Warning: This poem discusses eating disorders.

"Saint Catherine of Siena to Mary-Kate Olsen"
Marty McConnell

what god stole your hunger? who demands this reduction
to vertebrae? it’s a specific treason, a case worth losing,
nobody can hear you with fingers or sticks between your lips,
nobody loves you in the bathroom, everyone’s in the kitchen
again, this is my body, broken for you, take and eat

the appearance of bones is not a miracle of the flesh
(take and eat) what do your visions say? who
marries you in the dream, Christ slipping a ring
on my thin second finger, my shorn hair all over
the floor, gold for gold, I was six when he first
came for me, who insists on this full-body stigmata,

how long have you been paying this penance? are you ready
to die for this? martyrdom’s a pretty notion until you’re nose
to nose with it and nothing to be done, the body rejecting water,
salt, fish, when you realize the devil’s the one who wants
you small, who told you the pus of a cancer was wine, said

sip, swallow, this is my blood, transubstantiation in three
degrees, when you have given your good body to a lie
Mary, when your bones turn to whispers they will bury you
under a stone that did not ask to be a stone, we do not ask
to be but we are and to live, Mary, to swear
on everything holy that these bodies are not vessels

but gifts, that’s the trick, to be an altar and not
another sacrifice, for what are you atoning? who is your
eucharist? I made men believe. brought a condemned man
to faith and caught his severed head in my hands, beguine
or not you have hands, a throat, the world doesn’t need

another dead-thin girl, your suffering is not special, offered up
to magazine covers and lip gloss endorsements, thousands
flocked to confession after I preached in public squares, what
are you winning? my mistake was believing the body
meant nothing, yours the opposite – Mary meaning bitter,
Katherine meaning pure, Christ and I died at 33, anvils

for the world’s beatings, vessels of the world’s sins, glue
your brittled bones into the face of a god who bids you
eat, our bodies broken into bread at your feet, chicory,
water lily, do this for you, rosemary, asphodel, do this
in remembrance of me.


--


i like this poem very much. it is very well written. pinpoints what i always ask: "what are you winning?" and i was thinking about this yesterday, while looking at some fashion advertisements, how the girls are perpetually looking as if they're about to die from starvation. and you have all these big, fashion giants blowing their pictures up, calling them "models". a model for who? how can i strive to be someone who looks like a prisoner of war? with backs so purposely hunched it makes me feel uncomfortable and achey. this breed of exhausted, skinny, lifeless girls with vacant stares is becoming lauded as beautiful, but i must assert while they can be pretty at times, to me there is nothing beautiful about how they are portrayed. i wish miu miu would find girls who have some meat, who have some curves and who can smile, for god's sake. why does the modeling industry have to constantly be in depression? no smiles on the catwalk, straight and cold faces. i only enjoy watching VS fashion shows, because i can't see the vertebrae of the girls, nor are they acting like bitches. they smile and flirt with the crowd and although they are still "skinny" girls, at least they have some life in them. and they're still not as skinny as some others rising to prominence. 


of course this is a very grey area. hard to say for sure what the motivation behind this kind of promotion is. and of course the girls are beautiful in their own right. i am not saying they aren't pretty/beautiful, but i'm saying the way they're being portrayed in advertisements isn't. but my point was, 


this poem was well written. 

excitedddd!!!! Gus & I are gonna go to Brisbane in June :) he has friends at UQ so we can stay with them! accommodation free = $$$ SAVED. and if you're gonna be in Brisbane, you obviously might as well visit Gold Coast, right? which means THEME PARKSSSSSSS YAY!!! super excited. going on a holidayyyy~
I really, really love Gold Coast. I love the beaches, and I love the theme parks, especially the water parks! I'm really really excited, but before all that, I have to get through my... exams... ugh

