a bit of here. faraway, there.

i like whimsical stuff.

that's not to say i live with my head in the clouds and my feet floating somewhere 5000m above sea level. (LEH does, though. go ask her how much her serum GH is :D) i like to ESCAPE into little bits of fantasies sometimes to ESCAPE from the ugliness of life which is in itself an ESCAPE, cos i'm turning a blind eye to the much more starkly both-exhilarating-yet-morbidly-fascinating-and-turns-you-off-like-a-twitching-roach-in-the-middle-of-a-squishy-pus-like-egg-tart reality.

there's reality, and then there's reality. reality when we discuss how much work we have to do to maintain our standard of living. and yet i still bitch at my father for not being able to pay for my uni education when i should be kissing his feet for subjecting himself to physical and mental torment 6 days a week in the army, putting up with the narcissistic fools who look barely old enough to be his sons and their ridiculously demeaning, derogatory, persecuting, discriminatory and worst of all SUPERCILIOUS commands, to give us this comfortable 5 room flat. my mother commands us to suck him dry. the training i had since young to suffer the eccentricities of my parents have taught me to do otherwise. but thankfully now, at least i don't cry anymore.
reality when i flush the 200 bucks i've just earned, with much bitching and complaining, into the drain with a grandoise flourish for the 2 little rodents currently cohabiting with me.
reality, because i am lonely and i'm so loser that i talk to rodents.

there's reality, and it hurts so much. but once we adapt to its constant oppression, the lacrimal glands get suppressed and we're more or less oblivious to the initial pain.

there's also reality. it comes in the form of people whose bank acounts have quite a bit of moolah and they deliberate for 3 hrs in a LV flagstore on which of the pureskin bags to buy. their sharp eyes and stunningly clear peripheral vision for branded goods fail to capture the obese lady in flowery sleeveless shirt sitting forlornly outside the store on the sidewalk across the road, touting a mat of vegetables that look as withered as she does. of course, such hoi polloi is NEVER allowed near the privileged stratosphere of the debutantes and taitais, so the fact that she's sitting SO FAR AWAY ought to be sufficient justification for them to be blessedly ignorant of the ugliness of life.

i think i'm raised on the fear of losing all that i have.
i think i will die with the fear of losing all that i have.
perhaps, on the day i die, my fear will be realised.

i don't really care.
i have so many friends, acquaintances, people whom i've come into contact with. if i were to pile guilt onto myself each time i come across a weepy case, i'd be committed to woodbridge faster than you can say SIAO AH. i read that the profile of such persons tend towards depressive-manic. (makes sense) they also fall into the high risk group for addiction to depressants (benzodiazepines, morphine and its analogs etc). ESCAPISM.

it features a lot in our lives. the arty farty group, too. so many, escaping into the cocoon of ignorance and pretense. ruining themselves inside out by putting a black blind over their eyes and bashing their hearts against a poisoned bar.

thank God for chantilly and dominique. but i think dominique is a trifle too flighty to be truly receptive to what i have to say to him - scampering up my arm at the speed of light seems to be what he does best. he shies away from receiving treats, too. he's rather pick up the sunflower seeds after i drop them, preferring to sniff daintily at those i hold in my hand than pick them up. perhaps he's gay. perhaps he's acting out the rich-poor divide just to amuse my philosophical mind. chantilly's another thing altogether. she's averse to being left alone - climbing up the bars and imitating spiderman is what she does when i bring dominique out of the cage. and she squeaks. and she's so horny that dominique squeals when she approaches him from behind. i believe this young lady has a long way to go from celibacy, so i hold firm to my stand that this pair shall soon be parents to a great big litter of babies. if any of you would like hamsters for pets, come look for me. i have a membership to the pet lover's centre franchise chain, and of course, in due time, i shall have the hamsters as well. i promise that if you prove a competent and responsible owner, i shall give the babies to you FOC :D

i'm due to go out to meet quite a number of people today, but first and foremost - my 5min rock hard cookies need to be churned out for the gastronomical benefit of prof, who is a trifle annoyed with me for emailing him NON STOP about my attachments. haha. i apologise and offer penance on the form of sugar loaded treats. i'm also returning to the lab to work for a month or so, depending on the work allocation come 7th may. there is something else of interest to me in the lab. knw knows... haha :D it's too early to speculate, but i sincerely wish something fruitful comes out of my next stint there - be it academic or otherwise.

