i really try not to mock the local universities too much - because i know tons of friends who are going there (some even by choice because they believe it doesn't make a difference. and maybe it doesn't) and i don't want to sound condescending. or rub it in that i'm flying off while they're stuck in our terrible education system for four more years. but really, sometimes i just can't help it. MOE just makes it too easy.

because this is the lamest thing i've ever seen. hilarious even. and definitely bordering on blasphemous.

'the boys are way too cute for my liking'? i can't imagine Waspy Housewife finding any of the typical teen boys here even mildly attractive - considering they're into that whole Ghetto look now. which just isn't cool. i mean, the amount of contestants i saw wearing chains on their jeans on Singapore Idol tonight? it's scary.

ps: but i really like the shoutout to UChicago. we're that much good enough to be put into an NUS ad! i mean they could have said any other Ivy League school but they picked us. they could have said NORTHWESTERN (ick) but they picked us. yay for NUS ... not to say that they should continue deluding themselves that they're even seen as any competition for uchicago.

+ posted by M @ 10:04 PM

...	Saturday, May 27, 2006

i've embarked on The Moon and Sixpence and it is ... incredible. it explores all the issues that i've always wanted to see explored, and more.

W. Somerset Maugham is so enriching! in The Summing Up, he writes:

The artist can within certain limits make whatever he likes of his life. In other callings, in medicine for instance or the law, you are free to choose whether you will adopt them or not, but having chosen, you are free no longer. You are bound by the rules of your profession; a standard of conduct is imposed on you. The pattern is predetermined. It is only the artist, and maybe the criminal, who can make his own.

and Maurice Beebe writes:

In both instances ... the hero attains this state only after he has sloughed off the domestic, social, and religious demands imposed upon him by his environment. Narrative development in the typical artist-novel requires that the hero test and reject the claims of love and life, of God, home and country, until nothing is left but his true self and his consecration as artist. Quest for self is the dominant theme of the artist-novel, and because the self is almost always in conflict with society, a closely related theme is the opposition of art to life. The artist-as-hero is usually therefore the artist-as-exile.

i know plenty will disagree and even i don't agree fully with these thoughts, but they're worthy thoughts. like jeremy used to say - the true poets are people who are able to communicate what everyone feels and thinks but can't articulate. a clumsy way of phrasing it i know, but words fail me now and i'm sure you know what i mean.

lately i've been thinking of the way i will live my life. i've got a friend who's moving out of her home, not due to any conflicts with parents or anything, but just to stand on her own two feet. i've got another friend who gives her mother $1000 every time she makes slightly more than that (and the rest, which isn't much, she keeps for personal expenses). neither are experiencing any harsh financial difficulties and are my scgs friends, not people i've met from work. surprising? it's made me re-evaluate the way i should live my life.

i can't leech off my parents forever. here i am, still being like a child, making them pay for my highly expensive US education. if i were going to do medicine or law or business i would be able to promise more or less that i'd make back all that they're spending and thus mathematically, it would be a good investment and worthy expenditure. but i'm going to study literature, theatre, art or film (haven't decided) and artists really don't make much money for the simple reason that they're too busy trying to make art. i realize that's how i'm going to end up living my life. that i might well end up waitressing or teaching to pay the rent because i refuse to take any more from my parents after i graduate. don't get me wrong, it's not that we have a tumultuous relationship and thus i violently refuse to accept help - i just want to be able to survive on my own. i have to be my own person and live my own life eventually. and this is in no way saying i'll 'disown' them, but i just have to be independent, you know what i mean?

at this point, i feel the guilt is worth it. the pangs of guilt i sometimes feel at the incredible expenses i'm chalking up just because of my college eduation - it will all be worth it just to go to uchicago and really really learn how to think (rather than mindlessly memorize and hate studying like so many students here) and experience the life of the mind and absorb ideas and beauty and truth and just be completely enriched with knowledge like i've never been before. i mean, i really CANNOT stay here any longer. i CANNOT. i say CANNOT with utter and complete conviction and seriousness - you know me. it's destructive to my soul and my mind and my very being, HONESTLY.

