http://www.movie2k.to/Curfew-watch-movie-2641717.html

There will be an answer

Greatest love song

I'm really glad you, rachel "pootard" tan liying, got me to climb those barriers. "But I'm wearing a skirt!" "Even better!"

Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. --- Luke 12:7

To keep from drifting apart, sea otters may sleep holding paws.

Life lessons from Russell Brand, My Booky Wook 2:


The nerdy set that would be providing my backdrop made me more nervous. Staring at it with impending dread, I reflected. Life is not a postcard of life, life is essential and about detail, minutiae and trivia. Tiny anxious pangs, heartburn and stubbed toes. "There's something in my eye. My mouth tastes funny. Have i chipped my tooth?" Titchy, Prufrock facts. Not a broad sweep of a Rothko brush, but pop art dots, like Liechtensteins...It was necessary then as now to ensconce myself in familiarity, estuary accents, working-class values, because after all, it's all just a bit of f-in' laugh, all this, innit> You don't wanna take life too seriously. If you don't laugh you'll f-in cry. I need that kind of attitude around me as I approach the stage, because within it's all Mozart's Requiem for Death and livid Francis Bacon pinks. I lay charred birds at Tiresias's feet as I stare down at the beast. I need ritual. Theatre was born of ritual, religion was born of ritual. If I should die think only this of me, "I thought it would be funny." The yips, the condition that afflicts darts players and golfers, is the inability to let go of the dart or to take the final putt. Darts players before throwing the dart see a line leading form the tip of their arrow to the treble twenty or the bullseye...The perfect visualisation of that line sometimes makes it difficult for them to relinquish the dart and I understand that. It's acknowledging the point at which you interface with reality. Most sports are reactive, interactive, a giddy blur of controlled chaos like football or boxing, you against a swirl of oppositional energy. But the dartboard is never going to come hurtling towards you and slap you round the chops, so unless you seduce it, unless you part the thighs of the oche and make that move, nothing's going to happen. Ritual is necessary to cope with that obligation.

*
From then on in I tried to focus on the fact that I was on the island to work, it wasn't about my neurosis. I struggle in these situations not to let my madness govern me and to let the positive aspects of my character define my life.

*
When you, or your mate, drive across the geometrically impossible expanse that is North America you become hypnotised, as the first pioneers must've been, by its endless possibilities. I met a cowboy near Dodge City who said, "There's only so much horizon people can take," meaning I suppose that some people find opportunity daunting, that limitless sky is frightening with all its scope for change and hope.

I don't know, I don't know

Sometimes I think about huixian and remember how she put up with me in so many ways during lab classes. I was especially difficult during physics (not least because I felt that physics was being most difficult with me) when I would proclaim that I didn't know how to connect the ammeters and that I will never learn how to, despite her protests that it was simply (and here because of my stubbornness in blocking it out I cannot remember what exactly it was, but let's just say) red to black to red. My true blue asininity was displayed during bio as well, when on one occasion I insisted on using the marbles not for the experiment but instead for juggling into the ceiling fan whereupon they would ricochet back towards us at a v high enough I think to crack our skulls.

And all I can remember of her is that throughout all this childish bullshit, she was looking at me with mild amusement.

Robert Herrick

To the Virgins, to make much of Time

GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he 's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he 's to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

Oldie Goodie

Metric with Shingz <3

Bless

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZkrU4KbPbY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

LIES!

What I found while spring cleaning: a joke in 25 years' time!

Zhi Xuan on CS Lewis on Christian Charity:

But though natural likings should normally be encouraged, it would be quite wrong to think that the way to become charitable is to sit trying to manufacture affectionate feelings. Some people are 'cold' by temperament; that may be a misfortune for them, but it is no more a sin than having a bad digestion is a sin; and it does not cut them out from the chance, or excuse them from the duty, of learning charity. The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less. There is, indeed, one exception. If you do him a good turn, not to please God and obey the law of charity, but to show him what a fine forgiving chap you are, and to put him in your debt, and then sit down to wait for his 'gratitude', you will probably be disappointed. (People are not fools: they have a very quick eye for anything like showing off, or patronage.) But whenever we do good to another self, just because it is a self, made (like us) by God, and desiring its own happiness as we desire ours, we shall have learned to love it a little more or, at least, to dislike it less.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY4IBVolt2w&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Things I love

I. Wj

II. Elephants in general and Quincey, so Good he is bullied, in particular.

III. Jonathan Franzen

“Depression presents itself as a realism regarding the rottenness of the world in general and the rottenness of your life in particular. But the realism is merely a mask for depression's actual essence, which is an overwhelming estrangement from humanity. The more persuaded you are of your unique access to the rottenness, the more afraid you become of engaging with the world; and the less you engage with the world, the more perfidiously happy-faced the rest of humanity seems for continuing to engage with it.”

