Verkur

Cold but not that deep

2012-03-02T06:16:00.000-08:00

chocolate-coated strawberry wrapped with butterscotch bread. very sweet.

unbearable lightness of being. 3 hours.

the sun starts to set

favourite socks

LANEWAY 2012 | PART 2!

2012-02-28T06:59:00.000-08:00

TORO Y MOI

M83

Toro Y Moi isn't really my cup of tea. But they were realllyyy good live! And of course, M83 was the perfect conclusion to laneway fest 2012. All the way from Teen Angst to Asterick to Couleurs, every song was just an overflow of immense brilliance. The wait was worth it. I can still see the blinding lights when i close my eyes. They made my night, my month, my year.

LANEWAY 2012 | Part 1!

2012-02-25T19:44:00.000-08:00

Yuck!

Chairlift

Girls

The Pains of being pure at heart!

LAURA MARLING!

I teared up by the time she started playing Devil's Spoke. Her whole set felt so magical for me. Sigh, i sang along and kind of wished her set went on for about 3 times longer. :( So happy. so so so happy.

First half of my Laneway photos! Not fantastic of course. I kind of wish i didn't bring my camera around so i could completely immerse myself in the music. But i don't know how i'll handle through my post-laneway high without having these pictures to turn to.

My best shots are from Toro Y Moi! I'll be posting those + M83 next. Can't wait~

She Falls Asleep / Noise Singapore

2012-02-20T20:03:00.000-08:00

(& it's a wrap!)

Me & Illya (She Falls Asleep) performed at the open mic as part of the Noise Singapore showcase. It was at ION & these wonderful photos were taken by my very talented friend Jarratt Ong! (http://about.me/jarrattong) It's pretty nice to compare them with the photos he took of SFA's gig a few years back & see just how much he has improved. I would love to think that i have improved by such degrees as well.. but.. i don't know if i did.

Anyway, i have yet to edit/upload my Laneway photos. I haven't even taken a look at them! The past month has been pretty crazy. Work slapping me left, right, front and back. And center. At times i just wanted to drop everything and turn away from every face that called my name. But that would be irresponsible. Thankfully i got over myself and reminded myself that i have had worse days, much worse. Besides, if given the choice, i would choose this every time. So i'm still thankful.

If only our set went as beautifully as the pictures. Haha, but i will always enjoy performing alongside my best friend. No matter where this takes us, even if it takes us nowhere, to know that i have spent 6 years playing music with my best friend is enough, it will always be enough.

Giveth

2012-02-13T06:38:00.000-08:00

My final shots! Obscured will be featuring them tomorrow night

Giveth: B&W shots

2012-02-11T08:05:00.000-08:00

Did a photo shoot for local band Giveth in the afternoon. Obscured.sg will be featuring them on feb 14th! So i wanted to have some pictures to go along with the post. It was my first time shooting a band off the stage but it was okay. I'll post the proper photos soon, these are just behind-the-scene shots. It was pretty fun!

On another note.. Laneway Fest tomorrow! It still hasn't sunk in yet.. I can't believe i'm going to see Laura Marling live. Yes i love Feist, M83, Pains, The Drums, Chairlift but it's Laura Marling that i'm reeling over. Okay, i'm exhausted. Time to go.

FeCu

2012-02-06T07:13:00.000-08:00

Questions

2012-01-31T09:00:00.000-08:00

(inspired by Cyril Wong's If...else)

If the life i seek is not the life i lead.
If the tears i cry are the same ones since when i was five.
If i always get what i want that i begin to measure my life by the moments when i don't.
If i speak a thousand words and remain misunderstood.
If i keep silent in defeat and you finally understand.
If the continual irony keeps me awake.
If what is right becomes what is hard and i do not choose.
If i know that not choosing is a choice in itself.
If i still do not choose.

If too many words clutter in my mouth that they keep me silent
If my silence becomes a thunder that rumbles in the house ceaselessly, keeping my mum awake.
If truth on earth is a barren wasteland and i want to live there anyway.
If love is truth and i want to live there anyway.
If living well is learning to die well

If i can't learn to fly then i will learn to crawl.
If i can't learn to breathe then i will learn to bleed.
If everything in between is what defines the distance between the start and the end
If i am sorry but it is too late.

White Collar

2012-01-29T06:32:00.000-08:00

This is probably a week late but i went for a play that a good friend of mine produced at NUS titled 'White Collar'. I was honestly impressed. It was a very singaporean play in all its vulgarity and clever hilarity. And like many singaporean productions it chided our work ethic and our seemingly emotionally starved society with its overt obsession for wealth and status that overrides more important things like personal relationships and respecting our individuality.

I can't help but feel though - and this is not just the optimist within me speaking - that such traits are not definitively ours anymore. The fact that such qualities are openly criticized is a testament to the fact that it is recognized. If such qualities are recognized (& admirably accepted) to be 'singaporean' then surely people are making obvious efforts not to fall into the vicious trap that they've managed to locate within the fabric of society and within themselves. You know you've stopped being defensive about a problem if you can laugh about it. In which case the play (& the noose for that matter) is evidence of us throwing away any sense of shame of such qualities and accepting them. Though of course acceptance doesn't mean stasis or a refusal of improvement.

Anyway i sound really patriotic right now. Maybe i love Singapore after all. I just wish that the Cyril Wong poetry workshop wasn't $170.

If...else by Cyril Wong

2012-01-27T05:33:00.000-08:00

(an extract)

If i walk pass my funeral along the way inside a dream.

If the life i chose is the life i chose.

If what moves you may not redeem you.

If there is nothing in stars to make them shine.

If others retreat to that sense of wonder, but my heart remains homeless.

If i stop talking and you can still tell anyway.

If there is a difference between being proudly humble and humbly proud.

If there is nothing you cannot carve into a poem.

If i forgot what sets us apart, strain back to recover what is the same.

If my self is a shadow, at least i made a dent in the light.

Dried Flowers

2012-01-26T04:12:00.000-08:00

Another one of my presents from one of the most amazing human beings i've ever met (Agnes). I know it's been 3 days since my birthday but you can't blame me for not being able to shut up about it owing to my horrible birthday last year & the year before that. This year's birthday was wonderful in it's own understated way (except for friends singing for me loudly and i just wanted to melt into the background, that's not understated at all haha)

Most of all though it made me realize some very heartwarming things that moved me so much i was paralyzed with gratefulness. It's amazing to know that you have people in your life who care enough about you even after you disappeared under a rock of obscurity. Thank you old friends, new friends and even friends who might not even be friends anymore - for helping me be brave and trusting.

Kant said that if, unfortunately, someone is unable to revel in fulfilling the true potential of their good will, their very existence would have them shine like a jewel. They are wholly valuable in themselves. Whether they are useful or useless, whether they are greatly productive or not is secondary, such considerations would not add or subtract their true, inherent value. (I wrote this in a separate journal but thought it was worth mentioning since i remembered this while thinking about all i've said above)

“I do not consider myself less ignorant than most people. I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me.”
- Herman Hesse

Inni

2012-01-21T23:28:00.000-08:00

Inni, Orri.

My first birthday present for the year. I'm listening to it now for the first time. Am just really happy to have it. If you know how much Sigur Ros means to me then no words need accompany the pictures.

Lone bird.

2012-01-16T01:49:00.000-08:00

I need always remind myself that every day is a miracle. Yes, even in this grey, sweltering, suffocating and negligible city, every day is a miracle. I slid into bed after returning from a redundant journey today, turned to my right & drifted slowly into sleep. I woke up to the piercing laughter of an old friend. My ears still rang after i put down the phone. I looked out my window. It's been really hot these days, and light flowed into my room in thick, fierce rays, lighting even the smallest specks of dust floating in and settling on my pile of books.

I once wrote a poem about noticing the way a person's features would slide into and out of existence when they slide into and out of light. I've been spending these past few hours listening to Hammock and writing, writing, writing, when i should really be writing other things. Am currently listening to Arctic Monkeys cause i'm importing the CDs into my iTunes. 2 years ago i would have dismissed Humbug, but now, i actually really like it! Looks like 3 months after i bought it, i'm finally going to be listening to 'Suck it and see'.

That's all for now, not much i can say now so here's a quote from Osho:

“Celebrate aloneness, celebrate your pure space, and a great song will arise in your heart. And it will be a song of awareness, it will be a song of meditation. It will be a song of a lone bird calling in the distance— not calling to somebody in particular, but just calling because the heart is full and wants to call, because the cloud is full and wants to rain, because the flower is full and the petals open and the fragrance is released…unaddressed. Let your aloneness become a dance.”

— Osho, Meditation: the First and Last Freedom

ObscuRed | Friday the 13th

2012-01-10T06:54:00.000-08:00

Obscured.sg - Coming Soon... from Obscured SG on Vimeo.

I think the video's pretty self-explanatory! :)

on another note, the readings for this semester are absolutely unforgiving. It's so heavy i almost want to laugh...but then i remember i actually have to read 400 pages for just one lecture... and it's not really funny anymore. But it's alright, i can do this! #selffulfillingprophecy

The Earth, The Love

2012-01-08T04:10:00.001-08:00

i like to think about the moon

and the earth and how much they

love each other.