chalet details: stayover on the night of 7th july, sat. cos the chalet's booked from 7-9th jul, and i have to be at FOC camp bright and early on the 9th (hello? i'm part of the comm, so yeah.) so the only feasible date for stayover is 7th. meaning a free-for-all potluck-BBQ-whatever night of socialising, partying and general wasting in the chalet on the 7th for all my friends. (i'll limit the alcohol allowed - i don't really appreciate cleaning puke off the sofa, table, bowls, toilet, sink... on my birthday.) but there'll be some -OH around, so don't worry. it won't be some idiotic baby food party with mashed peas :D will have a theme. not something elaborate of course. but it should be fun. will disseminate an email to everyone by means of invitation, when i decide on the theme.

righto. gotta plunk the blasted cookies into the oven and go bathe. lots of things to do today and too little time, i'm afraid :P

ahhh! before i forget. important - CONGRATULATIONS to LEH on the completion of your exams. and KNW and PAMMIE: jiayou! it's really gonna end really really soon! hang in there! :D

mosslike

am sitting quaintly in a quiet little corner of the med lib 2nd floor computer console area. pecking away at my black noisy clackettyclack keyboard with 2 fingers. the index fingers on both hands... *high 5 to ian tatt* i've attended typing courses but i've never really learned the elusive skill of semi-flexion of the proximal interphalangeal and flexion of the metacarpophalangeal joints at all ten upper limb digits simultaneously... it just doesn't happen. i presume that i've lost 80% of the neural circuitry required for such highly sophisticated digital manipulation, haha. which isn't surprising in and of itself, seeing that i'm going around with an IQ equivalent to a plate of jelly that's just been bombed to bits.

what's with males, testosterone, and little black dresses? i can't tell you how disturbing it is to have a guy keep staring at you from the other bench just because you have a little black dress on. ok. let me clarify. it's not a "come-oogle-all-you-want-i'm-pretending-to-be-a-cheap-come-on" dress. it's knee length for goodness' sakes! and i have a cardigan on. so for whatever hellish reasons I'm attracting his attention for, I don't know. it's just deeply disconcerting to find yourself the object of intense scrutiny from a fellow med sch student. (reminds me of our anat hall sessions, except that i'm not covered in formaldehyde and i'm not lying in a body bag) perhaps i had a particularly interesting fungiform tumor on my butt or something. ah wells. i've already done my part in covering myself up demurely, so all i can say to this is, ad nauseum: go away... haha.

ah. it's about 30mins away from the estimated time of arrival for my little protege... please pray for all those who, unfortunately, got vivas. let's cheer them on as they tackle this round of exams and hope they pass comfortably to enjoy the rets of the hols! :D

so much for vegging out~

haiz. am sloughed!

before you condemn me for the illegal use of such an abrasive word on something that is, theoretically, unslough-able, let me assure you that it is possible. it's humanly possible to have so many minutiae to tend to that one gets obliviously sloughed and discovers it only later. i'm probably not making very much sense here. haha. oh wells. that's my trademark, isn't it? going off on some inconsequential antiparallel tangent and creating entropy in all of my readers' minds.

speaking of which, most of my dedicated audience should, at this very moment, be sitting for an exam paper, or studying like heck for their next paper. failing which, i declare a charge of academic negligence and OFF TO THE JAILS with you!

mucho things have occurred in the past week of idle life (not). i've realised that human life is an extremely tedious process that tends to add a lot of unnecesary stress. things like deciding what to do first on a to do list that spans 3 toilet rolls in length. realizing that translocation on public transport never fails to deliver one to the intended destination AFTER the estimated arrival time. NEVER. there's a higher chance that you'll strike top prizes for both 4D and toto just by wearing your undies on your head and decorating it with cuckoo feathers and coffee beans than reaching a place you want to go to on time. i swear that living out life in all its exhausting and painstaking details can be just as carcinogenic, teratogenic and whatevernot-genic as consuming a plateful of jellyfish soaked in 100x sodium sorbate and irradiated for 10years next to the leaky nuclear reactor of pyongyang. (of course, children are advised not to try this at home)

it's frankly exhausting, i tell you.

