my apologies to those who were alarmed by my last post. i am a slightly vindictive person inside, i suspect.

it's frustrating how some things just never really leave you. frustrates the hell out of me how i go round in circles in my own head, go over the same issues in my heart, and find no resolution.

and i find myself trying to comply with worldly standards. societal-imposed norms. who determines that this is right and that is wrong? who are you to judge this as right or wrong and impose it on me? yes, we're all entitled to our own value judgements, granted. but to impose it on me cos it's the societal norm? i don't think that's very fair.

not that anyone has been trying to impose any views on me (yet), but what i've been mulling over sure as hell warrants an outcry of "surely not! you must be out of your mind!" if i judge myself according to what Society deems as Right.

i've been feeling the need for self-censorship lately and i hate it that it's become like that. yes, a little self-censorship is always a good thing, cos you think over what you wanna say and ascertain that it's not merely a knee-jerk response, but i'm not used to it. so okay, maybe i'm an Alternative voice. like how you have alternative media where the wide-spread practise of self-censorship that exists in the mainstream media out of fear for stepping over OB markers isn't as prevalent. (phew, that was a mouthful of a sentence!)

i've been thinking about it, and it seems as though there're certain self-imposed OB markers in my life now, especially since i'm struggling to integrate someone else in so many aspects of my life now, all the readjustments that being in a relationship with someone entails. it's hard, to tell you the truth. i watch myself, watch my words, watch my thoughts, even - for fear of crossing the OB boundaries. OB, meaning out-of-bounds. areas where you shouldn't even dream of venturing into cos they're controversial, supposedly. or pose a threat to national security. (or personal security, in my case.) i don't allow myself to talk about certain things, think about certain things, so much so that sometimes it feels as though my heart and mind are two separate entities that exist alongside each other and i'm cutting their flow of communication to prevent them from working with each other.

in all respects i should be more than happy. i know it! and i want to embrace that knowledge! but there remains a little part of me that seems caught in its own time-trap and i'm pissed off with myself. like, get out of it already. what's the point in rehashing over and over again certain things or thoughts or feelings when all of these don't have a point to them now anyway? and i don't allow myself to speak of these at all, they've become Unspeakables in my life and i hate it that there're aspects of me i have to keep under wraps all the time.

so many things beyond my control. if i were a control-freak, which i'm starting to suspect that i am, sort of, i'd drive myself crazy with the knowledge that there're so many things i can't control.

omg i'm bloody pissed off.

this gets to me over and over and over again.
no heart at all, that's what.
am i vindictive? yeah, perhaps. looks like it. but i'm hopping mad and if i could stab something i would.
am i irrational? hell yeah, but who cares.

i'm this close to... RAH omg i'm so mad. annoyed doesn't even cut it.
bloodyhellbloodyhell.BLOODYHELL.

frickit.




i wish i never met you.
it's times like these when i wonder what the hell is happening inside me.
but i still wish i never did meet you, ever.

talking to my dad about the death of my grandpa almost 11 years ago today made me realise again how to love someone is to set him/her free.

i knew that my grandpa died when i was in Primary 3 from lung cancer. i knew that only a year elapsed between the time he was still scolding us grandchildren for blocking his view of the television and fit enough to take us out to the nearby park to run around and the time when he was suddenly diagnosed with cancer and very quickly wasted away in front of our eyes.

our grandpa didn't scold us anymore, for wanting to watch Captain Planet while he was watching his teletext - he just didn't watch teletext anymore. our grandpa didn't potter around the garden watering his precious collection of orchirds twice a day anymore. he just lay upstairs coughing and we weren't allowed to go upstairs to play anymore cos "kongkong is sick, so don't disturb him".

my dad told me that when my grandpa died, he was surrounded by all his 9 children and his wife - my aunts, uncles, and my grandma. they were saying the rosary when he passed away in his sleep. that, i knew. but what i didn't know till today was that my grandpa stopped breathing several times that night - but everytime one of his children or his wife touched him, he started breathing again. this went on for many times until the doctor on duty gently told my aunts, uncles, and grandma to stop touching him, to let him go.

and so, they did - and the last time my grandpa stopped breathing, no one touched him and he didn't resume his breathing again. and he died.

when my dad was telling us this over lunch today, i asked him why my grandpa resumed his breathing everytime someone touched him. and my dad told me that my grandpa wanted to die, he wanted to just slip off back to his Father in heaven cos the pain from the cancer was so bad. and so, cos he was more than ready to leave this world, he could stop his breathing peacefully. but, the moment one of his children or his wife touched him, he made himself begin his breathing again, forced himself to labouriously and painfully suck air into his lungs again so that he could stay alive for them. those touches from his loved ones were telling him "dad, don't go yet. we need you.", and so, he struggled to stay on for these touches.

the doctor observing this must have known my grandpa wanted to die, and was only willing himself to stay alive for those extra hours for his children who couldn't let him go, who kept touching him to tell him that they still needed him around.

and they all had to let him go, in the end. they had to force themselves to stop reaching out for their dad when he stopped breathing, knowing that by not touching him anymore, he'd allow himself to pass on. it must have hurt like hell for my dad to not reach out to his own dad, touching him and seeing him come back to life again (sort of), seeing his chest heave painfully but knowing that he was still alive. it must have been so painful, so difficult for my grandma and all my aunts and uncles to let go of the man they loved so much, to stop themselves from reaching out to him, to let him go.

they loved him, that much i'm certain of. my dad certainly loved my grandfather tremendously - he was tearing as he told us of my grandpa's last moments today. my grandfather doted on all of us older grandchildren, playing our games with us and taking us out to the nearby playground. both sets of grandparents brought my sister and i up in our younger years. my own parents would send us both to my grandparents' house in the morning before work and pick us up after work and after having dinner there. we got ready for school from my grandparents' house, ate all our meals there, took our afternoon naps there, played with all our cousins (whose parents did the same thing) there.

and you know how we're always told that if you love someone, you have to let him/her go, so much so that it's become a cliche?

it's true, though.

letting go of the one you love will hurt like hell, will be so difficult that you wonder why on earth you're putting yourself through the torture, and will elicit more than a few drops of tears from your eyes. the example of my dad, my aunts and uncle, and my grandma having to let go of my grandpa to death may be an extreme one, but it really made me realise how true that statement is. all the little loves i've had to let go, what are they compared to having to let go of your loved one to the grip of death? knowing you'll never get to talk to him/her again in this lifetime if you let him/her go, how do you do it?

