tis the season to be jolly...what happened?

the wannabe punk rocker, the japanese doll and the ghost.
once upon a time, they were happy.

then the sacred gui hua beancurd spilled on the wannabe punk rocker
and triggered a series of bad omens.
-the end-

...

if everything could ever feel this real forever,
if anything could be this good again

...

nobag

OMG!so the winner of survivor gabon has been revealed. and im staying away from the papers cuz straits times was schtupid enough to reveal the winner even BEFORE the finale this friday, 3pm -live telecast and 11pm - repeated telecast, only on 5. all thanks to pb, i've been saved from spoilt fun.

one of the things that has been keeping me going is survivor. you can learn alot from survivor; human behavior, how losers and winners behave, politics (which can come in handy for those facing corporate pressures in these *** times, it's jinxed to say the word). i try to see my work place like a survivor set. i have my alliances *wink* survivor IS my work-life balance. hur hur.

so the lowdown of this season of survivor is that this bunch of losers who couldnt get along from the start, showed no teamwork, lost all their team matches only to return to camp to wallow in self pity, decided after 20 days that "gee, why dont we form an aliance with each other". so they did. and then they started to vote all the cool, good guys out till the final 7 was 80% losers with one super damn cute i-want-him-as-granddad good guy left...watch the finale!

im so excite! i hope granddad bob wins!

gesture

you could place the palm of your hand on the bare skin of her lap and it could only mean the demand for attention. or the palm could be pressed onto someone else's bare-skinned lap and send the warmth of affection through her flesh. either way, they seem like the same gesture, only they mean different emotions to you. but to her?

how important is it to distinguish one gesture from another to avoid misunderstood intentions?

a gesture easily misunderstood is a gesture that oughts most to be distinguished; better yet, avoided. will we then be so conscious of gestures misunderstood that they are better off internalised?

i want to feel the palm of your hand on my lap. but whose else's laps have those palms pressed? and whose others' were they placed?

what do your gestures mean?

betterworld books

the books have FINALLY arrived!
today marks the 3rd week since i purchased them,
imagine the anticipation.


friends, purchase your books from betterworldbooks.com
and support world literacy.

D&D

they say we weathered the storm and we smiled in the face of tribulations.

ladies and gents, the trade team.

and these are the beautiful people who keep me going at work

bird, hsing, jad

maymay,bird,bernie,reece

more photos on facebook
(bird, get an account for crying out loud)

everybody together...

hai!

majide!

the things we do when we get together,
when we DO get together.
more of these please...

mondays

mondays are shit and toilet cubicles are my secret hideouts; like a slip-out alley from the main streets, a diagonal swerve from a cheetah's straight chase. here i find myself sitting on a toilet seat amidst 3, sometimes 5 skeltering cockroaches. the world continues to run outside my cubicle walls; a lady brushing her teeth after lunch, toilet gossips, the thunderous pour of diarrhoea next door. and time freezes, the work waits, my boss waits...

till i unfreeze time with the zip of my skirt & the flush of the toilet bowl.

this was written on a monday sometime in june.this monday will be different with the hari raya holiday.thank god for a multi-racial singapore.

忽然之间

忽然之间 天昏地暗
世界可以忽然什么都没有
我想起了你 再想到自己
我为什么总在非常脆弱的时候 怀念你

我明白太放不开你的爱 太熟悉你的关怀
分不开 想你算是安慰还是悲哀
而现在 就算时针都停摆 就算生命像尘埃
分不开 我们也许反而更相信爱

如果这天地 最终会消失
不想一路走来珍惜的回忆没有你

congratulations on your 6th season

visit http://sketchbooklabel.livejournal.com for more

breathe out so i can breathe you in
again
and again
and again.

can you die of a carbon dioxide o.d.?

be-drugged

drug me.
put ur finger in my drink and
drug me.
tear the bones off my skin and
drug me.
jab your words through my head and
drug me.
dig me up from my grave and
drug me.
pierce your lips into my neck and
drug me.
tattoo your name across my back and
drug me.
drug me.
drug me.
drug me.
then whisper in my ear that you love me.

more and more, i feel less and less.

please

stitches

In the light, you can see my stitches.
Come closer and
you might find some loose ends.
Pick and unpick on them,
at your pace.

From my temple down the sides of my face.
My neck to my chest
around my breast,
keep going along the contours of my waist.
Bump against my hip bone
more pronounced than before,
spiral down the concentricity of my thighs,
look, they tried to make it hurt even more.

Don’t hold back, no bleeding occurs here;
Not anymore.
Keep picking and unpicking.

