Hi guys you know how my parents always say 'God bless Siyi with unmerited favor and grace' something along those lines, they prayed that for me before I got on the plane and I can't believe God really came through with this. I got upgraded to business class because I was a little late to the gate! Jan & I had to separate but I e-mailed my mom immediately to tell her this crazy news. I think it's crazy. I've never flown business class before. I wish Jan was here.

O right there's internet here. 40,000 feet in the air. Ya so I'm on the plane now. In the air. En route to Amsterdam. Is this craSyy...??

Leaving was a real pain though. I hugged my mom for ages and she hugged me back for ages, and I hugged my dad and my sister and then I hugged Gus for really long and my mucus and tears got on everyone's clothes... Gus wrote me a letter and I read it on the plane and made really disgusting, loud, mucus-y noises and the guy beside me was like wtf... it was embarrassing

But also I quickly went on facebook to talk to Gus and I said, Guess where I am! And he said, SINGAPORE?!?! And I felt like a stab in my chest and I thought about him earnestly and felt sad again. But I hope everything will be ok. I know it will be I'm just freaking myself out

Dubai was alright I took like 1.5 hours to find Jan haha and it was so crowded... I think burger king cheated me of my money or something sigh. But it's all good. Once we reach Amsterdam we'll get our prepaid cards, then hop on a train to Maastricht then take a cab to a house that may or may not have beds... Life experiences??? Bedless houses??? Hahahaha

Can't believe I really left Singapore and am now on the way to Europe for 5 months. But if the first day has been any indication, I know God is taking care of me and that gives me more comfort than anything else could. Which is comforting

Space-time becomes curved when there is the presence of a large body of matter in it. What is going straight in the fourth-dimension seems to be curved in our observable three-dimensional world. Which is how I feel. Leaving is a large body of matter and I feel warped and curved out of convention, like my ribs are being pulled in the opposite direction from my shoulders and my legs. Similarly I know it is a 'straight' path -- there is nothing difficult about what I am doing. But the weight of my emotions is given by the mass of them together with the force of gravity that acts on them, which is the force that is pulling me towards you always, all the time. It is heavy, and my shoulders ache, a pain that travels to my chest and manifests itself in sluggish walking and a tear or two at 3am.

Two more days and I'm feeling like this cannot be

Sometimes certain people live a huge paradox: they live as if all they can see is themselves, which ironically, leads them to never really seeing what huge toolbags they are. Weird.

Been watching Suits which is a show about successful people and it makes me want to be successful too but then I watch Community which is a show about failures and I feel like I'll be okay as long as I develop some comedic skills I think

I have an aversion to the type of youths/people my age who are over-motivated, it literally sickens me. Maybe it's jealousy. Maybe I just really hate that they're spoiling the market for bags of lard like me. Maybe it's Maybelline but probably not

I leave in a week and I feel desperate

earlier we played some drinking games and we had to take turns to say words that rhymed and the word was "blue" and then came "clue" and then kyle said "tool" and i wanted to spit the beer out of my mouth

i requested gus for a week long stayover before i leave but he is adamant that his parents will object which i feel is an appropriate response. i'm just sad because we've been having sleepovers (his ankle needs a lot of care and he can't really get that at home because his parents are out at work so he's all alone) and it's been super fun. at night we lie in bed and look at pictures of hot people or watch korean variety shows or watch him get fussy about what pillow he needs to sleep on and in the middle of the night i have to turn his head to stop his snoring. in the morning we wake up and eat lunch in bed because he can't move and worry about wasting aircon and i play the guitar and sing songs for him sometimes, while he nods and smiles fake smiles of appreciation

i want to eat up stars and swallow stardust and become shiny all over like a neil gaiman character

comics i would recommend:

