I visited the Science Centre today to check out Body Worlds. It was impressive to be sure, but I'm not sure I liked it very much. I see no point to it - educational purposes, well yes, but only to a very limited extent. I think most people know that smokers have black lungs (I forgot, someone viewing the exhibits said it loudly enough for every round me to hear), or would have read that somewhere. The whole exhibit seems more of one of artwork, rather than for scientific purposes, because I think medicine students have cadavers of their own to operate on, and hands-on experience works better than memory work will.

Seen as artwork, then. Even then I don't find it beautiful or precious. It's a combination of the bizarre and grotesque - yes, there's beauty in the strength of muscles and bone and fibre and vessel, but all the same I don't find it particularly uplifting nor peaceful to be surrounded by dead carcasses of men, women and animals, the plastination of whom seems to have a rather superficial purpose to me.

Perhaps I'm blind to something everyone else understands implicitly.

There was the red of muscle, but was it truly only that? The specimens stand erect in their journey after life, clothed in the red silicone that bequeaths them their longevity. Do the ghosts of these wax models visit at their glass graves? There must have been a hundred there at least.

And then, in the afternoon -

We swarm to the museums in hordes, to retire to the restaurants and malls in the afternoons and sit, drowsily fanning or reading, legs and minds and arms too stiff to commit ourselves to chatter and careless thought. Entire populations are each year steeped in such vapid lethargy, whiling away the summer hours there and elsewhere, perhaps, on the beach, amid too-hot metal railings and the rude orange cheeriness of over-large beach umbrellas. Or in the rows of polished cars parked in their respective pews like devoutees on Sundays, waiting, as they were waiting now, for a troublesome friend to make his way back and with only more work to look forward to after the long wait.

And today was another of those days. You know, those days when trees are swathed in a cocoon of gossamer light, when buildings throw shadows long, long over grey-hued floors; days when ordinary objects take on the psychedelic glow of props from a musical, when trees and houses jut from their usual places in viscereal three-dimensionality. Those days when birds flirt with the clouds and you can't help but smile, looking at their antics.

I'm so tired! I've been slogging for my oral tomorrow since friday. Hours of memorising the script and talking to myself... I can hardly think in English now. -.-

I actually had a lot of fun today. It's not that I didn't think today would be fun, it's that I didn't realise I had been thinking about whether I was bored or not, until some time in the middle of playing volleyball when it occurred to me that I hadn't been stoning at all since morning. Many times when I go out with a bunch of people in big groups there'll be periods of boredom. So I was pleasantly surprised today.

Even though Xinxi hates G.I. Joe I think it's actually kinda cuddly-likeable. It's a full package of action and ear-numbing explosions and bits of corny dialogue, you know, of the "I will be back" strain. I heard that once in a recent movie (said with earnest gravity too) and laughed out loud. Today's movie is really quite lousy in a lot of ways (characters, plot, DIALOGUE). There're a lot of things that don't make sense. It struck me halfway near the end that it's a perfect movie for kids though.

soft furry paws pitter patter down the halls
velvet orange sheen rasps against your skin
she looks around, figurative ear cocked,
At you, now, are you being mocked?
She catwalks over, demure foot after another
Down on her haunches now, at your feet
       -would you rather be on my seat?
a show of magnanimity, you pick her up
Her nose is on level with saucer and teacup
But she's ambitious, this cat, she stretches her head
She'd really rather have some tea instead.
Your shoulder's too hard; she wriggles around
She's eyeing the food though she makes not a sound.
Oh no, you say, that's not
        for you! She tenses
No wait,
        too late, She leaps
back arching, across
        - one second here, let's pause to applaud -
But no! a mistake,
as paw in teacup, she careens across
a shatter of china, she lies inebriated 
her magnificence lost, reputation discredited.
Serves you right, you scold, vindicative
woeful eyes gaze back, Oh alright, you sigh
stretch out your hand, Here kitty, good kitty


suddenly she yowls, stiffens her spine
tail whiplashes out

                  she stalks away.

Haven't written in ages. I know what stories I want to write but not what to post on my LJ. Makes me feel like a fish flopping in dead air.

