i was just reading through my old guestbook entries. it's more or less filled with jenny, carol, dawn and ying's comments. and those comments are based on my old locked blog at diaryland. which i also am beginning to miss. i miss knowing who exactly reads this blog. i miss sharing my life with those people and gaining their insights through the guestbook. i know it sounds so silly and weird to be attached to this invention of technology, but i feel rather sad about this. and i could very well abolish the tagboard and force people to put entries in the guestbook [which is still linked by the way - 'say it now'. dawn and carol you should read it and see some of the things you used to say. jenny and ying don't visit this anymore.] but life goes on, things just happen the way they happen so it would be unnatural to try and relive the past when the situation is so changed.

c'est la vie.

+ posted by M @ 11:49 PM

...

wah liao wah liao ! says:
hey

where every single word i say would come out insightful or brave or smooth or charming. says:
hi

wah liao wah liao ! says:
wat's the black woman politician from te us

wah liao wah liao ! says:
from the us

wah liao wah liao ! says:
i mean

where every single word i say would come out insightful or brave or smooth or charming. says:
er. i dont know!

wah liao wah liao ! says:
haha

wah liao wah liao ! says:
i thought u will know

wah liao wah liao ! says:
u look like that t ype

wah liao wah liao ! says:
hahah gp tomorrow

'you look like that type'. unfortunately i'm not. GP tomorrow, and so the prelims start officially [though there is an interim of two weeks. i guess i only have been counting the first day of prelims as the day my birthday is, but it has now occurred to me that GP is VERY REAL.] and all things stressful and hellandbrimstone is unleashed into NJC. we will survive. GEEK LUCK.

+ posted by M @ 9:45 PM

...	Saturday, August 27, 2005

CWO [that's corrective work order] wasn't so bad. hung out with some arts people. there will always be arts people around in CWO even if this is a predominantly science school. we just happen to have a general disregard for school rules and formalities. good? bad? i don't know. but I FOUGHT THE LAW AND THE LAW WON, in the spirit of The Clash. 'tis the sad reality of school bureaucracies, but i'm getting out so i really don't care anymore. i'm tired of fighting this stuff and getting angry about it. i'm tired of struggling and raving and ranting about the singapore education system like a lunatic. i have better things to use my energy for. i remember reading Cyril Wong's interview in the papers a few weeks back and he said he used to be bitter about the state of affairs in singapore [the attitudes towards the arts and various other important things] but after a while he just had to choose his battles and live his life properly. i think it's something we all struggle with. and maybe one day i'll change the world, but as of now, they can just sink deeper and deeper into their folly if they want to - it's all a matter of choice, folks.

anyway. we had to weed. we ingeniously found a good patch [though cordoned off] with lots of big weeds. extreme resourcefulness is a quality lazy people develop. a clear example of the redundancy of this activity and the lack of lessons/morals imparted to us:

me: vin, you do know when you weed you have to pull out the roots right?
vin: oh, really?
me: yes or else it will grow back.
vin: too bad. and anyway it's good, next time i have to do this i'll just come to the same spot then.

i was bewildered. but anyway, there won't be a next time. school, as we have known it for the past year and a half, is over. it's not school anymore. it's just lessons and exams.

tension is rife among the girlfriends. it's insanity. anyway i headed to spinelli's at forum after that and caught up on Brave New World. i really didn't do much, i don't know why i'm just so slow. need to press on. math, history. argh.

Words can be like X-rays, if you use them properly - they'll go through anything. You read and you're pierced.

- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

+ posted by M @ 6:57 PM

...	Friday, August 26, 2005

i notice that among my group of girlfriends in njc, we have some eating trends [i guess that's how it always is. there are favourite places to go and all that]. of late, we have been developing a certain liking for snacks - all the better for on-the-go studying energy. anyway, we used to like nature valley granola bars. and now it's all about dried apricots.