ok, it's not that i cannot STAY here. i really see myself eventually living here (i really do! although everyone else thinks i will stay in chicago forever) - but i can't imagine myself studying or learning anything here because the education system here is pure rubbish with regards to the arts. i mean, i'm just incredibly incredibly bursting at the seams excited to STUDY and LEARN over there! i'm ready to get my eyes opened, my heart moved and my mind enriched! isn't that just a fantastic feeling?! and i've promised myself i will excel in what i study, i will, because i really LOVE what i'm studying this time.

having children is expensive.

am inspired by carol to make this mini-list with whatever that comes to mind now,

when i've created substantial, beautiful art
when i've written things i am satisfied with, which mean something
when i've written and published my own volumes of poetry and a BOOK!
when i've directed a play and a film
when i've studied art in university (like i've ALWAYS wanted to study art)
when i'm right with God
when i'm able to say that i'm standing on my own two feet and am totally independent
when i am happy with myself and the world in general
when i am happy
when i am less selfish
when all that i love are happy
when i really am in love (i suspect i have never loved before, though i thought i did. but it's always the case with me)
when i have worked with carol, yh, or anyone like-minded i've met in my schooling years on a film or a play
when i have the time to read and watch film and watch plays and be with family and loved ones

my life will be perfect. like she says, 'make a list and post it!' it will make you feel good.

+ posted by M @ 10:19 PM

...	Thursday, May 25, 2006

i've gotten a new phone. i finally decided to just do it, to just give in to my materialstic whims and fancies. i'd like to be the sort of person that hangs on to her nokia 8250 for all it's worth. but i'm not that person so i'm facing up to it. it hurts a little to know this phone cost 2/3rds of my cedele pay for last month though. ugh.

i feel a little sad now, because i realize i didn't backup the data in my phone like i thought. a hundred over contacts were erased because the sim card can't store all the contacts i have. and because i traded in, all the information i could keep was economically kept in the sim card. which really wasn't much.

i switched on my new phone to find 3 messages stored. they read:

from stephen: one of those cheesy bear thingos made of symbols and then 'a cute little bear 4 u. happy birthday'
from sw: hey happy birthday mel! you're seventeen now, and it's time to rock nj! have a great birthday on sunday k
from carol: Happy birthday mel! you're 17! Live and love lots!

you may ask why i have messages from close to two years ago. the answer is: i'm lazy and i'm also a sentimental fool. because as it is, i don't read these messages anymore, it's just nice to know they're in there somewhere. you only start missing them when you know they used to be there, i guess. none of yours were saved. but what's the point, anyway? why are we always collecting things.

i could continue expounding on this but i'm being ill-disciplined as usual. i wish i could force myself to write but i'm not in the mood to and writing about the phone so often is pathetic because it's so self-indulgent and proves how integral the phone is in my life. it's terrible, really. i'm pretty annoyed with myself because i've lost a whole bunch of important contacts i made this year, but i guess if we're meant to keep in touch i'll end up with their numbers again somehow. for now i'll just lay this to rest by thinking of the cyberspace graveyard all these messages and contacts end up in, for various reasons. and it's really quite beautiful in a tech-geek sort of way. i imagine numbers floating about, 'i love you's that started to ring false and 'goodbye's that were too painful to keep and all the easier to delete.

delete, delete, delete. i think it's a function we've been blessed with to ease our subconsciousness. i used to think if i deleted certain people's numbers and messages i wouldn't have to think about them anymore or bother with things anymore.

i've got to learn not to be so sentimental about things and not to take daily technology so seriously. i mean, it's just a phone. in a way i'm glad motorola has little memory space, it will force me to not centre my life, relationships and emotions around my phone and the messages received.

