the shove into adulthood.

At Jian Kuan's Commencement last night, Adeline and I were questioning the use of the word commencement for this ceremony. "Don't they usually call it Convocation?" she said. I certainly think convocation sounds more prestigious.

Yet, commencement is aptly used here. Other than 'a ceremony at which academic degrees and diplomas are conferred', commencement means 'A beginning; a start'.

Last night, I saw hundreds of fresh graduates in their gowns at the UCC. The University probably tires of this. Rounds and rounds of graduation ceremonies year after year. And it's sad because to each of these graduates, this day holds so much anticipation and trepidation. The defining moment that we have been working towards all our young life, the culmination of our academic pursuits. Everything boils down to the day we receive our scrolls. And nobody else actually cares enough.

Society may have its own markers for adulthood. We might have at times, made bravado attempts to take on our world as tough-speaking adults and perhaps also just as frequently, have cowered back behind the shields of our status as students. But the day we're being handed our scrolls, we would no longer have that privilege of pleading ignorance. Henceforth, we would be judged to possess the faculty of reason; we would have to take full responsibility for our deeds. We would be adults and no one will take any excuse from us.

If we're poor, it would be our own fault. If we're suffering, it would be our own fault. And if we fall, no one's going to coddle us and say, "stand up, child, be brave".

On that day, we're on our own. On that day, the rest of our life would commence.

P.S. It's such an anti-climax to that chilling conclusion but I wanna add that girls look way better than guys in that gown! 'Cos we get to show just a bit of ankles on that sexy pair of stilettoes! So hot!

resounding gongs and clanging symbols.

This morning, I woke up to this text:
"(...) Do you believe that you only really love once? (...)"

Haha I feel like Sophie except my food for thought doesn't come in small white envelopes.

But isn't that interesting? We're always thinking about love. If there's anything as mystifying as life, it would be love.

No, I don't believe we only really love once. And anyway, feelings are not static. But love should be mutual (all the time or at least at some point). Love comes in different forms. It might be the flaming passion that this person ignites in you or a mellow steady kind of love that comes from years of stability. I like the second kind of love; it grows on you and it feels more sincere. The flaming passion seems like it will fizzle and die out, like a supernova. And of course, it may just be lust. But the best kind of love is a combination of both.

Actually, this is so half-hearted. I don't want to be talking about love right now. Only people who are blooming in love and romping in the sea of passion want to talk about love. I'm bored with this. I wanna be serious and prim and career-minded. Please go away, love, and leave me alone. Knock on my door when I'm ready...someday.

I'd rather be talking about stilettoes.

brevity is the soul of wit.

Tock. Tick.

For Procter & Gamble - Oil of Olay.
Sheer brilliance. Saatchi & Saatchi almost always nails it.

nus is too boring for me.

I wish I were an Art History major. Or something equally esoteric and frivolous.

clever girls.

This is for my friend Benedict Chen who wrote:

"Nice guys finish last.
Bad boys don't finish at all."

This means:
Clever girls who act dumb to hoodwink guys finish first. They manage to use ALL the guys.
Which is proof that guys think with their dicks.

If the world was fair, it would be as he revised:

"Nice guys finish last.
Bad boys don't finish at all.

Clever girls finish first.
Bad girls don't finish at all."


But the world isn't.



EDIT* now I have more proof that guys only have one thing on their minds.

Evan Tan, I hope you read GREAT MEMORY 101. That was a prank. Don't waste my effort.

no sense.

I had the weirdest dream last night. A part of me wants to deconstruct it. The relentlessly curious (kaypoh) side. But the other part is afraid to because it involves my family and it's morbid.

It's completely bizarre and I swear I haven't even been reading or watching anything close to macabre lately.

My dream.
Disclaimer: This would be a confusing read not because I'm incoherent from the trauma but because it was a dream and my dreams are always hazy and disjointed.
I'm taking the lift up to my flat from the first level. Instead of going up, the lift goes down and this horrifies me for obvious reasons. It takes me underground and when the lift door opens, something hazy comes into the lift, it probably also has a human form. The hazy thing is trying to speak to me but all I hear are 'ghost' and 'stroke'. I am screaming like a desperate lunatic. Somehow, my Creative Zen stone is in my hand and it's on recording mode (the lousy device has died on me today). This is a rather important piece of information.

The lift starts functioning again and manages to get me back home. I calm down and begin recounting the lift incident to my parents. As I do so, what the ghost was trying to tell me starts coming through more coherently and I sort of begin to understand what's going to happen next. But just as I do, it happens. My father falls to the floor in some sort of a seizure. The Grim Reaper appears to collect his soul and I actually see my dad's soul rising. At this point, the hazy thing flashes in between my dad's soul and the Grim Reaper. GR collects the ghost instead of my dad's soul.

As my dad awakes with my mom fussing over him, I play the recording. At first, nothing other than the commotion can be heard. But as I turn up the volume, I hear a thin, whispered voice: "I am a ghost. Blah blah your father blah blah stroke blah blah blah. Help me." The thinking me who's watching the dream doesn't get the complete message but I comprehend it.