i guess i can see this in the choices i've made in my own life. by choosing certain paths to take, i'm letting go of other possibilities, other people i've loved - and at the same time, because i love too. knowing certain choices i make may mean certain finalities does entail a 'letting go' on my part. when you let someone go, you don't do it with the hope in your heart that he/she will eventually come back to you one day. you just set him/her free, almost as if you're saying goodbye forever, without any expectation. with that expectation tied to the letting go, it's not really setting the person free, is it? how can it be, with all the conditions tied to the action of 'letting go'?

i acknowledge the wisdom in embracing the present and not wallowing in the past. i acknowledge the wisdom in not crying over spilt milk and instead, picking yourself up and forcing yourself to move on with life.

but sometimes, i must admit i still do wonder - at what cost will my compartmentalization of my past, present and future come at? at what cost will my act of willing myself to go on with life and not get lost in the past come at? or is there even a cost at all?

i love, so i set free. i love, so i let go.


Rachael Yamagata's I Wish You Love says it very nicely, i think.

i wish you bluebirds in spring
to give your heart a song to sing
and then, a kiss,
- but more than this:
i wish you love.
& in July, a lemonade
to cool you in some leafy glade
i wish you health
& more than wealth,
i wish you love.
my breaking heart & i agree
that you & i could never be
so with my best,
my very best
i set you free.
i wish you shelter from the storm
a cosy fire to keep you warm
but most of all,
when snowflakes fall,
i wish you love.

school is really killing me, and i can't wait for the term break. so much to do, every single night! i have no alone time anymore, NONE. i spend all my free time doing work; tutorials or research for projects, and the rest of the time in school. and sleep! omg! i need it! i've been having so much trouble waking up the last week for school! i've been snoozing for half-an-hour every morning after the alarm rings cos i just can't get up.

you know, i think that when you keep repeating something to yourself and to everyone, you're subconsciously trying to convince yourself of the authenticity of whatever assertion you've made. so when i keep telling myself "i don't need him in my life anymore", i'm trying my darndest to convince myself that i don't. example in point here.

all the ambiguity in the lit texts this sem are rather apt in describing my own ambivalence towards myself. there's really nothing in something, the identity you strive so hard to create for yourself isn't really truly yours, there's a hole in 'whole', an absence in the centre. okay, so i'm not angsty, i'm not raging against the world, i'm not wallowing in befuddling self-pity and misery. i'm just trying to make sense of my chaos, a chaos which shouldn't even be there, has absolutely no right to exist, and yet still persists in spite of my efforts to find some order for the chaos existing in my universe.

maybe i should set up National Suicide Day, a la Shadrack in Toni Morrison's Sula. in an attempt to control my chaos and justify it being there, i instituitionalise it. make it a Day.

but how do you make chaos into order? the word 'chaos' already looks so messy, and doesn't look quite right to begin with. English words don't start with a 'ch' and end with an 'aos'. it's like Greek. trying to compartmentalize my chaos would be like grasping at thin air, at wispy straws. the alternative would be to force myself to put aside my past and my present, compartmentalize them both and suppress my history so that i can exist as wholly as i can now. Shadrack did that, he became mad. he was so suppressed that he went a bit off his rocker and his mental faculties got a bit warped. so in my making some sense of my chaos, will i become like Shadrack too? of course, i haven't been forced to see 'what no human eyes should never be made to see', courtesy of Dr Roy my lit lecturer, but i've had to feel what i'd never allow myself to feel again, been made to go through what i'd never wish on anyone else. not cos it's physically hurtful and exceptionally violent or miserable, but because of the sheer normalcy enforced upon everything that it makes it all seem rather unconceivable.

i think i can understand a bit of what's been happening to me since April, now. my inability to talk about anything, to share with anyone my thoughts and my feelings about certain issues, my insistence at clinging on to certain emotions even though i have no use for them anymore - they're all starting to make a little more sense. i don't talk about things anymore, don't share about my life anymore cos i did, once, and had the rug pulled out from right under my feet when it was shoved in front of my face that my reality isn't reality at all. it shook me terribly, i must admit. being told innumerable times, even by your most loved and trusted friends, that what you lived through, what you experienced with your senses - they're all not real in the real reality, they're all lies, it cut me. it subverted my sense of what is real and what isn't, and i clammed up after that period of time cos i didn't want to be told again that my life has been but a lie thus far. finding out that you've been living a lie (or so it's been drilled into your head), it's scary.

it scared me. if i'm so 'deluded', as they all say, then everything i've thought, felt, or lived through - they're all lies.

YOU'VE BEEN LIVING A LIE THE LAST YEAR.
extrapolated, you start to wonder when your lie began and when you hadn't been living in that lie.

how does that feel? hearing that? thinking that? feeling that?

i'll tell you, what it felt to me: i was terrified.

so, i stopped writing in my diary (because everything i'd written in there was contrary to what everyone told me was 'true'), i stopped talking about a lot of things, i shut down a huge part of me and left what was necessary to function daily.

even now, i don't talk about certain things to certain people. why would i want to tell him/her what i feel only to have him/her tell me that whatever i'm feeling - it's not real? no thankyou, sir.

so you see, if everything i'd lived through prior to where i am now wasn't real, then that just nullifies the feelings i felt then, right? everything 'real' begins when people deem it as such. so in that sense, the nihilists are right in the sense that there are no absolutes in the world. even such a concrete facet of reality - reality itself - it's relative and could be rendered empty with just the rolling off of words off the tongue.

you say it's real, therefore it is. you say it isn't, therefore it isn't.

in that sense, i'm no better than Nel or Sula, aren't i? my sense of reality and linked to that - my sense of me, of self - is dependent on how other people reflect it back to me. so if friend A reflects the 'truth' as such to me and it's in conflict with what my 'truth' is, the 'truth' could be either reflection's version of it.

my truth now is what you perceive it to be. whatever it is. i'm too tired to struggle and fight against the perception and portrayal of 'truth' anymore. have i let someone else define what kind of truth i ought to be living in now, then? perhaps, but at least that lie won't be mine alone anymore.

think what you want now. but if you ask me what i mean, i don't think i have answers for you - i don't even have the answers for myself.




sometimes i feel like asking whether it's remembered, whether i remember correctly. and what now, knowing what's been happening?
i walk past the benches under the trees and close my eyes, recapturing that moment in time.

remember what i said?
"i don't wanna go, cos i just know that once i pull myself out of this moment, it'll never pass me by again."

remember what you said?
"why?"

remember what i said to that?
"i dunno, i just know it."

and you said,
"it won't. there'll be many more times like these next time."


lies. everything i remembered didn't exist, according to several people. lies, they're all lies.
you wouldn't know how to react if x and y happened? react now, then. but since the above was a lie and all the aboves are lies too, this was probably 'deluded' up too, which just nullifies everything and accordingly, leaves a huge gap in my memory and past.

so who am i now, if not the sum total of who i was then? since the sum total comes up to zero?

