the motorcycle diaries

chim + shup + fuzz + jo | the softballer, tennis player, councillor and judoka | (wannabe) girl jocks | 03a15 hwachonggg | arty farty humanz | travel HK | cycle pasir ris | dinner anywhere | what we have in common - our restlessness, our impassioned spirits, and a love for the open road

Saturday, December 17, 2005

ohshitohshitohshit

tonnes of last minute rushing to do. cold. hungry cos cold. no coffee. sleepy cos sworn off coffee (too weird effects). not a very happy chim right now.

my roommate's gone and i miss her, despite the initial personality clash, i have learnt to appreciate her warmth and openness. i'm glad i've the room to myself to convert into a studying hothouse, but i must say that living with her has definitely taught me how to be a nicer person when living with others hehehe, and to speak up instead of fume in silence.

i just wish this floormate of mine who's been getting a bit too friendly will go away. he's nice, but somehow he and the other white american guys on my floor are very physical leh. is it very natural to hug and kiss people on their heads??? well my friend was kissed by a total stranger of the same sex so i think i have it good. but still... all the hugging which i didn't mind cos when you're stressed out a little comforting is nice is progressing to kisses on my head and the side of my head bloody hell. maybe i should just learn and give it as good as i get hah then when i go home i'll give you some tender loving chim care too.

i don't know why but this "poem" that i composed for jo 2 yrs ago just keeps on popping into my head hehe:

i am jo, yo yo.
i like po, you know.
i am a cheeko -
pek pek, go jo!

which then reminds me of the one for shup written during econ drq:

ping oh ping oh ping,
of your greatness i sing.
alas, i bo lui, cannot give you a ring,
but i offer you my grin's bling bling =)

or something like that.

don't remember one for fuzz but no sweat, i'll compose one as soon as bloody history is done. bleahhhhhh. erm, my christmas gifts to you all? hehehe.

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

i will not play with substances anymore

so, the monologue continues. GLARE. I know you guys are reading this blog grrrrr. Don't worry shup i've been camping in the library trying to feel stressed out for finals take your time to continue our comments conversation. this is what we've been reduced to, comments conversation, grrrrrr.

i'm going mad with caffeine grrrrr. i liked how awake from coffee i was last night so i tried a large freddo today, and found out it's actually quite damn strong. so now i'm jittery and my eyes can't focus and i'm shaking like crazy. and i feel like vomiting on and off. but i'm writing my paper extra quick! zip zip! whee! grrrrr. i want to run and run and run and never stop, or yak my head off to anyone who'll listen with all his heart and not kill me, or climb the highest wall here and yell out my innermost secrets. my god i'm high.

my heart is so full these days i don't know what to think anymore. i want to rationalise everything the senses take in, but fauziah, damn, same problem as always, cannot decide on anything. i need you here! any of you! christmas is coming, the time to feel damn alone and lost.

i'm so incoherent sorry the caffeine is talking and i'm going to regret spilling all this but i feel reckless and very open now. so, there. bye everyone, till the next high, which hopefully will be from something more potent to celebrate the end of one semester. i want to feel warm and fuzzy, not jittery and impulsive. arrrghh.

Monday, December 05, 2005

the nerd in me arises

hello my darlings two weeks of school left for me i'm going to flood you with posts before i disappear into the dark depths of peru. also, a lot's been on my mind and you guys are the only ones i know who won't judge my immediate thoughts. they can change in an instant but most people think what i say should represent what i am, and so i'm "the great vacillator" (think mr perry) or just plain fickle, when i'm just thinking things through in my own way.

