reasonable, but yeah. it was nice. 

12-06-05_1739

12-06-05_1739
Originally uploaded by aklw.

Don't just stop, run. In the opposite direction. As quickly as possible.

Greetings

Almost there.

my passport.

I won't be here tomorrow, so here it is, right now. I wish i was aborted. I've had enough. There's nothing i want to do right now. I didn't want to appeal, and now i no longer want to re-apply. I don't want to be on this trip where people are going to try to celebrate my birthday even when i've warned them not to. I don't want to go anywhere, anymore. And i miss my time in china.

I hereby give up.

garbage: garbage: milk; cool, i'm not

 

I am milk
I am red hot kitchen
And I am cool
Cool as the deep blue ocean

I am lost
So I am cruel
But I'd be love and sweetness
If I had you

I'm waiting
I'm waiting for you
I'm waiting
I'm waiting for you

I am weak
But I am strong
I can use my tears to
Bring you home

I'm waiting
I'm waiting for you
I'm waiting
I'm waiting for you

see you after the fifth, if i'm still around. 

gilmore girls: dear emily and richard

EMILY GILMORE: "I don't watch that much television. I don't find forensic work quite as fascinating as the rest of the world."

gilmore girls: take the deviled eggs...

SHERRY TINSDALE: "That's very nice, honey, but very unconvicing."

---

LORELAI GILMORE: "Hi, this is Sherry Tinsdale. Looks like there's a tie-up on the boulevard. They appear to be moving every building in Harvard University so now it's just 1.3 miles from my house. Nice job, guys.

RORY GILMORE: "You're awful."

LORELAI: "Oh, and lots of cars stopped at a blue light on Garvey Avenue. Why a blue light? Well, 'cause blue is the new red."

oh, and green is the new pink.

elizabeth on the bathroom floor

laying on the bathroom floor
kitty licks my cheek once more
and i, i could try
but waking up is harder when you wanna die


walter's on the telephone
tell him i am not at home
'cause i, think that i
am going to a place where i am always high


my name's elizabeth
my life is shit and piss

i love new york

If you don't like my attitude
Then you can f-off
Just go to Texas
Isn't that where they golf

New York is not for little pussies who scream
If you can't stand the heat

Then get off my street
get off my street
get off my street
you get off my street
get off my street
you get off my street
get off my street
you get off my street
get off my street
get off my street

oh, timothy, timothy

is it sad to see your cousins growing?

then hit them on their heads and stunt their growth!

gilmore girls: dead uncles and vegetables

EMILY GILMORE: 'You say "midgets" like it's so absurd.'

you can't win.

if you run a search with the words "hide" and "seek" on my blog, two entries will show up.

one, on september 11th this year, was a complete posting of the lyrics of Imgoen Heap's "Hide & Seek". it was a result of both the song being a complete and accurate representation of how i was feeling at that time, and me being to lazy to come up with a proper entry. sadly this leaves me unable to recall why i was feeling so sad at that point of time. sure as hell can't be because of September 11th itself--i don't give a rat's ass about that.

the other, on june 24th this year, still rings very true. except that there is far less that i can do about things right now.

life.

gilmore girls: it should've been lorelai

MRS. O'MALLEY: "The topic for today's debate is doctor-assisted suicide."

SOOKIE ST. JAMES: "That's pleasant."

björk

i am not watching gilmore girls. my sisters are bathing, lazing or trying to cook, hence.

i am rebuilding my iPhoto Library.

life is exciting.

gilmore housewives

here i am, watching Mary-Alice Young on Gilmore Girls.

surreal.

ok so here we go, if it works i'll let you know, one two three i say stop

save me
save me
save me
wooh

i've gotta stop my mind
working overtime
it's driving me insane
ah wooh ah wooh

it will not let me live
always so negative
it's become my enemy
ah wooh ah wooh

save me, ah ah
save me, ah ah
save me, ah wooh

save me, ah ah
save me, ah ah
save me, ah wooh

why would I think such things
crazy thoughts have quick wings
gaining momentum fast
ah wooh ah wooh

one minute i am fine
the next i've lost my mind
to a fake fantasy
ah wooh ah wooh

and none of these thoughts are real
so why is it that i feel
so cut up and so bad

i need to take control
'cause my mind is on a roll
and it isn't listening to me

save me, ah ah
(thinking and thinking)
save me, ah ah
(thinking and thinking)
save me, ah wooh
(thinking and thinking)

save me, ah ah
(thinking and thinking)
save me, ah ah
(thinking and thinking)
save me, ah wooh
(thinking and thinking)

mirror mirror on the wall
who's the dumbest of them all
insecurities keep growing
wasted energies are flowing

anger, pain and sadness beckon
panic sets in in a second
be aware it's just your mind
and you can stop it anytime

save me, ah ah
(thinking and thinking)
save me, ah ah
(thinking and thinking)
save me, ah wooh
(thinking and thinking)

save me, ah ah
(thinking and thinking)
save me, ah ah
(thinking and thinking)
save me, ah wooh
(thinking and thinking)

ok so here we go
if it works i'll let you know
one two three i say stop

what cracks vsc students up.

there it is!

Sent At Eight Am

Sent At Eight Am
Originally uploaded by aklw.