Through creation and destruction

and the splitting of continents billions

of years ago.

I like to think of an ancient love that

moves the currents of the seas

and nourishes fishes and the skies

like their children.

i like to think about the boy

and the girl and think about

creation and destruction through

the split of the second before she

says yes, destroying fear and

creating courage.

I like to think of his words moving

the tides of her blood and

the currents in her heart as if

he is the moon and she is

the earth that shifts its shorelines

with the waxing and waning

of the silver sphere.

Poison & Wine

2012-01-07T08:10:00.000-08:00

It was really nice to play music with my best friend again. We sipped green tea at the side of the stair case an hour before our show and jammed to songs we used to play and the songs we would play for the 15 minutes in front of the camera. Entering 6 years of us doing what we love together and i hope we'll have many more years ahead of us.

1Q84, Haruki Murakami

2012-01-05T02:22:00.000-08:00

(don't read the words in the above picture if you're reading the book & not done with it yet, it's my favorite part but there are spoilers so i didn't quote it)

“As I see it, you are living with something that you keep hidden deep inside. Something heavy. I felt it from the first time I met you. You have a strong gaze, as if you have made up your mind about something. To tell you the truth, I myself carry such things around inside. Heavy things. That is how I can see it in you.”

“He appeared before me and departed. We were not able to speak to or touch each other. But in that short interval, he transformed many things inside me. He literally stirred my mind and body the way a spoon stirs a cup of cocoa, down to the depths of my internal organs and my womb.”

“As if to build a fence around the fatal emptiness inside her, she had to create a sunny person that she became. But if you peeled away the ornamental egos that she had built, there was only an abyss of nothingness and the intense thirst that came with it. Though she tried to forget it, the nothingness would visit her periodically - on a lonely rainy afternoon, or at dawn when she woke up from a nightmare. What she needed at such times was to be held by someone, anyone.”

"Where there is light, there must be shadow, and where there is shadow there must be light. There is no shadow without light and no light without shadow. karl Jung said this about 'the Shadow' in one of his books: 'It is as evil as we are positive . . . the more desperately we try to be good and wonderful and perfect, the more the Shadow develops a definite will to be black and evil and destructive . . . The fact is that if one tries beyond one's capacity to be perfect, the shadow descends to hell and becomes the devil. For it is just as sinful from the standpoint of nature and of truth to be above oneself as to be below oneself."

“I was in my house, alone in the living room, anxious about you, watching the flashes of lightning. And a flash of lightning lit up this truth for me, right in front of my eye. That night i lost you, I lost something inside me. Or perhaps several things. Something central to my existence, the very support for who I am as a person”

& the most famous quote :

"If you can love someone with your whole heart, even one person, then there’s salvation in life. Even if you can’t get together with that person"

Easily the thickest book i've read. I started reading it on December 17. I can't say it's my favorite Murakami book, but it feels so real to me. Murakami's style is often clearly unrealistic, he often assumes aspects of fantasy in his work, but at the same time, he speaks with a wisdom that makes us question as to whether the reality we suppose to be 'real' is really misrepresented. Often i can close his books feeling alright, and i can clearly tell myself that the story i've read is not real. but 1Q84 spans 925 pages, is written with meticulous detail, right down to what the characters eat/do/think.

One may think these little actions of cutting onions and taking a piss to be redundant, but when you piece all these little bits together, that's the factor that makes the characters so realistic. They lived while i was reading the book, they were real and breathing, and cooking and eating and taking a piss into a bucket. I'm still dazed and unable to properly grasp that this was all created in his head. So the denouement was a relief, it really was, because if what i almost accept as reality ended on a bitter note i would really take a while to cope. Right, now to slowly take my head out of the book.

Empty streets

2012-01-01T01:17:00.000-08:00

I don't know much about truth except that in it's accurate form, it is absolutely unattainable. We can only make big sacrifices, endure pain and prolonged periods of uncertainty in the hopes of getting a glimpse of it in parts. Maybe we're all missing the same parts, or maybe we have each obtained different parts. Maybe what makes two people come together is the realization that they have the missing parts of truth that the other could never get. They piece together their matching parts and together they get a bigger picture of truth. We'll run through life bumping into different people, and everyone is always searching. I once read a beautiful line - "the streets were empty and we were searching". We cling to our friends and loved ones for security. We cling to strangers for some measure of acceptance but in reality we're all on our own empty streets and we're all searching.

Strangers sometimes try to pry the parts you've worked hard for to retrieve it for themselves. But the truth must always be received with gentle hands. You can't force pieces together in your greedy hands. What that will only do is amalgamate pieces that don't fit to give you a deformed truth that you might dangerously accept. Maybe it is this realization that makes me comfortable with the idea of a solitary life. Because no matter how many faces you cling to and how many pieces you put together, you will always be on your own empty street searching for the same thing as everyone else.

Because solitude is not loneliness. Solitude is being on your own empty street and being focused on your act of searching for truth. Loneliness is focusing only on the fact that the streets are empty. If we would only realize that we're all heading for the same direction and searching for the same thing, we need never feel lonely.

2011-12-30T06:46:00.000-08:00

Shots of children i managed to sneakily capture during a little trip to Ikea. So many kids around, made me feel wistful for my childhood. I used to really really love trolley rides. Currently listening to Death Cab For Cutie (I, as a friend nicely put it, feel "permanently cloud-like" and i shall "float on these feelings till march 7") because i am so so so happy that they're coming down and i know that i will inevitably draw parallels between the 16 year old me that saw them and the 20 year old me that will.

Anyway, for the sake of rambling, i saw 'We bought a zoo' primarily because the music in the movie's mainly by Jonsi.. and the trailer song is Hoppipolla. I clearly remember feeling my heart lift when Jonsi's "Sinking Friendships" and Sigur Ros' "Hoppipolla" played. It was a wonderful movie, emotional with many tear-jerking scenes. But me being me, the scene when i actually shed a tear was when Bon Iver's 'Holecene' played. I don't even remember what was going on during that scene, i only remembered Holocene playing and being so happy and wanting to freeze that feeling and stay with it for a few hours.

Wrapped

2011-12-27T05:48:00.000-08:00

I don't celebrate christmas, but am always constantly in awe of the spirit that pervades everyone who does. The switch in atmosphere one that is always loving and vibrant. I received some gifts from friends (one of which is a book! by John Green! Anything that is a book would make my heart leap..) and since those two pictures were taken, Veronica gave me a diary. I love receiving gifts! But what i love more is giving them so i shall make a mental note to be more generous with gifts now. 2 weeks left till school re-opens. I am halfway through Murakami's 1Q84 and it is spellbinding and absorbing in a way that only Murakami can be. The moment i started reading it, i felt my demeanor change. I shall not say much about it now. I'll be excited about sharing about the book once i finish reading it.

Salt

2011-12-25T08:12:00.000-08:00

I knew a boy who stood

a little too far for me to see that his eyes

were steady, i thought he was crying

He would learn to walk away and never look

back.

I always had a habit

of destroying whatever i touched.

Ripped pages from books,

torn sheets, scattered pieces

from a toy camera

that prick a toe, spilling red

on the marble floor.

Those who left, learned

never to look back because

salt is silent and though

healing, never did make the

present pain any sweeter.

I knew a girl who could

sleep well at night

after breaking a kind heart.

She had a laughter

that rang 3 floors and

a whole courtyard.

It pierced the night,

bright and clear like

the hurt she was known to cause.

She could make syllables

slide underneath the cracks,

slip into your room.

She'd barge in uninvited,

tear her words from your heart,

slamming the door goodbye.

Lights

2011-12-22T20:37:00.000-08:00

Every time i go out with them i can't help but track how we've moved since the first time we met. In the beginning we were sitting together before training, crying together during competitions, having lunch and dinner together and sitting in Starbucks with nothing but our conversations. And now we're in different schools, none of us fence anymore, which is to say, we've stopped doing the one thing that brought us together. But we're still together! So that makes me glad because what bound us together was not just fencing but a genuine friendship.

Uyii

2011-12-17T06:24:00.000-08:00

Obscured.sg was invited to Uyii's launch so i headed to their studio today. They're a local handmade bag label that just released their 2nd collection. It was an open studio and it was really interesting to just chat with those behind the label (the girls are 19, what am i doing with my life) as well as the Visual Artist who painted the murals. Their shelves as well as the 'tree' that hung several bags were designed and created by a duo consisting of an interior designer and an architect. And since i was in need of a bag pack i bought one too. Made me feel patriotic.

Anyway, go to http://www.uyii.com.sg to view their collection & for more details

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

2011-12-15T12:02:00.000-08:00

“There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one’s own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels for someone, pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes..

By revealing to Tomas her dream about jabbing needles under her fingernails, Tereza unwittingly revealed that she had gone through his desk. If Tereza had been any other woman, Tomas would never have spoken to her again. Aware of that, Tereza said to him, Throw me out! But instead of throwing her out, he seized her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers, because at that moment he himself felt the pain under her fingernails as surely as if the nerves of her fingers led straight to his own brain.