speaking of which I have a paper due next week, a French test on Friday, two papers due the week after and then the dreaded exams. I'm not entirely sure why I'm sticking it out all the way. my dad kind of convinced me that even if I'm leaving, I should finish what I start. so I'm going to try and do a decent job for my exams, at least try to maintain my cap. i've been slacking the past two days because slacking is so. fun. but now that Gus has fallen asleep on me i suppose it's a good time to start work! gonna allocate half of my time to my sg pols paper and half to studying French. i always think my french is not that bad, and i don't think it is. i understand how sentence structures work and i understand the grammar rules, it's just that i'm so lazy to memorize what can only be memorized. especially masculine & feminine forms :(

tomorrow there is no school but maybe i will go down just to trap myself in the library and make full use of its resources to help my paper. i need help. i'm as unmotivated as a student who just took his last A level paper is to study. THAT BAD.

just came back from tennis. it was longer and more tiring than usual, but fun nonetheless. Gus came with Shaun, then later on a couple more of his friends. so we played round robin doubles! i hope i don't ache tonight, not because i don't wanna be more fit but because it always wakes me up in the middle of my sleep. earlier in the day i was also unfortunately trapped in my car with an aedes mosquito. or anopheles. the one with the black and white striped legs. i remember being confused as to wtf it was because of its legs. it blended into the black dashboard and looked like white dust. and after awhile i realised it was a mosquito - a disease carrying mofo - and freaked out

after tennis we went to eat at old airport road! love that place. so near to the new house!!! people seriously considering weight gain, just go there

currently i'm being paranoid about Gus driving home. i wish there was a camera installed in the car that would let me watch his journey so i don't feel afraid of something happening. was talking to Tammy about it the other day (we have been meeting up) and i said, sometimes i don't see the point of living if in the end everything can be taken away in just a second. what is the point of building up all these experiences only to have them be snatched at any moment. and we didn't come to a conclusion what to think about death, except that we were afraid, we were unconvinced about the certainty of heaven waiting for us (i.e. the possibility of hell welcoming us instead) and if so, then it seems impossible for us to live the lives that will get us into heaven. and if that is so, then what do we do

the other thing i wanted to talk about was Tin Pei Ling. if you all haven't kept up with general elections news, she is the latest PAP candidate to run for marine parade grc. MY GRC. dear god she's only 7 years older than me and wanting to enter parliament, her oh-so-impressive "senior advisory at ernst & young" career less than 10 years under her belt. she has a whole bunch of pictures online where she basically gives some pretty lian poses plus a video on youtube of her stomping her feet & whining. WOW, PAP, you really really really scraped the bottom of the barrel this time. furthermore she's definitely going to be elected because the PAP is for sure going to win marine parade grc. my parents have voted once in their lives living in this area. so some inexperienced ah lian is going to "represent generation Y" in parliament. that is one GRC backdoor, add to it the fact that she is married to Lee Hsien Loong's principal private secretary. SO FAIR AH

she also said this: widening income gap is not the responsibility of the government.

fuck, if it's not their responsibility then what the hell do we need the government for. people don't need a government that is not going to help the poor & needy, who don't even think it's their responsibility. the government is not a separate entity from the people. their actions resound in every aspect of civilian life. how poor some people are in Singapore is truly one of our society's greatest failures and greatest shames. it's something to be embarrassed of you know. perhaps it is not the responsibility of the government to bridge the gap, but they should be responsible for the gap being there in the first place. how can 80 year old women be cleaning toilets and your president, who doesn't do a shit, get paid $4 million? should a government be more concerned with running a country analogous to a company, or be more concerned with helping those who need help?

ANSWERS, PLEASE, TIN PEI LING. show me your skillz

I must do this tactfully so I don't come off as an awful person.

You shouldn't donate to Japan. or at least not yet.

"OMG YOU BITCH YOU'RE AS BAD AS THOSE PEOPLE WHO SAID JAPAN DESERVED THE EARTHQUAKE"

no, I'm not. obviously Japan didn't 'deserve' the earthquake. that was pure stupidity. this is not. see, this afternoon I asked Gus if he was going to donate to Japan, and he said, 'no they don't need it, they're rich'. I was appalled as you are likely to be at this point, and I yelled 'THEY'RE IN DEBT!!!" and while I stood by my convictions on this (especially because I'd already donated) Gus said, every country has debt. doesn't mean they're not rich. which is true, and I thought about it for awhile then told Gus he was right.