DRIED APRICOTS OMG! good stuff.

anyways. maybe tomorrow won't be so bad because bea will be doing detention with me. and after that i might be awake enough to do enough substantial studying. on the other hand, college situation really doesn't look too good. i'm just so tired and i feel like i'm being stretched in so many ways. i really want to go for some Singapore Writers Festival events [like the one on 30th aug at the national library] but i don't think i can find anyone to go with, and well, i guess i should be studying stuff. i've written a grand total of three poems in my two years of jc life. YAY ME. this is bad. i bought a notebook from the school bookstore today for poetry because i was looking at the one i used in secondary school [sec3 and 4, most productive period of my writing life] and i realize i really miss writing and i don't think i've developed much as a writer. it's kind of sad.

prelims in two weeks, my birthday's in two weeks. 18. somewhat of a milestone? frankly am not looking forward to it at all.

+ posted by M @ 5:37 PM

...	Thursday, August 25, 2005

dear diary,

i have to go for detention on saturday. my name got read out in front of the whole school. i didn't go to school the last two days because i didn't feel like it. gp prelims are on monday. i'm tired. i'm tired. mtv keeps playing the all american rejects new video. tyson ritter grew out his hair. they always do close ups of his face. Dirty Little Secrets. they changed their sound - they're so much more angsty. isn't the emo thing supposed to ease up as you get older. the video makes me think of this thing this girl did with her livejournal. she had an entry asking people to post any secret they wanted completely anonymously on her comments page. and reading all these secrets just makes you realize how insecure and lonely people are. i guess we don't really know anyone at all. it was really ... sad, but kind of brilliant. i liked it. ramble ramble ramble. i'm tired. good night.

yours truly,
mel

p.s: so i'm gonna try that. post a secret in the guestbook anonymously if you want to. i don't check IP address [ i have no idea how to]. it's under my contact segment 'say it now'. it's therapeutic.

+ posted by M @ 10:50 PM

...	Tuesday, August 23, 2005

if reese witherspoon's character in legally blonde can get into Harvard, i can get into a college. there's hope for me yet.

but that's just a movie.

AHHHHH I'M GOING TO COMBUST. why am i not not not studying harder? WHY?! HELP HELP. i need to be tied to my books or something. and my head is spinning. sigh. i wish there were 48 hours in a day. or more. or something. argh. argh. i need to seriously calm down before i hyperventilate or something.

i need to bake and be happy [though i don't deserve it because i have seriously been SLACKING!]. omg i can't believe how much i've slacked, omg omg omggggg.

+ posted by M @ 9:31 PM

...	Sunday, August 21, 2005

okay, i shall reply to the tags in this post because there's quite a lot to say and i don't want to clog up my tagboard.

well, for the collection of poems i have by E.E Cummings/e.e cummings, his name was spelt 'E.E Cummings' on the bookspine ... so that's why i spelt it that way. had no idea over the controversy over the capitalization of his name. but if he prefers it e e cummings, i shall spell it that way. i can understand how he feels about the whole capital letter thing. i myself find it weird when people call me 'Mel' instead of 'mel' and i write my 'm' this way on all my assignments, letters, etc. some people, like sherman [person who types with proper capitalization most of the time but makes an exception for my name], know i feel weird when people spell it 'Mel' though not all of my friends know that. why do i feel weird? i really don't know why. it's just one of my many quirks.

okay, about betrayal. SPOILERS AHEAD.

carol, i haven't read the script for it, and didn't want to before the play because i wanted to be 'surprised' [does that sound weird?] when i watched it. pinter is really stylistic, so i assumed the characteristics i knew about him from The Caretaker would apply to Betrayal. i don't view him as a subtle playwright at all, but rather someone who can be quite violent in stage direction. however, maybe what you meant was that he's someone who writes simply but beneath there is a fierce undercurrent of issues about human nature and man. in a way he can be rather repressed, but at times i see him as quite a violent playwright. so i suppose i interpreted Betrayal differently when i watched it. i understand that there are a lot anticlimactic moments, where the emotions get so pent up only to get deflated by absurd statements. is this what you mean? i'm not sure. and well, a lot of the time, they say you shouldn't try coming up with meaning to certain statements in pinter's work because there isn't meaning at all and that's his point. the meaning is that there's no meaning. weird man, but very very interesting.

