very disoriented after being bullied shamelessly. morris zhang aka mr postman i'm going to make you feel pain this is a public declaration of my life purpose - revenge.
thought i would enjoy a nice soothing movie with morgan after they vacated my place but sadly it turned out to be crazy weird - abt someone called jeff lebowski or something like that.
and now my roomie's showing me her plans for retribution against crazy neighbor who torments us. i'll post pictures on him posing shirtless when i've time. the perfect body!
i need to sleep!
and why do finals seem so far away when it's painfully near??
shu ping it's your fault.

oh but chim, i want to row!

so 3 weeks, 11 cities, and 700++ steps up 2 towers later, i'm back again. its been a blast, a thing that surprises me because i always thought that too much time with the same people equated to a very many bad things. so i was wrong... this time (and i'm v glad).
good luck for your exams everybody :)

don't understand how you can maintain two selves. socializing doesn't count, cos it's a game after all, and if you play by the broad rules you'll get by without anyone thinking beyond the face you put up. or at least you don't care if they do. it's not a self. i reject your idea of having two consciousnesses that are cleanly cut from each other; i'm so angry that you can absolve yourself from everything by adding another self to your being. i'm so angry because i can't do it. when my soul is wounded i end up gnarly and impatient and feeling like shaking a kid whom i normally love for being devilish when i tutor. but i don't because my ungnarly self stops me?! no i don't because that frustration is part of me and i control it or run away, not because i've another self that can stop the crazy self.
and finally, i am so angry (but it's all been let out while fuming at and crying over love me if you dare) that everyone is fighting so hard, and yet the world seems to say that it's not worth it at all. i'm avoiding contact, because ultimately i'm afraid i guess, and hence angry.

fuzzy: eh reply to my email leh. they've started to kill people in nepal. but the organization does seem quite capable of taking care of us. should we trust them?
shup: jia you! sunshine awaits both of us. and hmmm you're the one who likes love me if you dare right. hmmmmmmm.
jo: take care my friend. you sound like jo still over msn. don't take in too much booze k.

wah i sound very angsty right. needed to get all the horrible tension out of my system. a good cry is just a good cry, need cold rationalizing or i'll go mad. don't worry my friends chim will be back soon with a big grin to bling up Singapore. i booked such an early flight that i'm flying before my final paper is due. so screwy right =)

so fuzzy, i realize that since you've been gallivanting all over europe you may not be aware that the people in nepal are not too friendly right now, and even the flight agent in nepal whom my friend contacted for flight info said not to go to nepal. because well:

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/203314/1/.html

are you sure you want tear gas and bamboo canes and a shoot on sight policy in kathmandu (where we'll have our training) raining down on you?

think carefully and i'll ask you again k. my brother keeps on telling me not to go there cos apparently it's a "hotspot". so we have to either a) decide to change our location or b) buy our tickets so he'll stop telling me not to go hah.

shup: strive on! a while more only till your freedom and your water sports camp and packing for california!

pongour falls

if anything, this is my xanadu, this is the place i must visit before i die. i saw this picture and dreamt i went on a crazy expedition involving my hist prof and a friend to these falls in vietnam. we rowed and rowed and it was achingly near but i woke up before i got there thanks to a phone call. harumph.

anyone game to visit it over a weekend or something? i promise we won't have to row (or maybe i shouldn't promise this). they're the paradise falls, the seven-layer falls, MY falls. we have to visit them or i'll never be at ease.

too many words thrown about this weekend. i must manifest emptiness like Buddhism preaches. be impenetrable while representing a multitude of things. i'm starting to fall in love with Buddhism. I'm so screwed. and so many "i"s - should we reevaluate our blog's existence?!?!? is this a good way to keep in touch? as i shed more of my shell strangely it's getting more insular and self-centered leh.

but on happier things, had a strange dinner with my roommate, neighbors and 3 other korean boys. i could only think of the missy elliot song with machi where she went "boys oh boys something something chinese boys". i knew it was going to be hostile culturally when they asked me at the start if singapore chops off people's hands when they steal. then my roomie and neighbor started speaking chinese and you only do that when you say bad things about the people you're with and don't want them to understand you... ended off with "ryan" smoking (attempting to look cool i think), jun kicking an umbrella into "hey"( that's his name.. kept on going hey! i'm hey!)'s crotch, john my neighbor fighting with guy whose name i've forgotten and my roomie jumping on me to piggyback her, all on the streets outside the restaurant. nv thought a birthday dinner could be so exciting.

ok holding someone's head while she's puking and while i feel like puking too isn't v fun.
and i'm suddenly imjpressed by my neighbor's maturity and not too impressed by my roommate's immaturity.
excuse me while i sleep. draggin my roommate from the hallway and making her throw up and sleep is no joke.

hee hee
i suck
4 shots and i'm kinda gone... just feel like eating and if i drink more, puking!
my roommate's crazy... second time drinking and 11 shots.. she's thrashing me.. i think i should try to match her.. but ahhhhhhhh

A Stay

My stay in that city was like a dream
And the dream lasted for years.

I was, in fact, not interested in anything
So long as I heard a voice dictating verses.

And in that way I invented a life,
And thus my destiny was being fulfilled.

Some people believed that I was theirs,
So they put trust in my disguises.

I reproach myself for that,
For I wanted to be different,
Trustworthy, brave, noble-minded.

Later on I would only say: why reach so high?
I am and will be lame,
Which is no one's concern.

From Czeslaw Milosz's "Second Space"

we agreed that the more we see of the world the more we find it fractured and dense with evil. we try our best to cope or escape depending on your definition, but our mechanisms differ. one way is to inflict more pain; for me, i let pride, not passion, lead me on when i'm up against the wall and trying to be brave to please the world and my self that's looking on. somehow we end in a rut no matter which way we choose. there is no escape, perhaps. and our views of the world can be changed. but at what cost, my friends. some things, like my tendency to hide behind my mom's responsibility for my life, should be changed. but what about things like sensitivity to suffering, or the yearning for the stars that impregnate the mothers of great men. even a brush with such ideals would redeem our flawed lives, i feel. but the distress failure brings that outweighs the brushes may just blot everything out.

i'm confused.

nyc was terribly artsy, it felt good to be back in litty days. but there was always something in my training about treasuring the salt of the earth more that nagged quietly when my breath was taken away by a passing poetry of the moment.
bloody nyc. i took you in but you took me in as well.

my luscious things, it's been awesome in nyc.
v chill holiday, museums, broadway (rent! excellentexcellentexcellent), sightseeing, getting the feel of crazy columbia students (literally, cos estelle's floormate hugged me and kissed my head accidentally my god), honest engaging conversations that can last up to five hours (we don't seem to sleep till 5am poor estelle) with em and estelle, and strangely with estelle's neighbor too, shopping, food tour (tomorrow) courtesy of zengkun a very nice nyu guy who has a column in new paper about his exploits in nyc (carrie bradshaw!), gauging how much we've changed since jc cos we knew each other back then and can give feedback, liking how we've changed (i think, though estelle's experiencing an amusing conservative reaction to life here).
i love nyc with all its grit and glamor, but home is still berkeley.
photos when i get back.

shu ping: heh heh heh.
jo and fuzzy: tsk tsk.