archie comics

haha

my hair is in a bad place

the other night something hit me and i felt breathless and an aching in my body but it was all emotional. i couldn't decide then that i would prefer emotional over physical pain. it's difficult to say. sometimes physical pain makes me very emotional, to the point of suicidal, i keep feeling like i'd rather die than bear with this pain any longer (which is exactly what i told the doctor 'please help me i feel like killing myself' no joke), but emotional pain also makes me feel like there's no point in carrying on anymore is there, everything looks so bleak like nothing is going to work out

at that point i also realized that i think i'm a very weak person, like if i had cancer or some sort of other semi-curable but painful illness that i'd ask to be euthanized, that i can't bear pain of any sort. that night i couldn't sleep because my mind was racing and the tears were falling and i desperately tried to watch a million youtube videos but it only helped like ~10% & i fell asleep exhausted.

what i've been feeling lately is that i have no control over anything, especially not my body which i realized can now do things despite my apparent 'free will' to do whatever i want. i've never really thought seriously about how your own body is capable of performing actions that hurt you and it kinda sucks that it can. then after that emotional night i also realized i have no control over that either. all i did was think about one little thing and the floodgates just opened like a bitch and there was no stopping anything no matter how many tissues i used to soak up the blood or mops to wipe the floor. the water was everywhere and i couldn't stop it

another thing gus & i talked about is how did cavemen deal with illness, e.g. sprained ankles, broken bones. i said, did cavemen get cancer which is something i will research now:

But despite the looming danger of a grizzly hunting bear, and the responsibility of catching and killing the family roast - in paleolithic times, cancer did not exist. Heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis… – all of these degenerative illnesses which are wiping us out… they were unheard of. 

These people lived like humans should. They would run around all day, hunting and gathering food, which was all fresh, organic, NATURAL – the way perfect nutrition should be… 

The paleolithic diet consisted of meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, nuts, seeds and berries. Simple. And most effective.

via a website called 'foodfairynutrition'

well that's quite alright isn't it? no diseases at all, only the risk of hypothermia or beasts of nature ripping you to shreds... but if you were a woman you just sat at home and drew on the walls didn't you? and not even because of social pressure but it's just the way it was, wasn't it? the men went out to hunt but they sure didn't come home and say to their women 'i hunt because YOU CAN'T' but they were just chill about it and not at all lourding their superior hunting skills over their female counterparts like men do nowadays. in fact being a cavewoman sounds quite wonderful, aside from giving birth without medical aid but it seems they got on alright

should i go on a paleolithic diet then?

Oh ya Gus & I went to that 'French' restaurant at the back of serene center, which really serves Italian food but has signs that say 'bonjour' everywhere to eat the other day because it has really good reviews on hungrygowhere (an online community that I often feel skeptical about -- I feel skeptical about people who feel the need to write really long reviews on hgw, especially when the food is average -- good scale) and the chef was a French guy

and he had a full on twisted moustache and Gus said that he looks like he came right out of Ratatouille. He was also big and round and jolly which I found strange based on my pre-conceived notions of the French being largely an un-jolly sort of people (like Jamaicans are jolly are they not) but a pleasant surprise all in all. He sat at a table and almost yelled 'bonjour' to everyone who walked past including a young Singaporean man who responded "hnnngggz" in his confusion, but he also yelled "au revoir" like the second after they passed, like "hello...goodbye" within 3 seconds, I thought so many people were confused at this large white man yelling shit at them but it was funny

I said I am going to France soon and he told Gus "be careful becauz I know ze French boiz and zey are verrry nozy". If I think about it now it doesn't make much sense, because so what if they are nosy, at the end of the day they might know details like when did I stop growing and why does my sister always feel stressed at school but they might never flirt with me so what does Gus have to be careful of. But I appreciated the man's jolly concern, I feel it was one of the more stable conversations I've had with adult foreigners which is a department in which I struggle constantly.

Yeah well this blog is called binge blogging for a reason

When Meelo is sleeping in my room I notice she always starts wheezing or making sounds that sounds like WORMMPHHGHH and her legs move in a way that would be ungraceful on a female but I guess not on a bitch. Gus told me she has nightmares sometimes which I find incredible, I mean what do dogs even dream about??? and what dream could be so bad for a dog???

