The waters are rough

These 3 days had been a struggle. But to swim against the current of memories in the months or years to come, now that’s a battle.

And this trip to Japan, I had intended it to be an escapism but in the metaphorical sense, to take flight from everything ordinary here for a little while, not taking leave from the pain. Then again, I hadn’t been wishing it right. I just prayed for an escape, not thinking about what I wanted to run from.

Like this image that frozen in my mind now. The picture of me bent over her, with the words ‘I love you’ perched on my lips but never tumbled down them. All I could say was that asking her to rest well and I would be back again to visit the next day. I never got that chance.

The bitterness of the letters is still on my tongue and the icicles formed on the image are stabbing my mind.

I never thought I would ever experience this; regret over words left unsaid.

Could I dump my heart at home during my trip to Japan? One luggage is heavy enough; don’t need to carry another one in my chest.

The worst part is, I can't cry. I'm not that sort of person. Instead of painting everything on a canvas just to get it off me, I weave it tightly into me, even dark emotions, until time comes and undo the stitches. Like an incense, it burns excruciatingly slowly and eats from the insides while a skin-thin layer of ash forms, then falls with a little shake.

I don't know how much it would hurt when I eventually plow through the memories but I at least I know it would make me stronger. 

Wake me up when it's over

Sometimes, the reason you have to learn to let go, is because someone you cared a lot about had done so long ago. 

Today she has finally let go. Now it's time for me to do the same.

Take to the sky

God, I'm such a narcissist. 

"I shot for the sky."  –Down, Jason Walker

I did too. I reached for the stars and I swung for the heavens. And now my head’s rested on the cotton-candy of cloud, its milky-pink wisps a delicate tendril around my wrists. It is an ethereal bliss, this.

But I took a while to get here.

It's funny how you would never know the faith and confident you have in yourself till the breathless moment of truth when the results are smeared grossly all over your college inbox like a spilt bottle of black ink. Especially ones you strove hard for, songs you used your heart to polish so that fears of exam don’t taint enough to dull the brilliance.

I’m not saying the others were slacking, but I know I slaved for the 4 Jury pieces, just so I could put my mind at ease during the pending weeks of the doomsday. God knew the relaxed state I was in the last 7 days before The Day. It was as if my brains were a fenced off meadow where the sheep of Jury 2, Results and Days Left rather graze grass than try jumping over the barrier.

And that brief moment when I stepped out of the jam room, I was brimming with self-assurance that I did well, beyond a doubt. But today when Simon asked, “Why didn’t you want to check your results? What exactly are you expecting to get? B? C?”

In that 2-second silence, I was actually considering a D.

Guess it was written all over my face.

“You passed, I saw your results.”

Sad to say, I was immensely relief I simply passed and not bothering to consider if I got a higher grade.

“Hey, what are the marks you’d need to get for an A?”

“Erm…80 plus, I guess.”

“Ahhh. Juan said you got an A.”

“WHAT?!”

“I asked Juan about your results. He said you got an A.”

(I don’t understand why people can’t tell from my tone that my WHAT meant ‘YOU’RE SERIOUS?!’, not ‘come again?’. Not that I’m annoyed. I’m just baffled at my inadequacy to convey my surprise.)

But I didn’t want to believe it. My heart is a fragile thing. No need to carry up to the 15^th floor only to drop it back down. Not because I didn’t trust either of them, it was simply because I honestly thought it was law-of-nature-defying impossible. I had no belief in myself. If I were Tinkerbell, I would have died long ago.

Which was how, 7 murderous hours later, I found my eyes screening the page deliberately slowly, my inner eye preparing my heart for a B+, at most.    

Major Instrument Piano 4          A+          89

HOLY MOTHER OF HEAVENS. GOOD LORD OF DIVINITY. MY SWEET GOD.

I had wind knocked out of me forcefully. 

I mean, ME?! It was like some fairy godperson just handed me a sword and incited, “You are the Chosen One. Only you, who could defeat the evil and bring peace to this world.”

I swear, it felt like that. Surreal. Infinitely impossible. Mistaken.

Wen Dee has some wicked skills. Jia Wen chose mind-blowing band songs. Rou Yen possesses crazy chops. But me? This is insane.

Emotionally electrifying and all-consuming ecstatic, but nonetheless other-worldly absurd; truly it is.

The fact is still too fat for my mind to wrap around. Half of me swimming in this lake of happiness; the other half trying to formulate a logical equation leading to the marks.  

Please slap me if I start to get big-headed in college. 

Baby, you're a firework

The November babies are an adorable bunch. You have the rocker chick, Simmy, with all her silent guitar prowess. She’s like a jack-in-a-box, you know. A zinging ball of energy coiled within a shell of jeans and shirts declaring her devotion to rock, draped under chains, bangles and morbid trinkets. Caroling practices became witness to the other side and we would probably soon become mirrors of her insanity.