i actually liked the last part very much, though on hindsight i agree with you that the green light and eerie music was slightly over the top. but i very much liked the jumble of furniture and i thought it also amazing that the crew put it together in the dark with such precision [the crew, the crew!]. i don't know what questions your audience asked Mei Yin, but someone in our audience asked her about that. and it was interesting because he said he had seen a similar sequence in patrick marber's play Closer [have you watched the movie? i would like to watch the play should i ever get the chance] where at the end of each scene the characters would take a bit of the set and throw it into a pile so that by the end of the play there was a whole pile of mess, much like the mess we saw on the set of Betrayal yesterday. in Closer, the mess at the end of the play [don't think it's like that for all versions, but the director envisioned it that way for the particular one he watched] was supposed to show the crystallization of all their deceit, lies, betrayal, etc. Mei Yin didn't answer this question much, but from what i gathered, the jumble was supposed to signify what the state of affairs was like after all those years - and in a way i think she was trying to tie up the front of the play with the end of the play. i liked that concept. though in a sense it would lose the ambiguity that you say the original script has [which i haven't read]. i think she also mentioned she didn't do it in the order pinter originally wrote it - but then she also mentioned that this was a revision pinter himself wanted performed [i thought that was so cool, that pinter, like, sanctioned this run of his play in SRT].

um, okay, that's my sort of reply to you about my views on the direction in Betrayal [because in my previous post about it i didn't go into detail so as to not spoil it for whoever wants to watch]. which night did you go for, and what questions did your audience ask? it would be interesting to patch up the info.

about my interest in directing: i am really REALLY glad that you are really REALLY glad. ha:> i only actually developed an interest in theatre and drama nearing the end of last year when i got involved in NJ Drama Ex-co. i took part as crew in SYF, but i didn't really feel much for it then. only after i got into Exco and had to try my hand at helping produce short plays we showed during lunchtime did i warm up to it. and after trying out some acting during the camp which i had to organize in order to try and reconstruct the cca did i really begin to feel like i had discovered something new. and finally, this year when i had to produce dramafest [almost by myself, many a time] did i really, really realize that i may very well want to get involved in theatre for life. it was total self-discovery. when i produced dramafest, no matter how stressful it got, or how mediocre it was in comparison to established drama societies in other jcs, i just felt so in my element [though my teacher may not have viewed it that way!]. i don't know how else to say it, but i felt very very good and natural and REAL doing it and realized that maybe that's what i want to do in the future. theatre magic! i didn't get to direct though, that was left to teachers, and i would really like to try that out because it's like.. well, art, writing, directing .. it's just all expression! it's so very linked. creation. beauty. all that good stuff in life. i mean i've always thought of myself as solely someone who wanted to do English, but i've discovered a whole lot of stuff about myself these two years. not just theatre, but cooking and baking too. so ... yeah. and i've always liked films [maybe you know that], i just never ever thought about studying it or even DOING it till this year. some people think its natural people who like films like theatre - but it's different, right? so very very different, yet the same. i could go on forever but i'm going to stop now. and maybe in a few years i'll have different ideas for my life again but right now i feel like this is what i want to pursue. WHAT it is exactly i can't describe to you because there are just SO many things!

that was long, thank you for being patient with my unreasonably verbose replies to your tags :)

+ posted by M @ 4:39 PM

...	Saturday, August 20, 2005

BETRAYAL was just awesome. great. spectacular. i don't know, i feel those are the kinds of words you use to describe a quick-buck summer blockbuster so i really don't know how to say anything that will do it justice. that's why i hate for people to ask me 'what is this play about?' because i feel there's no way one can answer that question! you have to watch it to know! plays aren't just about plots, they're about ... EVERYTHING!

it was amazing to experience Pinter after having studied his work and see the way the thespians dealt with the pauses and the absurd conversations and loaded statements and EVERYTHING! Shabana Azmi was just superb. all of them were great actors, but she was clearly IT. her expressions, the way she utilized the pauses .. oh my God! and the crew was amazing. just amazing, especially at the end. gosh i want to work as crew somewhere before i go away to uni if i can.