I want a typewriter!
And History of Love isn't a bad book. :)

 I can't help myself. 


is quite cute!! 
I think I might just like him more than anyone else (meaning Matsumoto Jun, Ikuta etc. etc.)
He's a good actor. If that helps justifiy it.
I can't take my eyes off himmm go watch Brother Beat!

XDD

I'm some kind of snob who turns her nose up at romance but is secretly moved by it. In other words, a romantic hypocrite.
I watched Transformers and went all soft just seeing the two main characters talking to each other. I wish I'd had a better experience that first time. I If not for the maturity I gained from it, I'd rather not have had that first relationship. I can't say that I'm happy with all this cynicism though.

Anyway, Margaret Atwood is just a hairsbreadth away from becoming my favourite writer. That said I don't think I have a favourite. A few well-loved books ( I realise those are mostly classics ) but no favourite author. Strange.

SPOILERRRS!

Helluva depressing ending. For me at least. I don't mean the end, per se; I mean the last part of Jimmy's life before he became Snowman. If I were him i.e. I'd become a total loser in terms of my personal life and shot my best friend who'd killed my lover, I think I would've just let myself rot on my bed and not succumb to hunger. Death by starvation. Pure laziness. Probably not actually. I'd just wander round the rest of my days suffering in past memory till I work up enough anger and self-hatred to jump off a cliff or let animals eat me. Snowman didn't kill himself because he said suicide was a thing for the audience; a performance that's supposed to induce horror. With no one round to watch it was too anti-climatic, perhaps. I think it would've been difficult even for him to work up the energy to drive a blade into himself or feed himself to the creatures. Maybe that's why warriors only ever wanted to die a violent death on the battlefield, aside from the glory of it. After a lifetime of war anything else would be dull by contrast. Like eating plain bread when you'd been brought up on croissants. 

I must've been more depressed by the life Jimmy'd ended up leading than I thought. Moping around thinking about my future. Of course! There's the link. It all fits. I can't seem to stop thinking about the possiblity of me growing old and not doing what I want to do (cool stuff). When you're young you're special; when you're middle aged you're boring; when you're old you're treasured because you're almost dead and thus revered.

I SHOULD STOP MOPING.

(I want I want I want)

I feel like a piece of useless @^#& sometimes. Pathetic crumbly toffee-coloured caramel that doesn't know if it wants to be eaten or if it wants to dissolve into sweet-gooey liquid on a hot summer pavement, lonely and alone, the castaway and forgotten in a world of candy bars which have found their righteous home in children's pockets. Let it at least sing its last song in schmaltzy woe when no one else cares.

Road A or road B? A doomed attempt at recreating the scenes on the screen? or forego all belief in romance and let myself slowly degrade into a dull schlump of a cynical, boring old jade.

(I'm on a quest to find as many sch-words as I can)

Birds live in the moment. They don't feel the need to dissect past thoughts, hyperanalyse insignificant personal history, or foresee the future, all they do is revel in rushing air and vertical surfaces, trees that swoop up towards them, hot sun warming their hollow bones. Smooth plexiglass and green branches. The feel of hard cement. Of course they might be affected by the occasional sight of a dead comrade or two, battered body lying at the foot of a glass building, aviarian tragedy. Sometimes I wish I could be a bird, minus the grubs. The thrill of free flight and all that. They're really quite well represented in human doctrine, once you think about it. I'd like to meet the Early Bird to ask him how he found his worm, shouldn't the ground have been quite too hard at that time of year? It was after all the Northern Hemisphere you're talking about. Or to have an interview with the Harpy: Whereforth those talons? How do you feel about your voice? Would you be interested in a makeover, exclusive package for the Maleficient Damned? We have slimming techniques tailored specifically to your genus, too. Guaranteed to create a scintillating new you, puffed feathers and whatnot. 

Some day we will all forget, like those before us have.

It doesn't matter whether you have a dream. The men and women I see going about their daily duties must have had dreams once, too. But when I'm in a crowded bus and I look around, I see tired faces, lost sparkles, the dead air stale from the tepid breath of bored humanity. Bored with life, bored with living, too cowardly to admit one's made a mistake and there's no going back. The only way forward, they think, is to remain content with their life, with inertia, because going against the plunging current will spring a leak in their well-adjusted boat. Their thirst for the life they've always wanted to lead is quenched by the thought of the happy family they've built or the well-paying job they've been given. Perhaps someone wiser than I would disagree, but I don't think I would ever be satisfied with industrialised, common fizzy Coke, artificially sweet but with the bitter undertone of chemicals, when the promise of clear spring water beckons.