i reckon that's why we like messages so much - they're like birthday cards at our fingertips that we can read anytime, anywhere when we feel we need a little something to get us through a crap day.

anyway, while walking around today we met ms ma, our sc lit teacher. it was really nice seeing her again. i have to say she's one of the people i've met who's had a lot of influence in my decision to study lit and also helped me to realize how i felt about words and books and everything. for some reason she thought i was going to study business and that really irked me. i don't know why i get so annoyed when people assume i'm going to study something i'm not. actually i don't mind other people making assumptions, but her of all people, who knew me as a lit student at heart when she taught me. i suppose she recognizes that things might have changed ... and i think i'm more or less someone who's stuck to the same 'interests' (interests sounds so flippant) after many years, with many people i'd never expect taking law, medicine or business now (celene for one. who knew.). i take things too personally. tomorrow's her last day teaching at sc and in her own words, 'i need a break' (meaning 'i'm sick of it'). she's starting as a business development person (or something, i can't remember the term exactly) at Temasek Holdings. she made us all take down her new number, and it was nice. i didn't really have a relationship with my nj teachers, and i think that's kind of sad. it's not like we'll all ever really text her or call her the very next day, but it's nice that we can keep in touch if we choose to one day talk to her again.

she talked about the new batch of sc girls leaving for their uk trip tomorrow and how this time they're watching Julius Caesar and Titus Andronicus. and from the way she talked about it (i was excited too - julius caesar! we never got to do that), it was like we were back in the classrooms and we were reading julius caesar. to her, shakespeare wasn't just a text that she had to teach - it was literature, it was art, it was beauty, it was life. i loved that about her. and i remembered when i started loving shakespeare.

+ posted by M @ 11:31 PM

...

sigh, i wish i didn't spend so much time in front of my computer doing stupid things such as read amazon reviews of DVDs i can never bring myself to buy (because of the cost of shipping, for one) and CDs i can never have. and reading people's blogs and prying into other people's secrets and thinking aimlessly with nothing resulting in any writing.

i went for the non-collectibles exhibition at the substation today, i quite liked it. sad to say i missed mentah 3.

i promised myself i would write and i would bake and i would read. yh and i can never agree on ideas for a screenplay, but i suppose i should just write something for anyway. a new friend wants me to write a script for her church musical-play ... i'm really not the best person to ask considering i'm really not a very active catholic right now, really. i actually managed to sleep through the whole ascension mass homily today. and when my mom woke me up and told me i missed it and fr richards was talking about jesus coming on judgment day and seeing whether we made good use of our gifts or not i was just kind of like, 'yeah, whatever. he says that every week'.

not good. i have to stop sleeping so late also. i think i need to, like, unplug my computer. or grow some self-control and time management skills.

am also trying to deal with other darker and more complicated issues in my life properly before i go away. i guess i need to come clean with some people - meaning everyone who's been important in my life thus far. sometimes it's not fair to lie to others, but telling them the truth at this stage could do more harm than anything else.

okay, cryptic and stupid last paragraph. please ignore kthx.

+ posted by M @ 1:29 AM

...	Saturday, May 20, 2006

jake gyllenhaal buys cupcakes from 'sprinkles cupcakes'. almost makes me feel motivated to start baking cupcakes again. i really wish he'd shave though.

+ posted by M @ 6:44 PM

...

i'm tired and i've been listening to this song a lot so i'm going to do a lyrics post.

our love was comfortable and
so broken in
she's perfect, so flawless
or so they say

she thinks i can't see the smile that she's faking
and poses for pictures that aren't being taken
i loved you
grey sweat pants, no makeup, so perfect

i think this john mayer song is very wistful and poignant. i always feel a little sad after listening to it, much like the way i feel after reading 'blankets'. on another note, going to see COLDPLAY! omg. i still can't believe they're coming, it's so surreal. i know i sound like a groupie and i'm really not that much of a diehard Coldplay fan but they're one of those bands that are just incredible in concert with such high energy levels. i used to say it to dars all the time, 'if there's one band i'd really like to see in concert, it would be coldplay. but they'll never come here.' AND THEY ARE. ohmygod am SO psyched, also can't wait to see if DEATH CAB does come for BAYBEATS this year. oh if they do i will just DIE. like really, just DIE. omg. ok, goodnight.