and at the end of the play, we were told the director would come out and talk about her work so the interested could stay on. and she's so young, so very very young. i guess it's so typical and wrong to associate age with experience and expertise but she looked fresh out of university! which she probably isn't, but still, very very young. amazing. and she said every night the audience has been reacting differently[so far, it's been three runs to a fullhouse, and i expect tonight is a fullhouse too because when i went to get my matinee tickets last weekend all the good seats were sold out]. and it must just be so ... amazing. i don't know, to be part of this whole thing, this living organism of theatre. after the session was over, we were all just exploding with awe over her talent, and dav, van and yif said, 'that could be you next time, mel' and i just felt so inspired and so encouraged that i have people who believe in me and in what i want to do.

this has been incredibly incoherent and disjointed and i realize i keep saying 'amazing' but i really don't know how else to say it and i don't want to say more because i don't want to spoil it for anyone else who goes to watch. it's running til 4th september and we students get a whopping discount!

anyway, after THAT, the trip to town felt so anti-climactic but i felt like i was being exposed to such new things because i haven't been to town in like two months [seriously] and all the clothes [and i mean all. even weird brands like 'yin and yang' or something] just looked so nice and i wish i had brought money because i couldn't buy anything and the next chance i'll get to go out to town will probably be a long way away.

+ posted by M @ 8:51 PM

...	Wednesday, August 17, 2005

you being in love
will tell who softly asks in love,

am i separated from your body smile brain hands merely
to become the jumping puppets of a dream? oh i mean:
entirely having in my careful how
careful arms created this at length
inexcusable, this inexplicable pleasure--you go from several
persons: believe me that strangers arrive
when i have kissed you into a memory
slowly, oh seriously--that since and if you disappear

solemnly
myselves
ask "life, the question how do i drink dream smile

and how do i prefer this face to another and
why do i weep eat sleep--what does the whole intend"
they wonder. oh and they cry "to be, being, that i am alive
this absurd fraction in its lowest terms
with everything cancelled
but shadows
--what does it all come down to? love? Love
if you like and i like, for the reason that i
hate people and lean out of this window is love, love
and the reason that i laugh and breathe is oh love and the reason
that i do not fall into this street is love."

E.E. Cummings

i love how ee cummings was such a novel person in his time. i love his 'grammar and punctuation is shot to hell' attitude. and most of his poems are about love and love and love and i love that even though i don't know exactly what love is but i love it all the same. i've discovered the genius of DH Lawrence. and i have not written poetry in a long time, which makes me feel very inadequate and dissatisfied. i have no muse, i need a muse, who will be my muse? i write best when i am in love, and at present, i am not really enraptured by anything/anyone or bitter about anything/anyone of importance. leading a loveless life, how utterly sad!

+ posted by M @ 4:11 PM

...	Tuesday, August 16, 2005

i made a malteser cake today. Nigella's recipe. for the recipe and various fun bits, you can visit my foodblog. i'll try to post this entry up soon. 

+ posted by M @ 12:09 AM

...	Sunday, August 14, 2005

When You are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars

W.B Yeats

i miss reading poetry. i just thought of this poem i like today and decided to re-read it. somehow i always associate wb yeats with seamus heaney. i don't know why. re-reading poems is always such an emotional thing because you can keep re-reading poems and everytime you feel all over again. now i feel sad, but it's a nice, reflective sort of sad. poignant is the word, but i feel i use that word almost too much.

friggy left us with his final homily today. it was a rather touching affair, and i will indeed miss him very much, as i've missed all the other priests that've left. but life goes on, and nothing will ever really be forgotten unless you choose to forget. i know it sounds almost calculative and dissective to say this, but human connection and communication is just such a beautiful thing. what makes us feel this pang of wistfulness after someone goes away? what's the scientific reason for it? i don't think it'll ever be explained, and that's the beauty of human emotion - the inexplicable nature of it, the natural capacity to feel attached to something or someone.

i just feel so full of this yearning, this inexplicable yearning. i don't know what it is.