Children are told to pursue their dreams when growing up. But as they grow up, they begin to forget, and society conveniently helps in letting their dreams slip through the cells of their brain, past the memory glands and away into the sky. We grow up, girls learn about make-up and boys, boys learn about women and sex, and everyone at some point realises that all their dreams are never going to get them the one thing that will deliver the aforementioned to them - money.

Let me detract a bit here. It's such an ugly word, isn't it? It rhymes with phoney, it brings to mind stock market crashes and ladies in fur jackets, shopping malls with floors of clothes, computers, ovens, toys, bedsheets, all of which come in a multitude of designs over which we pick and choose like a pack of vultures. Money is not a word which the ones who need it most ever hear; it's not something which has ever furthered equality among humans, it's not a word that gives one comfort, even though we all can't seem to get enough of it.

I don't believe three quarters of the world's working population is actually doing what they really want to do. If they did, well, the word "work" wouldn't have connotations of haggard Fridays and unwelcomed Mondays, would it? My greatest fear is realising, when it's far too late, that I have never achieved my dreams, and never will. The true terror is not of dreary workdays that revolve round and round the calendar, it is of convincing oneself so well that one never realises what one has forgotten. A man discontented with his job and still dreaming of becoming a songwriter might envy the confident businessman who's decided that being rich is more important than his dreams of becoming a wildlife photographer, but I would rather face the truth than hide behind a lie. It's easy to close your eyes and trust the ones before you to lead you forward, but the only way you're ever going to appreciate the beauty and terror of the cave itself is if you open your eyes to the suffocating dark. I would much rather experience intense joys and sorrows in my life, than dully plod on to my end. There is after all only ever one chance to see if you can make your wishes come true.

Sometimes she's terrified of just being. She wants to give way to her weaknesses - idiocy, ignorance, incompetency, inadequacy. She wants to call herself a failure and live up to it. What is wrong, she thinks at such times, with standing proud on the stage of the world and showing off her inferiority? The thought of exhibiting the parts of her which people usually hide from the public's eye gives her perverse delight. Her despair turns to abandon, fueled by the idea that she'd be going against the status quo, that she'd be remembered in history for doing what no one else had the courage (or desperation) to do.

Humiliation is after all a state attributed to people by others; if one does not find his weakness shameful, then one will not be humiliated. There is a fascinating quality in the idea that one can overcome one's inferiority from multiple failings by challenging the idea that it is shameful. "I pretend to know a lot, but I actually know very little. I'm doing it just so I can keep up with you, but what's so depressing about that? I bet you do it too." "I'm actually the lowest form of humanity on the planet because I can't cook, I can't sing, I can't study, I can't even remember your birthday, so I don't deserve to be anything but a flatworm. But so what? I don't care!"

I don't know if that kind of thinking will ever be a cure to bouts of depression, but I think it is certainly worth a try. The setbacks, however, are numerous. One can be struck by just such a philosophical thought in the stress of a competition, and throw all caution to the winds to proclaim one's absolute inablity in that particular sport even after undergoing months of training. I certainly feel like it often, and the temptation to defy all eyes and ears by shouting "I GIVE UP" in the middle of it all is sometimes diffcult to quell in favour of attempts to suppress the rogue thought.

She never shows it, though, when the overwhelming desire rises up and threatens to crush all rational thought. The chaos is hers and hers only - a little part of her could have been whipping up a tornado inside, yet when a friend comes along she hides the tornado under a rock in the jungle of her mind and assumes her daily persona. She'll talk to her friend while a little part of her is whirring away, waiting to burst out among the foliage again. Most of the time it doesn't even register in her conscious mind.