i've changed a lot since a levels ended, not just how i look (shup i can't believe you can't recognise me in pictures you poot), but mostly in how i express more of what i really think instead of being nice genial chim who didn't voice any opinions. i'm less reserved in saying what i think now, less afraid of repercussions, because "If I am not for myself who is for me? And when I am for myself what am I? and if not now, when?" (from the "Pirke Aboth", ["Sayings of the Fathers"])

my friend showed me an article by Colin Goh and his wife on the Singaporean Dream versus the Singaporean Plan, and i told him i had thought i was in bigger danger of falling into the Singaporean Plan had i taken up the Berkeley scholarship instead of teaching. Maybe not the SINGAPOREAN plan cos i'd probably remain in the us but it'd still be the kind of life that's darkly attractive - glamorous, high-paying, the kind i'd easily sell my soul for, but that i rejected because of a deep yearning for something extra, for that entheos that should not come from retirement alone. and all this while i thought that teaching was my calling. then i walked around the university library today, that crazy place filled with literally millions of tomes of knowledge, all calling to me(that's why the nerd has arisen), and i remembered what the psychologist and so many interviewers told me, that i'm more of an academic than anything else. the lure of a phd was what my mom used mainly to tempt me to take the Berkeley money, but somehow i managed to psycho myself that life should be of flesh and blood, not dust from untouched books; and sakhar who had just got a phd from princeton actually returned to singapore and despite his complaints about singapore's system enrolled himself in nie to become a secondary school teacher. that he gave up what i thought was the ultimate life of teaching and learning in a top us uni to return to teach in singapore made me treat his warning words to me on academia very seriously. but now, not so sure anymore. will i retain the drive for knowledge and wisdom when i start working? or will i lose it and be bitter in yrs to come? somehow i think i'd have been pressured to take econ/business/pre-law, so all this is a load of crap perhaps. bwahaha. but aiyoh ok the point of this is i'm tired of people telling me that i'm crazy. first people back home then people here. as you can see i've thought about all this a lot so there's no point in asking me am i stark raving mad anymore. and it's all in the past anyway. i hate looking back and thinking "what if".

since on singapore, i think you all would know about the australian guy who's been hanged. my funny lebanese teacher said that the price of our high standards of living is the loss of a lot of liberties, political, legal, whatever. you think? he also asked if i feel claustrophobic in singapore. strangely i don't. the world is as big as i want it to be, and sometimes i feel that americans have a very small sphere they navigate in, despite the size of their country. my roommate doesn't know most of the places in america and she's lived here all her life. and nothing can ever hold our minds' roving back.

ok at the root of all this crap is the sudden realisation at 4am last night that what i want is just an achingly elusive dream that i should forget now. and what i want is something that i cannot verbalise just yet. and that epiphany sucked big time.

Sunday, December 04, 2005

i'm just going to keep on talking until someone responds hehe

ok so i thought i'd be a good girl and start on history hw that's due monday on sat instead of mon morning as what i always do, but my roommate's friends pour into the room with two new people (e-man and yorick? don't know how to spell them) and i try to drown them out with chinese music blasting in my earphones but eman kept on talking to me and i gave up and played Bang with them, which is like a super elaborate murderer with cards and lives and weapons (woo!). playing cards with them is not just about the game man it's a whole party. so it goes on until it's time for my late night supper of pizza with wilson and yashodan poor souls who braved the cold and lateness to satisfy my urge to eat and just get out of my room. then bloody ICED bubble tea at the asian ghetto when it's a CRAZY FOUR DEGREES OUTSIDE. the purpose of this post is to lament the passing of my previous incredible resistance against the cold that i'm actually feeling now. I NEVER FEEL COLD. But i just shivered my way back home. this is california! where's the sunshine? ok so it's 1am but it shouldn't hit 4 degrees and below ever in my imagined wonderful california. please don't sneer at me you uk people but i still think it's ridiculous. people are made to walk around in tshirt and shorts, not fat jacket and thermal underwear.

on a separate note, 北京一夜 (one night in beijing) is the most haunting chinese song i've ever heard. the lyrics are amazing. i'll translate for you, fuzzy. mostly enigmatic old people doing funny things in the streets and barbarians waiting at city gates and lovers waiting a thousand yrs.

i wish i could be a barbarian. very romantic.
 
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