“This wasn't the person he'd thought he was, or would have chosen to be if he'd been free to choose, but there was something comforting and liberating about being an actual definite someone, rather than a collection of contradictory potential someones.”

“I find it a huge strain to be responsible for my tastes and be known and defined by them.”

And on that note...

IV. The Click Five :p

Be kind to one another.

*

Tu Tu Kueh. TTK TTK TTK TTK TTK.

*



If you must drive, drive safe!

*

Draft from 5/7/11:

When she woke up crying from one of her nightmares, the Kolker would stay with her, brush her hair with his hands, collect her tears in thimbles for her to drink the next morning (The only way to overcome sadness is to consume it, he said), and more than that: once her eyes closed and she fell back sleep, he was left to bear the insomnia. There was a complete transfer, like a speeding billiard ball colliding with a resting one. Should Brod feel depressed - she was always depressed - the Kolker would sit with her until he could convince her that it's OK. It is. Really. And when she would move on with her day, he would stay behind, paralyzed with a grief he coulldn't name and that wasn't his.

*

He felt no pain, they told her. He felt nothing, really . Which made her cry more, and harder. Death is the only thing in life that you absolutely have to be aware as it's happening.

*

But he also knew that there is an inflationary aspect to love, and that should his mother, or Rose, or any of those who loved him find out about each other, they would not be able to help but feel of lesser value. He knew that I love you also means I love you more than anyone loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that no one loves you or has loved you, or will love you , and also, I love you in a way that I love no one else, and never have loved anyone else, and never will love anyone else. He knew that it is, by love's definition, impossible to love two people.

*

THE PROBLEM OF EVIL: WHY UNCONDITIONALLY BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO UNCONDITIONALLY GOOD PEOPLE.
They never do.

*

The more you love someone, he came to think, the harder it is to tell them. it surprised him that strangers didn't stop each other on the street to say I love you.

*
The house that your great-great-great-grandmother and I moved into when we first became married looked out onto the small falls, at the end of the Jewish/Human fault line. It had wood floors, long windows, and enough room for a large family. It was a handsome house. A good house.

But the water, your great-great-great-grandmother said, I can't hear myself think.

Time, I urged her. Give it time.

And let me tell you, while the house was unreasonably humid, and the front lawn perpetual mud from the spray, while the walls needed to be repapered every six months, and chips of paint fell from the ceiling like snow for all seasons, what they say about people who live next to waterfalls is true.

What, my grandfather asked, do they say?

They say that people who live next to waterfalls don't hear the water.

They say that?

They do. Of course, your great-great-great-grandmother was right. It was terrible at first. We couldn't stand to be in the house for more than a few hours at a time. The first two weeks were filled with nights of intermittent sleep and quarreling for the sake of being heard over the water. We fought so much just to remind ourselves that we were in love, and not in hate.

But the next weeks were a little better. It was possible to sleep a few good hours each night and eat in only mild discomfort. Your great-great-great-grandmother still cursed the water (whose personfication had become anatomically refined), but less frequently, and with less fury. Her attacks on me also quieted. It's your fault, she would say. You wanted to live here.

Life continued, as life continues, and time passed, as time passes, and after a little more than two months: Do you hear that? I asked her on one of the rare mornings we sat at the table together. Hear it? I put down my coffee and rose from my chair. You hear that thing?

What thing? she asked.

Exactly! I said, running outside to pump my fist at the waterfall. Exactly!

We danced, throwing handfuls of water in the air, hearing nothing at all. We alternated hugs of forgiveness and shouts of human triumph at the water. Who wins the day? Who wins the day, waterfall? We do! We do!

And this is what living next to a waterfall is like, Safran. Every widow wakes one morning, perhaps after years of pure and unwavering grieving, to realize she slept a good night's sleep, and will be able to eat breakfast, and doesn't hear her husband's ghost all the time, but only some of the time Her grief is replaced with a useful sadness. Every parent who loses a child finds a way to laugh again. The timbre begins to fade. The edge dulls. The hurt lessens. Every love is carved from loss. Mine was. Yours is. Your great-great-great-grandchildren's will be. But we learn to live in that love.

*

Everything is Illuminated: by Jonathan Safran Foer

You and I got something but it's all and then it's nothing to me.
YEAH.

Gun to my head, favouritest song in the world.