Anyone who has failed to benefit from the Devil’s gift of compassion (co-feeling) will condemn Tereza coldly for her deed, because privacy is sacred and drawers containing intimate correspondence are not to be opened. But because compassion was Tomas’s fate (or curse), he felt that he himself had knelt before the open desk drawer, unable to tear his eyes from Sabina’s letter. He understood Tereza, and not only was he incapable of being angry with her, he loved her all the more."

“Tomas came to this conclusion: Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite num-ber of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman).”

“Seeing a horse and a coachman beating it with a whip, Nietzsche went up to the horse and, before the coachman’s very eyes, put his arms around the horse’s neck and burst into tears.
That took place in 1889, when Nietzsche, too, had re-moved himself from the world of people. In other words, it was at the time when his mental illness had just erupted. But for that very reason I feel his gesture has broad implications: Nietzsche was trying to apologize to the horse for Descartes. His lunacy (that is, his final break with mankind) began at the very moment he burst into tears over the horse.”

**

Little things that make me happy include pajama pants and finishing The Unbearable Lightness of Being. It left me feeling insignificant seeing how the characters were misrepresented after death and how ultimately to seek true and thorough understanding is one of the rarest, almost impossible things in the world. The philosophical allusions were pretty captivating, Kundera was against Nietzsche's idea that everything in this world has occurred and will continue to occur ad infinitum, Descartes' opinion that animals were merely automatons, and explored the concept of duality etc.

Makes me feel like disappearing without a trace after i die. Not even an epitaph.

Those Barren Leaves

2011-12-12T02:35:00.000-08:00

‘in point of historical fact they’ve generally been men of the highest intelligence. Buddha, Jesus, Lao-tze, Baoehme, in spite of his wheels and compunctions, his salt and sulphur, Swedenborg. And what about Sir Isaac Newton, who practically abandoned mathematics for mysticism after he was thirty? Not that he was a particularly good mystic; he wasn’t. But he tried to be; and it can’t be said that he was remarkable for the softness of his head. No, it’s not fools who turn mystics. It takes a certain amount of intelligence and imagination to realize the extraordinary queerness and mysteriousness of the world in which we live. The fools, the innumerable fools, take it all for granted, skate about cheerfully on the surface and never think of inquiring what’s underneath.”

‘But it’s cowardice to run away,’ Chelifer insisted. ‘One has no right to ignore what for ninety-nine out of every hundred human beings is reality - even though it mayn’t actually be the real thing. One has no right.’

‘Why not?’ asked Calamy. ‘One has a right to be six foot nine inches high and to take sixteens in boots. One has a right, even though there are not more than three or four every million like one. Why hasn’t one the right to be born with an unusual sort of mind, a mind that can’t be content with the surface-life of appearances?’

‘But such a mind is irrelevant, a freak,’ said Chelifer. ‘In real life - or if you prefer it, in the life that we treat as if it were real - it’s the other minds that preponderate, that are the rule. The brutish minds. I repeat, you haven’t the right to run away from that. If you want to know what human life is, you must be courageous and live as the majority of human beings actually do live. it’s singularly revolting, i assure you.’

‘There you are again with your sentimentality,’ complained Calamy. ‘You’re just the common variety of sentimentalist reversed. The ordinary kind pretends that so-called real life is more rosy than it actually is. The reversed sentimentalist gloats over its horrors. The bad principle is the same in both cases -an excessive preoccupation with what is illusory. The man of sense sees the world of appearances neither too rosily nor too biliously and passes on. There is the ulterior reality to be looked for; it is more interesting… ‘

The last few pages of Aldous Huxley's 'Those Barren Leaves' was so brilliant, i had to share. Just finished reading it and am reminded of why he is one of my favorite writers and thinkers

2011-12-08T23:33:00.000-08:00

2011-12-03T23:55:00.000-08:00

Lying down in bed listening to Sigur Ros and sporadically sipping my cup of tea. Planning my timetable for next semester and.. dreading school already. I guess i'm really enjoying the holidays. I'm loving the chance to finally be alone after the few months in school that necessitates socializing. I was googling airfare prices to Iceland earlier, and have the feeling that when i finally set foot there i will never want to come back. With a population of 300 000, the vast expanse of land, mountains and open fields, you will be constantly reminded of your insignificance in relation to the world and to the cosmos.

Maybe i just really like feeling that small. Negligible.

I am an atom of the universe. I am a universe of atoms.

2011-11-30T09:28:00.000-08:00

The holidays have begun and i look forward to my slow solitary days with countless cups of tea and books i actually want to read. Taking pictures and drawing and watching shows and movies. Learning to cook. Learning Sindarin (It's the Elvish language in Lord of the rings). Finally listening to Florence + The Machine's new album after buying it a couple of days back. So much i have to say about it, but i shall end here.

Broken Wings

2011-11-24T22:40:00.000-08:00

My little brother brought back an injured pigeon back today. It couldn't walk nor flap it's wings. Poor little thing. We watched it as it stood still and asleep in the little cardboard shoebox at the side of the window. In other news, i have one more paper left before freedom commences for a little over a month.

Ghosts

2011-11-16T08:10:00.000-08:00

When i was a young girl, there was a particular day when i packed my favorite dresses and books and moved them under my bed. I crawled into the dark and sat still, comfortable with the dark and comfortable with the silence. My mother knelt down, peered into the dark and asked "What are you doing there?" "I'm moving. I want to live here now." My mother would then tell me that i could not live there. I was upset. Because mothers are always right when we're 6. She said Ghosts live under beds. I looked around and though there was nothing, i felt them all staring at me.

I guess i've always loved the dark. To disappear into nothing where nobody can find me. To a place where even shadows cease to exist. Where i don't have to cower or hide my face from a person's gaze or slight attention. Little me just wanted to escape. Yet even in darkness ghosts were looking at me. I don't know why i was such a quiet child who sat alone while the rest of the kids ran up to hug the principal whom i thought would only love his own children. I thought they were too noisy, too full of words and the world, well, the world was too full of light.

Now that i'm older i still do want to disappear. I still love the dark and i still love silence. But i also know now that ghosts weren't just invisible beings hiding beneath my bed. The real ghosts were in my head and will never leave. And no matter how far i run into no matter how deep the darkness, i bring them with me. Their eyes become my eyes. Their sight become my sight. Until i can learn to run without bringing my demons with me, not even the depths of the blackest of darkness will be dark enough for me to completely disappear.

2011-11-11T13:45:00.000-08:00

(Damien force-feeding me.)

Assignments are all officially cleared. Feels like the worst is over, even though exams are a week away. Assignments were really harrowing. Although i told myself i'd start on it as soon as possible, i naturally procrastinated and ended up pulling an (almost) all-nighter, interjected by a 3-hour sleep/wake/sleep/wake experience that just disoriented me. Handing in that final research paper and just moving my tired vessel around with my other zombie friends, eating 4 slices of pizza and laughing a little more than i'm used to these days.. i feel blessed. These days are easy and they feel new. Sometimes i get wistful of old conversations that i never saw growing old. Or friends who feel a little far away, and you can't exactly remember when that started happening. You don't know if trying to make things better will only make things worse because addressing the gap may only serve to widen it. Paradox. Well it's 5.44am, i told myself i'd be in bed by now. I haven't written here in a while! Feels nice.

Mist

2011-11-02T11:38:00.000-07:00

"Sometimes my fingers tremble like the wind. Sometimes my legs feel as weak as the thin branches that break beneath the feet of careless men. Sometimes my eyes want to assume the posture of closed mimosa leaves in all their shyness. To open up only when everybody’s far away and to quietly seek solitude during intervals of prolonged social interaction is unsteady and not soon to be understood by those new to the architecture of my mind. But it’s okay, we can’t always expect to be understood. I choose this privilege of being my own person, however awkward, even if it runs the risk of being misunderstood. I just want to be a better and kinder person."

These past few weeks, or rather, this past month or two have passed by in a lull that stirs my heart with an uneasy sense of strong dissatisfaction. I don't know how to accurately describe the feeling except that i feel like i'm succumbing to the weight of my bones. With every step i take towards being lazy and comfortable with mediocrity, i slap myself in the head.. and heart. Sure, following your dreams and the idealist within you may seem to many as being daringly foolish or brave, whichever camp you're in. But i do believe that it's a rational decision too. If your heart will perpetually be in another place while you settle for 2nd best -- and let's face it, you might not even get 2nd best -- then you're exerting far more effort for dismal returns. Sometimes that's how i feel about school. It's taking up so much of my time, rather, i'm putting too much time into it. And i honestly feel that it's taking time away from me doing real work.

I'm counting down the days till December arrives when i can read the books that will push the walls of my mind, to paint and draw and spend frustrating hours scrubbing paint off my floor and off my hands. To trawl the streets with camera in hand. To write words and hide most of them because they're too personal. School isn't where my real education's at. I've never really understood what Mark Twain meant when he said "Don't let school interfere with your education" till i started Uni. Now i get it, i really do. That is not to say that i do not appreciate the fact that i'm in a wonderful position to learn, i just feel that it's a position that i'm still awkwardly trying to get used to and i'm starting to wonder if up till now, my failure to fit is a sign that perhaps it's not where i'm supposed to be. If i'm not supposed to fit into this mould after all. They still urge you to contain what you want to say within a structure. It is stifling for me sometimes.