HAHA but well, no one who needs to read this blog reads anyway so my post just becomes another truth in my reality but a non-existent in yours. non-issue. ugh. i abhor that word.

if you can make sense of this montage of songs, you're either really good, or you really understand me right now.


what's up?
i know we haven't spoken for a while
but i was thinking about you
and it kinda made me smile
so many things to say
& i'll put them in a letter.
thought i might be easier,
the words might come out better.
how's your mother? how's your little brother?
does he still look just like you?
so many things i wanna know the answers to
wish i could press rewind
& rewrite every line,
to the story of me & you.

oh, i know i could say we're through
and tell myself i'm over you
but even if i made a vow
i promise not to miss you now,
and try to hide the truth inside
i'd fail cos i - i just can't live a lie.

cos i'm afraid, & i can't breathe
& i'm in love with you
but you are not with me
cos i have put so much into a life
i made too much about you now to lie.

how did i get here with you, i'll never know
i never meant to let it get so personal.
after all i tried to do,
stay away from loving you
i'm broken-hearted, i can't let you know.
& i won't let it show,
you won't see me cry.

one thing i'm wondering
when you run out of friends,
will you be coming back home?
let's think this through again
let's take a different spin
why can't i leave you alone?
somewhere tonight, you may be found
with some other girl you've been dragging around
you lie to yourself,
and you lie to me.
it seems like the truth is your worst enemy.

this time was different,
felt like i was just a victim
& it cut me like a knife,
when you walked out of my life.
now i'm in this condition
& i've got all the symptoms
of the girl with a broken heart
but no matter what, you'll never see me cry.

because of you i never stray too far from the sidewalk
because of you i learnt to play on the safe side so i don't get hurt
because of you,
i find it hard to trust not only me,
but everyone around me.
because of you,
i am afraid.

when you're gone,

the face i came to know is missing too.

no, i can't learn to live without

and i can't give up on us now.

i guess it's gonna have to hurt,

i guess i'm gonna have to cry.

and let go of some things i've loved

to get to the other side.

i guess it's gonna break me down,

like falling when you try to fly.

it's sad,

but sometimes moving on with the rest of your life -

starts with goodbye.

Jesus, take the wheel
take it from my hands,
cos i can't do this on my own.
i'm letting go,
so give me one more chance
to save me from this road i'm on
Jesus, take the wheel.

when you walk away i count the steps that you take

one thing before i go,
something i've gotta know:
boy, did you ever love me?


*
Carrie Underwood: I Just Can't Live A Lie, Starts With Goodbye, Jesus Take the Wheel
Katharine McPhee: Better Off Alone
Rihanna: Cry
Kelly Clarkson: Because of You
Avril Lavigne: When You're Gone
Rachael Yamagata: Letter Read

i'm tucked away in a corner in the central library in one of those study carrels and i'm so tired! i was dozing off in my new media lecture this morning, even though i slept at 11pm last night and should have gotten just about the right amount of sleep.

i think it's just the early-morning thing.. too early for me to even function. all i want to do is curl up into a ball and go to sleep till 3 cos that's when my next class is, only. but i have no place to sleep! these carrel things are quite useful. unfortunately, it seems to be only available to NUS staff and graduate students. whatever happened to undergraduate facilities! heh. but not too bad, i'm using one of those carrels that're available to all library users. it's quite warm and it's cosy. but i have black rain to watch, still! i think i shall nap till 11 then go to the media centre and watch it. it's becoming a pain in the ass cos i'd much rather be sleeping than watching.

and the interactive media tutorial later is gonna be bad, i think. i haven't done any research for our project yet cos i've been up to my ears with work, ditto for the japanese studies term paper which i'm supposed to present on in class next tutorial. bleahhhh. i have such a bloody headache.. i think next time on tuedays i'm gonna bring a pillow to school with me so i can sleep in one of these carrels thingys. i wish i had a room in hall again. if only i could sleep between classes. on a bed, not a table.

shall try to nap now.

my day in point form since i'm beyond tired and i can't lift my fingers up to type for too long:

- drove to school this morning after sending mom and dad down to work.
- discovered the many different car parks of NUS! - found one in UCC, and one more in the university hall.
- attended the launch of the Campus Sustainability Committee for The Ridge. (it wasn't very fantastic and was full of mature adults in power suits and too-much-make-up.)
- got a very cute door gift from the launch thingy! my very own money plant! i named it Mah Fan cos i have to water it twice a week or so, and it was troublesome bringing it back since my dad had to sit in the front seat of the car.
- intro to interactivity media lectures are the absolute blahs. i don't feel like going anymore cos i don't know anyone at all.
- tried watching more of Black Rain today in the morning. it's taking me absolutely forever to watch.
- had diarrhoea in the morning. my stomach is turning topsy-turvy.
- tried the deep-friend bazhang at the vivo food republic today for lunch (even though it's not good for the diarrhoea, i think).
- watched Hairspray in between lunch and lecture at 4! John Travolta was superbly scary as Tracy's mother, and i actually do suspect i'm slightly prejudiced as a person after the show.
- i wish i were free tomorrow. :( for many many reasons. :( again.
- i have soci tutorial to prepare for tonight before i tumble into bed and an article by Howard Becker to read. Mr. Becker, why do you write such long and cheem journal articles? i read a bit of it in the toilet this morning and still have more than half to read.
- bad drive home cos the traffic was bad, dad was screaming at me telling me what a sucky driver i am, and mom wasn't helping me any when she contributed to the screeching. i was so tempted to horn at any random car that annoyed me the slightest.
- I AM TIRED, AND I HAVEN'T EATEN DINNER YET OR BATHED. I JUST WANT TO SLEEP. YUCKY, EARLY MORNING AGAIN TOMORROW. RAAAAAHHHH. i am so not an early morning person.

today was one of those crampy days that make me feel like i wasn't alive. days like these seem to give me licence to loll around in bed all day (cos i really can't sit up), and whine a lot about the pain in my abdomen and just basically look and flop around like a dead duck.