+ posted by M @ 12:38 AM

...	Monday, May 15, 2006

just to update everyone a little bit, because even i'm overwhelmed by the stuff i'm doing:

1. i've quit cedele and i'm now at a friend aly's deli, starting tomorrow. i'm also not interning at any theatre/film/art company now and have some of my own works in progress (um, sort of). so basically all i'm doing now is working part-time at a deli and starting to live my own life. i say starting because my new life starts TOMORROW and also i've gotten so used to not having time that now i'm trying to wean myself away from the bad habits one accumulates when one doesn't have enough time (a lot of sleeping, eating at very odd hours, eating junk food, mindlessly staring at the computer as the only form of relaxation and communication, only reading things on the internet and not books, not bothering to contact friends or answer smses on time/at all - but still, i hate smsing, it's so tedious).

2. to commemorate this shift (i don't know why i find it so significant, as though it's some new chapter. but it possibly really is), i went to pierce my ears again today. i don't really know what made me do it (okay i know, but you get what i mean) but i decided to get two more holes so now i have five in total (i got my third one after the o levels ended, also a commemorative sort of thing, so nonsensically sentimental i know). sam (who held my hand throughout the process) thinks i'm crazy and my parents will probably be annoyed so i'll be wearing my hair down messily a lot at home (not that i don't already). not that my parents will make me remove them, but i don't really want to make them unhappy unnecessarily. it's not an act of teenangst rebellion to get attention from them or rile them up so what they don't know won't hurt them, for now.

3. i guess you could say i'm at a fairly happy place in my life right now. i do feel i am somewhat living the life that i wanted after the a levels, i am. in njc i never lived the life that i would have wanted for myself in jc so i'm glad that i'm completely past that horrible two-year period. so i'm really happy about all the things that i've experienced this year ... the only thing being that i'm not learning driving conscientiously like i said i would.

4. it was a little sad leaving cedele (but even ending QP was sad), because, how easily we get attached ... but i'm glad that i did it because the pay is pathetic and i disagree with the management and how the place is run. i can't work for someone i don't like/don't respect. too bad i didn't get to work with some of my favourite colleagues on my last shift though, but singapore is small, we'll always see each other some time. though i will miss my chinese dishwasher dearly and he didn't work today so i didn't get the chance to ask him all the questions i wanted!

5. i am a pig and if you hire me i will steal a lot of food from your restaurant when you are not watching : i finally got to bring home the rolled oat, apple and cheddar damper bread that i've been eyeing for quite awhile. the minute i got home i toasted it and buttered it and am eating it as i type this. feel a little cheated because i can barely taste the apple.

6. i've been spending ridiculous amounts of money.

7. i'll be leaving singapore in september.

+ posted by M @ 11:11 PM

...	Sunday, May 14, 2006

one thing i have been so fascinated by/obsessed with lately and want to randomly share with everyone i meet who has watched SRT's Betrayal ... (upon finding out ching (stagemanager for QP) stagemanaged Betrayal i just could not stop asking her questions!)

and it turns out that meiying, the director whom i thought omgshe'ssoyoungandshegetstoworkwiththeSRTandsuchbigactorswowiwanttobejustlikeherwhenigraduate!, was mercilessly bullied by the actors and they never took her notes seriously and just did the play any way they wanted. which i find very mean and very scary and how sad for her that her directing didn't come through the way she wanted it. i wonder what i would do if faced with such a situation, gee. i'd probably quit. i mean there's no point directing something if it doesn't turn out the way you wanted it and then still have to put your name there and say you've directed it and do a dialogue session after the show. is just awful. it just makes you think. this industry is very tough, it is. you've got to be tough! tough! tough! i will be a toughie! and apparently shabani azmi was the biggest diva around, demanding organic everything. and she doesn't take sugar because she doesn't want to get fat (not that she's diabetic even!) and she only takes a certain type of sweetener, only SPLENDA which singapore does NOT have, so they had to go to MALAYSIA to buy it. wow, that's kind of disgusting.