Flip me open, my heart still thumps,
those lungs, though stained with nicotine
still pumps. Pumps.
Eye my breakfast through my gut,
Alright.
Enough.
Now sew me up.

measure

Emotional expectations: 3 metres, 500 kilograms, 5 hours…
Will it then be easier to control them?
When are they too short? Too heavy? Too long?
When should i turn around and walk away?

5 hours.Beneath 3 metres.On 500 kilograms.
I will wait.

the things that keep me alive at work

currently reading:

belongings

they're talking
they're shouting
maybe they're just screwing

they're laughing
they're kissing
and im just out here waiting

for my turn

with this second-class feeling.

dada

"...Get rid of your wife. Give up your mistress. Give up your hopes and your fears. Sow your children out in the woods. Give up the substance for the shadow. Give up your easy way of life, and that which passes for a job with a future. Take to the roads."

- andre breton, 1923

find me the courage.

cat

I’m an ugly cat.
I sit at your door and wait
for you to love me.

tentativity

increasingly,
i've been diminishing in think and feel,
only the tentative.
the dog who never catches its tail
am i running for nothing?

or nothing runs from me.
as i try to paint the colour back
to your pictures of white and black
your pictures linger to remind me...

tentatively

nations unite

the nations united again without zhui
cuz he was "servicing his clients", thank you very much.
and it seems, i have become pa-mars-wala republic.

because the earthlings couldnt stop laughing at my alien pass
which permitted my entrance into earth.

to all aliens, required for earth pass:
- 1 x bad hair day
- 1 x bad photo-cropping skills
- 1 x earthling name (e.g. jonathan lee)
thank you very much ::bows::

Danae

she was fair and soft and had long auburn hair. auburn, that's what they call it. i would call it gold satin, that perhaps Zeus while impregnating her left them wet with gold rain. but i wouldn't, like Zeus did. so i did what i could.

and a light broke from her skin and illuminated the night sky.

Zeus was not pleased, she was.

我心还在...

i carry a city in my chest while i waste away in my daydreams.

creeds

you believe in coffee grounds,
tea-cup omens, gambler's chance:
i believe in your eye's dance.

you believe in fairy tales,
dreams and lucky days or ill:
i believe the lies you tell.

you believe in some vague God,
a special Saint who guards you here,
for so much sin, just so much prayer.

i believe in coloured hours
blue and rose, when your delights
are bared for me through sleepless nights.

in all that i believe, my faith
is so profound, so deep, so true,
that i can only live for you.

-paul verlaine

film

she was a shell.she laid half-dressed on the desk,her body's inability to enjoy she who yearned to pleasure her, was not usually her. the nervous sensations were impulses not transmitted to the brain to be etched as a memory encapsulating a moment of intimacy and passion. instead, they remained like a film; watched from a distance, her involvement but a role she played. but it was not like that. not really. not when the shell was un-empty.

regret would have her watch the film in her head, wishing it was her.

happy mom's day

i want to be...

gregory colbert- from the 'ashes and snow' exhibition

only some can break into that space that separates man from animal,
others live like elites.

and i am excited about the zoo!

the night is a secret well

the night is a secret well.
no tampered space nor trace be found
for sunlight scatters the scent that dwells
in echoes warm and quick to hollow out.

while shriveled in my sleep i felt
the quiver of sullen air around,
the tender of the streams that melt
into my skin. dark walls surround

my frightful soul awakes with doubt:
why you would take me whole, engulfed
then disappear at dawn-break's sound
oh night, you're a secret well.

exam week

i have my book, my coffee and my cigarettes;
i am ready to conquer the world.

i'm not here

like forest trees and lush greens
in cityscapes of concrete
the mind, a stranger to
what i read

the heart is absent where i sleep
and eat

she went for a walk and won't be back

says me

last days in smu

girls, EDA, no make that school, wouldn't have been possible without you.
the hong kong guest stars becoming extras in this almost tear-jerking shot of departure...


and these are last days but not end days.

trouble-d

i feel troubled. and i usually can't pin-point the cause. perhaps i am tired and nerved by my inherent need to be compulsively clean in spite of the time which led to my quarter-of-an-hour long shower. i could be troubled by other less important things like my deadlines encircling 10 page reports or my nagging conscience at my decision to skip class tomorrow morning. anyhow, i am troubled.

and when i am troubled, i shut the world out; kind of like punishing trouble himself, locking him in so he won't go infecting others by making a scapegoat out of busy and therefore less attentive boyfriends or concerned therefore naggy mothers. trouble is sneaky like that.

but somehow it does work on him, this lock-in. disseminates him, vaporises him and perhaps, then absorbs him. and when accumulated to a fairly sizeable volume, i could become trouble himself, humanised.

i dream of shanghai

she's my muse. her tender fair
skin wrapped under her cheong sam,
tight. swaying her hips like
they were playing the song.