2 friends down recently. if you guys know jiaxin, please pray for her. she went cycling at ECP on monday with my og kakis, fell near the jetty, sustained a small abrasion, and thought nothing of it (like anyone else). unfortunately, her hand swelled up yesterday and she's got some apparent cutaneous sensory loss over the thenar eminence of the affected hand (laymen's translation: hand numb la) so her gp toddled her off to A&E. tried smsing her but hasn't replied - must be tired and caught up in the wonderfully efficient hospital admissions processes. hope it's nothing serious and praying that she recovers soon! (can't help but remember the recent case of that old man who got necrotizing fasciitis but it wasn't the burkholderia pseudomallei the TTSH guy told us about last time. but she wasn't running a fever so that was a very reassuring sign, or rather, lack thereof)
also if you guys know alvin as in the bermuda triangle alvin tan, please pray for his speedy recovery too! he's gone down and out with a viral gastritis (sounds like it to me - note to alvin: food poisoning usually presents afebrile, 12-24hrs onset, double-ended evacuation. viral GE on the other hand usually presents febrile, sudden onset, lasts a week, and can be either end limited or both ends, in which case you'd be just about as dehydrated as a slice of bakkwa and you'd be admitted already.) but anyway he's on the mend now (read: not hugging the toilet bowl) and he's trying to hold down his fluids, so if anyone has a good suggestion for poor old nauseous alvin go sms him :D i was sorely tempted to tell him to not drink at all if he's still puking, but then i remembered that i could afford to do that cos i had a drip then. if he did that in his current state i'd be liable for culpable homicide :P he must be looking as white a a vampire, which probably matches his vampire-ish hair very well but it's bad form to poke fun at sick people :D haha sorry pal.

ah wells. see? decadent lifestyle of liberated medical students - see what freedom does to us. perhaps we'll all really be better off, less whiny and healthier thriving under the constant stresses of committing snell into our heads :D

bets of luck to all my exam-ing friends! and shoo if you're still reading this! :D go study!!

gloamy. not gloomy. gloam.

my cbox is not working. boos~ am gloamy.

next week's itinerary:
monday - veg out day. fasting for prayer mtg tml.
tuesday - to school! results. find korneh. buy butterflies. 2.30pm meet slummi monkey. to jeryl's house to rock the foundations of our faith to a higher level.
wednesday - hacienda.
thursday to friday - serene and sarah and jess for shopping, pigout, book shopping.
saturday and sunday - tuition

riveted by the moon just now on the car-ride home.

the sliver of cold sterile
moon
sliced down
into the tangibly
fudgy
pliantly
homogeneously
quietly but squishily, and holey yet confoundedly, compactedlybreathinglyconchordantly
night sky.

it wasn't pulsatile
nor did it remind one of a serial killer's accomplice
stalking and skulking
keen and eager
panting, leering and spewing spittle
ready to draw
lifeblood from innocents -
no.
it was passive and unobtrusive
just sitting there quietly
not really doing anything. but it was poised like a devil's feline
i could measure its aeon-distance from me
but oh
it could, it could
lean down just a fraction

and suck me into its essence
it was so close.
i would be here just one moment
and
gone.

i can feel my soul
trying to huddle a little closer into the seat
perhaps it could meld into the staticky dusty fibres
and escape the naughty moon's gloating stare.

so there it hung on the thin but chowdery sky
gazing at me by the glint of its
wicked little knife eye
the rim of intent cuts through me
and makes me shiver

somewhere
i think i hear its cackle-

i quite like this. instead of typing it into my hard disk, i've decided to make this public property so that you guys can share (hopefully) the momentary panic i felt of the moon slicing me into half. haha. so this won't go into my Great Big Ambitious Planned Anthology of Poetry. haha :D

liberation

i thought liberation would be sweet!

now i know it tastes astringent and not nice at all. a little gloomy, a little frustrating, very very exhausting, very brainless.

suddenly remembering what mr melv said: when a person uses cliches, s/he stops thinking.

haha i think i've reached another zenith in achieving the status of brainlessness.

had a dreamless slumber last night for the first time in weeks. nobody chased me in my sleep, i didn't see any broken limbs, and for once the term "nephrogenic diabetes insipidus" didn't make its entry into my dreams. for i had none to speak of. hahaha~~~ *loud guffaws of victory*

denise told me to enjoy my sweet freedom, sweet presumably cos i've hankered after it ceaselessly for the past don't know how many weeks, and freedom because, apparently, the only tangible chains of reinforced iron and steel clad on my ankles and prohibiting my free expression for the past weeks had been academic work. i shall try my best ma cherie! but to be honest, i don't like how it's started today.

woke up late for the online discussion for vcf med retreat games. but thanks and full kudos to my poor partner, discussion completed at 1400hours. so now i have to source for the materials required for the games tomorrow right after i finish my business online.