You have the girl with flying fingers, Wen Dee, someone who, for all her perfectionism, could be perplexingly lost 99% of the time.

“Cool. We finished revising! Did Justin give us any exercise to do?”

Wen Dee perked up. “What? Exercise now? It’s 10pm! All the gyms closed already!”

You could see from her face she honestly believed I meant physical workout. Yeah. Say hi to the genius whose piano marks never saw the daylight of B or anything less than that.

She's the one next to me

You have Rebecca the Drummer; the tiny one, the pale white one, the rabbit-like one. She’s kind of like a werewolf, but instead of morphing into some loathsome creature, she turns from sweetly silent to annoyingly boisterous under the shimmer and influence of our presence. It’s either she enjoys being a pain in the ass or we’re simply too awesome.

 Yo people, doesn't it look like Rebecca or what?

You have Penny Wong, the hoodie enthusiast. She’s the sort of person whom you would never shine in the light of an aging senior, much less someone who’s soon to graduate. But she is, and she used to be the index-fingers-poking lovable dwarf of my band during my very first semester in Modern Band. Ah, those days. And I still remember our thrill at having made it to the concert. Good memories, and I thank you for that, Penny (:

 The leftmost little gal

Happy Birthday, peeps! 

Now you know

This post goes out to my bewildered mom, horrified friends and appalled conservative society.

Why we celebrated Halloween when it isn’t even our culture:  

ONE. It is not our culture. Period. In my equation, culture comes hand in hand with family. The lunar new year, mid autumn festival, hungry ghost festival, winter solstice, it didn’t matter, my place would always be at a posh restaurant, buried under a sumptuous meal and layers of chattering while my reunited family members tried to talk over one another in excitement; or at home bowing my head before the altar, praying for good health and a smooth year ahead, as mom sets a table of offerings for the gods.

But Halloween is not my culture. I do not have customs to comply to, I am not haunted by superstitions guarding my actions, I heed no advice regarding my garments and looks; my every step becomes my own tradition and my every movement is the rule for this new occasion. And, just as cultural festivities are for family quality time; non-cultural celebrations mark the freedom of sharing them with anyone we chose to. Since my parents just rolled their eyes at the word, and the idea of dressing up with them actually nauseated me, so Halloween with my cohorts it is then!

TWO. Nobody remembers the evenings he spends nestled comfortably at home. I wouldn’t either, not when I’m 70 and crooked and my mind a dusty cavern. All that would light those blurry eyes of mine would be these colorful memories, the days of rainbows and bunnies; the times when we were young and could run, baby, run, to be who we wanted to be.

So let this Halloween be another penny in my piggybank of smiles, another note in this symphony I write for us, another gigabyte of photos in my external hard disk. At least I would be able to tell any keen listeners, “You know, there was once we did this cruh-ay-zee thing back during the Halloween of 2010…”

THREE. This is my way of feeling closer to you. Call me twisted, but celebrating the same occasion as you are overseas somewhat gives me a sense of connection. As if our personal Halloween experiences were like steamy mugs of chocolate with marshmallows; it didn’t matter that we each brewed them in our corners of the world, separately and using different brands, mine Nestle and yours Cadburry, coz in the end all that counts is the fuzzy moment where we meet on Skype and sip them together.

It’s absurd, I know, the way my thoughts work and the way I try to hang on to everything and everyone. But I can’t help it. I’m a person of heart over mind; and my heart tells me it misses Les Sluts insanely and Halloween is a brilliant opportunity to bridge the gap between us, even just for a day. And for that couple of hours, I really felt like I was celebrating, in my glorious witchiness and all, with you.  

Somewhere only we know

I've always known, with you, I am home :) 

Eu Chern

We let me be who I want to be and that makes me who I am

Joanna

We make jigsaw puzzles seem incomplete and rainbows monotonous <3

Ying Hui 

P.S. The rest of you can just email me and you'll appear here and be famous (:

You know it's fun to be me

I read somewhere that writers are control freaks.

Since it would be downright moronic if I denied I’m a writer, then it would also be an ass of me if I don’t accept my being a control freak. But I do, wholly. And I could understand and reason with you why.

Bear with my narcissism if you will. See, when I’m writing, I am the God of my ink and paper world, the Lord of my verbal creation, the Authority of my virtual universe. I control everything; I control the concept to which my own planet bows, I control the lives that exist on its surface, I control the fate of these insignificant souls, heck, I control my characters’ emotions and their every single thought and movement. I play the ultimate omnipresent master puppeteer of my art.