she's my muse. her contoured, round
form draped under her night wear,
loose. swaying her hips like
they were yelling my wrong.

she's my muse. her gentle, sweet
kiss on my cheeks like moonlight,
warm. bouncing around like
they were tracing my soul.

she's my muse. her intense, strong
tug on my waist like deep roots,
firm. holding me still like
they were keeping me home.

shame

he entered like a stranger
no sense that he knew her
and crept around
till he was found,
she held him close to her bosom.

he knew he'd find
her ties won't bind;
those chains were loose
so he could choose
to shame her with him inside her.

he shamed her with him inside her.

maternal strength

we climbed till we were 70 storeys above sea level. the ocean below, still as concrete, like the sky upturned beneath. the metal barrier stood thin and unsure, served only to draw a line between us and the infinite vacuum that would not extend its assistance should the barrier fail to hold us. peering down till the stretch in our necks bridged the blood-flow to our heads, she said, i am going for a swim. my objections drowned in the silence of space while she crossed the barrier-line, suspended from her arms till she was an arch, and released.

i watched as her form was first head, body and legs. and like a series of still pictures, she shrank in size and blurred in detail. until she was merely the colour of her dress, white. yet she was still shrinking and was the only fragmented movement in the oblivious vacuum.

finally she punched a tiny dent in the ocean, her body spread out within it. her white camouflaged into the ocean's white, separated from the jet black her hair left as the only evidence that she was there. stuck, not floating. almost deathly unmoving.

but like my palm, she flipped. grinned and waved a fidgeting speck of life.

osmose

it was cold and they were two, motionless more than stranded on an island.at arms length, they were alone. it didn't matter that they were friends, or strangers in the crowd, for their eyes would not meet nor their soul nod in silent understanding. and the rain would crash like waves on rocks, on the foundation beneath their feet. and soak and suck their way through leather, skin and bones, drenching and drying till their toes fold into flaccid creases.and it would be that water could penetrate their skin with far greater ease than the words spoken between them, bouncing off like rubber on glass, shot into infinite space,plunging to the ground. never heard. never understood.if only my words would fall like rain, she thought, silently.

birthdays,birthnames,names

happy belated birthday babe! u are most special... ok, i know this wasnt taken on your birthday but we will take a proper birthday pic when i meet you for dinner k?!

speaking of birthdays, i was reminded of my birth name over a name brainstorming session with huiwen this afternoon. she has name troubles especially when she meets kan-tang (potato), non-bilingual singaporeans who have so much difficulty pronouncing hway-when. so she has to christen herself with an easy to pronounce english name that isnt too girly cuz that's not her. so...the most creative me came up with HUIWORM! surely that's alot easier, considering there's a mental picture they can relate to.

anyhooves, this song is dedicated to the one-year-old me, for being michelle for a year.

Michelle, ma belle
These are words that go together well
My Michelle

Michelle, ma belle
Sont des mots qui vont très bien ensemble
très bien ensemble

I love you, I love you, I love you
that's all I want to say
Until I find a way
I will say the only words I know that you'll understand

- Michelle, The Beatles

observations of a religious artist

The morning booms with gospel songs
or a lady shouting ‘Amen!’.
He sits at the dining table, softly chanting
verses that may make perfect sense

in a different language, another life
of which he may enjoy,
his religion, yes, his God-sent talent;
the love, peace and joy.

His dark blue bible, good as new
in English and Mandarin,
has, slipped between thin-crisp pages,
painting print-outs by Klimt.

It seems
as he hangs his head in silent obedience
as he lifts his hands in praise,
the words and thoughts are neck deep
“I will love You all my days”.

the smu-difference is no different

it IS the midterm BREAK. of course, we should've known by now what that means isn't a sunny holiday in koh samui or a budget-breaking skip along the streets of hong kong (why does being broke suddenly sound enticing?). it still means school work, deadlines, tests and project meetings. which brings me to bitterly bitch about the structure of our courses nowadays in smu. yes, it used to be different; project work instead of lecture-tutorial style of teaching, more interaction between students and professors and all that fancy mancy terms to describe hold-you-by-the-throat timetables. but now, it is all that and more. i am appalled by the lightly weighted 5% project work which doesn't, unfortunately, translate to lightly weighted workload. and modules that are filled with these components (i mean, professors DO have to make the entire course worth 100% afterall). the reason i have had sleepless nights from week 1-7 of my final school term is so i can have a well-deserved BREAK, for crying out loud. but it is still back to school on a monday morning, miserably murmuring under my breath about how tragic it is to be back while everyone else is actually BREAK-ing.

not.

everyone's there. doing the same 5% crap as i am (ok, maybe theirs is 20%?).there is no point. haven't we all been whining about our education system since we were 8?

what "difference" does smu make?

the wish to be alone.

and soon it will all crash in on me.
it is they cease or i perish

or the bliss of death allayed pain

blue

THE BLUE GUITAR
The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.