1) Meelo dreams that she has been chasing after beef jerky for a million miles but my mother simply will not give it to her and she is at the point where her legs are tired but she dedicatedly drags herself on and involuntarily makes WORMMPHGHHGHH noises

2) Meelo dreams of a thunderstorm (she is scared of those)

3) Meelo dreams of ........ ???

I find it hard to come up with anymore scenarios because her life through my eyes has been over-simplified to being afraid of water falling from the sky accompanied by loud noises and being hungry. I always hope one of the machines our human race will one day design is a machine that can read/translate dog's thoughts/memories. It will be incredible and solve all the world's problems (or completely exacerbate them) because if you think about many important people in the world they all own dogs

Eg. the Queen has corgis
Kennedy or Reagan or somebody had a Meelo
That evil guy in Up had a whole pack of dogs

And fucking Marley, of course

So the machine would translate all of dogs's inner thoughts and memories and literally ALL of the world's secrets would be exposed to mankind. Although I think I would be quite afraid... the things I've let Meelo see me do is a list that God could probably borrow for judgment day. Bad joke. But the things do include a completely unrestrictive chocolate and chips binging session in bed watching lousy sitcoms, crumbs falling everywhere, including onto Meelo, or Gus & I planting fake cockroaches everywhere in the house to scare people (except not my maid who manhandled that plastic cockroach like a friggin BOSS), or scratching my butt and farting

I wish meelo wouldn't be scared and have nightmares though, dogs are supposed to be happy ALL the time, no exceptions. I'm sure animals don't have that human tendency to be upset when they expected some 'space' or some 'time alone' to 'reflect' or 'grow', so my expectations of happy dogs 24/7 shouldn't be alarming or anything right

forgot about this beautiful poem. i will recite it to my husband on my wedding day.

Perhaps Not To Be Is To Be Without Your Being by Pablo Neruda 

Perhaps not to be is to be without your being,
without your going, that cuts noon light
like a blue flower, without your passing
later through fog and stones,
without the torch you lift in your hand
that others may not see as golden,
that perhaps no one believed blossomed
the glowing origin of the rose,
without, in the end, your being, your coming
suddenly, inspiringly, to know my life,
blaze of the rose-tree, wheat of the breeze:
and it follows that I am, because you are:
it follows from ‘you are’, that I am, and we:
and, because of love, you will, I will,
We will, come to be. 

um Gus is injured so i have been taking care of him which is fun and not fun at the same time. i had to go to the comic book store by myself because he couldn't walk. i bought the first volumes of the walking dead and fables, and one issue of superman for Gus to cheer him up. one thing i read when i was at the shop was an article where it said the owner of the comic book store had once invited the illustrator of the green lantern comics to come and have sort of like a fan-meet session, and apparently it was so memorable to the illustrator, that the owner of the comic book store is now green lantern's driver in one of the issues/volumes. pretty neat.

we read everything when i came home and he fell asleep after taking ibuprofen. last night he stayed over and meelo kept wanting to be let in but we couldn't let her in in case she jumped onto the bed and hurt his ankle. i felt bad for her i knew she was waiting right outside, like cam in modern family when he has to listen to lily crying but cannot do anything about it. in the end i let her in though and she stayed on the floor.

everyone has to do tutorial bidding except exchange students so i'm glad i'm not going through this bidding phase, it sucks and i hate it, but also i hate leaving but i hate staying but it's happening

first on the 28th i am flying to the netherlands with jan and staying with her while she starts school in maastricht. hopefully we get to visit amsterdam, i would like that. then on the 7th or 8th i would like to be on the way to grenoble and reach safely and find my dorm room and settle down before doing all the logistical things like getting a phone line and data and navigating public transport and etc. all this before i'm so fucked when school starts. i honestly have zero confidence how i'm going to get through this