Clem said that maybe it's cos of these once-a-month occurences that help me keep as seemingly skinny as i am and keep that once again, seemingly flawless complexion. cos the nausea's so bad and i keep retching, i simply do not eat anything for the two days of my cramps, till it subsides. i don't want to eat and have to heave up food into the toilet bowl. he claims it's a detox process and it's probably helping me stay the way i look even though i'm about one of the unhealthiest eaters on the planet.

like how my body needs a detoxing once every month to stay in shape and form (though i assure you, i don't look forward to this 'detoxing' process), i'm beginning to wonder if my soul needs a similar process - to get rid of all the rubbish it ingests and accumulates. my seemingly invisible soul exists in a realm my physical body cannot see, but i'm sure it needs to be taken care of like how i ought to take care of my physical body by exercising and drinking enough water, resting enough and eating when i'm hungry.

it's a painful process, though. my stomach feels extremely sore and my entire body's aching and feeling extremely weak, but i've completely lost my tummy and i swear my legs seem slimmer already. perhaps not such an extreme kind of detoxing process should be what i aim for for my soul's well-being, but i do think it's necessary however painful/annoying/uncomfortable it may be. and i think one way to detox my soul would be to keep a day or two completely free of my laptop and my worldly worries; money worries, school work, computer games and the deadly internet, the television - they all must go for a day. perhaps i ought to spend a day each month in the great outdoors, just me and my soul and the refreshing greenery and air.

haha, perhaps i'm too idealistic, but i can try for something as similar to this ideal as i can, right? stay off connectivity for a day. introspect and reflect.

hmm. now that's a thought to chew on!

reading the article about Mother Teresa's spiritual darkness in a recent issue of Time made me think. not about the existence of God, no. not that my faith is something that i've fabricated for myself either, like the triumphant aethists crowing over exerpts from Mother Teresa's letters to her SDs, saying that "now this is proof that God doesn't exist!"

but more about the faith Mother Teresa must have had to press on in spite of not feeling God at all in her life, her great love for Jesus, her Spouse, and what she said to a film-maker who came to look for her in his own search for God when he was in Calcutta.

"Your longing for God is so deep, and yet He keeps Himself away from you.. He must be forcing Himself to do so - because He loves you so much - the personal love Christ has for you is infinite.. The Small difficulty you have regarding His Church is finite. Overcome the finite with the infinite." Mother Teresa writes to film-maker Malcolm Muggeridge in 1970. the idea of God having to force Himself to keep away from us, His lovingly crafted creations and children, touches me more than you'd imagine. here we are, complaining about how "boo-hoo, poor me! i can't feel God in my life, i don't want to believe in Him anymore!" seems almost preposterous now when seen in context of what Mother Teresa says about His love for us. God's love for us must be so much more than our love for Him, so infinite as compared to the finiteness of the concept of love our puny human hearts can contain.

so then, the next question would be why would God want to keep Himself away from us? Mother Teresa found herself tormented by this question for almost the rest of her life after beginning her work in Calcutta, and even when presented with a possible reason as to why God would want to keep Himself away from her, she found it torturous to live in such darkness of the soul. and yet, she kept on. Mother Teresa's spiritual advisor Rev. Joseph Neuner tells her that 'the absence [she felt] was in fact part of the "spiritual side" of her work for Jesus.' how can God's absence in Mother Teresa's life be what He wants of her, it seems is the next logical question that begs for an answer.

what i found so beautiful was that this absence of God was exactly what Jesus felt when He was dying on His cross that fateful day 2000 years ago. "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?", He cries out in His passion. isn't this precisely what Mother Teresa felt? that God had forsaken her, and there she is, imploring and imploring, asking and asking, "Why have You forsaken me?" Mother Teresa told her fellow nuns in her order that she wanted to focus on sharing in the suffering of Jesus, among all the other commendable and imitable aspects of Jesus's short life on earth. when she realised that what she was going through - the spiritual darkness and nihilistic vacuum in her soul - was precisely what she was asking for, she recognised it as a grace, a blessing, and made some sense of her pain. because she had a unique part in Jesus's passion and suffering. this didn't make her life any easier to live as it was, nor did it make the spiritual vacuum any easier to bear. she's constantly described to be in 'torment' and describes the darkness as 'painful', and this makes her continuous trust in God even more amazing, to me.

which revealed one more thing to me: that knowing the reason behind the pain and suffering doesn't negate it or make it any easier to bear. accepting the reasons that explain your suffering will not make the pain disappear or make your yoke any lighter. all those isn't enough, and i know why. it's all in the level of the mind. you know why, you understand why, you accept why, but it's not gonna negate the suffering because your mind won't be able to sustain you. it's never gonna be enough. and even though Mother Teresa couldn't feel God in her life, she knew that He was there somewhere through the darkness and she never stopped placing her trust in Him. sure, she did stumble once or twice, she did question His presence, but ultimately she never stopped believing. and God sustained her, even though she couldn't feel it.

"I accept not in my feelings, but with my will, the Will of God - I accept His will." Mother Teresa said. she couldn't feel God's love, couldn't feel God's presence, and yet she accepted His will for her with her will. isn't that total trust? it makes me ashamed of myself everytime i compain that i can't feel God, and therefore He can't be real in my life. what kind of ludicrous argument is that? our feelings lie all the time; they're powerful and are a layer in our lives that's enmeshed as part of our being, and yet they're not the be-all and end-all.