They said, ‘You have a blue guitar,
You cannot play things as they are.’

The man replied, ‘Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar.’

And they said then, ‘But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,
A tune upon the blue guitar
Of things exactly as they are.’

-wallace stevens

Beyond all this, the wish to be alone.

-adapted from wants by philip larkin

With That She Smiled

jagged tears on calender pages
silence in the hovering air sinks
stacked away her fading pictures
the tv in its constant running

three times three
that's nine grandchildren
third son's first is two years older
when will she be back from melbourne
it don't matter, as long as it's worth

her curves and creases
deepening as her fading pictures
with which her stories like echoes sing
and i'd still be listening

my old letters

i bought a new book.and when i buy new things,i tend to try tidy up my mess; dig out the old stuff,organise it.maybe it's my form of making way for the new?so i chose to tidy up my box of letters without knowing how far back they date.there were those from friends,best friend (sung, your pile was the highest!all our aerograms!),enemy (i found one hate letter),lovers,secret and not so secret admirers,crushes,penpals,angels and mortals... in a moment, i was 5 then 7,13 then 17.i was first at 395 bukit timah road then 68 jalan girang, 93 seletar hills then 1 duke street...

how far have i travelled?how long have i been?

24 years.

compressed in an hour.

i laughed and teared,sighed and giggled.squirmed and squealed,gaped and baffled.
some moments i wish i did better, some that "-ed" won't appear.

but at the end,i always find myself
here.
having to stabilize myself in reality.

reunion dinner

while teh gao tells me to not spoil cny for him,i cant help but lament about how pretentious and political this "festive season" is (was).but politics and pretense for me, ceased with the death of ah gong on 2nd november 2005.those who cared for the tangibly meaningless,albeit powerful,allow for his life to linger on in them.as such, this is my reunion dinner tribute to him.

salad art
(no it's not supposed to look like ah gong...)

boundaries, always boundaries, and the longing for infinite space.

- jeanette winterson

how many idle seniors can u fit in a kia picanto?

our banner

before the preliminary battle


of which we squeezed 26 tiny girls into the car, not knowing someone else would beat our record with 27.
so we mobilised all the other tiny girls we knew

and we were going to win!

and so we did...with 29 ppl in the car! (of course,this isnt full force)
voted: most exciting thing i did in smu

so many words

dwb dwb,
dwb dwb,
dwb dwb,
dwb dwb,
(ss
hmph)

dwb dwb,
dwb dwb,
dwb dwb,
dwb dwb,
dwb dwb,
dwb dwb,
(sss
hmmph)

grlb hmmph

hmmph

(shh
mmm

hmmph)

i've got to go

breathe out, so i can breathe you in...hold you in...

shanghainese mahjong

because kenny wanted to watch the 9pm chinese drama on tv so we had to rotate the table 180degrees clockwise.of course, the more efficient way was to take our chips tray out and put it back at our new seat.so that's us trying to fix the chips tray back, twist and push.

上海 gathering

the shanghainese came over for dinner on friday and like boys who gather and talk about their army days, we spoke of shanghai again lovingly; remembering her smell and beauty, her voice and taste.of course, we never fail to laugh at ronald...

one night, on our way to attica, ronald got real pissed off at the cab driver for taking us in circles. so after giving him a piece of his mind, we had one real angsty ronald in the front seat. as we were approaching our destination, the cab driver asked "现金还是刷卡？” (cash or ezlink card?) and ronald immediately replied curtly "走直！” (go straight!).

trees

they stand
abreast
in mingled
order,
firm and
strong
tall
and
long
and cast
a dark
air
still
and
cool.
our
gaze of
awe
will
render
them
order
like
trees in
a forest
lack
appeal.

but close
your
eyes
and
do
not stare
at their
physique,
angled
contours.
you
will
find
you
hear them
there
wrapping
around
each
other,
like
lovers
in the
forest.

reunited

reunited and it feels so good
reunited cuz we understood
there's one perfect fit and sugar
this one is it
we five (zhui where the hell are u?) are so excited cuz we're
reunited hey hey...
- reunited, peaches and herb

i am two

sometimes i am a cat
sometimes i'm a ferret
my paws change to claws
my long slender legs become short
the point in my ears
sometimes smooth themselves out
into curves
my nose sniffs the fish that satisfies
to find
i dont always enjoy it
i am still the same i am
but i never know when, it's too hard
i wish i were one

it is time