it's kind of sad because once i dislike actors it just ruins their acting for me, you know? i guess i make everything personal and it just all becomes marred after that. it's just how i am, or maybe i just need to grow up? i have a very hard time being objective sometimes i think. i know i'm incredibly idealistic. i often find myself wondering, 'why can't we all just get along?' i really do get upset when there isn't that harmony and peace. i mean, gee. let's just all get along, you know?! it's exasperating.

+ posted by M @ 9:42 PM

...	Saturday, May 13, 2006

today my sister cried very loudly and for a very long time because she was denied orange juice.

throughout this whole episode my brothers were reacting in the usual way that they do whenever she throws a tantrum. one has become able to shut it out, another frowns silently at the annoyance she's causing, the other tells her to keep quiet and the last one tries to calm her down. my father stares amusedly at her and keeps calling her name, my mother tries to explain it to her logically ('you can't have orange juice because it will cause phlegm') and everyone above 30 in the room were calling out familiar pacifying phrases, 'shhh, shhh, we'll get you apple juice instead okay?','don't cry, be a good girl now'.

and i just wondered, what does it feel like to be small? why does she cry over orange juice? why do children get so upset at getting denied something as simple as fruit juice that they resort to huge sobbing fits? and i realized, it never stops. at this very age i find myself getting frustrated or upset if i don't get the book/cd/jeans,etc i wanted, or if my mother is late in picking me up somewhere, or if my bread isn't toasted the way i like it. but i can't cry about it because it wouldn't be age-appropriate and it wouldn't be socially acceptable.

when you're a child, it's okay for you to cry and express your unhappiness with the world for depriving you of orange juice because no one really takes it seriously. none of us did, obviously. we didn't care that she really wanted orange juice. i was laughing for a bit and thinking, 'silly faith' and then life went on. i suppose my mother was the only one who bothered to explain to her why she could not have the orange juice. my mother often does this and i find myself asking her why she bothers, not realizing how much my sister really understands. there are a lot of times she surprises me. i wonder what she thinks of me and my brothers. being so small, she probably sees us as lumbering creatures who pause sometimes to ruffle her hair or pinch her cheeks - and that is all. does she understand that we love her because we pinch her cheeks and i braid her hair and tell her she is cute?

it's nice to know that dreams, wishes and desires exist from the moment you're born - even if they only exist in the form of orange juice.

sometimes i think the love of the family is so complex because it doesn't seem like (other) love. you can't choose in this case, not that love is a choice ... but you can't fall in love because you simply love from the start (at least that is all you know and remember). was there a point where i fell in love with my family? sometimes i fall in love with them again, but that was conscious and doesn't count. maybe when i was a baby my little being began to love my parents the moment i saw their faces and because they were the only ones i could love at that time (the only ones i would start to recognize after a while, the only ones constantly there when i awoke when i slept). so the first pangs of love start from recognition? i remember crying terribly as a child whenever they went away on trips and trying desperately to keep their voices alive on the phone line. the most dismal sound at that point of time for me was the hangup tone. i suppose when you're small you feel incredibly vulnerable when your parents go away and now i still do though not to that extent. so i guess i am still a child and i don't know if i will ever stop being one. is it childish to feel insecure when your parents aren't in the house?