Mother Teresa's example speaks very very strongly to me about not giving up in 'connecting' to God, in seeking His face, in trying to reach out to Him and feel His love. she couldn't feel it for much of her life, and yet she never stopped trying. it makes me feel a lot less of a hypocrite when i talk about God and yet think that i can't feel him and so what i believe in can't be real. it makes me believe that God IS there regardless of whether i feel Him or not, feel His love or not.

aethists and scholars may be rejoicing over Mother Teresa's letters because to them, it's proof that God doesn't exist. my lit lecturer posted an article about her letters on my module forum and suggested that Mother Teresa is the perfect Conradian heroine - the epitome of using something (in her case, religion and God), to fill up the void and abyss that exists in all humankind. that we are all essentially nothing and the loneliness we feel deep in our souls is cos there is absolutely nothing - nihilism at its best. God isn't real, he's just something we fabricate to fill in the nothing.

but i think that Mother Teresa's letters prove to me without doubt that God exists regardless of what i feel in my heart, and it strengthens my faith much especially these days when my feelings are swirling about in me in horrifying dizzying torrents. she's proof that you don't have to feel God for Him to be real, for Him to work in my life.

it's an amazing testimony that really speaks to me and reaches out to somewhere deep in me. the writer of the Time magazine article, David Van Biema succintly puts it, "if she could carry on for a half-century without God in her head or heart, then perhaps people not quite as saintly can cope with less extreme versions of the same problem." and i am very much heartened.

i am immeasurably tired and i am so emotionally spent. too many things to think about, my brain is constantly buzzing with activity. i don't want to pour out my heartaches or secrets online, and i'm not going to. but i'm so tired, i just want there to be a fullstop for once and not just another comma.

a woman's heart is really something men can never comprehend. that, i am beginning to see now for myself. i don't even fully understand the secrets of my heart, sometimes. they're just lying in wait, undercover sometimes.

it doesn't mean that when one keeps silent about her world, all's well in it. sometimes, the things that aren't said are more important than the things that are. all the constant chatter, all the mess of words and language bandied around each day. but the things that aren't said? sometimes they hover thick in the air and makes the silences more pregnant than ever. silences can be full of things unsaid. just listen. cock your ears and listen to the silence. i can almost hear my unsaid words ringing in my ears, pulling at my heartstrings. the ever-abundant energy to eat innumerable lunches - you don't see the total shutdown of the brain when she falls into bed at night from exhaustion.

so many untold stories. each of us have some.

then you chance upon something that makes you rethink your convictions. i know, paradox, isn't it? to have to rethink a conviction. a conviction doesn't need to be thought about again, you're convinced. but note how many times i've repeated the word 'convinced' and yet are you even the slightest bit clearer about what the word actually means? you chance upon something that makes you hold your breath for one millisecond and blink 5 times to check, double-check, triple-check, quadruple-check and quintuple-check what you see with what you know. the second seems to last for an eternity, doesn't it? it's like one of those movies where the director slows everything down onscreen in an effort to bring across the idea to the viewers that that moment lasts for an eternity. i don't need a director to slow down any images for me, i'm my own director and my second slowed down to the eternal absoluteness of freezing in time.

you hear words you don't want to hear, feel the tears you don't want to cry dripping down your nose and off your chin. blink and take a deep breath - and yet the tears won't stop and the words won't stop ringing in your head. and all this while, that awful tugging at your heart that reaches to somewhere deep within you and pulls at your soul for what it's worth, and you feel the eyes of your soul cry tears you can't see. tears that hold a second's worth of misery and brokenness in their water-and-salt molecules, each tear a concentrated drop of despair. if only you could imbue the sadness encapsulated by each innocuous drop your soul cries - you'd understand how it would feel to never be happy ever again. to feel that somewhere something inside you has been broken beyond repair and try as you might to reach in and grab it, the shards are too scattered to gather and what was is now nothing.

you try to understand how Love can be something that judges, that places her opinions and intentions above yours. i understand Love as something that ought to be given unconditionally, no matter what your opinions are and even if i don't agree with them. i'm not being hypocritical, i'm being unconditional. you try to understand how Love can be something that hurts you, stabs you. what happened to the beautiful, light, fluffy thing she's supposed to be? which is the copy of which? the dark, fatal beauty of the Love i know, or the bright, airy pleasantness i thought i knew? you don't spew out the words 'i love you' without thinking about the implications. i don't. there're very few people i've really loved in my life, the rest i try to but end up failing more often than not. how many of the people i love realise that i've placed Love as i know it now on them but they think it's just an innocent young girl's confusion between Love and her flightier cousins Infatuation and Like? i hate it when i introduce Love to people and they mistake her for Infatuation, i hate it when i introduce Love to people and they reduce her to Like.

and feelings. you're so reliant on them and yet you wish you were free of them and would rather embrace logic. feelings, what men derogatorily trash as characteristically 'female'. emotions, what some people denounce as 'not deep enough' in spiritual experiences. don't discount the power of emotion in an experience, don't tell them 'it's only an emotive, you don't know what it's like, really.' do you know what it's like, really? do you know the power of emotions, in the first place? if only you knew. you'd not dare decry those who feel and act on their feelings again.

i've run out of words to say, but you cannot imagine the torrent of images bashing themselves at the gates of my mind trying to break free to let themselves be seen and heard in some form of coherence. so with this, i part for now - but i know this for a fact: that i've said less than what i haven't said.

i'm getting a little tired, physically. and it's only the 2nd week of school! i'm slowly slipping behind on my reading schedule already and my allowance has ALL been spent. so i'm just waiting in great anticipation for my tuition pay this end-of-month..

i hardly have time alone to myself anymore. i'm not complaining, just.. stating. takes some getting used to, i must admit!

friday can't zoom nearer any faster.

it's been a long time since i last blogged, it seems. i'm increasingly having less time to do anything other than my readings or stuff related to that, and sleep is getting hard to come by! i'm out a lot, travelling a lot, on the phone quite a lot - which leaves me little time to do my own things at home besides keeping up with my readings.

i just watched Akira Kurosawa's Rhapsody in August for a Japanese film module just now. Tuesdays are my film-watching days since i have such a long break from the 8am lecture till the 4pm one. it's rather thought-provoking and it's left me with a lot of thoughts in my head about the way the film was edited and shot. i do think i'm not quite the film critic, i haven't the predisposition nor the eye for that sort of artistic beauty. but i am able to tell when the director is trying to bring across a certain message through his shots, camera angle, editing process, background music, things like that. and when i can tell, i can appreciate and think about what he's trying to tell me, us.