Today is a bad day to wake up.

jinghui, then adrian.

happy birthday, adrian.

and happy was-a-birthday, jinghui.

i was going to get jinghui a copy of The Cardigan's "Long Gone Before Daylight", but i couldn't find one, and i wasn't cheap enough to lend her my copy as her gift.

i was going to bring a bottle of Absolut Vodka to adrian's party, but i didn't know just what kind of party it was, and decided against it. (by the way--adrian, i like you a whole lot, but i don't like your friends at all. maybe it's the toilet humor. maybe it's the level of humor. maybe it's what they take as birthday-party-conversation. maybe it's human behavoir. maybe it's the ukulele.)

i was going to get my life in order.

why do i always feel so wistful? like as if i've lived six decades and that everything is what-could-have-been.

i talked quite a bit during the first half of the long bus ride back home, to karen, and thought quite a bit during the second half of the long bus ride back home, by myself. what happens if nothing happens? what do i do?

i wish for a spectacular, stunning and stupefying accident to happen to me. something that is as obviously severe as how the rest of my life is so subtly severe, no one can see anything if you don't say a word.

i wish for a chance to do some things again. for the chance to not have done some things. for the chance to not have to do or experience some other things.

i wish for the chance to do what i like (Visual Communication), with people i like (the VSC-and-one-IMD-and-one-IAD people), when i like (now. right bloody now).

but, sadly, all i want for christmas is you.

and let's not even talk about my birthday, shall we?

last-minute-gift-girl

what happens when i ask my sister [samantha] for suggestions for adrian's birthday gift?

"i need a gift"

"come on! ask me! i'm last-minute-gift-girl! who's it for?"

"a friend"

"um, naturally! boy or girl?"

"male"

"okay i'm stumped"

me

i hate me.

i just finished the email to moses. what now?

deep sleep

so the new alarm clock? it gives up too easily.

at least i got some sleep. first twenty hours back in the country, and i don't feel great, but at least i'm not feeling worse. all that should change once i get off my butt and head for school.

be my friend.

so what happens when you run out of patience?

i got left behind. of course, there's a story explaining how, who and why, but, hello, i'm the king of stories. i can say for sure that that wasn't the truth, but it's entirely possible it was a lie. and i'm going with that right now, because i think adrian hates me. or, at least, has been scared off by me.

thanks, too, jacky. and jinghui.

housekeeping is in the room right now. apparently she's very keen on cleaning all the rooms on the floor she's assigned, 'cause when i headed out to ask her for an extra roll of toilet paper, she asked me if she could tidy up my room [i had the Do Not Disturb sign on the door]. i haven't figured out if it's just incredible work ethic or trying to case the room or my stuff, but i'm here, and my gut says it's the work ethic.

there is nothing to see in shanghai. i want to go ride the maglev train, but it seems kind of silly seeing as it only goes between the city and the airport, and shirlyn won't let me take the train to the airport on monday.

i'll hit the bund tomorrow if things get desperate. then the maglev train. should forget about M. too expensive, reservations needed, eating alone is just No.

se7en

what i really, really want to do right now is to head to the top floor of the hostel, sit on the staircase, and just mope until i feel better.

but too many people would notice, wouldn't they.

conference

"i have radiohead, christian music, and someone watching kitty-cat stuff.

i am so confused right now."

disaster struck--many times

and it all happened in Singapore, not here.

i'm in fact quite content to stay here, and not go back.

i'm not blogging as much as i thought i would be, but i think that's just because i have far less to complain about. and there's not point complaining about human beings, taking into account that that's what they are. human beings.

that's all. this made no sense whatsoever.

cold weather is your best friend

no, really, it is. i like it so much here i actually think about never going back.

this trip just proves to me that singaporeans are just sick, sad, wrong human beings.

i am the king of the world!

i have internet access! the wonders of a simple ethernet cable.

did you know that there exist people who can't grasp the concept of a wired network or wired internet access?

three minutes

i'm in someone else's session on the Free Internet access terminals at the transit mall at terminal one, so this is all i'm going to say:

see you in one month.

and now, the coffee from the bean and the tea from the leaf beckons.

i should be asleep, or otherwise doing something more constructive than what i am doing now

as above.

four line breaks

four line breaks or two with a horizontal line spanning half the page?

i can't decide between the two, and because of that my life is suddenly drawn to a complete halt. which looks better? the original formatting in the document i'm copying from had horizontal lines in it, but it's getting tiring to manually code in the horizontal lines. which wins, anal-retentiveness or natural laziness?

it's now 12:02 PM. anal-retentiveness won.

my mom is sending me to the airport tomorrow. i don't want anyone to send me there. i want to go by myself. i need a clean break.

deadline

"oh my god since when did you grow breasts?"

"my period coming."

so is this why i have sisters?

take a chance on me

“Yes, Rodney, that was my point. The world is a romance novel, and you are the main character.”

what will be, will be

this doesn't feel right. it's the last weekend before i leave for China. i should be, in the words of Betty, rocking out.

instead, here i am listening to Sympathique on my old Dell and catching up on email, livejournal, blogger and RSS. not by choice, but by default because of the lack of motivation to do anything the fuck else.

great. i just remembered to check the Detour shirt i wanted to buy online. and it's no longer for sale.

i feel sad.

i've made a huge mistake

i really, really, really do not want to go to china now.

MIDI'ed up, and into the groove

I never liked George Michael much
Although they say he was the talented one
Andrew Ridgley drew the map
That rescued me, took me to paradise

I was brought up to the sound of the synthesiser
I learned to dance to the beat of electronic drums
I came alive to the smouldering fire in your eyes
I love you now and I will 'til the day that I die

I had a tooth pulled as a child
I put it underneath my pillow
And when I looked the very next morning
There was a ten pound note

I took it to the nearest record shop
I put it down upon the counter
I gotta tell you what I know to be true
I bought my first record because of you

I was brought up to the sound of the synthesiser
I learned to dance to the beat of electronic drums
I came alive to the smouldering fire in your eyes
I love you now and I will 'til the day that I die

I love everything
I love to be around money
A daughter of negative equity
A child of Black Wednesday (Blue Monday, Black Wednesday)

This is Sarah Nixey talking
MIDI'ed up and into the groove
I've got to tell you
What I know to be true

I didn't do too well at school
They said I couldn't concentrate
The day you flew off into the sunset
Was the day my education was saved

Then years later on Kensington High Street
I saw you drive a white convertible Golf GTI
Carefully edging out into the traffic
Just like a real live human being

I was brought up to the sound of the synthesiser
I learned to dance to the beat of electronic drums
I came alive to the smouldering fire in your eyes
I love you now and I will 'til the day that I die

Daddy lost everything
Our beautiful house, his beautiful sports car
His beautiful wife, I held his hand and told him
Everything would be all right

This is Sarah Nixey talking
MIDI'ed up and into the groove
I've got to tell you
What I know to be true

I was brought up to the sound of the synthesiser
I learned to dance to the beat of electronic drums
I came alive to the smouldering fire in your eyes
I love you now and I will 'til the day that I die

I was brought up to the sound of the synthesiser
I learned to dance to the beat of electronic drums
I came alive to the smouldering fire in your eyes
I love you now and I will 'til the day that I die

look here

Look Here.