+ posted by M @ 10:28 PM

...	Saturday, August 13, 2005

for the first time in a long time, i woke up feeling good. hopeful, happy, at peace. this is indeed such a rarity. despite all the chaos [am in trouble with certain people at school - and i skipped detention today because, well, i care not for things like that] and uncertainty and bad stuff - i'm feeling just fine.

the prayer and praiseandworship last night really helped me a lot. i may not have experienced a fierce revival, but i felt a small nudge from God which i haven't felt for a very very long time. if you notice, i hardly do talk about God fervently nowadays. there are times when i do try to encourage people with the prospect of God - but i didn't say it with feeling. now i finally feel that some of that fire is back, and i hope i can sustain it because i really need it right now. i really need this.

He will come and save you
He will come and save you
Say to the weary one, your God will surely come
He will come and save you
He will come and save you
He will come and save you
Lift up your eyes to Him, you will arise again
HE WILL COME AND SAVE YOU.

i really liked that song. i really really really felt it.

on other technical things. my little sister broke her wrist. broken faith. the poor little thing, i feel very sorry for her though she can be so naughty sometimes. sometimes i wish i had more time with her, at times when she says, 'can you bake cookies with me?' and i have to say no because i have prelim prep breathing down my neck. and i feel pangs of regret because some of these are moments you can never get back. BUT, teachers day is coming soon and it gives me a great excuse to bake. so there's that.

rant time: and about detention. well, the people who come late more than 3X this term were supposed to go for detention today. i suppose, unfortunately, i have a poor attitude that has no regard for manmade school rules at all. i just don't see a point in keeping to these things, the only thing that will scare me if it gets on my record. other than that, i really don't care. i could come to school on time if i wanted, the fact that is that i prefer sleep over things such scholastic rituals such as singing the national anthem and whatever that will not contribute to my studying and university application process. as usual, i'm being my stubborn self and i must realize that my actions have consequences which will affect other people, such as my form teacher. i indeed feel guilty. she is picked on enough as it is - i mean, what's this stupid thing about 'once you're in the arts fac, they immediately assume that you are of poorer discipline'. i admit i'm not the epitome of self-discipline, but i don't think it has anything in hell to do with the fact that i'm in the arts fac. in the first place, you shouldn't be dividing people like this and having such discriminatory thoughts! science fac, arts fac, it's the same, really. we're just pursuing different passions. i don't go around saying, 'gosh, science fac people are so uncultured' or something. it's only when you attack our passion for arts and say it's beneath you that gets me upset because it is NOT. it is not it is not it is NOT!!!!

God, how i hate such narrow mindsets and how all these people think that lit and history are floozy 'anyhow-can-score' subjects. I LOATHE SUCH MINDSETS. it takes a great deal of analytical skills and sensitivity to do things like literature and history, more than most people will ever understand - and not all of us are in the arts fac because we couldn't make it to science with our o level grade. don't assume this of everyone, it is really disgusting and unfair of you to think that.

IT IS A CHOICE I INEVITABLY MADE AND WILL NEVER EVER EVER REGRET. there is so much beauty around us in the arts, so much. and i feel my life is so enriched by studying literature. i know a lot of science fac people don't actually think this way about us, but there are some that do and it disturbs me to no end. it makes me so angry and so sad for these people that they are unable to see the things so very important in this life - art, soul, truth, expression, connection, communication. literature and art and theatre - all these things have a soul. they're part of another person and after reading or seeing their works you feel like you've been inside their very being. and that's why i love these things and love to study them, because they really MEAN something, they really have a HEART AND SOUL. they communicate things we so often can't in this world! THEY'RE ALIVE! THEY'RE REAL! TRUTH BEAUTY FREEDOM AND LOVE!