these days, i seem to think about my world in articles. i look at everything around me and live through them, all the while thinking about whether whatever's happening to me would make a good article and how i'd develop it further. after watching the films, i'm also slowly starting to think of my world in through a movie. i wonder at how my life would be depicted on screen, how those times i lived through and felt so keenly would be shown on a film. the pain - how would it be brought across to do the actual feeling justice? the happiness - how would it be told to the audience so they can feel my euphoria?

my mind's whirring through a million and one things these days. so calm on the surface but so many things going on inside, still. not entirely bad to be thinking though! there're the whitish good thoughts, and then there're the blackish bad thoughts. and then, there're those greyer ones that're neither good nor bad, just thoughts. i've realised that i'm still completely unable to sit through the entire memory of the last 2 years in one sitting and not flinch. in fact, tears still prickle my eyes every single time i happen to recount in my head. i hate it when the prickly tears turn into trickles down my cheeks. that's when i feel like i'm really crying - and that just means that the past isn't really the past yet, right? when i remember, it just feels as though i'm reliving everything again and the stabbing hurt from the incident/instances still stabs as hard now, many months later.

when does the past cross over through time somehow, reach out its hands through the silken threads of time and space, and grip me here and now to replace my present with the shuddering, hurtful ghosts the Past contains? how does it? is it cos i let the Past cross this threshold of dimension and time? or does it manage to do it, regardless of whether or not i do anything to 'let it'?

my reality now becomes my past every now and then and i get so lost in the moment that i feel every sensation as keenly as if i were living then right here right now. this is so dejavu-ish! i had this same thing in j2, when the littlest things would trigger bittersweet (in every sense of the word) memories and force me to relive them in my mind. same thing now, my reliving of whatever past i have can't be fast-forwarded or muted - everything is as it was and i have to live through the agonisingly sweet and familiar and maddeningly normal scenes as though i were going through it now. on one hand, i don't want to pull myself out of those memories because as they were then, they weren't painful. they were pleasant, more than pleasant. i felt safe. but the maddening thing is that as i relive those scenes in my head as though they were happening to me now, i am also living with the knowledge i have now that i didn't have then - that they wouldn't last at all and that a couple of months down, i'd be mired in self-pity, hatred, frustration, and so many other things that i can't even begin to list them down. it's like being cursed with the gift of foresight and you can see how your loved ones die one by one and still have to look at them in the now with the same eyes.

i'm afraid to think that anything will last, now. everything seems so transient! no wonder people need tangible signs of love, care, concern, commitment etc. those intangibles which mean a whole lot more don't count for anything when you're striding the line between what was and what is to come.

i still cannot believe i was insane enough to sign myself up for an 8am class! my brains must've been mushed up then or something, i cannot understand why i go on these bouts of insanity and cause myself to suffer for one whole semester.

first day of school yesterday! on one hand, i was rather excited to be back to another school term, to having to juggle 5 modules' worth of readings and work, to putting that rusty ol' mind back to work again. and the mods i'm taking are quite exciting this sem! lit - which i've been wanting to do since forever, some new media modules that include an intro to interactive media (which will let me take the gaming modules next time!), mass media and culture, and film and anime in postwar Japan! all things i'm interested in, so i'm looking forward to learning.

but i'm so incredibly tired, and it's only the second day of school! travelling to and from school every day is so yucky, and i've only done it for all of one day. my brain is fuzzy from lack of sleep right now, rah. i'm not upset, just tired! think i should try to do work faster so i'll be able to sleep earlier every night. i'm absolutely determined to work myself hard this sem and keep to the readings i'm supposed to do on time. need to do well. i wanna go on exchange the sem after to Australia.

funny, my writing ability seems to have deteriorated with the beginning of the school term. my sentences are all irritatingly choppy and my brain feels suspiciously empty.

the YISS conference over the weekend by Fr. Gino was surprisingly good. i say surprisingly not because i didn't expect Fr. Gino to be superb or anything other than fabulous - but because i dragged myself to St. Theresa's church on Saturday with such bad grace. i was literally having to drag my physical self all the way to Bukit Merah because i had a million and one reasons for not wanting to go. i felt disgusting cos i could feel the cramps starting up (i had just gotten my period that Saturday morning); i felt horrible and grouchy towards every single person and i just felt like snapping at every single living thing; i'd argued with my mother over everything i was wearing before leaving home - from top to earrings to shoes.

so many excuses for not wanting to go, so many ways i could justify my reluctance to attend the conference.

but i was real glad i went though, even though God had to drag me kicking and screaming, almost against my will. i attribute my ability to turn up for the conference in spite of my strong inclination to just heck it and allow my anger and irritation and pain from the cramps to dissipate over an afternoon spent at home to God - not me. in the end, i wasn't that deaf as to ignore the Spirit telling me to just shut up and go, and i'm so thankful.

after the weekend, i feel like i'm a changed person. not because of the weekend - though they were definitely mighty good and superb - but because the sessions precipitated a realization within myself and an acceptance of certain gifts God has so graciously bestowed on me but i have been keeping in poor stewardship all this while.

my attitude towards prayer and my spiritual life has been changed deeply. not a hundred-and-eighty-degree change, as many people often describe their encounters with the Holy Spirit and the embracing of Jesus as Lord and saviour of their lives; but my change seems more subtle, and yet i recognise it so clearly.

it all stemmed from Fr. Gino reminding me again about the definitive choice we have to make as Catholic charismatics - a resounding YES to Jesus, and an equally resounding NO to sin in our lives. even though i may have made that choice for the first time once before, it doesn't necessarily mean that i don't have to consciously remake this choice over and over again as i stumble and grope my way out of life's snares and obstacles. i realise that i thought i had made that choice before, and so, no longer have to bother with continuing to choose Jesus completely and reject sin totally in my life. which, up until the weekend, i didn't realise.

and how do i continue to keep making that choice for Jesus and reject sin? by praying. praying deeply, praying everyday, and meditating on the Word of God because that is God's love letter to us, anyway. God may not speak to me in bolts of lightning and rumbling thunder, in a fiery burning bush or in the parting of any sea - but He definitely can and will speak to me through His Word. how could i have not realised that until now? you have no idea how much more i treasure my Bible now that that realisation sunk in. i used to gobble up books pretty darn quickly, and lap up every single word and description in the books as the scene came alive in my own mind and the beautiful words of the prose washed over me. i loved reading, i loved books. i had and have a gift of reading and of words, of understanding sentences quickly and well. i don't understand how i could have failed to realise that my Bible is a book too, and the most beautiful and delectable one at that, too. it's better than my Harry Potter collection, my Blind Assassins, or Lolitas, anyday. those are fiction, the tales they tell are but tales - even if they are quite breathtaking and epic in scale, allowing my mind to run wild and free in the fieldscape of my imagination. the Bible is a personal love novel from my God to me, it's not imaginary or fiction, it's real. the promises God makes in the pages of the Bible; fantastical as they may sound, they're real and true, and i know that now ever so much better.