I DID NOT FUCKING WANT TO BE THE GROUP LEADER. I DID NOT NOMINATE MYSELF.

i also did not appreciate practically HALF THE FUCKING CLASS nominating me for group leader when only three people in the class are in the same group as me.

that is all.

x-type

My first uncle, his wife, and his eldest daughter have just arrived. They smell like their Jaguar, which after all this time still has that nauseating new-car smell that is actually hazardous to your health, and does nothing for me beyond giving me a migraine and nausea.

As usual, they’ve brought a half a chicken and a quarter of a pig along with them for lunch. A lunch for five people, three of which eat half that of a normal human being’s intake. I will never understand it.

The weakness is still there. The mind is unwilling, and the flesh is weak, too many things, too little desire to see anything through.

You, will be, the death, of me.

And our time is running out.

let you down

something's wrong. i go to bed at ten at night and wake at five in the evening. sleep for seven hours and have to take a three-hour nap not five hours later. and i still feel like constant shit, like moving off my bed or off my seat will stir up such shit and drain me so much, it's not worth the effort.

the China trip hasn't bored me yet, surprisingly, but it has despaired, discouraged, disheartened and i have lost the excitement of it. take, for instance, my toiletries. my mom got me what appears to be a liter of Dove body soap, and another liter of Head & Shoulders shampoo. the two bottles combined are three times the volume and twice the weight of my PowerBook. then, my aunt, after bitching and moaning about my mother's common sense, gets me a smaller double pack of Head & Shoulders shampoo and conditioner. then, my first aunt gets me a smaller bottle of Head & Shoulders shampoo. every one is making this huge fuss.

i don't think i'm going to be out of this funk any time soon, and i think this is going to be problem.

under the skin

"Give me the pen," Rodney said.

"What for?"

"I want to write liar across your stupid forehead," Rodney said.

08-19-05_1946.jpg

right. a caption for this photo is being demanded out of me, so, um. i was looking through my old photos and thought this one looked interesting? 

09-21-05_1250.jpg

09-21-05_1250.jpg
Originally uploaded by aklw.

The bus stop i'm shooting this from is named "Opp Tan Tock Seng Hosp". The one in the picture, i assume is named "Tan Tock Seng Hosp". The building you see in the picture? Is not named Tan Tock Seng Hosp. I had to trek for five minutes from the ward wing of Tan Tock Seng to get here. The nerve they have, when naming bus stops.

the shape of things to come

if this, truly, is the shape of things to come, then this might be the last season of The O.C. i watch. yes, shocking, isn't it. second episode of the season, and already so ridiculous.

i feel like i need to watch at least three episodes of something good to make up for it. but it is three AM, and i need to ration the good stuff. i don't have many episodes of Stargate Atlantis left unwatched, and the first season is nowhere near ready.

and, so i leave you with a quote from the episode:

GIRL: (after hearing SUMMER's suggestion to raffle off a hybrid instead of a gas-guzzling SUV) "Air quality, is so important?"

OTHER GIRL: "I know. We breathe it."

Why do the aliens speak English?

Q: Why do the aliens speak English?
A: Practical reasons that come with television production. The time constraints of an hour-long episode mean that it would become a major hindrance to the story each week if the team had to spend the first 10 minutes of each episode learning to communicate with a new species.

how much do i love Stargate Atlantis?

09-13-05_0116

09-13-05_0116
Originally uploaded by aklw.

this one confirm you all ne'er eat before.

09-12-05_1534.jpg

09-12-05_1534.jpg
Originally uploaded by aklw.

Apparently, royston's ones are bigger.

the bluest light

god, i should go and fracking sleep now. only two hours of air-conditioning left.

the intense desire to throw everything at a wall or through a window

yes, it's back, again. sadly what i had in hand was what i was going to give to nelsie for her birthday. but i guess that doesn't fucking matter now, does it?

09-11-05_1912.jpg

09-11-05_1912.jpg
Originally uploaded by aklw.

...
won't break me down,
won't brick me up,
won't fence me in.

free ruler

Note: Free Ruler is only available for Mac OS X. It may work on Mac OS 9, but this has not been tested. It most definitely will not work on your stupid Windows PC.

messages - nelsie tay

i can't post the same thing twice in a row, so this will have to do.

what the hell, is going on?

Where are we?
What the hell
Is going on?

The dust has only just begun to fall
Crop circles in the carpet
Sinking, feeling

Spin me round again
And rub my eyes
This can't be happening

When busy streets
Amess with people would stop to hold
Their heads heavy

Hide and seek
Trains and sewing machines
All those years
They were here first

Oily marks appear on walls
Where pleasure moments hung before
The takeover
The sweeping insensitivity of this still life

Hide and seek
Trains and sewing machines (Oh, you won't catch me around here)
Blood and tears
They were here first

Umm, what'd you say, ohh
That you only meant well?
Well, 'course you did

Umm, what'd you say, umm,
That it's all for the best
Of course it is

Umm, what'd you say, hmm
That it's just what we need
You decided this

Umm, what'd you say, hmm
What did she say?

Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth
Mid-sweet talk
Newspaper word cut-outs

Speak no feeling, no I don't believe you
You don't care a bit
You don't care a bit

(Hide and seek)
Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth
Mid-sweet talk
Newspaper word cut-outs

(Hide and seek)
Speak no feeling, I don't believe you
You don't care a bit
You don't care a bit

You don't care a bit
Oh no, you don't care a bit
Oh no, you don't care a bit
Oh no, you don't care a bit

You don't care a bit

You don't care a bit

oh, god.

oh, god.

that is all. two words. call me what you will, but i don't think anything encapsulates my current stew of feelings as well as those two words.

and that was dawn

and that was dawn tan, reporting live from the VSC studios of TP DES. and, dawn, i checked. it's "Chine".

aaron is happy cause he is going to Chinos.

haha...aaron.90 bloody buck for IDN conference.
going? i think hmm.

je ne veux pas tout

there are only three green lights on my adium contact list right now. one is always green no matter what he is doing, so no point saying anything. another is going off to work soon, and the last one i'm not exactly close to.

so what's a lonesome person to do at five thirty in the morning?

i don't know. why am i awake, anyway? i missed the briefing yesterday because i spent too much time worrying about missing the briefing and hence couldn't sleep.

i ended up waking very, very late. so late it's not even funny. so here i am. there's another briefing today, and i tried to go to sleep earlier.

no dice.

so here i am, not sleeping. the only way to guarantee i will be awake when i have to be.

i've listened to, all night long, Sympathique, tracks from Our Little Corner Of The World: Music From Gilmore Girls, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, and The Powerpuff Girls: Heroes And Villans.

yes, happy music, for the most part. i think i'm trying to hard to be happy, and it's even harder because i'm so very not happy. i tend to do certain things when i'm severely depressed--beyond my normal chronic depression, that is--and lately i think i've covered all the major points. alternating between eating a whole lot and eating nothing at all, not even trying not to be completely irritable all the time, not speaking at all, saying only nasty things, not doing anything that will count for working towards the things i want to work for, giving up on everything, appearing to wake up on the wrong side of my mattress when there isn't any other side to wake up on, wanting to throw all my things all over the place, et cetera, et cetera.

what am i going to do? what do you do when you hate everything and everyone and love everything and everyone and need everything and everyone, all at the same time? do you go to China? will it help?

what do you do? what do i do?

huh must watch lost ah? dowan already

TELEVISION: "... and win tickets to STOMP! ..."

SAMARIA KHOO: "eh i want!"

--FIVE SECONDS LATER--

SAMARIA: "huh must watch Lost ah? dowan already."

but it's impossible

i want to wake my PowerBook and check my email. but i can't for the next two hours at least.

i want to go to the flea market at zouk that's opening in two hours. but i can't unless i be thick-skinned and ask rosemarie to cover me for a few hours and take care of my grandfather by herself.

i want. but all i have is sitting here with my phone, texting.

mad world

i am mad at the world. fuck off and try again next business day.

the spinning pinwheel-rainbow-beachball of death

i don't see why the fuck i should get the fucking spinning pinwheel-rainbow-beachball of death just because i've pressed the spacebar to scroll down one page on the webpage i'm reading.

i really do no see any reason why.

09-02-05_2201.jpg

09-02-05_2201.jpg
Originally uploaded by aklw.

She's crazy.

Je veux

Everyone's snoring. I can't sleep.

Today's the last day of term. I feel... sad. And I have a weird sense of foreboding.

If i don't pull myself together soon... I don't know. I might never? But one surely cannot live like this.

Je veux seulement oubiler,
Et puis je sieste.

tickets to the Opera

Opera is throwing a 10-year birthday party and is handing out free registration codes to anyone who signs up at their site today [the US today, I don’t know what time that’s until].

http://my.opera.com/community/party/

That’s the link. Go try it out, Opera is a decent alternative browser, and said to be the fastest on the market.

Kill yourself, or get over it.

If you're ever contemplating killing yourself and need someone to talk you out of it, do not, under any circumstances, call kenneth foo.

That is all.

time is on my side

Cerys Matthews [of the now-defunct band Catatonia] covered The Rolling Stones' "Time Is On My Side" for a Mercedes-Benz ad in 2002. i want that song, that ad, a sixty-second mp3 ripped straight from the commercial, SOMETHING.

"chocolate charlie and the factory"

my brother just said the above.

it's not cute. he's fifteen.

08-24-05_2129

08-24-05_2129
Originally uploaded by aklw.

smile like you mean it.

comment spam (actual)

sorry kids. i had to switch word verification on for commenting. just far too much spam. i hope this doesn't discourage anyone from commenting, though, 'cause that would just mean that the spam won.

i've found cupcakes

White Cupcakes

Makes 3 dozen


4 1/2 cups sifted cake flour (not self-rising)

2 tablespoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups milk

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (2 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

2 1/4 cups sugar

7 large egg whites

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Line cupcake or muffin tins with papers; set aside. Into a medium bowl, sift together cake flour, baking powder, and salt. Combine milk and vanilla in a glass measuring cup.

2. Place butter in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, and beat until pale and creamy. With mixer on medium speed, gradually add sugar in a steady stream; continue beating until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low.

3. Add flour mixture to butter mixture in three batches, alternating with the milk mixture and starting and ending with the flour. Do not overbeat.

4. In a clean bowl of electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat egg whites on medium-high speed until stiff peaks form. Fold one-third of the whites into flour mixture to lighten. Fold in remaining egg whites in two batches, being careful not to deflate the whites.

5. Pour batter into prepared tins, filling cups to about 1/2 inch from the tops. Bake until a cake tester inserted near the centers comes out clean and the tops spring back when pressed lightly in the center, 18 to 20 minutes. Remove from oven; let cool completely before icing or storing.