i get very defensive about the things i love and believe in, and should you say such skewed things about them i will argue with you to no end. call me stubborn or call me convicted, that's how i am and it isn't necessarily a good thing all the time. and i get really upset about how Singapore is trying to foster creativity and the arts just because they think it will further their agenda of breaking into the global scene or whatever. it's so very contrived, SO contrived and i hate it. just like how NJ is trying to do that now with the passion pursuit day and all the other fanciful nonsense it comes up with to try and plump up the arts scene because now the government wants to focus on that. but take a look at everyone's real attitude behind the scenes - do they really believe in the importance of the arts? hell no. they're just doing it for ulterior motives. which is DISGUSTING AND GROSS. and i hate it and that's why i so badly want to change this. i could go on about this forever, but i'm going to stop now. here's to NJC, and whoever represents it: don't be false, don't be false. if you want to put us down, have the courage to do it openly instead of saying things like this privately which contradict that big flashy show you're putting on for the world to see. i really hope mark lo, our vp [out of three. nj is the only school that has 3 vps i swear] can exert his influence. i think he's really good for the arts fac and he's the only VP i like out of that whole lot.

i like the 'Bad Day' music video, it has samaire armstrong in it.

i feel empowered, and i hope this will not go away. i need all the strength i can muster to get through my life.

+ posted by M @ 12:18 PM

...	Tuesday, August 09, 2005

after months [maybe not, but it sure feels that way - ... actually, i think it IS] of not watching a movie, finally went to catch the solitary cinematic indulgence i would allow myself - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. i gave up The Island and such other movies i wanted to watch so i could watch this one film with less guilt. well worth it! only regret is that i had to eat m&ms during the movie because cineleisure doesn't sell cadbury bars at the snackstop.

BEWARE: SPOILERS.

i don't really know what to make of it. my memory of the old version and even of the book is very blurry. i can't say it's 'better' than the first version - they're very different interpretations. BUT i prefer this one. i think this is the way Roald Dahl would have liked it to turn out [despite the lickable wallpaper and non-gravity room scenes disappearances! i was quite mournful about that] - more satirical and obviously brimming with deliciously wicked black humour. and Depp's Wonka was downright quirky, delightfully sinister at times, which is really just how it should be! DEPP was WONDERFUL! other than jim carrey perhaps, can't think of anyone else who could have played Wonka. and even carrey could have been too one-dimensionally whimsical to pull it off. Tim Burton's opinion came strong - but NOT overwhelmingly so - through this movie, with small touches like Veruca's mother drinking to the the out of this world MTV vinyl suits of the Oompaloompas to the surprising addition of the Wilbur Wonka storyline - i could really feel his direction - he is a director with incredible presence! THE SATIRE! man, i just love it!

of course, heaps and truckfuls of credit has to go to Dahl for writing the book in the first place. in a way, this movie was very nostalgic for me [and i'm sure for many others my age] ... remembering the times when homework was not so binding and we had much more time to delve into the fantastical world of books. The Witches, James and the Giant Peach, BFG, even his spins on fairytales. i even had time to watch all the movie versions when i was younger ... The Witches, James and the Giant Peach, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory [as it was called then]. and i remember just loving the chocolate river, and the way the characters in James lived off eating the peach and the square feet of the witches. SUCH IS THE POWER OF IMAGINATION! beats the likes of Harry Potter any day [okay, i admit i haven't even read harry potter and i don't intend to]. poor kids, i bet a lot of them are deprived of the Roald Dahl experience. it's sad such wonderful writers [Anne Fine, Dick King Smith, Laurence Yep to name a few others] give way to Harry Potter and its numerous copycats - i bet many of the kids haven't read Dahl. so thank you, Tim Burton, for bringing Dahl-mania back, and giving me a little taste of childhood past.

+ posted by M @ 9:36 PM

...	Monday, August 08, 2005

i'm going to be awfully judgemental now, though not without reason.

i don't know why everyone seems so concerned with living the 'high life'. making big money, buying a designer wardrobe, getting into exclusive clubs, fine dining and all that nonsense. this is a lifestyle i totally denounce and should i ever slip into it, please slap me until i wake up from it. maybe it's that whole thing about wanting what you can't have that makes people lust after such lifestyles. sure, i suppose those things are enjoyable once in a while but to do without it won't kill. basically, THERE IS NO MEANING IN THOSE THINGS. NOTHING! NOTHING! NOTHING! honestly, the amount of pretentious people that circulate in the so-called high society of singapore just makes me sick and i'm never, ever going to be part of such plastic.

i am breaking away, i am breaking away, i am breaking away ... i will be emancipated.