----

Sometimes I'm terrified of myself. I want to do better for each piece of writing I conceive, but I'm afraid I won't surpass the earlier pieces, or at least maintain form. It terrifies me that I might lose interest in writing because of perfectionism. It's much too ironic that I only ever want to do my best in this one thing, and yet am discouraged by the belief that I cannot do so. It's as though the over-achiever in me meets the alien world of the moderately-coping person I usually am and cannot deal with the fact it's so different. (Perhaps it needs more practice?) I am summarily a victim of my own desire for perfection, and the only way forward is to disregard that desire and not hope for something better. One derives more from doing something out of enjoyment than by treating it as a constant challenge.

I want to write because I want to understand myself and people better, and to be true to reality and emotions. The gap between what is real and what is felt is large, and I want to bridge that. I write for myself, but I'm always aware there is an audience; perhaps it would be better if I made myself forget that? After all self-consciousness is a mark of the insecure. But no: words are a game played by both reader and writer; the reader is as important in the construction of a story as the writer is. Without acknowledging the presence of the reader, the writer would not be communicating, and words would lose their meaning, become stark and stiff. The reader interprets words in a way the writer may not have foreseen, so the goal of the writer is to bring coherence to the multiple meanings of words and bridge the gap between thought and language, creator and receiver.

The language of the eye stubbornly resists translation into the lanugage of words. - Alain de Botton, On Love

Not just the eye, I think. The hardest  all to translate is the language of the mind.

The observer sees a girl with a group of friends, but she doesn't walk with them, she drifts among them, searching.

Hello, how was your day today?
Hello, what're you two talking about?

he sees her thinking. But she doesn't open her mouth to say a word.

Instead, her eyes seek, and her smile is bright as she listens to what her friends are saying and nods, as though she understands them.

What happened between them? Are they together? Or are they broken up?
Which teacher are you talking about? You mean she did that?

they say, and she nods in sync with their exclamations and her cheeks dimple prettily.

He feels bad for her, because he sees what she does not - what is to come - and he is powerless to help.

Soon his prediction unfolds. The girl's eyes stop seeking, her gaze turns inwards and her smile falters, but is then fixed back in place, though awkwardly, like a mended fence that cannot swing shut.

She does not think much about anything, but she tries very hard to seem as though she is lost in thought. She is sad; she is moody; she needs some personal time; she is anxious. She is everything that does not require someone to be there. She is above all, self-sufficient, and she is walking alone by preference, because what she is pondering right now is too important for her to fool around with the others. She is, in fact, quiet by choice now - and she will turn her attention to her friends once her worry is resolved.

Dad and Mum are fighting, Sis is turning rebellious because of them.
What do I do?
 
Her thoughts almost crowd out the others' voices. Their earthly gossip is unimportant compared to the problems she faces now.

Yet the observer knows she is not a child of an unhappy marriage; this is not the first time it has happened and her parents will make up soon. She is believing in her own lies, to escape the truth of the present.

Her eyes are dead and her smile is tortuous to look at. She does not look much different from the mannequins in the passing shop windows. He cannot bear to look, so he turns away.

But the girl continues walking past the mannequins, lost in her world. She for one cannot turn away from it, even if it is more than she can bear.

I realised a few days ago that I've thought less and less about getting a scholarship and studying at a prestigious university. It's so ironic that I can hold on to a dream for years and years and give up at the last moments, when my perserverance is most needed. It's just like giving up at the last stretch. I've been doing that more often recently (let's hope it doesn't last). I might not have done very well in school, but that doesn't mean all hopes of a longed-for education are completely dashed. I really need to learn to balance pragmatism and idealism.

 Isn't the thought of it intriguing? Set 101 things to complete in 1001 days - if I start today it'll be ... sometime in 2012 I believe. That's a whole THREE years time - and at this point in my life three years is a long period of hazy ambitions and possiblities. I don't know if I should commit myself to this. Maybe I should take up the website's advice and try a 30-day trial. (I sound as if I'm considering a slimming programme.)

If anyone's interested in taking up this challenge with me leave a comment or send me a message. The website's www.dayzeroproject.com/ :)

A possible list:
Read ______ books. (I'll have to come up with a comprehensive list)
Finally, finally settle into a regular exercise routine.
Get something published and be proud of it.
Be content. (does this count?)
Speak 4 different languages - English, Chinese, Japanese and Italian? 