and why do i love my brothers? this is different because they came after me and not before. the recognition idea doesn't work here. but maybe we just become accustomed to each others' presence day in and day out, we learn to love because we are taught that we have to, that we should love our siblings? can love be taught? maybe it is simply awakened in us. maybe we can love anyone if we're simply shown that we can (when you're young nothing is impossible). we barely exchange two words most of the time (i don't see them for days on end because i'm working) and we don't confide in each other and we don't share and sometimes i feel we don't really share any connection ... yet i love them, inexplicably. i know it's silly to try and explain these things but its one of the mysteries of the universe that will always befuddle me. why do we love the people that we love? and the answer is very simple, the answer is: we just do. which isn't much of an answer and yet is the best answer to the question and sometimes this really frustrates me that i can't get to the bottom of it! and i feel like a science-y person at these times like i'm trying so hard to break down walls and analyze things too much - but then, that's what art does too, isn't it? in a sense artists have their own eurekas and discoveries which never seem to be acknowledged. why is it that in the World News, headlines like 'Scientist Discovers X food Causes Cancer' are so frequent whereas things like 'Chekhov Discovers that Love is Our Natural State' is never published? does this discovery not concern the world at large? because it does! not everyone gets cancer - but everyone loves. statistically the odds are against the scientist headline. we set such peculiar and illogical standards for ourselves (what is headline-worthy and what is not).

and i suppose people will say that it's because the Chekhov headline is debatable whilst the Scientist thing is set in stone. why is it that scientific proof makes things less debatable? because anyone can refute love but not everyone can refute science without proper knowledge. isn't that sad?! LOVE HAS BEEN AROUND LONGER THAN CANCER OR AIDS OR ANY OTHER DISEASE! LOVE was there first, so why do people still question its existence?

i always confuse love and art because to me they always seem to be the same thing, and maybe they aren't but that's a lesson i have yet to learn.

sometimes i wonder if my brothers love me. i know they do (it's such a confusingly logical thing to know that your family loves you) but it's easy to forget and i like to keep tangible reminders for myself because without them i feel too much like a child (instead of the eldest sister i'm supposed to be).

*

today i watched my father sleep for awhile. i was supposed to wake him up but i hesitated and i don't know why. maybe i wanted to study his face - it was like looking into a mirror and becoming fascinated with your reflection. the small gape of his mouth as he slept, the stubby eyelashes and non-descript nose. how do i describe features that look like mine? i'm not sure of how they look individually (how do you imagine your father's face being taken apart?), but together they transposed themself into something a little too familiar. this familiarity carries a coat of responsibility, obligation and guilt with it which i keep telling myself i'll finally grow into when i'm older.

*

i'm very tired of myself. i seem to be totally incapable of writing anything. there are tons of ideas that i think could lead to poems but i just cannot turn my thoughts into poetry, cannot turn all the above into poetry, and i shouldn't be negative and all because it won't help matters but i'm only saying this to let you know that i am truly upset about this. maybe i'm not disciplined enough, i don't know but i will try because maybe i haven't been trying hard enough but again i don't know. i hate the words 'i don't know' because i use them so often i don't even know what they mean anymore (there, again).

+ posted by M @ 3:36 AM

...

i wish i remembered how it felt like falling in love with you. i don't think i remember that exact moment in which it happened and it feels like it was gradual but there are always exact moments where one falls in love (it's not a choice). i'd like to think our love was never ordinary, until i remember that love may be a lot of things but ordinary is never one of them.

*

so QP ends tomorrow and i will finally have a life (at least a semblance of it). despite my harsh critique of the script and the general unhappiness and uneasiness i've felt during the course of production at certain points, i have to say i don't dislike any of the people that i worked with. much as i got annoyed sometimes, i do like N the director, because i feel like i can relate to her. though she might have said unfair things about me and acted rather two-faced at times, i can't hate her because i feel for her inexplicably. i think she is an interesting person and i think she is talented but QP didn't show off enough of that because it was too self-indulgent and personal. there's so much more that she has and i know she has IT but it just isn't coming through with QP for me. so i don't hate her or anything, even though it might have sounded like it in the previous entry. i just don't think i'll be working with them again because they're rather disorganized and ... yeah.

the substation has been emailing me and i feel tempted to say 'yes' but i'm going to stick to my guns and i'm not going to because i need my own time. i really do.