The ghost is saying that somehow, when he died, the Grim Reaper didn't collect his soul and now he's just a wandering soul with no place to go. He knows my dad is going to get a stroke and the Grim Reaper will be there to collect his soul. He can help me by letting the GR collect his soul instead of my dad's. I'm supposed to help...I don't know how...but in the end, he managed on his own. So, he saved my dad by saving himself!

Chilled my bones when I woke up this morning. But I get the recording part. That's from The Sixth Sense, when Bruce Willis listened to the recording of his session with the first boy he didn't cure. Yikes. How did a story like this get into my subconscious?! It's almost too complex for a dream. Even mine. Normally, my dreams have no distinct plot, they're just dark and morbid, kafkaesque type.

A dream is just a dream, right?

when they're pushing up daisies.

What good are sweet gestures when the receiver is no longer alive?

Why is it that we never see the people in our lives until they're no longer around? Why do we try to ease our conscience by being extra nice and generous to them at their graves? All your flowers and tears and apologies are in vain. Why do we do this? Why is it that we never learn these things until it's too late and then we make that same mistake with another person?

We're all selfish bastards. We are the centres of our universe, so puffed up and arrogant and self-important. Until our worlds come crashing down and we get buried in the debris of our damn regret. And then we realize we're all so small and we need our pillars of support and they went, not knowing how much they meant to us.

Some time later, we return to being selfish bastards.

I reckon we'll give an arm and a leg to bring our loved ones back and we're still not going to learn how to cherish them when they are. We're almost certainly going to fall into that same narcissistic routine and cry all over again when they're gone. Again.

Why don't we save those remorseful tears, apologetic flowers and desperate promises? Get a better bargain. All they need now is a bit of uninterrupted companionship, an occasional whispered 'I love you' and you, just being you, beside them, with your mind, heart and soul.

Oh but we'll never get it. I know I won't. And all these words, I'm using them against me. One day, when my parents are no more, I'll scream and wail for them to be back and beat myself up for never letting them know how much they mean to me. But for today, and many more days to come, I'll continue snapping at them. Why do I do this to myself?

i'm sorry i can't be perfect.

Do you believe people with perfect lives? Evan and Debra vehemently rejects the idea. They're convinced that people who impose stories of their perfect lives on the world are secretly suffering from an inferiority complex and seek validation for their activities.

Wow, what a mouthful.

I don't know. That's like my mantra these days. But I honestly don't. My world and everything I know about it are all muddled up. I don't know what is right or wrong, good or bad, black or white. I don't even know if that's a good sign, though they say wisdom comes from knowing you don't know.

But definitely, I know my life is far from perfect. It's like the antithesis of perfection. Why else do you think I'm depressed and suicidal and nihilistic? So nihilistic, in fact, that I can't even finish reading Le Mythe de Sisyphe.

Some people have very fixed ideas of how things work out. To them, there are formulas and procedures and a time for everything. Sometimes, I wish I had that clarity. Evan might be one of those. (Am I right?) But then, really, I've seen examples of how some things just don't follow rules. You can do everything right and it turns out wrong or you can do everything wrongly and it turns out right. So, who's to say?

Should I believe in the concept of perfect lives? Possibly. I think I can at least believe the person. Meaning that he truly believes his life is perfection and bliss. But then, I might also fairly decide that the person is delusional.

done deal. closed the door.

I know I've blogged today. And it's only 9 minutes before I can make a long-awaited escape from a totally boring day at work. But...I'm so bored I wanna blow my own brains!! And I need to say something.


HAHAHAHAHAHA

I feel ridiculously happy. But I think I should be discreet about it. 'Cos I don't want that meddlesome Life to notice and come deal me another slap. So, I'll be cryptic.

I have found the full-stop. Hohoho.

maternal instincts.

Saturday night, I dreamt I got a cat. I don't know why I got a cat instead of a kitten, and why a cat instead of a dog or a little boy.

It's not even cute ): so I couldn't love it. And it slept all day (on my bed! why?!) and when I left it for babysitting at my friend's, it told my friend I look like a Chinagirl ('cos of my fringe). After some time, I wanted to abandon it.

I don't like the cat. I want a dog.


Oh right! And I'm gonna be a wedding singer! Yips!

of life ennui.

Joyce Huang asked me last night what it really means to be jaded. This has got to be one of those hackneyed words thrown around carelessly by tired people, most of whom have probably never given the word its due consideration. I am guilty of that. So, I gave the first answer that came to mind. "For me, it means I've stopped believing in things. 'Cos I've seen some bad stuff."

That's true, though. It's one of those few times I'm grateful for to be able to come up with a prompt and sensible reply. (Not too witty.)