the day i took my last dose of antibiotics
what a day of relief and joy

celebrated jamie's birthday with a steamboat at her house
gave belated birthday presents to tammy and ashley
dropped jamie's birthday cake on the floor
her foster dog molested me a lot
watched youtube videos

went home with good memories

tomorrow i can pick up my visa from the french embassy which makes things ~OFFICIAL~ which scares me. can't believe i'm leaving in less than two weeks for half a year. i've never felt so torn in my whole life. i know people always say, 'this will be a good experience', which makes me think, they say that about so many things, even the hurtful things, so can't i just know for a fact that this is something good or this is something bad without having to go through it? does that make sense

i tweeted: 'wish my body could experience things without me feeling them'

also i bumped into rachel the other day at holland v, she's up in london so i told her we should meet up sometime when i'm in france, and she said ok, and it made me miss jc days just a little bit, time with my A05 no matter how sporadic or casual everything was between us i miss my classmates and how we used to be, just a little bit

sitting two storeys below Gus as he has lessons upstairs
and i am down here drowning in nausea

puking makes everything better
purging
both literal and metaphorical i suppose
what does the body purge???
i puked out my egg sandwich but i had thought that it was quite tasty when i ate it

i cannot be more grateful that Gus has been faithfully by my side this entire time
driving me to doctor after doctor, telling me to shut up when i needed to shut up
telling the doctor everything about my recent medical history while i lie sedated

a better boyfriend i could not ask for

but in exactly 2 weeks i'll have to say goodbye to him
this knowledge usually hits me at random, random times
i imagine i might not even want him to come to the airport because
what if i cannot let him go?

i love him so much

fb chat with him atm:

gus: i'm super hungry eh
gus: my stomach growled so loud brandon heard
siyi: hahahaha what he say
gus: he was like what the
siyi: lol i didn't finish my sandwich
siyi: you can have some
gus: sweet

after he is done we are going to pick Nat up from science, and then go to Holland V to meet Jan, which will be nice, gus, nat, jan and i. just like old times. i want this nausea to fade immediately so that i can have a good time meeting up with them.

time to pray

i do not remember a worse day in the history of my life

completely helpless
frustrated
in pain
helpless

my body contorted all out of whack
muscles spasming with no relief in sight

two injections in a day
15 pills
12, now that we know which one i had an allergic reaction to

i wonder when my body will get a break

in the throes of my discomfort i prayed, Jesus please heal me
please
please
please

now i am okay
and i remember to say thank You Jesus

have a newfound respect for old people who carry pill caddies around
currently having to pop 15 pills within a 24 time frame
is not as easy as it seems

what's ridiculous is you have to take pills
that negate the side effects of the main pills

if i were to get addicted to drugs, i'll take the intravenous needles please, this experience has scarred me for life

1 more day of this hell
there is a certain point of sickness where you realize the value in taking good care of your body
as a young person i now realize i've squandered my health like a lottery winner
which will stop

after two chefs zi char tomorrow ha ha

today Gus & i were talking at carl's jr (which was so damn hot because the a/c broke down or there was like a fuckload of people in there and everyone's body was radiating heat because the humidity outdoors was insane) about how nowadays, girls like to chase that image of the modern, successful working woman that they flippantly say things like, 'i never want to get married' and 'i hate kids i never want kids' (by girls i mean of my age group, that is, like 18 - 25 maybe)

like my sister is only 17 and she always says 'i never want to have kids you know'

i think it's so ridiculous and so sad that girls see being a mother or being in a marriage as something undesirable. and i think it's quite insulting of these girls to treat the issue of having children or getting married as such trivial issues (in the face of profit and big houses and BMWs or what have you), when you have so many women around the world who are desperate to make babies but cannot, or are desperate to get married and settle down and cannot

i'm not saying women have to be mothers and wives or that they shouldn't go out and work and be successful. i'm saying it's silly of girls of my age to simply declare in the prime of their youths that they don't want kids and marriage, and not seriously thinking about it, or leaving it to a time where they can afford to think about it carefully, because constantly repeating something to yourself can possibly make you believe it one day even if you were never really of such conviction initially

and that's sad because i'm sure most people would agree that our mothers are basically the best kinds of people alive

why would you give up a chance to be one of the best kinds of people alive?