+ posted by M @ 1:12 AM

...	Thursday, May 11, 2006

i wanted to rant about cake and QP but i've decided it's not worth it. i've been through worse times in drama under dio's charge, anyway. he's just about the worst director i can think of, so anything after him is really relatively easy to deal with.

there is a certain point i would like to acknowledge though, and that's the part where i overheard, 'melissa is not cut out for theatre'. at first i was really quite upset about that. i mean, what a thing to say. my whole future just dashed like that, i suppose. my self-confidence was obviously dealt a huge blow. but she's right, i'm not cut out for crewing. i know i'm not and i don't plan to make crewing a profession of mine either but i'm glad i'm experiencing it because i believe it will make me a better director having seen both sides of the coin. it's all about 'BAGGAGE!' like whitby used to say. as to whether i'm not cut out for 'theatre'? i'll decide about that. obviously i AM young and ignorant and inexperienced but i believe that in due time i'll write something a whole lot better than the QP script. it is, in my opinion, a highly self-indulgent piece of work that does not achieve it's purpose (what is its purpose? - the fact that it lacks this is very telling). my favourite part of that play isn't original (it's an extract from something by jamaica kincaid), so what does that say about the writing?

and as it is, it feels like a draft. things are being cut, changed, added, cut even at this stage. the whole first scene was cut. i mean bloody hell you may not think i know much and i'm just some young volunteer but i do read and i do enjoy theatre and i do think my opinion holds its weight sometimes and i really think that the dialogue in the first scene is essential to characterization. however if the actors and director who apparently know better think it's okay to cut it .. then, well. let's see how it goes but i really don't think that was wise at all.

i don't see how the characters are clearly drawn as well, seeing that the actors don't seem to remember the notes they're given and simply revert to playing them as they did the last time. as for any symbolism, biblical allusion or deeper meaning that i'm supposed to glean from it -- there seems to be nothing there except for the sudden bursts of self-indulgence. there doesn't seem to be any preset meaning to any of it at all, and they're just done on a whim or because of convenience.

look, i'm not saying there have to be rules to art. inspiration is spontaneous and incongruous sometimes. but there has to be some sort of conviction and i don't feel any sincerity or conviction coming from this play.

yes, that was the word i was looking for. conviction. the characters are flat because the actors themselves don't understand the characters they're to play. much as i think they're wonderful actors, i feel that the way they play their characters is very, very flat. the only character that seems a little more rounded is norlinaah's. and then the crew has no conviction since everyone's just sort of pissed off now (apart from not enjoying the play). even the director seems to lack conviction sometimes. so how? the audience can sense these things and i'm eager to see how they react.

i've decided it's like the emperor's new clothes. i was trying too hard to see beauty in this script when there isn't any. at first i thought it held a social message about sexuality and our nation's attitudes towards it. and that was the most credit i could give it and i've realized it doesn't even have such an intention because it is just highly personal. but the problem with writing a highly personal script is that it becomes self-indulgent and i don't know why i keep thinking of sylvia plath, but yes it becomes the sort of writing where only the author understands it (like many of plath's poems, we need to know her biography before they can be deciphered). and maybe you'll say i'm biased and maybe i am but i've been watching this thing for three weeks straight and to put it plainly - i just don't like it.

i hate it when i feel like my perceptive has become skewed and i can't trust my own judgement anymore, but that's what's happened as a result of trying too hard to like this script for the past three weeks.