From Martha Stewart Living. That Martha sure knows how to live. Now all I need are the above ingredients, a cupcake tin, my treasured Braun mixer back, and an oven. I might need a whisk, too. I don’t think I’ve spotted one here before.

cupcake

I am craving me a cupcake. One with rich icing on it. Strangely I don’t want a chocolate cupcake, I want a buttercream or vanilla or even a lemon cupcake, but IT MUST HAVE ICING.

Yeah, I’m a few bricks short of a wall at a moment. Back next week.

No, wait, might not be back next week. Don’t count on that.

rare ram

i want two hundred twenty-five dollars to upgrade the Dell. ninety-five to get a 512 MB stick of [very rare and amazingly cheap right now and probably not for long] RDRAM, and the rest for a 7200rpm, 120GB, 8MB buffer hard disk drive. and i could even donate the smaller drive it'd be replacing to kenneth for his broken eMac. save him two bundles by not only giving him a free hard drive but also convincing him to install it DIY instead of going to a shop.

sadly my mom's not very understanding with regard to why technology is needed and why upgrading is necessary at all [for us it's years between computer upgrades, and that's only after bitching about the slow PC for at least a year prior, to the point where i've given up hope of ever getting funding to upgrade the Dell to make it more decent to run].

if only i had the ninety-five dollars. the hard disk drive upgrade isn't as crucial as the need to have more than 256MB of RAM.

o/cd

this is going to be a stay at home weekend, i guess. i don't know why this upsets me now, when i used to be perfectly content staying at home on weekends, doing nothing. right now though it's driving me freaking nuts. it doesn't make sense--not everyone goes out every weekend, right?

sympatico

I've only just realized this, but i'm slowly sliding backwards.

Once again, my mind is thinking of a million questions and problems a minute but comes up with no answers or solutions. Doesn't shut down or switch off or even slow down unless severely distracted, affecting all faculties and function, including sleep. Always angry, pissed off, upset, worrying or bitching about something.

I don't want to have to think so much. I don't want to have to think, period. I don't want to work. I don't want to lunch. I want only to forget. And then I sleep.

08-21-05_1516.jpg

08-21-05_1516.jpg
Originally uploaded by aklw.

Royston's music? Must be some bad shit, man.

andalucia

For some reason, I have suddenly and recently become very afraid of being by myself.

Also, apologies for the stunningly accurate capitalization. I’m trying out the Blogger For Word plug-in.

Surprisingly, amos was the only one that questioned if my motives for wanting to transfer into VSC were right. If I felt pressured to transfer and join VSC because all my friends in design school were either all there [check] or close to the people in VSC [check].

While I can say it’s not the main, pressing reason, I can’t pretend it's not or deny the fact that it’s an issue. They're great people, and there is just no one in PID. But what about when [if!] I transfer to VSC? What if, after my friends graduate, I’m back to the desolate feeling I have when I was in my first PID semester? Will loving the work at VSC more than the work at PID keep me moving?

I think I’m making a huge mistake. And I think the fact that everyone’s leaving for the China trip very soon, with me by myself here, is a huge, ginormous, pink-elephant-in-the-room indication of my future to come. It’s so weird that I have such abandonment issues when I should feel used to being abandoned by now. I actually have become open to going to China and actually experiencing the country and the people, first-handing, with relatively minimal bitching, if it meant I didn’t have to be by myself here, and could have one of those vital coming-of-age experiences with a group of good friends, overseas, experiencing a new country and a new culture.

That’s just not going to happen.

“Subject to approval”. My third cousin, daughter of my first uncle, just said that in the conversation they’re having next to me. I feel like that’s what I am now. Subject to approval.

also

i hate the china trip. i don't want to hear about it. really.

command Q, command Z

yes, i waited too long. but that's me, isn't it.

how

i breezed in and attempted to breeze right into hon's office and get it done. the faster you do it, the less pain there is, right?

no. he wasn't in his office. and rumor has it he's gone home. i'll call every quarter hour until six pm.

i'm spinning around

i'm experiencing that weird sensation again.

the one where i'm perfectly still but feel like i'm spinning like a bloody top.

perry

i just came back from my cut at Toni & Guy Academy. it's neater but not much shorter. and having sat there for three hours while the student hairdresser tried to figure out my hair, i wasn't really motivated to ask him to get it even shorter after he asked me once and cut off another half-inch. i'll probably end up going back in less than a month.

and so that this isn't one of those one-paragraph posts, here is another sentence thrown into the mix just for the heck of it.

profusion

and i know, i can feel bad
when i get in a bad mood
and the world can look so sad ...
...

the day after

so, last night i went to my primary school's 88th anniversary alumni dinner. and today kailyn came online from NUS. i said:

kill yourself, or get over it. says: (1:19:07 PM)
hi

and, promptly, she said:

kai's favourite bags says: (1:19:27 PM)
hey i have diarrhoea do you

tomorrow's monday.

... and i don't feel like talking about it any more.

08-14-05_1629

08-14-05_1629
Originally uploaded by aklw.

total bitch lip balm.

for those who demand the very best.

weirdest dreams.

i'm having the weirdest dreams again.

boreders

borders is open until midnight at the weekend. wonder how i never noticed that.

Charlie And The Chocolate Factory was interesting. i don't like it because it strayed far too far from Roald Dahl's book, but it would have been fantastic if it hadn't. it was visually perfect and aurally amazing. shame about the script.

i am buying three CDs later. i shouldn't, but i am.

fucking fuckity fuck-fuck

Apple just emailed me about the new iBook. and i have just come to realization that Royston's new iBook is actually faster than my PowerBook.

sous la pluie

why does it rain now, when i can't enjoy it?

where the fuck is my fucking coffee?

i left eleven packets of Aik Cheong Ice Coffee in the shared locker. i clearly labeled them as mine, and to ask before taking any. i wasn't asked if any could be taken. none are left.

where the fucking fuck is my fucking coffee that i had to buy from fucking melaka?