went to a new cafe that opened up around jalan besar. it was nice. it used to be an industrial warehouse but they've turned it into a complete coffee junkie's heaven. coffee aside, it has a really nice industrial themed design. in the afternoon the sunlight streams in at a sufficient volume. this place is supposed to become papa palehta's flagship store, so if you know papa, it's the same coffee.

tammy and i sat there talking about books for awhile, then singaporeans, then females... nowadays i find myself thinking a lot about females but not in a sexual way

i forgot, sandra will be moving to the east in january which is good news because i'm constantly deprived of people to hang out with late because everybody lives so damn far away

nowadays i feel like i have nothing to do except read books
even the internet has become a desolate wasteland to me

except for watching elephant videos on youtube
and keeping up with the kardashians
why do i enjoy it
i hate kim but khloe and kourtney are funny

THE VALUE OF NATIONAL DAY

I thought about something.

When I watched the NDP 2012, I was struck by how touched I was. Usually it's lame but there's always that one segment, where they feature different Singaporeans and they talk about their lives... I'm very sure it's scripted but on the other hand it's still very touching because I'm sure the people in the films, in agreeing to be filmed, to a certain extent (especially the older Singaporeans) truly are proud and happy that Singapore is their home.

I thought at that moment, I know I'm a Singaporean. And I'm proud to be one. There was a certain point in my life where I stopped saying things like, "I've got to get out of here" and "I hate Singapore". A country is not about the state apparatus that confines you -- Singapore is not its pressure-cooker education system, nor is it its over-inflated HDB prices.

Isn't it a little ridiculous that people who live in fucking true, legitimate DICTATORSHIPS still love their country and pledge patriotism true and true, while we, who live in fucking PEACE AND PROSPERITY have the audacity to curse Singapore and call it a shithole?

A government and its policies are not a country. They are not the nation.

Singaporeans make Singapore. We are the nation.

That video during NDP, that shot of an aunty bringing some kueh to her friends in some National Parks sponsored 'green space' -- I thought, those are the people I love. And they really are. The aunty who gives me a smile if I help her down the stairs or with her groceries, those ah bengs or mats you get trapped in a lift with who always have the funniest, funniest things to say, the hawker uncle who gave Gus extra chili at Adam Road hawker center, the man who is some big shit at PSA who makes it for church every Sunday, the door bitch at the club who sometimes lets you in free, the tattoo artist at Far East who is really old, the girl who always volunteers for WWF events, almost everybody who shaved their heads for Hair for Hope.

I feel like I'm always trying to clamour for the bright lights of some Western, forward city, bursting with art and pomp and "interesting things" that I often forget that things exist at home that are enough for me.

This could be clichéd but Mr Brown is a very good example of someone who is constantly, almost annoyingly critical of the government through and through, but also someone who loves Singapore very much.

Recently I feel like maybe I've somewhat lost touch with that, of how much I am a Singaporean, how much Singaporean-ness exists in me that may be discriminated elsewhere (in the more pretentious circles of good English and quirky personalities I suppose), but it's true and something I shouldn't try to repress.

Singaporeans really make me feel at home, make me feel like myself.
Any Singaporean who genuinely denies this doesn't deserve to be Singaporean at all.

I love Singapore so much I could cry.

Happy National day, guys
Thank you for being Singaporeans <3

The Outsider by Albert Camus

I'm copy-pasting my review of this book from goodreads because I feel strongly about it. 

It's difficult to pin down my exact feelings towards this book. I love it and I hate it. In the beginning it reminded me of Nausea by Sartre, a sort of rambling on and on, but that is, I later on realized, important to Meursault's character.  