101 things in 3 years is difficult. Maybe I'll have to transfer the Comprehensive List of Books to the list of 101 things. O.o

A few days ago I overheard a girl talking to someone.

"What, so, I'm your girlfriend now? Can we not use that word please..."

I don't know if anyone else would agree with her. But I understand her meaning completely. It was difficult to get around the idea of having a boyfriend, much less be someone's girlfriend. I detested the mere thought of it. Rather than be known as someone's girlfriend, I wanted to be known by my name. It wasn't a matter of egotism though. I'd grown up reading about enough capricious romances and watching enough chick flicks to be wholesomely educated about pubescent love. And what I'd gathered about it wasn't good; the guys only seemed interested in showing the girl off (or the other way around if the girl was a bitch). Another recurrent problem I saw was the gossip that seemed to spread out about the couple - it was like a tidal wave that just kept going. Any fishes caught in the current would hear about the couple in phrases filled with pronouns: "her boyfriend" or "his girlfriend". It just seemed so banal that I didn't have much faith to speak of in a relationship while I was in school. Of course, I subscribed to the "some love now would be sweet" idea, but that was mostly because I wanted to experience first hand what I viewed as a curious affair. And as everyone knows, curiousity killed the cat. That said, I'd do it all over again if I had to choose. Better to screw up early than screw up where it's really important.

I don't really think of the word in a bad light now, but that particular scene brought back the sharp disgust I felt towards it. It's a little impossible to use any other word in place of it though. "Beau" is slightly anachronistic, though it is pretty dignified when used at the right moments; no one would understand me if I went round saying it though. "Lover" is far too mature for us hormonal but inexperienced adolescents; "partner" is out of the question. "Better half" might work if I wasn't looking for a word to use in everyday conversation - can you imagine someone squeezing two words instead of the one into every sentence; ("Charles' better half went to look for Anna's better half to find out what was happening between the two") the confusion it would cause - and besides, all these words are just replacements for a word whose inferred meaning I dislike. Changing the word wouldn't change anything (excuse the pun). What I really want is an end to anonymous gossip and having my name (or the lack thereof) thrown around like a piece of dried squid. It's so unsettling.

Sadly, there is absolutely nothing I can do about human nature and the absurdities of language - if we only had telepathic communication, think of all the good it would do! I'll just have to live with being dried squid till I enter a world of (hopefully) more mature love and an unspoken code of conduct among the Gossipers. Till then, I suppose I might as well get used to it.

If I had three wishes, I'd wish for

Contentment
Knowledge
Peace of mind

I'm not happy. I want many things. I want to write, I want to love, I want to study at Waseda, in Japan. (GRR)

And then again there's my happy side with the sparkling eyes. I believe I can actually flip masks and become the happy huiying right now if I had the moral energy to. I must be slightly neurotic.

I think I've read somewhere before that everyone has a hint of madness in them. How sane the world we live in.

Out then spoke the fairy queen and an angry queen was she
"You have taken the finest knight in all my company.
Had I known but yesterday what I know today,
I'd have taken out your two grey eyes and put in eyes of clay.
And had I known but yesterday you'd be no more my own,
I'd have taken out your heart of flesh and put in one of stone."

-Tam Lin

I love the way this story is portrayed in The Dogs of Babel. It makes the novel all the more heart-rending, seeing how resigned the protaganist is ><

The examinees waiting petrified (I kind of was anyway) at our tables were unhappily not treated to any show of anguish today, although I thought the minor torture inflicted on us by the paper-setters was worthy of at least such a reaction.

And as in all tests and examinations I've taken, there had to be one question for which I decided on an answer too late, and realised, too late, that it could been the deciding mark between a pass and a fail. It's times like these that remind myself of how naive and honest I am. -.-

But anyway, what matters is that I'm FREE XDD

on this day of erudition
i hereby pledge my heartfelt wishes
friends of mine will always be
the one and only things i see
the things i've said, i won't take back
you know it's true, never forget
i'll always want, and i'll never stop
because i've realised, that shallow it is not
i need to have this out my head
because i'm turning the colour of jade
from all the hurt i've been presented
self-inflicted and people-initiated
so let us take this time to mend
one thing though: it isn't the end.