Candle on my cake, courage for the week that lies ahead.

http://youtu.be/tFmt2Y3nNDk

I like you by Sandol Stoddard

I like you
And I know why
I like you because
You are a good person
To like
I like you because
When I tell you something special
You know it’s special
And you remember it
A long long time
You say
Remember when you told me
Something special
And both of us remember
When I think something is important
You think it’s important too
When I say something funny
You laugh
I think I’m funny and
You think I’m funny too
I like you because
You know where I’m ticklish
And you don’t tickle me there
except
Just a little tiny bit
sometimes
But if you do then I know where to tickle you too
You know how to be silly
That’s why I like you
Boy are you ever silly
I never met anybody sillier than me
till I met you
I like you because
You know when it’s time to stop being silly
Maybe day after tomorrow
Maybe never
Oops too late
It’s quarter post silly
We fool around the same way all the time
Sometimes we don’t say a word
We snurkle under fences
We spy secret places
If I am a goofus on the roofus
Hollering my head off
You are one too
If I pretend I am drowning
You pretend you are saving me
If I am getting ready to pop a paper bag
Then you are getting to jump
That’s because
You really like me
You really like me
Don’t you
And I really like you back
And you like me back
And I like you back
And that’s the way we keep on going
Every day
If you go away
then I go away too
Or if I stay home
You send me a postcard
You don’t just say
Well see you around
Some time
Bye
I like you a lot
because of that
If I go away
I send you a postcard too
And I like you because
If we go away together
And if we are in Grand Central Station
And if I get lost
then you are the one that is yelling for me
Hey where are you
Here I am
And I like you because
When I am feeling sad
You don’t always cheer me up right away
Sometimes it is better to be sad
You can’t stand the others being so googly and gaggly
every single minute
You want to think about things
It takes time
I like you because if I am mad at you
Then you are mad at me too
It’s awful when the other person isn’t
They are so nice and hoo-hoo you could just about
punch them in the nose
I like you because if I think I am going to
throw up then you are really sorry
You don’t just pretend you are busy looking at
the birdies and all that
You say maybe it was something you ate
You say same thing happened to me one time
And the same thing did
If you find two four-leaf clovers
You give me one
If I find four
I give you two
If we only find three
We keep on looking
Sometimes we have good luck
And sometimes we don’t
If I break my arm and
If you break your arm too
Then it is fun to have a broken arm
I tell you about mine
You tell me about yours
We are both sorry
We write our names and draw pictures
We show everybody and they wish they had a broken arm too
I like you because
I don’t know why but
Everything that happens
Is nicer with you
I can’t remember when I didn’t like you
It must have been lonesome then
I like you because because
I forget why I like you
But I do
So many reasons
On the Fourth of July I like you because
It’s the Fourth of July
On the Fifth of July
I like you too
If you and I had some drums
And some horns and some horses
If we had some hats and some
Flags and some fire-engines
We could be a HOLIDAY
We could be a CELEBRATION
We could be a WHOLE PARADE
See what I mean?
Even if it was the
nine-hundred-and-ninety-ninth of July
Even if it was August
Even if it was way down at the bottom of November
Even if it was no place particular in January
I would go on choosing you
And you would go on choosing me
Over and over again
That’s how it would happen every time
I don’t know why
I guess I don’t know why I like you really
Why do I like you
I guess I just like you
I guess I just like you
Because I like you



I do not think that a song happier than this one exists :):)



He builds a rocket to fly to Tokyo :O! What's not to love?

Found this little drama boy while channel surfing.


Awesome first line.

"let's go off my love, run off into a large city, just the two of us. we'll live in a flat together, go to weekend markets, listen to gigs sitting down among the standing crowd, explore the world, meet a curly-haired musician at the corner of the street, walk hand in hand in the sunset, take pictures year after year of us smiling brilliantly together, run around in the snow - probably with me having to lend you clothes. you're amazing you know that? everything makes sense.. you to me, me to you. and the world to us. i wish it was now 2014. i wanna run away with you now."

It's a date <3 :)

By the way, I'm so glad we didn't consider ourselves too old for this madness:







*

I don't hear music anymore, my ears are tired of all the pictures in the words cause you are in them, still.

He's so incredibly musical.


Emokid88. Still don't know why this song's titled "With Me".




Hee hee :)

I: THANK YOUG, THANK YOUf, THANK YOUf! :)

II: May my taste in music remain impeccable forevermore.

Warm up questions
Let down
Last chicken pie
SETtlers
We won We won!
Asian mermaid/Besos

x

Please please please let me get all these things right!

So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.

There is a feeling that I had Friday night after the homecoming game that I don't know if I will ever be able to describe except to say that it is warm. Sam and Patrick drove me to the party that night, and I sat in the middle of Sam's pickup truck. Sam loves her pickup truck because i think it reminds her of her dad. The feeling i had happened when Sam told Parick to find a station on the radio. And he kept getting commercials. And commercials. And a really bad song about love that had the word "baby" in it. And then more commercials. And finally he found this really amazing song about this boy, and we all go quiet. Sam tapped her hand on the steering wheel. Patrick held his hand outside the car and made air waves. And I just sat between them. After the song finished, I said something. "I feel infinite." And Sam and Patrick looked at me like I said the greatest thing they ever heard. Because the song was that great and because we all really paid attention to it. Five minutes of a lifetime were truly spent, and we felt young in a good way. I have since bought the record, and I would tell you what it was, but truthfully, it's not the same unless you're driving to your first real party, and you're sitting in the middle seat of a pickup with two nice people when it starts to rain.

Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines
he wrote a poem
And he called it "Chops"
because that was the name of his dog
And that's what it was all about
And his teacher gave him an A
and a gold star
And his mother hung it on the kitchen door
and read it to his aunts
That was the year that Father Tracy
took all the kids to the zoo
And he let them sing on the bus
And his little sister was born
with tiny toenails and no hair
And his mother and father kissed a lot
And the girl around the corner sent him a
valentine signed with a row of X's
and he had to ask his father what the X's meant
And his father always tucked him in bed at night
And was always there to do it

Once on a piece of white paper with blue lines
he wrote a poem
And he called it "Autumn"
because that was the name of the season
And that's what it was all about
And his teacher gave him an A
and asked him to write more clearly
And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
because of its new paint
And the kids told him
that Father Tracy smoked cigars
And left butts on the pews
And sometimes they would burn holes
That was the year his sister got glasses
with thick lenses and black frames
And the girl around the corner laughed
when he asked her to go see Santa Claus
And the kids told him why
his mother and father kissed a lot
And his father never tucked him in bed at night
And his father got mad
when he cried for him to do it.

Once on a paper torn from his notebook
he wrote a poem
And he called it "Innocence: A Question"
because that was the question about his girl
And that's what it was all about
And his professor gave him an A
and a strange steady look
And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
because he never showed her
That was the year that Father Tracy died
And he forgot how the end
of the Apostle's Creed went
And he caught his sister making out on the back porch
And his mother and father never kissed
or even talked
And the girl around the corner
wore too much makeup
That made him cough when he kissed her
but he kissed her anyway
because that was the thing to do
And at three A.M. he tucked himself into bed
his father snoring soundly

That's why on the back of a brown paper bag
he tried another poem
And he called it "Absolutely Nothing"
Because that's what it was really all about
And he gave himself an A
and a slash on each damned wrist
And he hung it on the bathroom door
because this time he didn't think
he could reach the kitchen.

I guess what I'm saying is that this all feels very familiar. But it's not mine to be familiar about. I just know that another kid has felt this. This one time when it's peaceful outside, and you're seeing things move, and you don't want to, and everyone is aleep. And all the books you've read have been read by other people. And all the songs you've loved have been heard by other people. And that girl that's pretty to you is pretty to other people. And you know that if you looked at these facts when you were happy, you would feel great because you are describing "unity." It's like when you are excited about a girl and you see a couple holding hands, and you feel so happy for them. And other times you see the same couple, and they make you so mad. And all you want is to always feel happy for them because you know that if you do, then it means that you're happy too.

The perks of being aa wallflower - Stephen Chbosky.

TFTM <3

LIGHT UP LIGHT UP!

:) <3

Fighting (the lethal kind) classes in July! Nevah again MOO HA HA HA!

77 times

FORTITUDE!

I do so love boy bands. And geeks.

That is all.

Hi, does anyone need help? Email me - yiming_pigleedoo@hotmail.com. I promise to reply.

Oh Michael. Oh Chris.

Suspend your disbelief!

There were dance marathons during the Great Depression.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQOIJDE3RhA

We are the ever-living ghost of what once was

That may be all I need.

Every morning is Sunday Morning! :D Love this kickass goodfeel version!



Mappy mirthday monkey :)

Oh it's the best thing that you ever had,
The best thing that you ever, ever had.
It's the best thing that you ever had,
The best thing you ever had has gone away.

So I woke up today with these lines in my head and I knew then that the dream I had just exited looked a little like this:













Alright that is my last word here on the Fer saga. I shall continue being hopelessly silly and sentimental in private.

How many special people change? How many lives are living strange?

I live for days like this. :) It is difficult to feel jaded when you know that the best days are better than you could ever imagine.

Where I go to find you



This song is everything.

What's with the angel
and what's with the devil
They keep swapping shoulders
I can't tell which from which
"Will you be my Kris Kindle?
Will you be my better nature?"
says one to the other
But I think they're only showing off

I caught them playing poker
and I think it was the devil who said
"I'll see your heart
and I'll raise you mine"

Yeah they keep swapping shoulders
I think there's something going on
"Will you be my sweet pea?
Will you be the card up my sleeve?"
says one to the other
and this time they hold their gaze
for too long

And now they're playing poker
This time it's the angel who says
"I'll see your heart
and I'll raise you mine"

This is the story of the angel
who played poker with the devil
in the Garden of Eden
before it all went pear shaped

They said
"I'll see your heart
and I'll raise you mine"

I'll See Your heart And Raise You Mine: Bell X1.