He is a dull, boring character, used to mundane, everyday things, but it is this bare bones, stripped to the basics sort of quality that also embodies how he is essentially a rejection of everything society attempts to heave onto him -- social conformities, proprieties, etc. He struck me in a way as being stupid, but I realized he was more naive than anything. Thus the constant feeling of being 'annoyed'. He states it out plainly every time he is annoyed. I feel like 'normal' people would be able to sieve out intentions behind people's actions, intentions that correspond with social expectations (e.g. asking 'how are you' after a relative's death) and respond appropriately, but Mersault is brutally honest without really trying to be malicious when he simply comments that he gets annoyed and wants to leave/stop talking. 

Things annoy him because he doesn't understand why they exist/seem unnecessary. Sometimes I feel this feeling bubbling but it never reaches the surface because it seems unnecessary to let it to.  

As such the conversation with the priest is significant, and the core of the story I suppose. On one hand, Mersault simply does not understand why the Priest, the embodiment of social conformity, does not understand Mersault. Two corners in the ring each unable to see from the other's point of view.  

Mersault does not have the sort of nobility that comes with a man who may have been 'enlightened'. To me, he is the way he is, born like this. His quest for the 'truth' -- the ill necessity of redemption from God, the non-importance of how he responded to his mother's funeral -- comes from a deep, uncompromising place. You see this when often he has to 'make an attempt' to understand things.  

My book came with an afterword by Camus (which was crucial for me in understanding Meursault better, from knowing where Camus was coming from), in which he says: 

"you must ask yourself why Meursault doesn't play the game. The answer is simple: he refuses to lie. Lying is not only saying what isn't true. It is also, in fact especially, saying more than is true and, in the case of hte human heart, saying more than one feels. We all do it, every day, to make life simpler." 

and  

"Meursault is not a reject, but a poor and naked man, in love with a sun which leaves no shadows." 

I thought about this, I realized I identified with it. I'm studying for a degree that day in and day out, I try hard to convince myself I'm interested in, but I definitely SAY that I am interested in it because it sounds good to other people.  

But one point I wonder about. If Camus's ideal perhaps is people who are brutal with the truth of what they feel and the degree to which they feel it, what are his thoughts towards the purposes of societal frameworks and structures without the unintended consequences -- the place of the law or social proprieties in protecting the collective? I'm not well read with his philosophy so I will look into that soon because that interests me.  

I did like this book though. I don't think I will forget about it soon.

'Conquest' 

'Love conquers all'
Even conquers the time where you
         don't deserve love at all

Conquers the earthworms burrowing
     into the soil
Conquers the oceans fleeing to the clouds
Conquers the leopard who
          is licking my bones clean

Conquers you,
conquering me

So naturally
As if you knew that there would
always be another chance

not sure how many days now i've woken up feeling like my body isn't mine
i don't mean that in a philosophical sense
i mean i wake up and some part of my body has fallen into an abyss of pain/discomfort
and everything is connected
my bones, my organs, my blood, my skin
i am everything that is hurting
but i cannot reach that part, i cannot do anything
i cannot make it better

helpless
is how my body makes me feel nowadays

does anybody know what i mean?
seems silly that i cannot simply reach down my throat
and massage my abdomen
or simply slip past my skin
and un-kink those knots in my muscles

it's my body after all
how come i can't do anything to it

i'd like to think that over the past four years since i ended jc that i've grown up
even just a little bit
sometimes i still feel like i'm 17
trying to assert some aspect of me that wasn't real

making friendships that amounted to nothing
that's the saddest part maybe
but also the truest and most distinct

if a criminal ran from the police into a large crowd of people
and the police yelled 'everybody get down'
all the heads would fall in sync and leave
the frame of my silly, weak friendships
stark against the sea of hands over heads

that is, i guess, how i characterize those two years

i am about 65% glad they are over

Gus got a tattoo today. I watched the whole procedure... I think it's more painful than I think, will have to reconsider if I want one.