What if the ideas i wish to communicate are larger than what 3 paragraphs with neat topic sentences and concise thesis statements can offer? How do you even begin to reconcile these large ideas in your head and how they conflict with what you're doing in reality? Am i being a hypocrite? If you're confused now it's only natural because the only way you can truly understand what i'm saying is if you knew what are the ideals i hold so firmly in my mind and how they influence every word that i bleed onto the paper, every word i utter with faith and reason intertwined in as careful a balance as i can.

2011-10-26T00:59:00.000-07:00

How i speak one thing but upon deeper introspection, i do another. There is something really disconcerting about realizing that you have compromised your ideals unknowingly. We create masks for ourselves, put it on and then confidently claim them to be our faces. When someone comes along and takes it off and forces you to look into the mirror, we say, "no, that isn't me, that isn't the face i've been looking at the whole time. I should know. I know myself best!" Do we, really? I don't know. The only thing i know for certain is that i do not know anything. I am ignorant. Will we ever know our true selves? We can only walk holding the hand of truth and hope that we journey as honestly as we can.

That ramble has nothing to do with the above picture. 16 pieces of sushi for $2.80. I love carrefour/cold storage & sushi.

2011-10-20T23:52:00.000-07:00

Those brownies were really, really good.

Joelle

2011-10-19T20:00:00.000-07:00

We sat in front of SOTA with strawberries, peanuts, brownies and chips & talked for a few hours. I have nice pictures of food (well, some) will upload them soon~ Currently listening to M83 and getting increasingly worried about the assignments piling up.

2011-10-14T10:22:00.000-07:00

As much as i love catching up with friends and laughing till i clutch the sides of my tummy, it does get a little wistful when the conversation swerves towards the serious. Thinking about how we, as individuals, are faring on our own paths, so diverged now. Pausing for a moment or two to think about the people we miss. Thinking about how they've changed - for better or worse. One of the things i have come to realize is that we really cannot be there all the time for the people we care about. At least, not in the ways we'd like to. As much as we want to cut in between and drag them out of the fray.

Sometimes the best thing to do is to leave them to fight their own war. To stand at a distance, always ready to run to them should they fall in battle. No matter how badly things seem, never should we judge them. Most importantly, we must always believe them to still be good, even if at the moment everything in you is screaming to walk away, saying that that person is no longer your friend. Believe that they are. Believe in the good in them. Sometimes they can't see it in themselves, and if we believe so fiercely that they are still good, then they might see it themselves.

Gates

2011-10-10T06:43:00.000-07:00

I used to think that love was

arms,

reaching from behind

to cover my eyes.

"Guess who?"

Opened in promise to break my

fall from the top of gates

"trust me"

Swinging me (and my mind)

from one end of the space to another,

"let me see you!"

"Please, no, i look terrible!"

I don't know if

love should be that,

that blinds me,

that sends me falling,

that pulls me from here

to there

to this.

I don't know if

it's my hands over my eyes now,
too afraid to see.

I don't know if

i'm sitting at the top,

too afraid to leap.

I don't know if

i sit still in the middle

where no one sees me.

I don't know if i should

be relieved with this safety

I don't know if this is safe.

I don't know if

i'm (loving) myself (right).

I don't know love.

I don't know.

I don't.

I haven't posted for too long. I'm really self-conscious about my poems, but i thought i should share one. (Please don't assume that i'm talking about myself in the poem! )

Near Light

2011-10-08T21:30:00.000-07:00

"Listening to him will always make me realize how amazing life is and how much beauty this world cradles. It's a song i'm going to return to should the dark try to creep into my skin. For if man can make music this beautiful, this large, this breathtaking then i will never believe in the darkness. I will always be near light."

(Download this & his other tracks for free here: http://livingroomsongs.olafurarnalds.com/ )

Wake

2011-09-28T00:47:00.000-07:00

Right now my tummy is warm with tea and my limbs feel soft like the blankets i indent with my impressions. I woke up early this morning and drew down my curtains, crawled under my sheets after a hot shower and listened to Olafur Arnalds with eyes closed. I think i will always be a lone drifter. Drifting through the different boundaries, losing all my anchors and refusing to stay grounded. Sometimes you just can't stay in one place for long, you burn traces of the past and walk into the future as a new slate and try to reconstruct yourself again. The moment you feel you've stayed too long and roots begin to grow, you burn them and run to new places.

Is that fear or courage? I don't know. I guess it depends on whether you crave safety of having a solid ground to walk on or the freedom to fly. And you can't fly when you're too in love with the world below to let it go. Sometimes you need to tear off your roots and love the world from the skies. Maybe you've burned too many bridges or lost a place you could truly call your own, but your eyes will see so much more from the clouds than they do when you walk with the safety of solid ground.

These past few days have been pleasant but i have work to do, & as you can probably tell by now i float along the waves of time. It's halfway through today & the week and my assignments are barely done. I try to keep communication sparse now because it's been getting harder to verbalize my thoughts coherently. Writing is always easier, but never entirely accurate as well. Maybe that's why Emily Dickinson always stayed in her room writing poetry and communicating with her friends through letters. It's so much easier when you can see the words you construct and re-arrange them. Losing words to air when you speak is so unsettling. You can't grapple with it, can't place them neatly side by side. I guess at the end of the day all we want is control.

All we are is small

2011-09-16T23:44:00.000-07:00

Caught Tacit Aria's last show at esplanade yesterday before their hiatus. Caught cockpit too! (last picture) which as you see, was.. interesting. Think epic battle stories with metal riffs and capes fluttering. On another note, assignments slowly piling up and i miss jamming sessions with my soul sister Illya.

Agnes

2011-09-09T19:32:00.000-07:00

Cards that Agnes gave me! I've always been intrigued by people who are genuine in a world where we swathe our real selves under blankets of insecurities and pretentiousness. I honour truth above all else and to project yourself honestly is to embody truth itself. To walk without the demon of fear. To retain the child-like innocence and tenacity when it comes to trusting and believing the best in others. Whenever i choose to see the best in people, i'm always told to be careful and that such an approach is unfeasible and dangerous. That such optimism and love for people would crush my spirit and turn me bitter. But people like Agnes, or rather Agnes herself, has shown me that it can be so easy. We need not plague ourselves with worry about how the world will break us.

We need to be strong enough to love the world. Aristotle says there are 3 types of friendship, one where you're useful to each other, the second is when you see yourself in the other and third and most importantly, is when you see the good in the other and love them for that. If there's a reason why i love people as much as i do it's because i see the good that lies beneath their skin. There is bad in the world, yes, but the bad is only the Good gone wrong. Everything started out Good. There is too much Good in the world to gamble away for the fear of hurt.

Threaded Feathers.

2011-09-06T04:57:00.000-07:00

What will you do when you start to forget everything that matters? What if all our memories were threaded into a single line that ran from one point of our heads to the other? As we live, our memories are little feathers that flutter and settle onto that line. When we are still and alone we can pick the feathers we want and relive the moments in our heads.

But if there's a line in her mind that keeps all these little memories together, that line has snapped. She lies in bed and looks at the faces of daughters and grand-daughters and calls them strangers. She looks at faces she used to cradle in her once-strong hands and dismissively asks, "Who are you?"

According to philosopher John Locke, our self is consisted of our ability to think, reason and to reflect. To remember past experiences that have carved us today. We are our memories. Maybe i should not be asking what will you do when you start to forget everything that matters. Perhaps the question i'd like to ask is, when that imaginary line that holds the feathers of your memories snaps, and your mind is merely a machine, who are you? Are you still the same person? What if who we are is the love we remember receiving from the people that matter? What if the person you loved so deeply looked you straight in the eye and asked, with a face that's already dead, "who are you?"

Sartre

2011-09-03T22:10:00.000-07:00

The existentialist, on the contrary, thinks it very distressing that God does not exist, because all possibility of finding values in a heaven of ideas disappears along with him; there can no longer be an a priori Good, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. Nowhere is it written that the Good exists, that we must be honest, that we must not lie; because the fact is we are on a plane where there are only men. Dostoevsky said, "If God didn't exist, everything would be possible." That is the very starting point of existentialism. Indeed, everything is permissible if God does not exist, and as a result man feels abandoned, because neither within him nor without does he find anything to cling to. He can't start making excuses for himself.

If existence really does precede essence, there is no explaining things away by reference to a fixed and given human nature. In other words, there is no determinism, man is free, man is freedom. On the other hand, if God does not exist, we find no values or commands to turn to which legitimize our conduct. So in the bright realm of values, we have no excuse behind us, nor justification before us. We are alone, with no excuses.

- Existentialism is a Humanism, Jean-Paul Sartre

Instagram

2011-09-02T09:42:00.000-07:00

Currently drowning in readings & too broke to buy new film or develop any of them.

I also clearly enjoy using Kiat's Instagram more than he does.

Places

2011-08-26T02:59:00.000-07:00

Where are your favourite places and why do they mean what they mean to you? We could have passed the same building countless times. Then one day something happens - we meet someone, we lose someone, we found solace - in the space that we've so constantly overlooked. You can't just walk past the place anymore. You notice everything. The solid wall you leaned against. The grass peeking through the cracks that you stared at while waiting for someone. The cold steel of handlebars you held on to for balance when your body and mind was on the brink of collapse.