Have to pack bag for the camp tomorrow. thinking of how i have to wake at 8am to give tuition at 9.30am on saturday, followed by a mad-hatter's trip to ngee ann city, really irks me. holidays aren't meant to be so breathlessly hectic... where're my novels? where's my cool music? where's the comfy sofa and the nice think ice cold milkshake?

i feel like i've been freed from slavery to books into a binding negro-hood to the mundane, nitty gritties of life.

am adamant in getting my books. i know i have to give tuition to my brother at 8pm tonight. so i shall finish up my mail clearance, get my bag and materials packed, make a few necessary phone calls, and go to the library.

i guess the only sanctuary i shall have for the coming week at least shall be only in the hour before bedtime when i can curl up in bed with beautiful masterpieces of verbal art.

sigh... oh well. and i am still amazed by how 3 guys contacted me by tagged today, asking for my number. i didn't know any of them!

so, so, so unholiday-ish.

bemoans

i have no discipline.

started off today wanting so much to conquer all of anatomy and start on my physio. the well-wishing attempt started off benignly enough, with me lagging a mere 15mins behind schedule.

lunch: glass noodles, mushrooms, *what the **** no vegetables!* and 8 slices of paper thin squid masquerading as abalone. toss everything into a vaguely piquant (if u'll just bear with me on the stretch of imagination here - anyway stretch is usually by the aortic and hypogastric autonomic plexuses and lead to referred midline-ish pain)

postprandial stupor: jerlyn told me to watch tom and jerry vcd with her. one episode led to another and before i knew it, i'd lapsed into the land of senseless slumber for yet another 4 hr long stretch. drooled on the floor and on my sleeve, poised elegantly as a slab of twee bak for all and sundry see with the option to purchase.

beating myself senseless seemed a little masochistic for my tastes, so i vented my frustration on 1000 skips on the rope.

in retrospect, i have been particularly susceptible to fatigue recently. didn't use to be a problem for me, an alien to the concept of an afternoon nap. right now if anyone were to ask me to stay awake in the afternoon, i'd say the odds of me complying would be about as high as chee soon juan being elected prime minster at the next elections. mental note: sleep lab investigations warranted? mental dialogue commences with the rational other-self saying that i'm just displaying all the classical signs of med student hypochondriasis. issue KIV-ed in denial as i trudge through the next day fighting the wanton temptations of the elusive nymph called sleep. what do people actually DO in sleep? do they grow? do they heal faster? what IS it about downtime that makes it so lucrative and so necessary? why does my body demand so obnoxiously for so much sleep?

thinking of fat people dozing off inadvertently. but i've lost weight. a lot of it actually. that my tutee mentioned last week that i look "just normal" reaffirmed that i don't have a concav-ing mirror shipped in and installed surreptitiously in my cabinet from the Tent of Mirrors while i was indulging in my latest hobby - yes, sleeping. rapid loss of weight leading to lethargy? didn't happen last time before the plateau. jap studies indicate that those who sleep less than 7hrs are likely to fall sick. those who sleep more than 7hrs ARE most likely already sick. on average i currently sleep 10-12hrs a day. that's HALF a day SPENT UN*freaking*CONSCIOUS.

gripped by a blazing urge to buy as many cartons of caffeine tablets as i can find without setting off a lynch mob of caffeine tablet addicts. (i don't drink coffee. sets off the IBS haha.)

i don't know why i'm sitting here talking about sleeping. or about the miserable state of my life. or the upcoming exams. or my desire to change some aspects of my life. some temporary, some permanent, all lucrative.

i'm quite a self centred person, no?

have to reset my focus. have to get back my drive. have to remember the things i've read *!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!* have to... pass the exams. *tsk* so... cumbersome.

i think i've been misjudging Somalia for some time now. i've grossly underestimated the sheer level of despondency. caught stumbling on the oleaginous, precipitous edge of horror when i saw the pictures of the starving, of the dead. i don't have the rights to reproduce the pictures here, but if you have time after reading this, do pop over and perhaps, after that, u'll find renewed vigor in living your life in cozy and affluent singapore. at the very least, u'll wish u'd never taken the name of such a wretched place in vain because it really pains your heart to... i don't quite know how to describe it.

the pictures redefine the meanings of poverty. of hopelessness.

it's like walking into a surrealistic installation where the true leap of faith is believing that what u're seeing is real. you can't believe it cos you've never seen anything like this. on the other hand, it's so compelling. it's like how people slow down and gawk at fatal accidents. we know it's horrible, we know it's grievous, we know it's carnage and gore and the substance of nightmares. but we look. cos we have to. it's a human instinct... the horrors of it cry out so shrilly that not looking hurts, and u'll keep pressing the next picture button.

i'll leave you to judge what you want to do with your life, or perhaps even in the lives of others, after you see the pictures for yourself.

http://www.jamesnachtwey.com

go. if you feel your life sucks, just go and read the site. i hope it'll help to inject new faith and love into your life. it's not the panacea for depression, but it's an effective reverse psychology vehicle.