Sad that I should lose this power every time I step back out into reality. No wonder I would be considerably upset when things don’t go my way in real life; when I’m not the one holding the reins to this twisted world; when the fairy dust had settled and my words lay lifeless on the tar road, serving only to express my exasperation, rather than breathing life to my imagination.

I hate that I sometimes have to be someone I’m not, just so I would pass as norm in a society, instead of penning the words, “She isn’t beautiful; she isn’t smart; most of all, she isn’t perfect. But it doesn’t matter; they see her as a living proof of someone who isn’t afraid of being who she is and people accept and love her for that,” then POOF, I become popular. Huh. Reality does NOT run like that, much to my disappointment. Words are nothing against the works of life.

And I hate that I can’t make you want me. Hate that mere scribbled alphabets can’t make you see that I’m better than her.

  

How freaky is this? To you, of course.

But screw it. I found my niche in this harsh place. I found myself a band of control freaks who believe that the world WILL bow to us one day. So no matter how stoned the earth seems to get, there will always be a secret haven for us, within us.

Just a gentle note: Never piss a writer off. Words are our shadows and we can shape them just as a clown can knot a wiggly balloon into a sword, though a sharper and much harmful one.

This is the place where I sit

I had an awesome lunch today.

In the blessed and blissful company of my own self.

There was no taking into account another’s opinions, wants or needs; no desperate measure on my part to knead dough out of a conversation when all I felt like doing was watch the yeast rise in silence.

It was just me and my book.

Not so much because I had no one to join me, but more the fact that I wanted to spend the time alone; to bask in my solitary presence; to stride parallel to the peaceful state of my thoughts and mind.

Solitude is a luxury, you know.

It is the quintessence of human being; it is a gift with which we can use to discover ourselves, to find the x to the equations of our lives, to open the eyes of our hearts, and sometimes, to heal wounds.

Which explains why I had been making trips to the park behind my house a lot these days; to merely sit on the swing, swishing back and forth in a pace of my desire and mood, the fingers of wind running though my hair and feeling the tips of my lips curl up as I daydream about us to the soundtrack of our favourite songs drifting slightly unevenly from my cell with each oscillation.

And something about being outdoor and out in the open appeals to me; the juxtaposed sensation of being exposed under the skies yet being embraced in the arms of the teeming greenery at once.  

I like my shoes off too, once I make sure there are no glass bits or any harmful residual left by egocentric worms (they are the few creatures that do NOT own a brain). As if I’m stepping out of the materialistic world of the crocs enveloping my feet onto the surface of nature, always so gentle, so comforting.

And I’m sure I’m not alone in this.

Oui, Les Sluts?

Every time I tried, I get tongue-tied

Thou shall remember this date for it is of utmost importance. 

What did you say?

Nevermind.

Anyway, as I was saying, and as you can see from the retarded photo, I got myself retainers fixed (I’m not even sure why I sound excited about this)!

*Just in case you're mentally challenged: Retainers are NOT braces. If you must know, they are the youthful and less embarrassing form of dentures, able to be taken off for meals or cleansing.

It’s not as painful as I thought it would be; in fact, it’s not even close to painful, just discomfort at having something in your mouth 24/7, like chewing on a magic cookie all day long. The only annoying thing is the saliva. God, it’s like my mouth's saliva bladder got busted or something. I keep sucking it back the whole time, as if I’m lusting over the person I talk to and can’t keep my drooling in check. Haha. When I skyped Eu Chern, he couldn’t understand a word I said so I had to take the retainers off, which I did in front of the camera, before his naked eyes, much to his disgust. I even tweaked it with my finger absent-mindedly, sometime during the video call, and I was running it across the part where the frame jutted out and poked against my lips when a voice boomed, or yelled, in my headphones, "EWWW CAN YOU NOT FREAKING DO THAT IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA!" Haha right. I forgot all about the webcam.

Oh. And the dentist gave me this wiry mystic key that turns a secret lock in my retainers, a ritual and an act of wizardry I must perform unfailingly at the start of every week in achieving straight and beautiful teeth. Plus, it was presented to me in this fairylike glow-in-the-dark horse shoe-shape box! Ha.Who's laughing now, Tham Ying Ying?!

But 12 months IS a long time, all factors considered. Let's just hope the retainers is the only aid I need and that it would accomplish what it was molded to do; that I would not need to turn to, oh God, braces.

I should definitely stop smiling like that. 

Keep me awake so I won't be caught off guard

Is it selfish of me to want you to struggle for me?

To beg of you to fight the pain; to plea that you fight the odds stack against you; to silently pray that you fight the suffering that is pulling you under. Just so I could have a little more time with you.

I guess the answer’s pretty clear. I’m an inward-gravitated bitch who asks for the unthinkable in the face of despair and all-consuming fear.

But please. Please do fight. Because I’m not ready for this. And, more than anything, because I love you. I love you so, so much. 