A perfect slurpee

You may have woken up late, on the wrong side of the bed, gotten to the hospital and had to discuss unpleasant things, but life can't be that bad if you can still get a perfect cherry slurpee, can it?

mac at mac's

finally, a mac-based post.

i'm at McDonald's Takashimaya now. ordering royston's iBook and iPod. and he can't think of what to laser-engrave on his iPod.

sigh.

boys

second Windows post in a row.

i'm at alvin chow's house now. and i have a huge problem.

no, i'm not going to say what it is. but anyway, today i dropped my iPod, and my RAZR, the former of which has two dents on the back and the latter of which has a blunted edge. all because i was carrying xuan's adidas jersey and i got called twice at the same time by pat and dax.

and the lot of them are inebriated. post-Lancer-joyride, post-Ploop!, post-SlapJack, post-mahjong, post-whiskey, post-port, post-broken beer mug.

ruiwen is so wasted he's spent the night giggling and coming on to us whilst swinging a tennis racquet around.

what am i doing? and i'm supposed to be going out later today? didn't i promise myself to stop going to these things?

my resolve? it's slipping

i just booted a windows machine just to upload my phone's pictures. if it wasn't for that silly bug in my motorola's software that times out bluetooth browsing of its pictures folder once the number of items in it goes over certain unknown number...

oh well. i have my A&F photos. i'm happy. i wonder if crap shots taken by a hack using a RAZR that are 640 x 480 pixels can form part of a portfolio.

lazy-hazy-crazy days

i've managed to clear up my desktop to the point that there're now three spots for new icons to appear.

shooting Polaroids with the classic, old-style camera was fun. well, not so much fun, but surreal, lazy-hazy-crazy, soothing, that kind of thing. sitting in the middle of a soccer field, in my Levi's, Kenneth Coles, Topman blazer and Heineken Rugby World Cup jersey, surfing the internet on my PowerBook and listening to Ron Sexsmith, Leona Naess, Imogen Heap and the like. dawn obsessing and shooting and jinghui blowing bubbles all over the field and sitting on Terence's chair in front of a goal post, reading a book. and, then, me on the same chair in the same place, reading my PowerBook. it felt so Abercrombie & Fitch-y. Casual Luxury. exactly what i'd want to do if were ever to do a fashion shoot. in any case, it was, at worst, like we were shooting Shooting Stars and i was Taufik-in-a-blazer. okay, ew.

i also got Minute Maid Lemonade on my PowerBook and RAZR today, the latter of which i'd just finished paying off. now i'm waiting to see how long i can hold out with the waiting game before i put the battery back in and fire it up, fingers crossed and eyes wanting to shut but staying open.

just one of those lazy-hazy-crazy days. i decided to block out the bits of the day that weren't entirely complementary to the lazy-hazy surreal feel.

Sociology 101

jinghui: "i am very dying."

do i quit?

dare i?

it makes no sense to keep on going nowhere.

it makes no sense to keep on.

25th August.

divorce

it would be so much easier if they weren't married to begin with.

"Je ne veux pas travailler
Je ne veux pas déjeuner
Je veux seulement l'oublier
Et puis je fume

Je ne suis pas fière de ça
Vie qui veut me tuer
C'est magnifique
Être sympathique
Mais je ne le connais jamais"

i am not this disorganized

my friend Raymond, who moved back to the states some years ago, is back in Singapore on vacation. i was supposed to meet up with him, and over two three-in-the-morning IM sessions we hashed out some vague details. and now i don't know when and where to meet him. and the Meritus Mandarin Hotel is surely sick of someone calling up to ask for the same non-existant guest.

07-28-05_1512

07-28-05_1512
Originally uploaded by aklw.

i washed cherry tomatoes in the vsc studio sink yesterday. they were the dirtiest and smelliest tomatoes i have ever washed.

my PowerBook's Combo Drive failed. i have to go to Apple today. and i really, really, don't feel like doing so. should i put my iPod in as well?

if you are wearing pink shoes then you definitely need to be slapped

i have lost all productivity. i don't even feel like explaining the quote i used in this title. or, indeed, typing any more at all. pity. i had a good, expository rant building up.

good-bye.

"stealth"

please. it was anything but. a bull of a movie, stumbling through a china shop. yes, it might make blockbuster status, but it's a brainless movie. watch the fireworks and leave with a weird sense of emptiness.

sympathique

i took a trip to Borders today after having dinner with my mother, and managed to complete half my Borders goals--i found "Sympathique" by Pink Martini. it was remarkably easy to find, and they even had "Hang On Little Tomato", but i felt it was time to go slow with the spending.

so i finally have their translation for the lyrics to Sympathique. not that that was what i bought the entire album for, but, damn, is that my ultimate song or what? it is my fucking theme song.

dawn's worrying me. if you read her blog, you'd know why. i'd link you, but i haven't been able to get myself to so much as move my old blog entirely here, let alone create my intended network of links. and i digress. new paragraph.

dawn. you don't have to take what a lecturer says so hard. or even, seriously. they say that those who cannot do teach, and that is true for most of the teachers and lecturers i've met in my life. so there you go. remember the graphic artist/designer from the states that came here for a talk on illustration and said she loved your drawings? hello?

end of verbal diarrhea. i have no idea why i'm so chatty at the moment. probably because my phone's out of commission. because i didn't pay the phone bill and they cut my line off when i was in melaka. because i gave most of my money to my siblings. because they have none, and no one was going to give them any.

because.