I came home, did some research. and this case is all the more true for Japan. see, not only is it the world's third biggest economy, it also is the world's most prepared for dealing with natural disasters and their aftermaths. meaning that it has resources financially, as well as in terms of rebuilding and rehabilitating the destruction. of course, we can't assume on that alone that Japan doesn't need help. except for that the fact that they pretty much said it. the Japanese government has not come forward to seek financial help from the rest of the world and has been extremely specific in their aid requests: specialized search-and-rescue teams, specialized communications help and specialized medical assistance. things that the average donor like you & I are unable to provide. otherwise, the Japanese government has been quite clear that they don't need help. PLUS, it has been offered help by 91 countries so far, accepting the offer only 15.

so does that really mean that we shouldn't donate? what's wrong with donating? what's wrong is this: you don't know where your money is going. at the moment, donors are pumping in massive amounts that might not even go towards helping relief efforts in the end. it is essentially 'directionless giving' and until there is a clearer picture of the situation, you are better off stashing the money away OR giving it to countries/communities/organizations that really DO need the money. for example, donating to Haiti would probably do more than donating to Japan. why? Haiti was also hit by an earthquake but didn't have the resources to cope with it. they're still rebuilding, but it's a poor place, and if you donate your money to Haiti, you can be pretty sure you're really going to help. donating to local charities might also be more worthwhile of your money, and in the meantime Japan will rebound like they always do.

IF you are bent on donating to Japan, it is probably better to hold out and wait. this article talks about the reasons why. basically it's better to give the government time to assess the real needs of the disaster and then you can know for sure what your money is going to help. by giving to the red cross and other fairly generic and ambiguous organizations that support 'relief efforts', you're not going to know for sure that your money will end up helping people.

for example, if in a month or so when the situation has been better analyzed and it turns out there is a significant number of orphans who have been left without parents because of the tsunami, and there is a lack of orphanages to support them OR there is a lack of funds to help these orphanages deal with them, then you can donate directly to these orphanages, or through an official organization that helps them. this would be more useful and helpful than giving without direction. and, if in a month, the government comes forward to say they need money for rebuilding efforts, then by all means go ahead and donate.

so once again, I'm not being a bitch. of course if you have given I praise and admire your compassion and generosity, but if you haven't and are planning to, maybe think about it for a second. I have no doubts everyone who wishes to donate has the purest of intentions in their hearts, but I think it is important to also be sure that your money is going to be put to good use and that you want your money to be maximized in how it's going to help someone. good articles to read about this are here and here.

ALSO if you want another good way to use your money, you can hire an ah long to go and rape that Samantha girl on 91.3fm who said that "heartlanders shouldn't go to holland village" because they are "uncultured". is she a fucking retard or something?

honestly it's extremely childish. this girl obviously has no sense of consideration nor respect for other people, especially those who might not be as fortunate as her to get to live in holland village. she has completely baseless arguments with gigantic loopholes, she can't find the simplest sound premise to any of her arguments. she's clearly uneducated, uninformed and her attempt to slang is distorting her words she sounds awfully fake. "cultured" people don't air their inconsequential and baseless grievances on air. and if she were smart, she wouldn't go on air and insult a demographic that is THE MAJORITY OF SINGAPORE

furthermore, she insulted people in bedok, who live in the HDBs, and eat food at block 85. someone argued back, "we earn income and we want to go to holland village to eat good food, just like we would go to bedok. what's wrong with that?" and this airhead of an excuse of a human being said that the food prices in bedok & holland village are extremely different, so do heartlanders even earn enough to go to holland village and buy the food there. HONESTLY?! are you that daft? are you THAT dumb? you think just because people stay in heartlands they're so fucking poor they can't afford to eat Thai Express (WHICH btw charges standard prices at all outlets) at Holland V? I suppose she thinks she's all high-and-mighty because she's rich enough to frequent some pretentious bar called 2pm or some fucking crap like that.