+ posted by M @ 11:33 PM

...	Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Nobody Knows is still on my mind. i can't get over that film. it's just amazingly astute film-making. realistic without being coarse, shocking without being shocking. i'm interested to know more about the 1988 nishi-sugama affair, but i can't find much info on it.

sometimes i wonder. why do i love watching films and reading and drama so much. heck, why do we enjoy the things we enjoy. is it to fill some void? to occupy my time? sometimes i think that's all it is - a more enjoyable way to attempt to fill the void of my heart ... and that's sad, but the fact is, i think it's true because there's no way film and art can ever fill me up permanently - only something very special, very human can do that. and i don't have that. so as human nature does, i have to occupy myself in the meantime or i'll go stark mad.

sad, isn't it? when i begin to think seriously of how lonely the life i lead is and the extremely singular nature of man. nothing compares to true human connection, but that's much harder to find than a good film.

here i am, alone as ever. and it's okay, i have to trust it'll be okay. it's not a screaming, yelling, intolerable feeling of loneliness. it's a quiet desperation for some sort of union with the world which i seem to be unable possess. i wish i could be less apart. the way i act in school and with other people doesn't tell anything of how i really feel - just because i talk to you, laugh along with everyone else, doesn't mean i'm really getting anything out of what's happening, that i'm really there. haven't had an intimate and meaningful conversation for a very long time.

i think i've effectively split myself into two.

we live in a world of masochists.

yesterday i felt a great sense of futility when benzie completely [and rightly] trivialized our exams, and our plans for the future. unlike the math teachers who say we must get good results as though our very life hangs on it, the english teachers just give exam tips but don't actually talk about results as the ultimate. i get a sense that they're only helping us sit for this exam because it's an occupational requirement and they haven't much conviction in it at all. whitby always says, 'prophetic finger, if you don't do -insert X literary analysis technique- you will get an F. LOSER!' in his funny way, and we all laugh. but i think he only says it because the mentality of most nj students is 'i came here to get my As' and not because he thinks As truly matter to our lives.

well, during lecture, dio was all like, 'you get your As, get into university, get a degree, and carry on working ... you think it will make you happy?' or something to that effect. and you know what, i'm not sure it'll make me happy but i'm doing it anyway because the whole society's been conditioned into thinking that's how life should logically flow. sure i bet some of us question it plenty, but it's hard to revolt against it when your parents will disown you for it. and so we just give into it. the world seems a farce - i mean every single thing is constructed by man. we think it's some great higher force that imposes suffering and pain on us - BUT IT IS OURSELVES, that's the plain and simple truth. we come up with these exams, these institutes of education, these bastions of economic progress - what for?

i should like to know when the first exams were set, for what purpose, what they were like and just how the hell they came about. it really is comical to imagine men sitting in a committee meeting brainstorming on how to occupy their empty lives, and one going, 'eureka! a thing called exams to challenge the human brain and sift out the darnel from the wheat!' and another asks, 'but to what purpose?' and he replies, 'there is no purpose to speak of, but we need something to do while we're here, don't we?' satire, satire, this is black comedy at it's best and it's the story of our lives.

seriously, we devised this whole damn system to subject a majority of ourselves to the lives of hollow souless underpaid overworked persons. the idea of this reality is far far too bleak for me to accept completely - and that's why i have developed an ability to reject harsh reality and live in a detached world of my own as far as i can [an ability my parents abhor]. it'll destroy us, this total conformity to societal needs and wants, it makes us a mere cell of society - but on the other hand, deviating from it will also destroy us. we just can't win, can we? i had a great urge to crush and throw away my university plans after thinking about it, but i figure anything is worth a shot in this endless chase for that feathery, perhaps mythical thing we call happiness.

that was a long rant. but it was a measured, rational and painful realization.

anyway. today was quiet amusing because yifang, terence, vin and i [and later davina] stayed back after contact to have a conference about boy-girl sms communication. it's really quite funny how much thought and construct can go into an IMPORTANT sms. and vin's tricks on how girls can elude splitting the bill on dates - hilarious, and very useful coming from a casanova extraordinaire's point of view. i really think the bunch of them would do great in performing arts, but well everyone has a calling and i guess vin's and chew's is the athletics. so that's that. some good comic relief for the day.