Hey, "Happy Songs" ∩s with "Songs I Like" after all! It is good to know that Lisa Hannigan has not spent so much time with Damien Rice that she has forgotten how to smile. "Your lips come as some surprise, that they would want to come and meet mine." Lazy to type out the rest but you get the idea, it's a bundle of very cute stuff :)


David Kaplan, Orion over Lauerzersee, Switzerland.

I know where I want to go next, outer space! I am just waiting waiting waiting for my rocket to land.

Alright the truth is I am bitter, it is difficult not to be. No matter how logical this outcome is (a reluctant player forced to stay is not an ideal situation for the player or the club), no matter how many barnacles of cynicism have attached themselves on me over the past few years (everyone can be bought), no matter how this is far from something new (players come and go, that is football), I still want to shake him and yell, what of being a Liverpool fan from childhood, what of the YNWA captain's armband at Atletico, what of the unsolicited promise given to all the fans right from the start ("I'll never play for another club")? PFFFT. And the additional, gratuitous parting shot (I am finally playing for a top club) was so uncool. Why does this feel like a bad break up made worse by the prospect of your ex parading with his new UGLY girlfriendS every weekend across your tv screen for 2 hours? Rage. Need... beautiful... things... now.
I still hope you get everything you wanted out of this transfer <3

This will do.



I don't fully get the electronica half of The Postal Service, so here is the indie half. As is usual with B.G., lyrics are !!! and must be honoured in full here.

I am thinking it's a sign that the freckles in our eyes are mirror images and when we kiss they're perfectly aligned. I have to speculate that God himself did make us into corresponding shapes like puzzle pieces from the clay. True, it may seem like a stretch, but it's thoughts like this that catch my troubled head when you're away, when I am missing you to death. When you are out there on the road for several weeks of shows and when you scan the radio, I hope this song will guide you home. // They will see us waving from such great heights, "come down now," they'll say. But everything looks perfect from far away. "Come down now," but we'll stay. // I tried my best to leave this all on your machine but the persistent beep it sounded thin upon listening. That frankly will not fly. You will hear the shrillest highs and lowest lows with the windows down when this is guiding you home. Such great heights: The Postal Service.

No matter how inevitable it is, no matter how long you've had to prep yourself, goodbye always hurts some. All the best freckles. Off to drown in S Club.

"On the count of 2..."

Overworked PUB intern might have confused Prozac with fluoride, for THERE ARE SOME SERIOUS DRUGS IN MY WATER. :D is inadequate, :!!! more like! Ecstasy overload, coherence nil.

In short, here are all my teeth and absolutely none of my chinese eyes.

Smooth lounge dances out.

www.kiva.com

Let it be known to my old self that stumbles on these entries (if blogger doesn't do a diary-x on me) that yesterday was pretty damn close to perfect. I would be hard pressed to find people that get me like you guys do. It hit me while I was bathing - wasn't Eureka also born out of a bath? - that you all have spoilt me for other people. With scrw, I needn't finish my sentence, I needn't start it, hell sometimes I don't even need to think it. In comparison, being with others just requires too much work, what with the explaining and background and introduction. But I try because someone reminded me I am not an island.

It has been an extraordinarily long time since I've been to Melbourne, but the powers that be have flown Laneway Festival to Singapore, to me. Someone powerful and rich and important must love me! Can't believe I get to see THIS unfolding before my very eyes in my lifetime! :D

Sometimes it feels like it was yesterday and sometimes it feels like someone else’s memory.



The sweet things - when do they come?

Turn up the volume,



and then Go.

MMMM :)

Sometimes with tears, sometimes with smiles, and sometimes with intermingled smiles and tears (Nathanie Hawthorne to Sophia Peabody)

Serious resolution: Be better!, that is to say be loving, kind, understanding, giving, spirited, courageous, patient, an accurate judge, hungry, passionate, playful, curious, romantic, a clean and strong fighter, clear-headed, precise, healing, peaceful, quiet, friendly, natural, gracious, generous, intelligent, beautiful, joyful. Somewhat in that order (aye so much for precision).

I want to always be there for all of you.

Just for laughs resolution: Be a (melody) composer-pianist in a rock band which has enough of a following to sell out small clubs. Or a professional fighter.

HAPPY NEW YEAR SWEETIES :)

Someday soon we all will be together

Home for good :)

1) Songs

a) Center of Attention: Jackson Waters (bonus track version)


b) At This Moment: Michael Buble


2) Videos

From our SYTYCD marathon:
a) Recipe for alphabet soup
1x Kent (alternatively mix 0.5x Fabian Hambuechen with 0.5x Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in very large bowl) <3
1x Neil <3<3
1x Travis <3<3<3
Kent + Neil + Travis = I cannot even begin to.. OJFIAESOGJOIGJ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-BcpJ-9a40

b) Nobody can resist What is 'technique'? I am just going to do my own thang Ivan and sweet Allison. This song has such a delicious beat, I am surprised they don't use it more often.


c) Bench dance forever. Travis forever and then more.