Just the two of us

Like I’d mentioned a gazillion times before, planning isn’t my forte. So you’d probably imagine how freaked out I was about Joanne coming over to my place last night and the following day coz I had no agenda prepared, no roller coaster rides to take her on, no eye-popping experience to have her share with. But like always and as if on cue, spontaneity would swoop down and save me, just in time to stop the directionless train from plunging into the miserable lake of distasteful shopping trips.

And hell yeah, what better to officially launch our ‘vacation’ with a big meal at Kayu, the 5-star mamak, capping it off with the roti tisu I had been bragging to her about. Then we stayed up till 4am, slumped on the sofas, just flicking through channels, cursing at the TV for not showing good Hindu movies, settling on drooling at Jamie Oliver’s pretty face and the food his magic hands cooked, then, when we finally decided to go to bed, chatting in the dark about everything under the sun, I mean moon.

Today was a mind-boggling one. The promise we made to my dad about waking up at 7am for a hiking trip to Bukit Gasing simply dissolved with our dreams and we ended up eating a heavy breakfast at Section 17, a meal we later relabeled it as brunch. Mom laughed at dad for bringing an Ipoh girl to have Ipoh Hor Fun and Wat Gai (how disturbing it sounds in English ‘translation’).

Screw the crowd at IKEA cafeteria/food court. I wanted my damn meatballs. But it was not to be and so we left to fulfill my spur-of-the-moment ingenious plan: Petroscience. It was Joanne’s virgin trip there and my 8^th (and counting).

Other than those strangle-worthy kids who were clearly not taught the worldly term ‘queue up’ and not civilized enough to know not to squeal ‘MY TURN MY TURN MY TURN’ into people’s ears, the time spent there was undoubtedly fun. Just the two of us, me the tour guide, she the explorer. We even made an effort to read all the science-y info regarding the toys we played and activities we did. Good to know they actually add new things from time to time to attract visitors, unlike a certain science centre I went to, one that ruined the image of this country’s capability to build a fun learning science centre.

Butterflies on our heads!

Praise the Virtual Pebbles of Petroscience!

The best slide ride I had in ages! Since, well, the last time I'd been there, with Eu Chern.

Skiing!

Squiggling paint onto the virtual canvas with my electronic crayon

Freaking blogspot banned me from uploading anymore photos coz I've exceeded the 1GB quota for photos. Like, what the heck. Maybe I'll FINALLY switch to tumblr. Help me, jizzer?

Long live all the magic we made

Yes I’m in love. I’m deeply in love with the people who love me back for who I am; who are everything I wish for in a friend; who never question my sanity; who would swallow the hurt I unintentionally feed them like a bitter medicine coz they know I might just be going through a rough patch; who make me feel beautiful simply because they themselves are; who are irreplaceable.

Here’s to you, my Belles, Long Live our friendship (:

Less than three you 

Okay so it's Taylor Swift and this song probably reminds you of one of her older singles, Change. But screw that. I'm one for lyrics.

I still remember this moment

In the back of my mind

The time we stood with our shaking hands

The crowd in stands went wild

We were the kings and the queens

And they read off our names

The night you danced like you knew our lives

Would never be the same

You held your head like a hero

On a history book page

It was the end of a decade

But the start of an age

Long live the walls we crashed through

All the kingdom lights shined just for me and you

I was screaming, "Long live all the magic we made"

And bring on all the pretenders

One day we will be remembered

I still remember this feeling

I passed the pictures around

Of all the years that we stood there on the sidelines

Wishing for right now

We are the kings and the queens

You traded your baseball cap for a crown

When they gave us our trophies

And we held them up for our town

And the cynics were outraged

Screaming, "This is absurd"

'Cause for a moment a band of thieves in ripped up jeans got to rule the world

Long live the walls we crashed through

All the kingdom lights shined just for me and you

I was screaming, "Long live all the magic we made"

And bring on all the pretenders

I'm not afraid

Long live all the mountains we moved

I had the time of my life

Fighting dragons with you

I was screaming, "Long live the look on your face"

And bring on all the pretenders

One day we will be remembered

Hold on to spinning around

Confetti falls to the ground

May these memories break

And you take a moment

Promise me this:

That you'll stand by me forever

But if God forbid fate should step in

And force us into a goodbye

If you have children someday

When they point to the pictures

Please tell them my name

Tell them how the crowds went wild

Tell them how I hope they shine

Long live the walls we crashed through

I had the time of my life with you

Long, long live the walls we crashed through

All the candlelight shined just for me and you

And I was screaming, "Long live all the magic we made"

And bring on all the pretenders

I'm not afraid

Singing long live all the mountains we moved

I had the time of my life

Fighting dragons with you

And long, long live the look on your face

And bring on all the pretenders

One day we will be remembered