i love praying, now. i really want to expand my knowledge on my spirituality and so many other things pertaining to the mysteries of the Godly realm. put that gift of intellect to good use and deepen my spirituality rather than to just read for the sake of reading. the beauty of the gift of intellect is that once my intellect is convinced of something, it translates into my heart pretty soon after.

my eyes have been growing pimples in them, lately.

first my right eye, now my left eye! looks like mom's Eye Bright pills aren't really working, eh? they're supposed to be improving my eyesight - acting as antioxidants and all, but well.. heh. more thingys have taken to growing under my eyelids lately, rendering blinking a rather painful reflex action.

i've really been trying to tune my body clock back to normal sleeping patterns, but it's not working! i have to really drag myself out of bed at 10am every morning when the alarm rings. maybe i should aim for 930am, soon. i'm hoping to be able to jump out of bed bright and cheery at 9am every morning when school term begins in 2 weeks!

these days, inane things to blog about keep coming to me. like my sudden improvement in doing housework, my also-sudden desire to read more literary books besides Harry Potter. oh, and also my increasing need for a vaccum cleaner to work its magic in my room.

what other unimportant things i feel the need to blog about? oh, the stupidity of the CORS system. the sudden onslaught of pms on my system - something i haven't felt for the longest time ever, i even thought i was pms-free! the eruption of bumps all over my forehead. the warped weather these days which i think is largely due to global warming - we're gonna suffer the consequences of global warming and air pollution, soon. my teeth are getting crooked again and i think it's time to take out the trusty ol' retainers of my teenage years and put them on nightly, again.

planning for SEP after my CORS headache is over. planning for an internship next holiday, too. i'm this close to the working world, i'd better start getting ready cos 3 years ain't a long time. my spending habits have improved in the last month, largely due to my self-imposed imprisonment at home to ensure i don't spend. but i feel like shopping again, and i think it's cos of the influx of cash in my wallet again now that August has arrived and July has left me far behind.

my heart's at peace now and i'm no longer the angsty, upset kid i was a few months ago. so complicated, i was! i'm a lot less messed up now, and i think it's cos i don't mess myself up and let God lead me into doing whatever he wants me to do. i've given up trying to struggle for my own happiness, it just doesn't work. i've found out that God's way is always the best for me, but i tend to meander onto other possible paths and take detours and roundabouts before getting to that destination. but then again, if i hadn't trodden on those paths that i did, i wouldn't be the sum of who i am today, either. cried much, hurt much, but also learnt much, and grown much.

i don't deny that some things still bother me. but it isn't like, a pressing bother. it's more like those that come into your mind very randomly and unless you entertain the thought, it leaves you alone again soon after.

and, i need to exercise.
and sleep now. it's 330am. shucks. i'm not helping my lost cause.

today/the last few days has/have been one of those days when i feel annoyance bubbling up from somewhere inside me and threatening to completely engulf me and explode outwards to the people around. funny though, since i ought to be a more peaceful, God-loving, happy person going through the experience of Parish Renewal in the Parish Renewal Experience. pah! i haven't been more unsettled, irritated, and overall, more FRUSTRATED in a long time.

i surmise it's cos i feel i've been dragged to this to accompany my mom, hence the bad grace and the sense of being victimised or made use of. the angry tears keep threatening to well up and i feel like throwing a tremendous tantrum - but happily enough, i still possess enough presence of mind not to lose any semblence of self-control.


i sense the need for God to come into my life fully again, cos i don't know where all this anger and irritation is coming from. it seems as though sometimes, there's this other beast living in the body people know as Kelly, and it's making me feel all this bestial wrath. roar? i think i'm no more bestial than a cat, but you know what i mean lah.

lovely greyish sky today again! it's been like this the last few days. i love this kinda weather. makes me feel good staying at home, makes me want to stay home. good actually, this wanting to stay at home. cos i'm terribly TERRIBLY broke! so for the remaining of this week AND next week, i'm not gonna go anywhere that involves spending money.

the one thing that would make my homestay more cosy and enjoyable would be rain! then i can curl up in bed and take a lovely afternoon cat nap.

speaking of cats. one of those friendly neighbourhood cats attempted to get into my room early this morning! i awoke to the sound of things falling to the floor and scuffling by the window. upon further investigation, i saw dirty little pawprints on my wall - evidence of the kitty's break-in this morning.

it doesn't look like it's gonna rain afterall. :( was looking forward to curling up in bed to the sound of the pitter-patter of raindrops on the roof shingles.

things have been quiet on this blog lately cos i haven't been able to put my thoughts into words. paradoxical, really, how there's so much happening up there in my mind, but when i probe deeper - nothing much at all either.

met Lynette today for a catch-up! realised that i've missed being with her. you never know how much something means to you until it disappears from your life. then you start to see that gaping hole where it once resided. friendships are all a bit like that. when i get frustrated with the way things are going, i tend to turn away from people and just keep looking within. keep turning to me and wondering what i'm feeling, why i'm feeling, and just shut everything else out.

sometimes i feel like there're a lot of things i gotta say to quite a lot of people. but then i just don't feel like talking for many reasons. i just choose to not bother about these outstanding things that ought to be settled cos i don't want to stir things up in my life. things have reached an equilibrium and i just don't want to move from this vantage point where at least the boat doesn't rock and i don't feel like throwing up from sea-sickness.

strangely enough, it's starting to get lonely where i am. though it doesn't seem to warrant loneliness from anywhere - loneliness nonetheless engulfs me and leaves me gasping for air. it's like an uncalled for sort of feeling that just creeps up on me and ambushes me.