From Conan, demi-god if you will:





3) A few words
Merry Christmas sweethearts. Right now I bid your computer grow arms and give you the tightest squeeze you can manage without suffocating <3 :)

Aaand yeah I think that maketh a blog post around here. To a delightful year ahead :D

The inventors of harmony in parallel thirds.



Ok fly by!

You now have enough of me to last 6 days.

THE FRIENDS ARE HOMEWARD-BOUND! LET REAL LIFE BEGIN! :D (Guys, seriously, long distance smsing me to brag while Bono is blowing your minds? Not classy.)

I must share with you a most useful thing I learned in London: the humble thumbs-up. It's infinitely versatile - you can use it in, really, any situation. In particular, when you don't have an answer or don't want to come up with one, it's the perfect response no one can argue with. It doesn't really mean anything, yet somehow everyone walks away happy. All in a day, I thumbs-upped the Citibank credit card promoter, I thumbs-upped the stubborn old shaky-legged lady in the bus, and I thumbs-upped my but-her-heart-is-in-the-right-place corporate governance professor. Holla, use the THUMBS-UP today.


Now when I hear this song, all I want to do is... (well, you can't really say anything online anymore) eat a himym sandwich. Damn you Home at the End of the World and all your bad influence.

dive for dreams
or a slogan may topple you
(trees are their roots
and wind is wind)
trust your heart
if the seas catch fire
(and live by love
though the stars walk backward)
honour the past
but welcome the future
(and dance your death
away at the wedding)
never mind a world
with its villains or heroes
(for good likes girls
and tomorrow and the earth)
in spite of everything
which breathes and moves, since Doom
(with white longest hands
neating each crease)
will smooth entirely our minds
-before leaving my room
i turn, and (stooping
through the morning) kiss
this pillow, dear
where our heads lived and were.

- dive for dreams, by (you know it) edward estlin cummings.

The mood is good, the weather is a hug and the air is the stuff of magic. I'm feeling like a Hawaiian dance to this song at a luau with Ronel Trias :D

You know your priorities are in the right place when you wake up on the morning of your exam and your first and pretty much only thought is: El Clasico! Wait for me Barcelona, imma be back, and this time I'm not going to watch the match from a tv in a restaurant.

I watched home at the end of the world, like you wanted me to. I know, two and a half years after you wanted me to. But now I know why. It's lovely, Michael Cunningham always is. As are you, ilu like in secondary school.

Distract me.

For blue-hoo skies



Hunny,
How's your halo?
Just between you and I,
You and me and the satellites.

Help!

Thanks friends, for continuously tempting me to go out and play. No, really I mean it. I'm happy even if it means I have to sleep a little past my bedtime at 12 or 1. I'll just treat it as practice for practice :)

And Cesc Fabregas is not hot. GOT STAMPS IN YOUR EYES IS IT? Oh how I love primary school boys insults.

DUM DADA DUM DADUM (= Well done, you have just delivered a major ass whooping to your brother's Snake high score / Your pie is mindblowing)! :DDD

I WANT PIE!

There will be one day a month where I will feel really sad and I guess today's it. But I can handle that because all my :(s are peanuts and my :)s elephants. Right now I just need to wait while my good elephants chomp on my peanuts.

My friends are unbelievably lovely and talented. Every day they make me want to be better. This is why you must choose very carefully who you spend your time with.

(1) Watchy, my friend made this! The song is peaches/pêches ;)



(2) Putting his tips to use, this is Alfian Sa'at, my BFF. He does not spell my name 'Ee Meng'. He is beautiful.

Some Useful Tips For Writing Your Secondary One Composition, by Alfian.

Don’t write zephyr when you mean wind. Don’t write fart when you mean break wind. Don’t write azure to describe the sky or the sea. Don’t write menacing to describe clouds or guard dogs. Don’t write plethora when you mean many. Don’t write altercation when you mean fight. Don’t write quixotic when you mean brave.


Don’ t use your finger to try achieving equal spacing between your words. Don’t be demoralized by the hidden word fool in foolscap paper. Don’t use more than three dots when you want to write your ellipses, it doesn’t mean that the more dots there are the more mysterious your sentence, nor does it mean that each dot is equivalent to the root of every hair follicle you expect to incite to horripilation. Don’t write horripilation when you mean standing on end.