+ posted by M @ 12:25 AM

...	Monday, May 08, 2006

for the first time this year i'm terribly terribly sick. almost as sick as when i was a day away from my a level math paper 2 exam.

i always fall sick before the most important events in my life. okay, not exactly most important, but events i need energy for. this week is going to be a trying week. QP starts its run on thursday night and cedele wants me in as well. so what am i to do? typically my job for QP should be easy - just ringing the bell during the play. but i'm pretty sure there are things to be shifted about. unfortunately i'm going to have to tell them i can't do it and anyway i'm not getting paid you know. i really am very ill and this is proven by the fact that i can't stand or walk for too long without feeling slightly faint. i have no idea how i'm going to brave the freezing wintry cold that is the esplanade theatre studio.

and i crazily (and perhaps stupidly) still dragged myself out to see The Candlestickmaker last night (BECAUSE TICKETS WERE EXPENSIVE! and i wasn't about to waste them, and also i was really looking forward to the show). it was worth it. it was worth walking around a bit lost at clarke quay and feeling very faint and praying continuously, 'God please don't let me faint now'. because it was brilliant. the performance, the script. i'm not doing any justice to it because i'm in no frame of mind to write now but it was beautiful. and after the show ended i felt slightly less ill because theatre is magic and theatre is life and ART IS THE CURE to all the sickness in the world! i want to watch Krishnan's Dairy very badly now.

so i'm sorry if i'm not replying anyone's messages or anything because really all i've been doing is sleeping and trying to recover enough to survive this week. i'll talk to you all again when i'm feeling better.

+ posted by M @ 5:53 PM

...	Wednesday, May 03, 2006

so today i went to get my iPod fixed after work. i think it's so bizarre how you have to queue up like you're at a clinic and explain your iPod's problem as though it's your child ('it, just kind of, died. it makes a strange whirring sound sometimes.'). i can't imagine having a child now. and at some point it went something like this:

guy: is this your iPod? or is it someone else's?
me: er, yes. why? (did he think i stole it?)
guy: oh. it's just that the songs don't seem to -looks at me again- suit you. you don't look like ...
me: sorry, what?
guy keeps quiet.

i think at that moment he felt like he was being inappropriate by saying such things or something but honestly i'd have liked him to continue because i wanted to ask, 'then what songs do i look like i listen to?' i wonder if all the apple staff spend their time scrolling through other peoples' iPod playlists. it must be quite interesting. i felt it was intrusive at first and was rather annoyed but then i realized that if i was working there i'd be doing the exact same thing. it's like you'll get to know something about that person that many others might not know (most of the people i meet aren't really aware of my taste in music) - meeting a silent, studious boy who listens to heavy metal or a middle-aged man who listens to backstreet boys. or something. i often think of it that way, that strangers sometimes find out these 'secrets' and carry it with them on to the bus, or on to the mrt and then back home. but then they forget, of course.

i got followed by some person doing a survey today. it never fails to amaze me how persistent they can be. i continued walking saying i was in a hurry (i really was. i wanted to have CURRY and RICE for dinner before i left for cake) and he walked with me and asked questions like, 'are you going to study in NTU or NUS? what course are you taking?' etc etc. finally i answered him because he walked with me to the point where WISMA STARTED so i said, 'i'm going to America' (all of this transpired in Chinese, of course). he asked 'where?'. i said 'chicago'. he pressed on, 'what course?'. i said 'drama, maybe'. and then he just kind of went, 'oh. ok, wish you all the best yah!' and left me alone.

i really kind of like it when that happens, and i don't know why. i remember the last time some guy was trying to offer me and jenny a job after we did a survey about jobs and i just said, 'i don't care what i do or how much i earn. i just want to be happy.' and jenny agreed. and then he didn't know what to say and kept insisting that we should try the job he was offering because it might possibly make us happy because we could earn a lot of money (which was basically a job like his) and i kept repeating, 'wo zi yao kai xin jiu ke yi. mei you qian ye ke yi.' in my broken chinese. after awhile he left us alone.

i think the next time i get harassed by these survey people i'm going to tell them i'm going to study 'human sexuality' or something. now i just have to think of how to say that in chinese.

you know you really need to go shopping when your father tells you, 'um, i think you need to get some new clothes'.

+ posted by M @ 11:10 PM