07-22-05_1500

07-22-05_1500
Originally uploaded by aklw.

i would like to say more, but there is no time. i have yet to even unpack.

i'm back from melaka. it was enjoyable (more so than other times i've been there, anyway) and i'm glad i went.

however i still don't know what i want to do about... well, everything, actually.

anyway. that's my mother. now i might not always be thinking so, and she might not be all the time, but that is one amazing woman. i mean, why else would i agree to go somewhere where i have been beaten down by the unrelenting blaze of sun that covers the entire place many times before? it was her birthday, and she wanted to spend time with her estranged kids.

i'll tell all soon--and by this, i mean i probably will never get around to it. but who knows?

at the very least, i'll upload all the photos i took.

it's sick

we're supposed to be on our way in fifteen minutes. but time still can be found for my father to come over and pick a fight. and when that was done, he picked another one so that the caretaker would have been done feeding my grandfather, and couldn't reasonably refuse if he were to ask her to loan him money.

shit. there's more to say, but it's time to go.

road trip

today's lecture is: I Am Right And Every One Else Is Wrong, Especially My Eldest Brother's Third Daughter.

i swear, if she wasn't in a wheelchair, people would seriously do things to her.

we're headed on a road trip as of one PM today. to malacca, for my mother's birthday. back on monday. will bring cell phone, don't know if will be cut off, but will take pictures.

pretenses

it's all about pretenses.

when both bathrooms are taken up when you wake up with one and one half hours to get to school, one by your grandfather and one by your disabled aunt, you pretend you don't mind.

when your grandfather has to be taken to the polyclinic to have a worrying weeks-old wound checked out, but you can't go because they want you to go to class, even though you're going to be late and don't want to go anyway because this week they're covering the depressing state of the job market (or lack thereof) for people with the diploma you're supposed to be pursuing, you pretend you don't care.

when you find your two-hundred-dollar sneakers shoved into what appears to be a recycling/trash bag for the fifth time this month, you just take them out and put them on without saying anything, on the pretense that you're in a hurry.

when you take money out to be put into your bank account to pay the power bill and find out that it's more or less all the extra money you had, you take your receipt and bankbook, turn around and sprint towards the bus, pretending to know that it's the one you need to get on to.

when joan catches up to you while crossing the overhead bridge after getting off the bus, you acknowledge her, surprised out of the thoughts you were deep in as you were walking, as she apologizes for being in a hurry and walks away at a speed slower than you usually move at, you want to laugh at the ironic reversal in walking speeds, to see if it'll help pretend that you don't really care that much about anything.

but, you don't laugh.

new music.

portishead! how could i have not heard of them before? especially since i HAVE heard them before?

for fuck's sake!

go to sleep, aaron!

07-19-05_2030

07-19-05_2030
Originally uploaded by aklw.

he was sitting like that. he wasn't posing. except for the limbs covering up his face, that is.

one half hour

royston left with my cashcard to go photocopy something about, it seems, one half hour ago.

he's not back yet.

baybeats '05

07-17-05_2307
Originally uploaded by aklw.

why are they the last mention?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aklw/sets/603312/

poses.

if you know of something that's better than walking through the open spaces of a thirty-hectare campus in the rain, with Rufus Wainwright playing audibly from one of the buildings where your PowerBook is wired up in the middle of the night, please let me know now.

Traffic

I'm supposed to be back before dinner is over. Traffic information reports slow traffic up to Kallang. And that's where i live.

as an added bonus...

because i am feeling generous at the moment, and also because i am an organizational freak, here's the set of photos from the July Angels BBQ.

also known, of course, as the barbecue-that-almost-wasn't that was for kenneth, jiawei & joyce.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aklw/sets/580300/

the making of "the design portrait", day one

here's the link to the Flickr set:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aklw/sets/580272/

the set will eventually include photos from the entire paint job, though.

digitzing woes (and some mural-related issues)

apparently a possible cause of my TT's non-responsive digitizer is the "screen protector" that i've been using since i got this unit from palmOne [a.k.a. the company formerly known as Palm, that will be known as Palm again come July 14th 2005] after i sent in my replacement for replacement. yes, that means that the TT i have is my third one.

what was i talking about? yeah, the digitizer. apparently constant pressure on the screen will cause the digitizer to malfunction. since the screen protector i'm using is simply the ultra-thick vinyl sheet that came with the unit, and i regularly experience this issue, i assume that it's the cause.

now all i have to do is wait for the digitizer to reset itself like it used to, or for the battery to run flat, thereby reseting everything on the Palm.

oh, and today we painted the base coat of the ramp mural. which, actually, should be the stair mural, since the mural is on the walls that encompass the stairs, and not the ramp. oh well. even if i was a complete extra and appeared to be nothing more than a glorified odd-job laborer/runner/gopher/PA/operations manager/QC/floor manager/etc, at least i wasn't all NAP.

i was going to upload some photos of the paint site, but i realized that i wouldn't be able to post all related photos elegantly in one blog post. i guess i'll need to link to flickr.

07-12-05_1952

07-12-05_1952
Originally uploaded by aklw.

NO. that one is TRACKPAD. call yourself a library some more.

(taken at the Adult Lending Floor of Toa Payoh Community Library)

perhaps

perhaps it was a little ignorant/uncaring/apathetic/nonchalant/whatever of me to blatantly bitch about MTV and Laguna Beach when there's all that going on in London (i hear the Apple Store there closed for the day!), but quite frankly, people, let's get real. it may be shocking, but it's by no means surprising. if new york got the hosting, they would have been the ones. not that they had a shot, but yeah.

lesson to be learnt? don't carry uncle sam's balls so much, yeah? i betcha paris probably wouldn't have gotten hit if they'd been the ones that clinched the hosting.

laguna beach? the fuck?

what is this Laguna Beach nonsense? who wants to watch "The Real Orange County", complete with attention-deprived rich bitches pretending to be pretending, when there's an actual drama with a better-looking cast , better music, and better almost-everything-else to watch?

why does MTV feel like it needs to ruin everything with its cool?

give me my newport/hermosa beach anytime.

eric, emily, and james. cameron.

i feel nauseous. watching TV on your chest isn't so hot an idea.

it looks like i won't be there for the meeting with moses re: the ramp mural later today. oh well. best not to force your way into places you don't fit into, anyway.

a million ways

it feels like my body's decided to give up a long time ago, but my mind hasn't yet.

what good is it, though, if the mind is willing but the flesh is weak?

mini-crit is supposed to be when again? i don't think i can do this.

general rule of thumb

it is not normal to want to just break down and cry more than once a day.