His is in Hebrew. It says, "Ani le YHWH" which is said, in Hebrew, as "Ani le adonai". Gus told me it's because Yahweh is so sacred that they don't say it, replacing it instead with 'adonai'. YHWH because Gus's dad said that in Hebrew many times here and there they omit vowels in writing, leaving only the consonants.

It means "I belong to Yahweh"

I like it.

i think i don't like the over-beautiful, the outstandingly gorgeous ones.. everybody is attracted to them like flies to a piece of shit -- in the end they attune their bodies and their actions to be sensitive to all this attention they receive

but the ones with the faces you can't distinguish, who blend into the beige wallpaper involuntarily, who spend their lives passing through the eyeballs of the most 'discerning' -- they are free to do whatever they want, and only always hear their own voice

if you want a reflection of society, look at the people it loves
if you want a criticism of it, look at the people it loathes

1969: man lands on the moon 

2012: Mars Curiosity lands on The Red Planet

if there was one specialty i've been truly and genuinely interested/in awe of, i think it would have to be astronomy. there's just an undeniable relationship between astronomy and that stupid question: who am i? what does my life mean? to me the idea of astronomy is so intricately linked to so many things that are important to me: religion, sense of purpose, sense of identity 

everybody knows that God has created a universe that is so vast we cannot even begin to comprehend 

to me astronomy is one step closer to understanding, getting a grasp 

on what God has created and who God is 

i've never really dismissed the idea of life on other planet

i find it extremely plausible given such little we know about our galaxy, even less so the universe(s) 

i think one of the things i love and hate about life is attempting to wrap my head around how huge everything is. how insignificant i am but more so how enormous everything else is. i find the idea of a planet suspended in mid-air (super layman speak) preposterous and yet it's the core of my being. i find the speed of light ridiculous and yet it governs how we live every single day. 

i find the enormity of everything in astronomy so damn farfetched and incomprehensible 

but that it is real 

makes the moments when i stop to think about these things feel as if 

my life is not real 

dream-like 

almost like i'm suspended in mystique as much as the earth rotates on its own 

like we are merely a figment of God's imagination 

i'm not sure why but this week has been filled with a lot of astronomy, most prominently, the knowledge that given how far away stars are from us, it would take thousands of years for light to travel from the star to earth i.e. it would take thousands of years for this light to enter our camera lenses and our eyeballs that would enable us to see the star, by which time the star might be dead, collapsed 

this afternoon i told Gus, if someone lived on a planet thousands, millions of lightyears away and established vision of Earth right now, he/she/it would see us eating in this restaurant, my club sandwich and your nasi goreng, talking, being cold because of the air-con, talking about this. 

by then he & i would be ashes returned to the ground, into soil that may not exist any longer. we would be dead. but an image of us may live on somewhere else in this universe. how beautiful is that? 

the in between happiness & sadness does not exist from siyichen on 8tracks.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) directed by Michel Gondry

     

      

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot?
The world forgetting and the world forgot
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind
Each prayer accepted and each wish resigned
-- Alexander Pope

this movie is so famous there's hardly any need to get into it. i can't believe i've taken so long to watch it, but it was beautiful in more ways than one. i thought jim carrey was so great, i couldn't believe it was him. i think this film easily weaseled its way into my favourites list, and i admit i felt my hearts open the door for it.

the only thing i wanted to note was why i think i might have felt so strongly about it. i didn't know this film was about forgetting the people who have hurt you or made you feel like shit. not so long ago i had this thought. what if i never ever knew anybody in my life who matters to me. what if i had grown up all alone. sure, i'd be lonely as hell, but i would never know loss. i would never know what it was like to be hurt. i would never have to cry over somebody and feel that ache that only comes with losing a part of you.

what if i had never known Gus?

right now i'd say that is such bullshit, of course i want to know him. that's unconditional. i'm super duper happy that he's in my life. but if the time comes where simply looking at him makes me choke on my own tears -- how lovely it would be to wake up one morning and not know who he was at all.