Sometimes these places hold so much of you. We leave fragments of our selves in the places we choose to imbue with meaning. Sometimes we return when we're stronger to get those pieces back before walking away to bigger and better places. Sometimes we never return and let the places stash pieces of our hearts within their empty crevices. And sometimes we return and we're strong enough to stay. Sometimes that's the moment when we feel we're finally home.

Anchor

2011-08-23T05:19:00.000-07:00

I have yet to adjust to walking amongst faces i do not recognize. Faces that could very well hold souls heavy as gold. It's the 3rd week of school and needless to say i have met minds that have intrigued me. I do have an ardent love for people after all. I have yet to overcome the awkwardness of the initial introductions though. The 8 months of solitude have not done well to better my social awkwardness. I'm not one who prefers being introduced in the common fashion of "Hey Diana, meet ____" "____, meet Diana" What can i do next but to afford an awkward smile and avert my gaze or pretend i'm suddenly really interested with the floor?

I've always preferred a good honest conversation to anchor a new friendship, is that idealism at it's best? Is it wrong to not want to be a part of perfunctory conversations that only happens due to some sad social obligation? To only meet people for the sake of widening your social circle? I've never believed in superficial socializing.

Sure, sometimes i envy the people easily floating into new friendships. Whereas i cruise slowly into one, heavy as lead. But most of the time i don't envy it. If they float easily into friendships, maybe it just means that it's easier for the wind to lure them back into open space. But me, heavy and cautious in my movements along the emotional landscape of the people i meet, will always find it excruciating to tear away from bonds i've taken so long to establish. I tell myself then, that all i need is time. And it's okay. As long as i return from this journey with something real.

Thought transition.

2011-08-22T06:35:00.000-07:00

I thought about the green damp beneath my feet,

how my palms soaked the tears that fell from heaven.

I thought about the children,

crowding outside the gates of heaven

I thought about lovers who spend their whole lives

staring into the eyes of their other halves

trying to see everything they have ever been.

I thought about the spot on her pretty knees that nobody has seen,

I thought about his smile that was big enough to hold his sorrow

as well as mine.

I thought about the leaves that fall in quiet suicide,

and how selflessly they return to nourish their mothers.

Moscow Olympics @ Baybeats

2011-08-21T08:42:00.000-07:00

Moscow Olympics was just shoegaze brilliance. I think speak for alot of people when i say that baybeats isn't what it used to be. I remember me & illya 3 years ago running from one stage to the next because there were so many bands we wanted to catch and they played one after the other on different stages. I remember standing at the back for A vacant affair, being in front for one buck short and plainsunset, the crowd being so thick and strong you can't help but sing along even if you were conscious in the beginning. It just feels very disengaged now.

Caracal @ Baybeats

2011-08-19T20:25:00.000-07:00

I was little pushed to the right, so this was all i could get. Although i am not an avid fan of their current sound, i have to hand it to them for their musicianship. They're intense and so full of heart. Always amazing to see them live.

Strong at the broken places

2011-08-17T04:54:00.000-07:00

Jeanbean

2011-08-15T05:38:00.000-07:00

Finally developed a roll.. shall upload the rest throughout the course of the next few days. School has been kind so far though the workload is now slowly inviting itself into my daily schedule. Words shall be sparse here for now. I write far more comfortably somewhere else where my words are seen only a little more than with my own eyes.

D est ruct

2011-08-10T08:19:00.000-07:00

Unravelling.

2011-08-06T08:05:00.000-07:00

I dreamt i was a quiet beauty in the most exquisite full length white gown. I stood alone in the middle of a grand room filled with couples dancing. I was content with just observing the beauty of love around me as it helped the pairs move in synchro. I was not in the least bit jealous of any of the girls in the room, i was pleased enough with my delicate solitude. But then a handsome man enters my line of sight and grabs both my hands. I remember being twirled around and stumbling about as he patiently taught me to dance. You see, i didn't know how to dance, but who cares, i was happy! I never thought i'd be one of those blissful pairs dancing across the resplendent marble floor - and with such a handsome man no less!

But as time went blissfully by, my beauty started to fade. The longer i held on to his touch, the more vulnerable and diseased i became. My white dress began to shrivel at the seams. What was once a diamond dusted gown was now a simple white knee length rag that exposed malnourished legs that could barely move. My once thick, lustrous mane that was done in a meticulous updo was now a mess of white wiry hair that suggested a crazed lover. Still he danced with me. My once sparkling doe eyes once full of life now drooped in a ring of black - empty and sad. Still he danced with me.

I began to feel conscious of his gaze on my repulsive legs, my plain dress and my unattractive hair. I fixed my soulless eyes on the floor. Still he danced with me. Then i tore myself away from his arms. I muttered "I am so ugly. I told you i was a wreck" and walked away. No longer beautiful and too empty, too exposed, too deep in my sorrow to even begin pining for my once quiet, undisturbed beauty that stood serene and hopeful in the middle of a seemingly perfect room.

Warpaint @ St James | Black & White

2011-08-04T09:50:00.000-07:00

Warpaint @ St James

2011-08-02T11:45:00.000-07:00

Some of my shots from the Warpaint concert at St James that Obscured.sg had the chance to cover courtesy of Republic of Pop ( http://www.rop.com.sg ) Standing in front, singing "Your brown eyes are my blue skies," with the rest of the crowd while the fog lifts and the fatigue settles at the back of my mind.

Feeling like the smoke that travels & transforms through rays of green, orange and pink. I love the dizzy, easy happiness of being in concerts.

Rekonstrk

2011-07-30T22:21:00.000-07:00

Some pictures from the Nokia Rekonstrk gig at Ngee Ann Poly that our partner Schzm helped execute that i went to cover yesterday. My favourites were Andrew Sane & Stopgap! There'll be a more detailed account of the event at http://www.obscured.sg once the site is up!

Check out Andrew Sane if you're fans of bands like Envy on the coast, Emarosa and Receiving end of sirens. I personally don't listen to those sans Emarosa (they're amazing). They remind me of Tacit Aria, their recordings can't do justice to their sound when they play live though. You'll like Stopgap if you're fans of Arctic Monkeys, The Strokes and Red Hot Chilli Peppers~

Really hoping i get to cover Warpaint next tuesday. (Seems too good to be true)

Bon Iver, Bon Iver

2011-07-29T07:01:00.000-07:00

Just got my hands on this & i'm listening to it now while flipping through the lyrics, feeling a comfort that i only feel when i listen to music that is so close to my consciousness. I've said this before.. if you knew what Bon Iver is about and what Justin Vernon's lyrics mean to me, you would already know almost all of me. It's such a deep, profound affinity that even i struggle to comprehend sometimes. Either way, i feel incredibly blessed to have found his music.

I'm tearing up across your face, move dust through the light, to find your name.

-Perth

Passing

2011-07-26T11:21:00.000-07:00

Would love to carefully place wonderful words together to accompany these pictures but the comfort of these past few quiet days have crept into my bones, so i shall leave them as they are.

This morning, i woke up dead.

2011-07-22T13:18:00.001-07:00

Lock

2011-07-19T10:58:00.000-07:00

They fall in love with the life in her eyes but the moment they plough through to open the windows to look into her soul, the emptiness swallows them whole. The thing is, you can’t stare into the abyss and come out okay. They leave carrying a weight of that blackness with them. She says “I’m sorry, i’m sorry..” and the only thing she could do was to lock those windows tighter and dim the lights in those eyes.

They thought she was turning cold. They thought she was pushing them away. She wished they could understand. She doesn’t want hurt another soul again. Too many beautiful people carried a piece of her darkness with them, leaving her feeling a little lighter. Who would want that? Sometimes she sees the night sky & feels like that ocean of black was what existed within her. She didn’t want to hurt anyone anymore. So she chose to carry it all and let the darkness kill her instead.

Moon.

2011-07-19T05:35:00.000-07:00

These past few nights.. she yearns to sit on a road against the flow of traffic with knees close to her chin & eyes shut. Or maybe lie down, the rough concrete marking her bare arms with little craters. There’s something about being one with the consoling darkness of a post-midnight atmosphere. Lying down, so vulnerable, she looked up & wanted to be the moon. Large & confident. Bright and strong though it was a small sphere in a massive sea of black.

The Dalai Lama FTW

2011-07-18T00:22:00.000-07:00

"Of the many problems we face today, some are natural calamities that must be accepted and faced with equanimity. Others, however, are of our own making, created by misunderstanding and these can be corrected. One such problem arises from the conflict of ideologies, political or religious, when people fight one another over their beliefs, losing sight of the basic humanity binding us together as a single human family. We must remember that these different religions, ideologies, and political systems of the world arose to help human beings achieve happiness. We must not lose sight of this fundamental goal. At no time should we place means above ends: We must always maintain the supremacy of compassion over ideology."

"Developing a kind heart, a feeling of closeness for all beings, does not require following a conventional religious practise. It is not only for those who believe in a religion. It is for everyone, regardless of race, religion or political affiliation. It is for all who consider themselves to be, above all, member of the human family, who can embrace this larger and longer perspective. The basic values of love and compassion are present in us from the time of our birth, whereas racial, ethnic, political and theological perspectives come later. Violence does not accord with our basic human nature, which may lead you to wonder why all sorts of violence becomes news but compassionate acts seldom do."