Don’t make your ellipses rise and fall like the flight path of a butterfly. Don’t use three apostrophes as a quotation mark even if what is said was told by a friend of a friend. Don’t forget to use commas even if you have set the class record for holding your breath underwater.



Don’t write Suddenly at the beginning of your sentences when you want to introduce one surprise after another. Don’t write the full moon/the creaking door/the cobwebbed room/his bloodshot eyes/her cackling laugh in your horror story. Don’t write horror stories.



Don’t end with I woke up and it was all a dream. Don’t end with lying in a pool of blood your eyes growing heavy footsteps fading, which is the same thing.



Don’t write sleepy when you mean tuition. Don’t write fear when you mean forgetting to bring your PE attire to school. Don’t write jealous when you mean mummy has brought home a new baby. Don’t write longing when you mean daddy has not come home from work and you are counting the cars in the car park from the window. Don’t write loss when you mean the smell of the batik hammock stretched between mummy’s knees. Don’t write shame when you mean daddy heading straight for the bargain bin when he buys you your first pair of track shoes. Don’t write loneliness when you mean the woolly crayon scrawling in an alphabet book you once owned.



Don’t write about the saddest day of your life, unless you are able to dapple your sheet of paper with tearstains, as proof.



Don’t write about the happiest day of your life, even if this is the assigned topic, because it is possible that the experience exceeds language, your language. Don’t believe those who say write what you know, the more important thing now is to write what you have, so choose a day when you were moderately, not indescribably, happy.



Don’t assume however that your life means only the one that others have witnessed, and not the lives you have lived in your head. Don’t hesitate then to write about the hundred-balloon birthday party/the beach picnic where you swam to the horizon and touched it and swam back/the suicidal goldfish revived by water/the first prize, although it would be more convincing to the marker to say second prize, because there might be one more deserving of being first, but you are no less deserving of the happiness you feel by coming in second.



Don’t keep choosing to write the argumentative essay, again and again, unless you are certain that one day you will write fiction and find your freedom ignoring the tips above, again and again.

To those with exams


To those shivering in the winter cold


To those who have trouble finding sleep


The Sandman brings good dreams by sprinkling magical sand onto the eyes of children while they sleep at night. (1) I know what you're thinking but his sand is magic so it does not hurt. (2) He is real. (3) We are children.

To those watching U2 in Australia and Lifehouse and Maroon 5 in London,

HATE YALL.

Joking laaa, love yall a bit less. :)

O Happy Day!

(1) My favourite person in the whole wide world was born today! HAPPY TWENTIETH JACKY BOY! And not far down the list, Paul Scholes! Yes Boon, he is indeed THE MAN. He still is.

(2)Rachel got her ticket to Seoul, doubling -nay- infiniting/infinitivising my year-end fun! It's been far too long :D

(3) Singtel: Dear customer, your free Connecting Tone will end automatically by 21 Nov 10. Aand all my long-suffering friends organise a party (une fete, e with a party hat ^!) to celebrate the expiration of my unwelcome freebie. Now they need only suffer mine not answering the phone to the tune of 'bring-bring'!

(4) IP law has been good to me. The judges, my my, what witticisms they produce - "An example of a mark that is incapable of distinguishing is 'SOAP' for soap. The bar (pun not intended) is factual, not legal". Oh yes it was intended you cheeky judge you. It also comes easily to me. Isn't it obvious that the only and simplest way of reconciling Arsenal Football Club v Reed with Irvine v Talksport Ltd is this: Justice Laddie is plainly a Man U fan. End of legal analysis.

Pray tell, what did I do to deserve this? Because I will do it again and again :))))) Triple cartwheel with split in the air! Yibeeedeeebeeedooo I am happy like fat kid with cake!

Or like Nando with ball!

El niño para siempre, don't you ever turn el hombre on me <3

Ok going to roast in contentment, bai!

LOLLIES!

(1) In Linkin Park LLC Trade Mark Application, the applicant (no prizes for guessing) FAILED. You think? You know the joker boys you knew in primary school, secondary school and jc? Well some don't ever grow up.

(2) Skrtel admits his girlfriend is still finding it hard to distinguish between him and Liverpool's many other bald players during matches"!

(3)
The moves! I know not what to say! I shall just insert exclamation mark --> ! Ah Katy Perry, you got this one right, these were without a doubt the most fun things ever :D Wj's going to marry someone who sings Ray LaMontagne to her (oops I let the secret out). I am going to marry someone who sings Teenage Dream to me. Aiya jk la.. I think.

Thank you for coming back into my life :) This is a kiddy version of RHCP's 'Dosed', but no less amazing.

Dear French

I like you and all but I am so flipping glad that I finally get rid of you tomorrow.

Love, Moi.

Exams this year are a terrible torture! To hell with a broad-based education and taking cooler non-law modules if that means having exams over one and a half months. You heard me right. Be warned, don't touch if you can't handle!