God, every single thing echoes Heart of Darkness, everything. that book is so beautifully crafted from the dark depths of humanity that it's earth-shattering.

+ posted by M @ 8:45 PM

...

i just watched Nobody Knows (Daremo Shiranai), a japanese art film i rented on Sunday. it's directed by Hirokazu Koreeda, and the main actor Yagira Yuuya, possibly only 13 when he filmed this, earned best actor at the 2004 cannes festival.

i don't know how to describe this film. it's incredibly heartbreaking, yet heartening at the same time. it's one of those films you just have to watch for yourself, which makes such a deep impression on its audience but goes quietly unnoticed by the world at large. like someone said, 'i was stunned by the immense humanity of the film'.

+ posted by M @ 12:30 AM

...	Monday, August 01, 2005

do you know yam yam biscuits have words on them? yes, the yam yam sticks you dip into chocolate. they are printed with wise adages such as 'do not be timid' and 'elephant jumbo'. because of that, they are now my favourite biscuit thing.

have discovered some jems on the km website. maybe good enough to make my 30 dollars spent on a constantly malfunctioning website valid.

the math teachers enjoy posting interesting descriptions of themselves in their profiles -
'aRTY nERd wHo EnjoYs soLvinG MathEMatiCal ProbLems. FaVouRite toPics: ANalYsis, MeaSuRe TheoRy, StaTistIcs. EnjoYs MoVIes invoLving MathemAtics, but NOT Science. Maths not equal to Science for goodness sake!' and one even posted his homepage/blog address, which was quite interesting. i guess it's so often we forget we're dealing with real people in school because we know close to nothing about them personally. the plethora of emotions and events that happens in one's life jump out at me from my computer screen and make the person a lot more real than what he used to be. it's sad that it takes this nosy, almost illicit prying into someone's personal life via his blog to make him more real - and i say prying because though he posted his homepage for all to see, there's always that twinge of knowing you're making yourself ever so vulnerable by doing that.

the english teachers are a lot more private in their profiles, of course, as they always are. i wonder if it's a trait that comes with the teaching of different subjects. math teachers always connecting more with the students and bringing themselves down to joke with them in child-like manners while the english teachers are rather aloof, though much more witty - but the jokes are impersonal and though at times they share personal experiences with us it isn't for the point of sharing something, but rather to relate themselves to the piece of writing we're studying so we find it easier to understand.

and of course, the hilarious e-lecture on scansion that's on km. i was pleased to find something on scansion because i never copied notes last year and realize it's quite important but it's rather hard to learn something from a lecture which makes you laugh so much. there's dorothy chua giving the e-lecture and whitby's voice used as a demo to read out varying tones and stresses of the words - it is incredibly, incredibly funny. i don't know how dorothy chua managed to keep a straight face while teaching it. i can imagine the english teachers, in pains having to do those things - most of them hate technology and have not much idea how to use it and couldn't care less about learning how to if it wasn't required of them.

i realize i don't live a God-centred life. that though i love God, there are other things i love. and when He asks us to deny everything else for Him - it's very hard for me to give up things like art, and film, and literature, and theatre for Him. many people see God as the way the truth and the life. and i say it, but do i believe it? because ultimately my life goal is not aligned to His purpose. my life goal is to spend life creating art, and beauty and looking for truth and touching people's lives - but not through God, through MY art. and i know God is truth, but i'm searching for another truth altogether. and that's just wrong, isn't it? God isn't my priority in life. not all the time, and that disturbs me.

i can't feel Him anymore. i just can't. and because of that i've hit the ultimate low in my life. there's a void because i just don't think i can feel God's presence at this point.

+ posted by M @ 6:17 PM