I can't remember when it was that I stopped floating around on the happy clouds, proclaiming "life is beautiful!" (Eww.) But yes, the owner of this depressing blog was once upon a time an optimist. I can't remember when it was that I stopped believing in myself and what I can achieve. Truth is, I'm scared to death of facing my life of mediocrity. God only knows when my laughter stopped reaching my eyes (I can actually feel it not reaching my eyes, I swear) and warming my heart. And please don't forget I'm barely 21. I feel crippled and old in my heart.

I don't have the energy to be around cheerful young girls who still skip merrily around with their shiny bright faces and high voices. In Tong's words, they'll jump in and say "Yay! We're playing poker!" with their cards still left unturned. For us, we'll take a peek at the cards and say "What the fuck" with, you know, that ennui voice (for lack of a better adjective). And so, yeah, we wait until Life comes around and gives them a slap across the face, spectacularly.

We're all so care-worn. When we meet, we never talk about happy stuff anymore. We laugh about things, make cynical quasi-sophisticated jokes, but we're not bright and shiny and wide-eyed anymore. When we talk, we discuss about internships and careers and dysfunctional relationships. We talk about marriage with the passion of a 60-year-old spinster/bachelor; a pragmatic and meaningless stage in life rather than a blessed union of two whatever. It's just that we are so very afraid of loneliness.

Do you still believe in marriage? I don't know. I don't wanna think about it because I don't wanna see so clearly the person I've become. What the fuck, Life? I hate you.

more than man's best friend.

I seriously think, now, that it's wiser to invest feelings in a dog than another human. At least, after you've really bonded with a dog, he'll stand by you and never disappoint you. He'll love you with his whole being and his loyalty is unwavering. He'll be there when you're down; he'll be there when you're happy. When you talk to him, he may not know how to reply, but you'll know he's listening because he's looking at you with understanding eyes (as opposed to staring at blank space with a stoned face and no reactions, ok I'm being a bit mean).

Here are the 10 promises, and they're really touching:
1. Please live patiently with me.
2. Please believe in me. That alone makes me happy.
3. Please don't forget that I have feelings too.
4. There is a reason when I don't listen to you.
5. Please talk to me frequently. I may not speak human, but I can understand.
6. Please don't hit me. Don't forget I'm stronger if we fight.
7. Please don't neglect me even when I get older.
8. I'll only be around for about 10 years, so please spend more time with me.
9. You have school and friends. But I've only got you.
10. When I die, please stay by my side. And please remember, I've loved you all my life.

when what you see isn't what you get.

How do I describe the feeling of having fixed my hair to its somewhat normal state for the first time in nearly 2 weeks after the haircut?

It's like being given a new lease of life after an unexpected, gruesome demise.

It's like thinking wrinkles and age spots won't ever happen to you and then one horrifying day in your early 40s, waking up to find them starting to invade your youthful skin. And then living with their growing community for years. And one miraculous day, a saviour (God? Plastic surgeon?) comes around with new skin for you and your much-desired (but not cherished) youth is restored.

You may think I'm being unnecessarily dramatic, bimbotic and vain. But let me tell you this, beauty is not overrated. People judge you by your appearance everyday, every minute, no matter what you do. And unless you are spectacularly genius like Einstein or Newton or Chaplin (who are, by the way, mentally deranged in their own ways, proving the idiocy of discriminating against mental people), your looks will always be factored into your perceived potential. Good looks are, by far, the quickest way to pick up your confidence and self-esteem.

When you meet an ex, for example, or just anyone for that matter. There is a reason why someone said: "Looking good is the best revenge." I can't remember who. Looking good probably won't you help feel better about your breakup but looking like something the cat chewed and dragged in will definitely make you feel worse.

And anyway, my main gripe about the disaster the hairdresser has made of my hair is that it isn't me. I look in the mirror and I can't find myself in my reflection. I am apparently almost unrecognizable to friends. Joel ran into me last night and he had to take a while to make sure it's Valerie from Sheares. "God, what did you do to your hair?" Or something like that. I am even having trouble choosing clothes to wear because they don't match my hair! My personality! I feel robbed of my identity. And of course, this translates to being late for work everyday.

From now on, nobody comes near my fringe except me, or a very experienced and qualified stylist specializing in fringes.

don't write me off just yet.

I love lyrics. You know how the people who're really musically inclined go crazy about a certain riff or whatever? I go crazy about a certain phrase in the lyrics. Other people shout out song titles the moment they hear the start of the melody; I usually need to hear the start of the lyrics.

It's a pain to be musically UN-inclined when I love singing this much. And the lyrics.

How do you improve your writing, anyway? Sometimes, I feel trapped in a spluttering, inarticulate human shell. I grasp all the emotions I wanna convey, the emotions I wanna arouse in readers, but no words apt enough to weave that tapestry. I listen to Bon Jovi and beyond the beautiful melody, of course, I am moved by the picture he paints with his lyrics. It's not the words per se, but how he strings them together and the recognition you get when you understand the meaning of the phrase.

It's what Drew Barrymore said in Music and Lyrics: "A melody is like seeing someone for the first time. The physical attraction. Sex. But then, as you get to know the person, that's the lyrics. Their story. Who they are underneath."

Bon Jovi.