Anyway, in case you don't know, I love you! Unless I don't know who you are, then you can ask me, but it's fairly safe to presume that I do. I love human beings. They are so lovely.

"Confidence was never a problem" <3

I dedicate tonight to Oasis because there shouldn't be a need for any reason at all to pay tribute to the second best band ever. Ever.



I am obsessed with this song, almost as much as I am with Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah. Now that I've heard every existing version of the latter, I am on a major Don't Look Back in Anger hunt. Isn't everything about this song just perfect? I wonder if the lyrics which I did not scrawl on my RJ classroom wall are still there. Feel free to join in at the chorus? Haha who is he kidding? But then again, NOEL ONLY GAVE YOU LICENCE TO OPEN YOUR MOUTHS AT THE CHORUS, HOW DARE YOU DEFY HIM, CROWD!

If you put a gun to my head I will say that Noel is my favourite. He is the musician, he is John Lennon. In the video he shows more emotion in the duration of one song than some people will experience all their lives. Liam merely sings, which is to making music as running is to swimming, as freestyle is to breakstroke, as Brendan Hansen's breastroke is to Kosuke Kitajim's breastroke. And he was the better singer only at the start; even that went downhill after Patsy Kensit apparently took, together with his heart, his voice. This is my favourite video to cite as proof of that.



I half wish they would take this video (and all those with Liam singing in 2002) down because it is why I will always be 0.001% embarrassed to say that I am an Oasis fan. With this out of the way, I will declare more freely and loudly. Anyway listen to how strong Noel's vocals are (Don't BE scared/I'm NOT scared!), especially in comparison with those of his brother, Kermit. It's such a pity really, because Stop Crying Your Heart Out is MINDBLOWING.

This next one is hilarious. Noel is SUPERMAN ok, to have been able to survive the multiple grievous wounds inflicted on him by Liam's eyes for the entire first minute! Apparently Noel had just chided Liam before they went on stage: "Did you ever see the Beatles wear shorts to perform"? Liam's response: DIE DIE DIE.



Oh my heart is already very fond, so it is high time you guys return from your temporary state of disbandment.

Don’t work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone.

When did we first encounter this? I loved it then and I love it more now because, amongst other obvious reasons, I have a very stinky memory. Never take it personally if I fail to remember you or a moment we shared. Even if I love you like I love this passage, every day father time appropriates from me, and eventually I lose even that which I hold the dearest.

I must re-read this often and check on my progress. For now: I work less and less, I avoid telling the truth very often but because I close to never lie, everyone knows that, which helps with the third, and every day I look for someone to love. (Re)Enjoy! :)

---
Written by Adrian Tan, author of The Teenage Textbook (1988), was the guest-of-honour at a recent NTU convocation ceremony. This was his speech to the graduating class of 2008.

I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address. It’s a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband.

My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practising at home during conversations between her and me.

On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being disagreeable.

Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.

And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you’ve already won her heart, you don’t need to win every argument.

Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will be married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you.

The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You’re done learning.

You’ve probably been told the big lie that “Learning is a lifelong process” and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters’ degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on. You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don’t you think there is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to be repeat customers.

The good news is that they’re wrong.

The bad news is that you don’t need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone. That may come as a shock to some of you. You’re in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life expectancy.

I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people. But I’m here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life.

You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind Andorra and Japan, and tied with San Marino. It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long. We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless. There’s very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup. Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and restful nap.

Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom.

So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you’ll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.

Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they’re 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn’t meet their life expectancy.

I’m here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.

After all, it’s calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average.

Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.

That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.

If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don’t need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.

What you should prepare for is mess. Life’s a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate.

Don’t expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.

What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over.

Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.

The most important is this: do not work.

Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.

Work kills. The Japanese have a term “Karoshi”, which means death from overwork. That’s the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there’s nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust.

There’s a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are “making a living”. No, they’re not. They’re dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.

People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan “Arbeit macht frei” was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.

Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.

Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.

I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn’t do that, I would’ve been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction – probably a sports journalist.

So what should you do? You will find your own niche. I don’t imagine you will need to look very hard. By this time in your life, you will have a very good idea of what you will want to do. In fact, I’ll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions. By this time you should know what your obsessions are. If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher.

Find that pursuit that will energise you, consume you, become an obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If you don’t, you are working.

Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication. To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth. I’m not asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when it is dangerous or impossible to do those things. The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence.

In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror.

I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truth. I now say this to you: be hated.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.

One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it’s often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one’s own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.

The other side of the coin is this: fall in love.

I didn’t say “be loved”. That requires too much compromise. If one changes one’s looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone.

Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We’ve taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable.

Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the truth worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul.

Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love doesn’t happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.

You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.

You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you.

Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don’t, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.