some things just trigger reactions or memories that force me to behave strangely, still. i'm frustrated, and yet resigned to the fact that maybe, things will always be like that for me. as normal as normal gets, but not entirely tension-free or awkward-less. i'm wary about talking or sharing about myself; increasingly, as the days go by. not a good thing to be proud of, and yet i suspect it's a defense mechanism too that kicks in to prevent me from ever getting shell-shockedly hurt again. i've given up trying to bring people by the hand over to my point-of-view, to try to show them where i'm coming from and how the sunset looks from my opposite ledge. it's been a few months since i've given up and i can safely say i'm a much less emotionally wrecked up person now.

and so, we just exist as friendly strangers.

my heart is heavy and inexplicably, everything hurts more than it should. we're all lonely deep down inside. i'm no exception. i'm trying to not yield to my desires and immediate wants, to stop thinking about myself all the time and think also for those whom i love and care about. but all these extra cares are wearing me down even though i've barely begun to even try to shoulder them and i'm lost.

for a while, i thought i knew where i was headed. i thought i had everything figured out and my life was finally going to be settled and dandy. how wrong i am, because there's still so much i don't know, so much i'm unsure about. it's during times like these when i feel that my veneer of grown-up-ness and the surety and confidence that being a young woman brings - all melting away to reveal the lost little girl i still am deep inside. i think i know what i'm doing, i think i know what i'm saying, and then it all explodes in my face and i'm not sure about what i even knew to begin with.

when i see the disappointment, when i see the hurt and sadness etched in, when i see that i selfishly caused it all - i hate myself for it all the time. careless words, careless thoughts, carelessness all around. everything around me dripping in carelessness.

i'm single-handedly managing to ruin everything once again and i'm wondering how i even managed such a magnitude of confusion. i undermine my own prowess at ruining things, sometimes. this tendency to self-destruct is terribly dangerous, but how to curb it i have no clue.

then when i try to turn to God and fling myself at his feet, all that wells up in me is an overwhelming sense that he loves me. i love you, over and over again. but i don't want to be comforted, i don't want to find refuge; i want an answer. i want help. i want direction. then i feel bad cos i remember how God loves me so and i don't understand how i can just flick that knowledge aside. and i go round and round in my own head.

i'm terribly sad suddenly and i wish i knew what to do about everything. what wouldn't i give to make things right again for everyone? i'm beginning to wonder if i have a reversed Midas touch about me - everything i touch gets messed up. but then again, i remember the world doesn't revolve around me, so i'm not The Only Factor in so many things. variables i don't even know about could have contributed to the mess.

i suddenly also feel un-understood at all. not misunderstood. un-understood. that sometimes no one bothers to try to understand where i'm coming from - but that could be my own fault because most of the time, i give off the air that i'm perfectly understood and fine. i'm so cautious about certain things now, so careful about treading certain paths - and yet in all the care i take, carelessness still inevitably seeps in and ruins everything. like one of those land mines you take painstaking care to avoid, but you end up walking right into one of those potholes right in front of you in the end.

today on my way home, i was thinking about a lot of things. wondering if i could do certain things. if i could give up certain things for certain other things. wondering what would be the best thing to do. not the easiest thing this time, but the best thing for everyone. calculating my opportunity costs, and getting fed up with calculating cos i can't deal with emotions the same way that i deal with my numbers in algebra. if the equation doesn't add up - just chuck the number away.

i'm still human, after all!

Sentosa, Cathedral, Soup Spoon and Thai Express yesterday!

yummy day, yummy time i had.

days like these make me wanna stay forever where i am. and yet i also know somewhere in the back of my mind that days like these won't last forever. they're just fullstops between sentences, and the story goes on after the fullstop with yet another sentence.

as i was praying last night, something troubled me muchly. ah actually. many things trouble me muchly these days even though i seem to have minimal reason to be troubled. it's the smallest things that cause me great trouble, actually.

tomorrow always comes. even though sometimes you don't want tomorrow to come and you just want today to stay forever. all the tomorrows of my life, what do they hold in store for me? i wish i could take a peek into the future and see how my tomorrow next year will look like. on one hand, i'm ready to just heck it all and let myself get swept up in everything going on around me. don't bother to think, just do and worry about the consequences later on. but on the other, it's all too important to me to just ignore and pretend i'll be able to deal with the repercussions later.

unfortuntately, things don't always go the way we want them to. if only i knew for sure, if only i knew what i had for sure, if only i knew what i can give for sure.

God's voice is becoming increasingly faint in my life these days and i so desperately want to keep straining my ears to listen out for him. someone once chided me for clinging on tightly still in spite of everything. just let go, just give it all up to God, he said. but i choose to hang on still - hang on to God and never let go. it's tough to not give in to my physical and mental exhaustion and just do whatever pleases me. isn't it odd how your struggles seem the toughest to you? probably because they're tangible to you, whereas to others looking on, they can only imagine what you're going through - and what people imagine always doesn't measure up to what's actually going on.

SGL meeting on Saturday reminded me terribly about this verse in the bible in Ecclesiastes.

Vanity of vanity, and all is but vanity!

and i'm afraid this is what everything's about. everything in my life thus far seems to have been to feed my vanity, horrible, needy thing that it is. work is vanity, toil is vanity, and the list goes on. it's hard to accept that, but i think there's some degree of truth in what the guy Qoheleth says. to some extent, everything that we do save the pursuit for God in our lives as a personal journey - is vanity. i say pursuit of God as a personal journey cos sometimes i feel that people (especially in communities) 'seek' God because they want to attain spiritual status over their peers. i'm not guiltless of that, mind you, but being aware of this possibility helps keep me in check and makes me evaluate my pursuit of God in my life and examine my intentions behind everything i do. it's not easy to maintain such a high degree of self-awareness. sometimes you just wish you didn't know so much about yourself, cos it seems like the more you learn about yourself, the uglier a person you appear to be.

upon discovering what a horrible, yucky person i am deep inside, i shuddered and wanted to die. wanted to just stop it all, stop knowing so much. it's hard, it's definitely not pretty. you wonder why God loves you so much in spite of your yuckiness, then you stop and berate yourself cos you know that God's love for you is unconditional. not for laudable reasons and merits about you, but unexplanable, undeserved, and illogical sometimes.

i wish people'd practice what they preached. talking so much and knowing so much isn't enough in life. don't live in fear, someone told me. nothing doing, i say now. i'm suddenly very tired of everything and i'm not quite sure what to do anymore.