"When you have love and compassion for a very poor person, your feelings are based on altruism. By contrast, love toward your husband, wife, children or close friend is often mixed with attachment, and when your attachment changes, your kindness may disappear. Complete love is based not on attachment but on altruism, which is the most effective response to suffering."

-'How to see yourself as you really are' by The Dalai Lama

Owls

2011-07-15T21:26:00.000-07:00

I'm not very happy with how my owls turned out :( i shall re-do them when i can.

Anyway!

"We scavenge for beautifully curated blogs of home-grown raw talents dedicated to their art. ObscuRed.sg is a creative space where people and ideas converge. We will be showcasing/featuring the works of aspiring local writers, photographers, artists, film-makers, musicians and dreamers alike."

Click on the above picture to visit the page, Like the facebook page & wait for it! ^^

Empty arms

2011-07-13T10:25:00.000-07:00

Press on.
though your heart pumps
blood running bitter
with a unique
yearning.

when your heart
lays waste,
your spirit
grows tired,
your faith
grows sad.

When you can't
love what you see
in the mirror.
When your eyes are
black as your
emptiness

When your arms
hold nothing
but air.

Journal snippets.

2011-07-11T02:16:00.000-07:00

Ever met someone so amazing that you feared to tread within their radius? & everything you do & say just seems ugly in comparison. You wish you were good enough to sit beside them and travel the landscapes of their mind. But something says you're not worthy. So, if you don't mind, i'll just sit here and dream of conversations that might never happen and shores of an intelligence i might never get to set foot on.
-June 3

It's the grey area that gives everything the beauty of mystery & yet the comprehension of it demands too much of our fragile hearts & we yearn for the simple placement of the events of our lives into the clear cut black and white.
-June 2

6 hours in starbucks reading Murakami. My mind silently registering subtle movements of others around me. The conventional hand resting on the chin, the occassional rigid stance of the OCDs & the elegant crossed legs of silently beguiling ladies. The atmosphere was in tandem with my emotions. Light breeze, quiet conversations & dark blue bleeding over the light blue as the day crawled to a close. I shouldn't be reading books that remind me of how i truly feel. With characters once vibrant with life nursing their hollow mortal shells 10 years later. I choose to believe this is my convalescence. In 10 years, god willing, i won't be an empty shell; brittle to the touch, ready to fly away.
-March 8th

You know what i don't understand? How so many people are so convinced they know love & talk about it as if it encompasses their whole being. Love isn't just about one person, it's a way of being. You aren't a lover just because you have someone to hold. Hitler had a wife too. But when there comes a situation that truly demands love, they turn away. I'm talking about the situation in Libya & Bahrain. The response received is pathetic. From all spectrums it's as if people are turning their heads pretending it isn't happening.

Is it so hard to pay attention to the 500 people who gave their lives for freedom? To babies who are shot by men. To men being torn apart by bullets the length of your hands? Do you need them to bleed at your feet? Because judging by the amount of response received, it seems that is the case. I have faith in people. But today i am so disappointed in people. If you can't pay attention to people who need love the most then don't you dare talk about love as if you understand it.
-Feb 22

Sigur rós

2011-07-08T05:53:00.000-07:00

The first piece has lyrics from the song Hafssól & the second from Inní Mér Syngur Vitleysingur. Pictures are landscape photos from Bali. Really happy with this! Sigur ros is a band that will never lose it's place in my heart. I just returned from borrowing "How to see yourself as you really are" by The Dalai Lama as well as a book discussing God & religion with a title too long for me to type.

Really excited to read them, especially the former. The Dalai Lama remains one of the most inspiring people to me. Finishing Hunchback of Notre Dame & hopefully would be able to write a review of sorts together with Huxley's "Crome Yellow" & John Green's "Looking for Alaska"

Blueberries & cream.

2011-07-07T08:40:00.000-07:00

To talk about Life & Death. The nature of our existence, the feeling of insignificance and the feeling of infinite possibility at the same time. To talk about God, Good & Evil, Solitude, Beauty, Pain and injustice. To ponder over our place in the immense flow of time. To talk about the immense capacity in a human to endure great sorrow and come out still in love with the good that exists in the world, despite it all. To revel in the beauty of a person and ponder over how the many phantom faces we pass by every day could be home to great souls. All the while we were just two tiny specks eating blueberries and cream, sitting blissfully on a swing. So afraid that we were still young and we still had so very much to learn. (Isn't it lovely how heavy impromptu mini picnic sessions can turn out?)

The world is our ...

2011-07-05T22:32:00.000-07:00

Slow hours munching on fruity pebbles while listening to 'This will destroy you' and genuinely feeling like i need not ask for anything more in life. Slow hours that i spend in genuine contentment. There are many beautiful things in the world. There are many beautiful moments that we have that bring us great comfort. The feeling i get when i listen to post rock is a comfort that i'll always go back to when the weight of the world begins to settle on my shoulders. I don't need to ask for anything anymore. I have all i need. Just me, my music and my books.

2011-07-05T01:00:00.000-07:00

I'm free the whole of this week and am hoping to get alot of writing done. But somehow time just slips by and i do nothing but get carried away by it's waves. I don't want that. I want to grab it and mark it with what i do and my work. I'll never make something of myself if i keep on being lazy. Feeling a selfish dejection because i feel like i'm being confronted with problems that i should not have to deal with at my age. Just because the majority of people my age do not encounter the same minor complications doesn't mean it's not a problem suited for my age.

Anyway, i'm turning 20 next year, it's about time i grow up and not behave as if the world owes me a living and has to readjust it's bearings to better fit my circumstances. There are so many other people who have transcended far more dire circumstances and come out amazingly successful and greatly admirable. There is a hidden good in every seemingly bad situation or circumstance.

The night i died.

2011-07-02T07:55:00.000-07:00

It was just three of us. We clumped together fighting to stand behind one or the other. She held the gun dismissively & we knew we were going to die. Everyone else in the room was already dead. 5 rows of people dead or dissipated into air. The air was heavy with death. But i had to be first. The other two told me, "It's time now, you have to die. You're ready, it's okay" but i stammered & cried, almost unable to breathe "But i'm not ready, i can't, i can't" & the cold circular steel that nested the golden bullet was already resting on my forehead and she stood in front of me so serene and beautiful. You'd think that killers would look like the part they play... but she looked like the epitomy of life. She didn't look like she would take it away. She looked like she breathed life into everything. Her blonde bob perched on her milky white shoulders. Her doe eyes and small lips shaped with the curves that your sight glided on.

Throughout the evening, before she pulled the trigger on someone, she'd talk to them or show them something beautiful - anything to prolong the torture. The anticipation of death is worse than death itself, is it not? So she smiled, gracefully lowered her arms and told me to look up to the sky. She told me to look at the milky way. And i saw it, that gigantic disk of purple and blue and a million diamonds scattered in a chaotic beauty that i wish my life was. It was too cruel. How could she show me something so beautiful, show me how much beauty this world cradles and make me hunger to see it all at the moment when she was about to kill me?

I would never live to see it all. I would die here still swathed in invisible blankets of unrepented sins and unkept promises. I had dreams to follow and people i've yet to love and people i have not loved enough. I felt all the love that had been dormant in my heart overwhelm my mortal shell. I felt the fire of my dreams that was merely a spark ignite and flame my entire being. I felt my soul tearing at the seams of my small body. The irony was enough to kill me then. I had never felt more alive than during the time of my death. So this is what it feels like to die young.

**

The last 5 mins of my nightmare last night. I tried to write it down because it felt so real and i woke up feeling so grateful to be alive. I didn't describe the chunk of the beginning when i saw the rest of the people in the room getting shot because what i remember most was what i wrote down here. And i assure you, when i dream, i feel everything. I feel the pain when a blade cuts me. That real. Words can never do justice to the fear that shook me in this nightmare.

Camus.

2011-06-30T21:28:00.000-07:00

Many of us have set out on the path of enlightenment. We long for a release of selfhood in some kind of mystical union with all things. But that moment of epiphany—when we finally see the whole pattern and sense our place in the cosmic web—can be a crushing experience from which we never fully recover.

Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. You can not turn away. Your destiny is bound to the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors. To seek enlightenment is to seek annihilation, rebirth, and the taking up of burdens. You must come prepared to touch and be touched by each and every thing in heaven and hell. I am One with the Universe and it hurts.

-The agony of being connected to everything in the Universe by Andrew Boyd

4; Landscapes

2011-06-29T18:07:00.000-07:00

As long as this exists, I thought, this sunshine and this cloudless sky, and as long as I can enjoy it, how can I be sad? The best remedy for those who are frightened, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere they can be alone, alone with the sky, nature and God. For then and only then can you feel that everything is as it should be and that God wants people to be happy amid nature’s beauty and simplicity. As long as this exists, and that should be forever, I know that there will be solace for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances. I firmly believe that nature can bring comfort to all who suffer.Oh, who knows, perhaps it won’t be long before I can share this overwhelming feeling of happiness with someone who feels the same as I do. (Anne Frank)

If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere (Vincent Van Gogh)

3; Sights

2011-06-29T02:38:00.000-07:00

Sights. I remember walking out of the resort cottage, down a brick path flanked with thick bushes of green speckled with bursts of red & yellow flowers, two butterflies in front of me, in flight & circling each other before spiralling away into different directions. I remember walking by rows of bars with lush and comfortable interior decorations of red velvet cushions and wood in different shades; Mahagony, pine, oak and cedar. Basking musicians filling the atmosphere with a sense of ease and cheer.