the film concludes that attempting to forget bad memories goes hand in hand with forgetting the good. trying to lose all the hurt means losing everything beautiful that ever existed together with that memory. and that it basically isn't worth it. yes, it hurts, but there is a sacred ebb of light that thrives on a love that once was wholesome and untainted that should not be touched.

a coward would erase everything and choose not to remember anything at all
but a real man chooses to see that the beauty in loss is that you even had it in the first place

that is something i'm trying to learn
but it makes me cry

Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011) - directed by David Gelb











i loved this documentary. it reminded of the vast difference between the privileges we (as a collective youth) receive nowadays, unasked for, and that of those born more than half a century before us. it is astounding the kind of individuals the difference has shaped.

 it is more than just a film about sushi -- it is about the work ethic of an 85 year old japanese man, while hardened by childhood hardships, has maintained an outlook on life and on his work that i can only describe as wise aloofness. when he visits his parents tombstones in the cemetery, he says with a genuine laugh: 'i don't know why i come here. they never took care of me.' he exudes a self-dependency even at 85, a quality ripened through years of striving.

his work is essentially his life. for 75 years he has done the same job, and it is surprising -- the monotony of it is an appeal to him. everyday he does the same thing but constantly strives to improve his 'craft', that of improving the taken-for-granted sushi. his passion and self-discipline is passed on to his two younger sons, who, in true asian fashion, have similarly become respected and notable sushi chefs.

but beyond that, there is a touching, almost sad family dynamic that surfaces. a father eager to leave his legacy in the living hands of his sons, two sons burdened with the fame and skill of their father's shadow, but a beautiful, moving understanding between the three that there is something bigger at hand than themselves. as asians we are taught never to complain, to listen to your elders, obey your parents. on one hand that can be seen as passivity, lack of backbone, weakness. but in the documentary, it is done not out of fear, or social protocol, but out of love, a fierceness to protect, an understanding of a legacy, such that the self becomes unimportant. the family becomes everything. i think the most grand touch is that in a family of three grown men, this dynamic is subtle, not apparent. in a way you end the film knowing all this without any of it having ever really explained itself.

his son, yoshikazu, ends the documentary with these words:

Always look ahead and above yourself... that's what he taught me. 

in this day and age where the self has become the primary unit of attention, i me mine, all the time, i loved this documentary for its reminder that there are bigger things than making yourself happy. i think that is what i am beginning to realize. happiness comes later, naturally

in the moment i don't realize but
when my fingers tremble and my heart pounds
furiously in defiance of perceived injustice
when the little things become mountains
and the reality becomes molehills
when the tears drip and i feel
the edges of my mouth pull downwards as if by gravity
when my body snaps into a fetal position
the way you'd snap a glowstick to release light
(similarly i shut my eyes and all the light leaves)
and there's almost a ferocity in the way my fists form
a pulsing in my muscles and in my blood
to turn this anger and hurt into physical pain
that i can punch out of my body immediately

in the moment i don't realize but
when that happens, the way
your voice softens like the beginning of a sonata
the way your arms pull me in tight
the way you say, 'i'm sorry, i'm sorry'
even though you've done nothing wrong
the way you kiss my forehead
again and again and again
tell me it's alright
tell me there's nothing wrong
tell me i'm going to be okay

in the moment i don't realize but
in retrospect
i now realize that's
almost true

books i bought at books actually's 30% sale: 

the promise bird by zhang yueran
the outsider by albert camus
strangers by taichi yamada
lights out in wonderland by dbc pierce

wanted to also buy but had no money: 


the passion by jeanette winterson
the waves by virginia woolf
why be happy when you can be normal by jeanette winterson

am currently reading:

cat's cradle by kurt vonnegut

recently finished: 

the age of miracles by karen thompson walker
labyrinths by jorge luis borges

unable to finish:

the collected stories by amy hempel (given up)
the total devotion machine and other stories by rosaleen love (slowly but surely perhaps)

bought as a present (to annie, gus's sister): 

a heartbreaking work of staggering genius by dave egger