06-30-05_2120

Originally uploaded by aklw.

that was fast.

but it was obvious, anyway, wasn't it? why would something like a simple, utter lack of choice stop the average singaporean sheep?

06-30-05_1715

06-30-05_1715
Originally uploaded by aklw.

dawn says she's like limeade. the Minute Maid kind. with extra pulp.

joyce says she's like cherryade. i don't think any one makes cherryade.

06-30-05_1711

06-30-05_1711
Originally uploaded by aklw.

vain until cannot be any more vain already.

06-30-05_1408.jpg

06-30-05_1408.jpg
Originally uploaded by aklw.

Which flavor?

the (not so) fantastic four.

i just came back from the premiere of Fantastic Four.

boys and girls, when this movie comes out in July, don't go and see it. it's not worth your money. if you really want to see it, go watch it at Princess or something, where it costs six dollars to watch it. but even so, you'd better really want to see the eye candy.

at least the premiere party didn't make me walk away from the cinema like it did yesterday with War Of The Worlds.

again, boys and girls, Tom Cruise, Steven Spielberg, United International Pictures and Cathay are big, big pricks. more on that another time, when i'm not blogging from my Dashboard.

06-29-05_1343.jpg

06-29-05_1343.jpg
Originally uploaded by aklw.

Previously, on the S.G.:

Grandpa takes the train.

Q & A

Question: "fancy a drink, babes?"

Answer: " 'ave a wank, big bollocks."

06-25-05_2222

06-25-05_2222
Originally uploaded by aklw.

i don't want to boil any eggs.

typical.

as above: McDonald's Ad Pulled From Chinese TV - Forbes.com

hide & seek

i don't think i've ever managed to get a front-row seat on a double-deck 23 at night before. it's a different experience, one that would have been even better if the windshield wasn't covered in that silly advert vinyl. but you know what they say about beggars.

i'm so close to never coming back to school it's not funny any more. but i know i can't not go back. between now and when i start working, i need a couple of years where i have a vague direction and some routine to take the edge off things. it's not so much an edge as the prepice of a five-storey-high cliff, just there and waiting for me to jump off.

a silver Hyundai Accent with blue rings of neon in the rear windshield and under the car just flew past the bus in the left lane. not saying a lot, considering buses are limited to fifty kilometers an hour.

oh. we're on the expressway. and i wanted to enjoy the ride.

shucks.

everyone's gone home, it's so quiet here. perfect. except the window doesn't open wide enough.

i need to lose weight, don't i?

what's going on?

what is going on? i don't think i understand anything anymore.

not a new feeling, but, still.

already late

i've just woken up, properly, and i'm already late.

i feel no fear about flying blind into PComD and PEPrn today. taken normally, minus the abbreviations, those are Professional Communication for Design and Product Engineering Principles, respectively. For each, a report is due. the former's is half-done because i no longer know how to proceed beyond what i have already done. the latter is undone because it involves building a bridge made of plastic straws and writing a reflection journal about the process.

there is too much thinking involved in all of this. report-writing? wasn't this supposed to be design school? it feels as bad as business school. but at least at business school i won't have to come up with my oft-mentioned twenty sketches of twenty hairdryer design concepts.

in between

i'm post-shower, pre-leaving the house. tonight is the Initial D preview show. i don't know why i feel such a conviction about going to these preview screenings. it's probably because it's the last semblance of normal, stable family life i have left.

other families have problems sitting down to dinner once a week on sundays, we're lucky to meet for three hours once a month for a movie.

and aren't movies supposed to be the most antisocial social activity possible?

i am coming to the point where i no longer feel a need to do anything. i've lost an semblance of motivation or drive or whatever it is i was supposed to posses, being a student. this will probably get me debarred.

grey's anatomy will cheer me up. i'll have a bumper viewing tonight. two hours. too bad my other sister got whisked away to bangkok. onward tomorrow, post Initial D, pre-PIDP1. hopefully whatever i have and will come up with will be of sufficient quality to negate the lack of quantity.

right now i wouldn't mind being thrashed into the middle of VSCP2 and being forced to deal with the undoubtedly immense amounts of stress and pressure and work. because for the most bit, the work doesn't take up much impact in terms of physical needs. you don't need a huge desk to do A2 sketches on. you can do half your work on the fifteen-inches of virtual real estate that's vertically supported on the hinge of your PowerBook.

and let's face it. coming up with twenty separate design concepts for hairdryers on twenty separate A2 sketches is not a walk in the park. i wish i could just worry about what to title a book.

but if, i move, my place, in line, i'll lose.

Don't Phunk With My Ears

i keep hearing "Don't Phunk With My Heart" advertized on television, together with the Motorola E680i.

so irritating.

06-21-05_1932

06-21-05_1932
Originally uploaded by aklw.

everyone's going crazy. this semester is appearing not to work out for anyone i know. of course, there are those who whinge but i could still care less about, but when those i choose to surround myself with are equally frustrated, then it must be a wide-spread thing.

what am i doing?

06-20-05_1904

06-20-05_1904
Originally uploaded by aklw.

quicker than a ray of light. and yet still not fast enough to be sharply and crisply captured on my RAZR.

06-20-05_1512

06-20-05_1512
Originally uploaded by aklw.

"Point away from face !"

06-20-05_1457

06-20-05_1457
Originally uploaded by aklw.

Right. Not too much fuss about the replica shotgun, then.

06-20-05_1435

06-20-05_1435
Originally uploaded by aklw.

The ultimate Baybeats fanboy.

06-20-05_1200.jpg

06-20-05_1200.jpg
Originally uploaded by aklw.

Only four hours too late.

06-20-05_0139.jpg

06-20-05_0139.jpg
Originally uploaded by aklw.

I hate sundays.