I remember lone figures slumped in cushions and friends in deep conversation or laughing with reckless abandon. Everyone was just so happy. Everything felt so easy. Even the air i breathed seemed to slip in and out easier. Really, who would have thought that breathing would get easier?

2: Places; Monochrome

2011-06-27T01:31:00.000-07:00

There is something really invigorating about walking for hours on unfamiliar territory. Not being used to the bumps and cracks on the concrete and the way the buildings are arranged together in a pattern so different from home. If there's one thing that i realise, is that when you look around with with eyes that are searching to shoot the perfect photograph, or to find words to befit the nature of your surroundings or what you see, your perception of wherever you are is immediately intensified.

It immediately becomes far more beautiful. The colours are brighter, the cracks in the temples are not flaws but complements and the ugly isn't ugly anymore but an unfound beauty. To look with the eyes of a writer or an artist, is probably one of the best ways to fully appreciate what you see.

1: People

2011-06-26T03:00:00.000-07:00

I just spent practically the whole afternoon holed up in my room editing/arranging the photos. People remain my favourite subject when it comes to photography. I loved seeing backpacking couples & best friends walking aimlessly though the ground beneath them was unfamiliar. There was something compelling about their dishevelled look that belies the inner adventure-seeking fearlessness that shines through. (Also i think this is my longest post yet!)

0: Arrival

2011-06-24T22:39:00.000-07:00

Going through the pictures taken in Bali. Will be categorising them by Places, People, Landscapes & Things. At least that's what i feel about it now~ Will update the first set of photos hopefully by tonight/tmr morning. It was a pleasant time but i'm glad to be home :)

Pink Dot

2011-06-18T12:05:00.000-07:00

Pink Dot 2011 at Hong Lim Park with the people of \(n_n)/

Alright i am going off with Victor Hugo's 'Hunchback of Notre Dame' , John Green's 'Looking For Alaska' & Aldous Huxley's 'Crome Yellow' See you in 6 days, i'll be in Bali reading my books with sand in between my toes :)

Colbert

2011-06-17T21:18:00.000-07:00

Don’t be afraid to be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying yes begins things. Saying yes is how things grow. Saying yes leads to knowledge. “Yes” is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say yes.

- Stephen Colbert.

Tourist

2011-06-16T07:43:00.000-07:00

(If you were to walk with me through the photos, we would be walking backwards. )

My bones are telling me they can’t handle the strain of all that i’ve locked inside my mortal shell. Did you know wars have raged within our ivory frames? The battles behind my eyes are dragging black pools of exhaustion that stir and tremble beneath my eyelids. How did an inferno materialize where peaceful winds used to sit above still waters?

Note to self: Pay not too much attention to the chase of perfection in this world for this world too will perish in time. Chase instead for the infinite qualities of love, of respect, of trust, of strength, of kindness and compassion. They exist independent of time. They are infinite. And while i lay beneath the soft ground, it is not my possesions that i would want to leave behind, but acts of kindness & love that will continue to beat in the hearts of the living. That to me, is a life worth living.

Pillars

2011-06-12T20:40:00.000-07:00

Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

-Khalil Gibran

Pigeonhole

2011-06-11T10:23:00.000-07:00

Even if it was just 15 minutes, even if it was just an open mic, sharing the stage & doing what you love with your best friend remains one of the best feelings in the world for me. Had a crowd i was very grateful for and i don't think i'll forget that day any time soon.

2011-06-09T07:59:00.000-07:00

On track 10 out of 11 for Death cab’s codes & keys. I refused to listen to it until i got proper earpieces because i wanted the first time i hear it to be perfect. It’s one of those moments when i just feel glad to be alive. I love you Death Cab For Cutie. Till my skinny fingers decay into the soft ground, till oceans part and the skies run out of colours to paint it’s sunsets and sunrise with the orange that resembles the warmth i feel when my mind floats through your music. I am a bird that was built to fly away too. And if i will never find someone to keep my feet on the ground, music will. Their loving arms will keep me safe & sane.

Things that make me sad at work:

2011-06-04T07:36:00.000-07:00

The filthy rich that did nothing to truly understand the difficulty of earning that money.
The old ladies dragging rubbish bags with a bent back.
The fact that they could very well be my grandmother.
The men who scold their wives.
The wife who thought she deserved it.
The older child lagging behind her parents & youngest sibling.
The intelligent lady who shouldn't be finding your shoes for you
The fact that so many kind people are treated like trash.
The dishes i'd rather wash myself instead of giving them to the old lady.
The security guard who shouldn't have wasted his youth.
The insecure lady who keeps asking me if she looks beautiful.
The fact that she doesn't believe me when i say that she is.
The longing i see in her eyes when she stares at a young boy.
The fact that her child is in another continent.
The money that i don't see in my hands
The fact that i'm working for money.
The tired smiles & tired faces.
The tired souls.
The amount of life that isn't spent living.

Dissipate

2011-06-01T08:05:00.000-07:00

I saw her frail, stick thin fingers thumb the rosary beads. I remembered her thin, papery tear-stained skin against my soft, smooth cheek. It was as if the tears she shed so often were draining the remaining moisture from her and planted their glow on my face instead. She told the stories I’ve heard her tell before. I saw her eyes recede into the deep well of her memories, picking them meticulously before she tells her great-granddaughter. Her feet staggered across the room in quiet disarray before loving hands hold her steady.

Sometimes she forgets who I am or thinks I am my mother. Sometimes she goes quiet before telling me what a good child ought to do. I know that when she does this, she is missing her dead son. Maybe she wishes that all the faces she held to kiss on the forehead were his. I do not know. I hardly know her anymore. When did she start to feel so far away? At what point do you decide that you have lost too much? When your feet can’t take you where you used to run free, your eyes are glazed with a wet film of gray and your weak hands used to cradle more than grown faces to kiss on the forehead.

She used to laugh. Now her thin lips can only afford to smile as if they too have grown weak. She counts her rosary beads. And I know she isn’t really praying for herself. She counts the beads and prays for all the people she used to hold with her once strong arms. When she had the strength to carry a baby, to spank the mischievous adolescent and hug a distraught young girl.

(wrote this a while back and found it among my word documents.)

Bukowski

2011-05-30T20:06:00.000-07:00

So beautiful

Silver Soul

2011-05-29T17:01:00.000-07:00

These are pictures from the first roll that i ever shot. Words are from Beach House's 'Silver Soul' :) I'm starting to really wonder how people are able to keep up their benign disposition despite the terrible afflictions they receive. I can't help but feel like i'm laying waste to the world during work. 8 hours that i could have spent being productive & reading & learning is squandered on the inconsequential.

But it's not so bad when i'm able to talk to people. Hearing their stories of working in Dubai in 5 inch heels, having deep regrets and wishing they could turn back the clock. Although in retrospect, if they did turn back the clock they're positive they would have made the same mistakes and walked down the same path anyway. So what can you do? Focusing on the past & worrying about the future is to fret about what no longer exists. The past is no more & the future is yet to be. So we focus on the present- the only thing that exists.

In the Papers

2011-05-27T17:52:00.000-07:00

This space had a small mention in the Straits Times today! Thank you Jonathan for being so kind & patient. I have such gratitude. & thank you to those who actually read my blog & view my works. I haven't been posting much because i'm quite caught up with work, but i'm stopping soon. I can't wait to sit and get down to some writing, reading, taking some pictures and to just continue growing creatively. (Actually, my dad isn't a photographer anymore, but he used to work at a photography studio and still surrounds himself with cameras. & i inherited his love for cameras )

Cold water, surrounds me now

2011-05-27T09:09:00.000-07:00

So after reading this interview courtesy of a friend i went on to rave on twitter "I love Damien Rice so much. His ideals, his beliefs, his hurt, everything! What a beautiful mind." There are few things that have touched me as much as his words here. He was such a private person, an iceberg - 90% of this beautiful, expanse of a mind was hidden. It's been a while since i've related to someone as closely as i do with him.

"I just want to be true. I want to be... I want to serve music. I want to be honest. I want to write stuff that's honest, that inspires, that people can take comfort from, or fuck with, or, you know, whatever. And so any of the things that were the classic things you are asked to do on the road, which is like, meet-and-greets with people and signings,
and photo-shoots, and interviews, it's just not me. It didn't seem genuine"

"I love her," He declares "I love her so much. And i love her so much
that i love that she hasn't spoken to me - because even in that
i have learned so much over the last two years."

The 'her' in question is Lisa Hannigan. Beautiful, understated girl with a beautiful voice. There is a certain magic when she sings together with Damien. I remember watching the video of them performing 'Cold Water' and feelings chills down my spine. You hear the chemistry between them - you feel it. The congealing of their voices makes the sound whole and pure. Alone, Damien sounds so pained and raw. And that is beautiful too, but it's the sad kind of beautiful that tends to remind you of too much. I never thought that you could hear the sound of two people being meant for each other.

