"Salvation Blues" by Rodney Jones

Many people here expect
the dead are not really dead.
Therefore, they resolve to live
as though they were not alive:

So softly the minor thirds,
So tenderly the major sevenths,
white gospel the elderly virgins
keep treading like chastity

until Franz Liszt, ravager and
destroyer of pianos,
critiques with a thunderstorm:

Remind us there is something 
to be dead about. Play like
you are alive, even if it is not true.  

Watched an episode of Community where Jeff becomes upset because all his life, he has abstained from anything unhealthy, exercised, lived "well", only to be told at a medical check-up that he might want to look into some cholesterol medication. "What's the point?" he says. "We're all going to die anyway. I want my donuts back."

When I read about the guy who died after finishing the Standard Chartered marathon, that's all I could think about. What's the point? I recall the guy who died in some other marathon, the guy who died in army, the girl in Cambridge who got hit by a bus, the lone Singaporean man lost at sea (probably dead), the 13 Chinese sailors murdered on a cargo ship. The guy who died in the StanChart marathon is my friend's boyfriend, a friend I haven't spoken to in years, and yet suddenly it becomes so real. How can this be real.

Mortality is not an issue. It is the arbitrary nature of it that disconcerts me. Gus left awhile ago and he forgot to let me know that he had reached home, and when I realized I started to panic, and I could feel my heart beat faster, and I knew I was being paranoid but I couldn't help it. I called him and couldn't relax until I heard his voice, because all I was thinking was, if something had happened and I could've stopped it, could've asked him to leave earlier or later, or sent him home myself, or not have asked him to come over, any one of those things, then I would live forever in a state of perpetual agony.

Sometimes I look at my grandfather and he's old, and it takes him 3 tries to get up from the sofa, and 3 people supporting him to walk across a room. I look at how his skin tears so easily when it rubs against something, how it bruises and turns purple at the slightest touch. I tell myself, prepare yourself. He's going to go one day. But I cannot stop rejecting that thought. Some people are prepared for these things, when their grandparents go, they say "it was bound to happen sooner or later" and are at peace with it, but I don't see myself being at peace with anything like that.

I think, on some level, I'd rather I die than see someone else I love pass away.

Hahahaah the most used keyword that takes people to my blog is "Takeshi Kaneshiro" LOL. That's fine by me I really do love him, so yummy *.*

Things I have learnt recently:

1. My dog is good at pretending she didn't fart
2. I can easily sleep for 14 hours or more
3. Community is my new favourite sitcom
4. Behati Prinsloo is my new favourite VS model
5. I don't really care about VS models ever since I found out all their cup sizes are actually super average
6. I should start module planning for next semester (already)
7. Half the mess in my room is Gus's
8. When you're at the club you will always expect to meet certain people and be shocked by others
9. We're leaving for London in 9 days

I finished reading Journey to the Centre of the Earth, I quite liked it, it was an adventure, but I still prefer 20, 000 Leagues Under The Sea. I'm now reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Subsequently, depending on when my books arrive, I have lined up:

the hunger games by collins
slaughterhouse five by vonnegut
the prince by machiavelli
cat's cradle by vonnegut
fahrenheit 451 by bradbury
LOTR

clearly returning to the classics I've not managed to read when I had the time, either due to school or work (haha yeah right) or untainted laziness. Quite sure I won't manage to finish everything. In London I envision some sort of independence and roaming the streets of camden and carnaby leisurely, without the restraints of familial obligations. I don't think it will happen, though, my parents are so big on doing everything together while we're there. After Barcelona I wish we could take a day or two and go up to Paris as well. Thankfully my dad is a spontaneous man.

Day 2 since end of exams. So far I have

1. slept at 630am
2. woken up at 3pm
3. slept again at 7pm
4. watched a lame movie
5. finished 3 full bars of tetris battle energy
6. strolled leisurely around town
7. shopped for London a little bit
8. started reading

Quite productive holidays I think, especially the sleeping... I think lots of people think holidays are a time to do everything they've been wanting to do during school period, but they become so obssessed with finishing things that they don't relax. I admire these people, because I'm really just going to relax this holiday, all before school starts all over again in January. And then year 2 will be over... scary. I love the May-July holidays but I think I'm supposed to do an internship then or something... sigh.

Anyway I am now reading Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne, because I liked 20, 000 Leagues Under The Sea so much. I like Jules Verne. I've also started watching Community! I luv it soo much but my sister told me they cancelled it in favor of some Buffy-like series. This is why America sucks because they create good things and then destroy them in favor of hamburgers

Looking back on this sem, it was infinitely better than the last sem and I can point out three distinct reasons. Upon reading them you are free to judge me I don't care. Firstly, because Gus was in school, so I wasn't always thinking about skipping class to hang out with him. And he studies with me. Secondly, because I made some friends and they say things like, "next sem we have to take mods together ok" which makes me feel like I belong somewhere. I also feel like the group is getting bigger and maybe this is really what I wanted out of uni, just a group of friends that can be there for each other in school. (Bert is and always will be my no. 1 NUS friend haha) Thirdly, because I actually, really studied this sem which makes me wonder what my CAP would be now if I just did this from the beginning.

I'm still quite afraid for my results, I think I won't do amazing but I'm really crossing my fingers that hard work (or some semblance of it) pays off. Think I'm growing to be happy with B+ and positively exhilarated with A-, but I have to start learning to stop being content with a B+ like so many other PS students are. Dog-eat-dog world... sad we have to live in it.

Photos with Gus!

"~~omg~~ she's so ugly omg" yes yes i know

I'm tired of this. Can it just stop already.

Today I had a moment of complete alienation from every single occupied space on earth and in the universe. I felt like not a single space that was safe or habitable. I felt the need to be dead rather than alive, asleep rather than witness the atrocities, unknown and unconscious rather than face the uncertainty of tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. I've realized that as I grow older I become more conscious of mortality and the unknown, and instead of being all carpe diem I do the opposite and live in a constant state of fear. I don't remember when I started being afraid of airplanes or ships or cars, for that matter. I'm aware, every single moment of every day, of the follies of humanity encroaching upon the shores of my tiny island, the only place I think might be safe, my country, my home. 

Whatever the farrago of explanations and reasonings for why Singapore has almost none of the problems a state of its age, size and nature should, it doesn't really matter. All I know is I'm as blessed as can be but I cannot harness this understanding to become brave and step out the door. 

All I know is that one day I started to entertain and relish the thought of, what if I never knew my parents or my family or Gus or anyone, and I was all alone, how perfect that would be because I would never have to know loss, I would never have to go through that pain. And I thought about retreating into myself and living like a hermit, and instead of scaring me the thought appealed to me. Is this growing up? Is this what happens? The epiphany that almost everything has the possibility of crumbling into a gigantic heap of disappointment, loss, pain, suffering. 

But it's more than just statistics or numbers indicating chances and trying to rationalize arbitrary occurrences. No, it's the very nature of the way the world turns that is the essence of fear, increasingly, that the hand of man has a larger part to play than the order of nature in shaping how we live, that we have become subservient and subject to the whims and fancies of the flaws of human nature. So what do we hope for? For human nature to be better? Did God intend for us to have faith in Him and faith in humanity? Because it's so difficult. 

I can feel the fear beating in my ears and crawling under my skin, and this is what my existence has been reduced to, that I have to grab onto the moments where I'm distracted from it and prolong them for as long as possible. So I guess it's not completely random that I'm typing this at 4.15am in the morning, then. Finding answers before the sun is up is impossible.