as much as I want to punch the lights out of her and possibly threaten her life, I also feel that she's a product and a bad egg of Singapore's silver spoon problem. too much excesses, no fight in life, no struggle. only getting what she wants all the time, being a spoilt brat, having self-entitlement issues. of course not everyone in Singapore is like this. she just happens to be one of those that went wrong. like an egg that fell out of an egg tray, then got put back and sold. an unfortunate incident for the rest of us who have to tolerate her among our "uncultured", "uneducated", "slippers and t-shirt" midst. Samantha from Holland V, you better only be wearing super branded long gowns and full make-up and high heels. if I ever catch you in slippers I'll punch you  

on a last note,
to be cultured also means to be respectful and considerate of the people around you, no matter where they come from. so OBVIOUSLY, you =/= cultured. maybe you should stop going to holland V.

I want to know where my energy is being spent on useless things. things I am reading, things I am putting effort into. which of these is actually serving me no purpose? and then I want to stop doing these things.

another thing. recently I've been very grateful that I'm Asian. that is not to come right out and say that Asians > Whites (that is for you to make your own judgement hahahaha judge carefully) but that I'm simply thankful for the things I've been fortunate enough to receive by virtue of being an Asian. to be honest I used to hate being Asian and I always wished I was white, but now I'm really over that... I like being Asian and so I thank God for that

embrace your heritage guys.

yes I am going through a period of self-rejuvenation and cleansing

recently there's been the sprouting up of several short clips shown on tv, hailing the Japanese for their bravery and resolution during this hard time, and about how we support them. I just read that the death toll just surpassed 27, 000. and all the clips show these awfully sad images that you already see in the papers everyday, old Japanese people being carried on backs of rescue workers, a woman crying amidst debris, a packed school gymnasium of evacuees and the homeless... today what touched me when I watched those clips again was seeing the people who were tirelessly moving back and forth, carrying people, giving supplies, medical help, clearing debris.

and I thought, this is a person ideal that is worth aspiring to be. someone whose sole purpose in life is to rush to someone else's aid and do what they can to help. and honestly these people do the most noble, most sacrificial jobs... I would like to be a rescue worker when I grow up I think

there is nothing very big that I can do now except pray and give money. so today I messaged 'REDCROSS' several times to 75772 to make a donation to the Singapore Red Cross for their relief efforts in Japan.

good and bad news pouring out of the land of the rising sun... radioactive contamination of Tokyo's tap water, smoke rising from several reactors in Fukushima, but overall stabilizing of the situation.

God is good, I will hold onto the truth of that. 6.8 earthquake in Myanmar just happened. if I were still in Myanmar it wouldn't have affected Yangon, but I just thought about one of Gus's good friends who still lives there. he lives nearer to the Shan state, nearer to the China border which is where the epicentre of the earthquake is near. am praying that nothing is wrong because he was such a nice guy. he made the funniest jokes using actions because he didn't speak English well, which I thought was a huge achievement that his humor crossed language boundaries. I liked him a lot.

also, CNN asked for people to send in reports if they were affected by the Myanmar earthquake. I don't think they will receive much since almost no one in Burma is allowed to watch CNN -.-

hi guys today I am chilling at the new house alone, doing my essay. the dining table came today so I have somewhere to do my work, as well as the chairs... bought my lunch just now from old airport road, chicken rice. as you can see the new house is really open and sunny and that's why I like it. I came here because I thought there would be no distractions, but I was wrong. I flipped open my laptop and it hooked onto the wifi of some family who didn't lock their wifi nearby. HEHE free wifi, Gus said don't get caught but I don't know how that would happen... but I should log off soon just to be safe. 

in my hands I am holding 95 pages of readings on neo-corporatism in Europe, which I should complete before I even begin attempting to churn out some C-grade quality argument. wish me luck!