"And what are his hopes and ambitions for the coming decade?
Rice closes his eyes and thinks for a moment,
before answering softly: "Just to be kind."

And it was these four words that won my heart, to be honest. Just to be Kind. If i could sum up what i wanted to be most in life it would be those exact four words. His recollection about how, being poor, there was a genuine gratitude for the people that he met during his performances, was beautiful as well. Scrounging money to travel around Europe and being invited into the homes of strangers. Wow.. I've often dreamed of travelling with the bare minimum, sharing rooms with strangers i can have long conversations with. I quite dislike the idea of 'Tourist attractions'. These places would be spanking clean and quite devoid of the real essense of the country, no? It's the people, ultimately, that matters most. And it's the people i want to meet.

I remember being a young girl & watching him on television with his battered Lowden guitar.. He looked pained & distraught yet he crooned such gentle & beguiling words. An honest man through and through. I was immediately caught, no doubt. Why does he sound so pained?

"I would give away all of the music success," he says,
"all the songs, and the whole experience to still have Lisa in my life. Like
that!" he tells me, snapping his fingers. "No question."

Cue heartbreak. Was it Herman Hesse that said it? That often it is the people who deserves love the most who are most punished by it. Too often i think, musicians are portrayed to be perfect on the basis of making them worthy of our praise. When all they had to do was to admit that they were human too, to be honest and kind above all else. What a beautiful soul.

Read full interview here:
http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/42290959.html

Tread Softly

2011-05-24T07:27:00.000-07:00

Picking up bad negatives, (as you can see) feeling the early pinch of financial constraints that i fear will foreshadow our future (oh please, please, let me be wrong) Having our fears shaken up and having our thoughts linger with the uncertainty we never thought would strike us. I have never felt so grown-up in such a long time.

When thrown in this disarray of what being an adult supposedly constitutes, how does a girl who wants to keep her inner child cope? How do you fuse your child-like enthusiasm with the practicality that the adult world demands? To transcend the suffocation? The fear of being told you're inadequate can be very crippling.

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
-Yeats

Contentment

2011-05-21T08:14:00.000-07:00

I want my solitary afternoons in quiet places reading sylvia plath and watching people through tinted windows. Watching faces of strangers and wondering what wars are raging behind their tranquil eyes. Trailing the tears that are yellow leaves as they fall from trees that shade the pavements and speckle the floor before they are scrunched under footsteps. Noticing the slant of sunshine creep longer along my pages as the sun sets and people leave their seats.

Watching couples talking quietly.. honestly. Little children dropping bits of muffins on the floor and mothers smoothing the hair of their sons and daughters and lifting their chubby bodies and kissing their dimpled cheeks. Baristas leaning against coffee machines and talking about the inconsequential because these people aren't their best friends who've seen them liquidate the fears that have gathered at the edges of their eyes. I see so much in a single seating and yet i know i've barely seen enough.

Plainsunset @ Identite

2011-05-20T13:49:00.000-07:00

Cynthia

2011-05-19T10:22:00.000-07:00

Blocks to the right is my colour palette (?) I'm so tired,
but i'm glad i managed to do something at least. Time doesn't feel like it's been wasted.
Work has been tolerable although i can't imagine holding a job
that barely allows me to use my brains. Be not a victim to a stagnant mind.
Anyway, can't wait to catch Silhouette, A vacant affair & plainsunset tomorrow. It's been a while.

Bone deep

2011-05-18T09:52:00.000-07:00

Slowing blood dragged along my ruptured veins,
once aligned stars escaped their constellations,
when my eyes relocated their place,
on the canvas of eternity.

My feet walked unfamiliar paths;
these gentle rocks never cut my feet before.
I felt cold in my bones and a certain sharpness
stroke their white frame.

I shudder;
all has changed

**
At work when there are no customers that demand my attention,
i scribble little poems on the back of memos.
I lost one of my poems unfortunately, hopefully i'll be able to locate it tomorrow :(

2011-05-17T07:19:00.000-07:00

What concerns me among multitudes and multitudes of other sad questions which one had better try to lure aside with parfaits and sunshine, is that there is a certain great sorrow in me now, with as many facets as a fly's eye, and i must give birth to this montrosity before i am light again. Otherwise i shall resemble a dancing elephant... i am tormented by the questions of the devils which weave my fibers with grave-frost and human-dung, and have not the ability or genius to write a big letter to the world about this. When one makes of one's own heavens and hells a few hunks of neatly typewritten paper and editors are very polite and reject it, one is, in whimsy, inclined to identify editors with god's ministers. This is fatal.

Would it be too childish of me to say: I want? But i do want: Theater, light, color, paintings, wine and wonder. Yet not all these can do more than try to lure the soul from its den where it sulks in busy healps of filth and obstinate clods of bloody pulp. I must find a core of fruitful seeds in me. I must stop identifying with the seasons, because this English winter will be the death of me.

-The Unabriged Journals Of Sylvia Plath

Van gogh

2011-05-16T01:08:00.000-07:00

My friend Grace is an amazing girl & i'm very very grateful to have met a like minded soul with whom i can communicate with honestly. I know so many amazing girls who shine quietly and find it hard to believe that they're immensely valuable souls.
I love them all.

We always crave for people with whom we can be ourselves. With whom all pretensions are useless. The magnanimous souls that inspire us to spiral towards greater meaning in life & in ourselves. To see the different facets of beauty and to revel in roads we never knew were laid out for us.

Safran

2011-05-15T04:56:00.000-07:00

"Does it break my heart, of course, every moment of every day, into more pieces than my heart was made of, I never thought of myself as quiet, much less silent, I never thought about things at all, everything changed, the distance that wedged itself between me and my happiness wasn't the world, it wasn't the bombs or the burning buildings, it was me, my thinking, the cancer of never letting go, is ignorance bliss, I don't know, but it's painful to think, and tell me, what did thinking ever do for me? I think and think, I've thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it. "

Hanim (2)

2011-05-13T15:37:00.000-07:00

I got called up for an interview from the English Literature department in NTU. It's scheduled to happen next monday. Rather nervous/excited but also experiencing the sudden humbling fear that i'm grossly inadequate and inexperienced when it comes to literature. I have not read much of the classics, most of my reads were contemporary literature. If they ask about poetry i can only talk about Shakespeare and Carol Ann Duffy (whom i studied for school).

And though it sounds queer the author that has impacted me greatly is Roald Dahl. You have to admit that to posses such an illustrious imagination when one is way past his childhood is something truly admirable. Other authors i'd probably include would be Sylvia Plath, Khaled Hosseini, antoine saint de-exupery & Jonathan Safran Foer (see what i mean!) I would really love to include Dickens to because his books were just magical to read as a child. But i fear that my memory won't serve me well. Wish i had time to read up more for confidence.. but i'm working during the weekends. I really hope i won't be too tired.

Hanim

2011-05-11T15:18:00.000-07:00

Caught up with Hanim a few days ago, on a sunday in fact. I remember because we were squeezing past throngs of people and i was constantly groaning because i hate crowds. And that crowd, well that crowd was particular to Sundays. But once we got ourselves settled it was a pleasant time :)

Yey for books. Besides unnaturally frequent visits to Starbucks for an unemployed person other things that make me broke are Books and music. I just bought a Penguin copy of 'Shakespeare's Sonnets' yesterday. Was deciding between that & Blaise Pascal but chose the former because i realised it was the last copy. And also, not many people frequent the philosophy section so i can probably count that Pascal's book would still be there when i return on a later date.

Tasbih, lol. Anyways, i used her D3000 to take these pictures. Ironically i found my ancient D70s easier to navigate than the D3000. *shrugs* B&W photos coming soon.

Evasion

2011-05-10T12:18:00.000-07:00

It's 3 in the morning and sleep eludes you. So many nights have unravelled like this. The tossing and turning. The rearrangement of pillows. The creeping realization that you're moving so much more when you're trying to sleep than when you're awake. You're dubious as to whether you're able to adapt to the heatwave that has intruded the atmosphere. It settles like an uncomfortable film of grime over you. You feel it between the space of the nape of your neck and your hair, your calves and the folds of your elbows..

You're upset. Sleep used to be such a source of comfort. You used to burrow under thick, fluffy sheets and sink your head into soft pillows and feel the ache of your limbs escape pleasantly. You used to escape into sleep when the worries of the world settled like a dead weight in the middle of your chest. This one simple act. This ritual that 6 billion people carry out every night-- it was such a simple form of escape. You plead with the omniscient one to null your senses and let you slip into peaceful slumber.

Undertow

2011-05-10T07:31:00.000-07:00

your brown eyes are my blue skies

Words from Warpaint's "Undertow" :) I've finally landed a part time job (i think?) But it's only temporary.. hopefully that will cover all my film processing expenses. I'm currently listening to Explosions in the sky's new album "take care take care take care" Their album is really pretty. It comes with a postcard, a poster & a thank you note.

It's always nice to have tangible reminders to turn to when you need them. Like a consoling hand, letters and notes from friends that will forever hold a place in your heart, a familiar book and in this case, a cd. Hoping to get my hands on Death cab's new album soon too. HMV said it would only come in may 31st. Sigh.