Attractive.

 Image links from fed.

So my mom started singing this really weird sounding cantonese nursery rhyme (ok technically it's primary school rhyme) this afternoon and dad and I kept laughing at it cause the lyrics don't go well with the music at all. (Eg. ji4 de2 - the pitch for ji4 is higher than de2, so it goes from a higher to a lower pitch. When you put it with notes like E to G where it's from a note of a lower pitch to a higher one, it sounds odd. Ok don't know if I'm using the correct terms but you get the drift.)

Somehow we got addicted to this and sang it throughout the day. Decided it'd be more amusing to give it a simple piano accompaniment. (imagine nursery performance with little tree kids and piano accompaniment and off-pitch singing/squawking)

Today's a good day.

Great night with genuinely nice people. The world would be a great place if everyone were understanding and non judgemental like that :)

Lucian Freud, Naked Girl Asleep.

This painting gets to me every time. 

(Not my first time posting this, so pardon my habit of looking at things over and over and over again)

The sheer vulnerability of it is simply indescribable.

You can't help but imagine yourself in such a position and you want to cover it up so badly because it's terrifyingly exposed. Yet at the same time, you're strangely drawn to it. Maybe because you get accustomed to the feeling of being exposed and you come to terms with it. That is a nice feeling, to not fear openness. Discomfort lingers but it does not repulse you anymore.

I've always wanted to know the true colour of the painting though. 

I know "Freud uses cremnitz and flake white"

but don't know how cremnitz white is like to be able to deduce the true colour of the painting.

Is it possible to deduce the colour of portraits by the kind of white an artist uses anyway?

-

Random photo of a girl I found with eyes I really like.

{edit} ok not just a random girl. Cara Delevingne. {/edit}

Collection of gifs of flames I found on tumblr.

They're my favourite things.

One can stare at them all day.

Sorry I can't get the credits :/

Everyone has a story behind them.
Listen, be patient, don't be too fast to cut them off.
There's something about everyone you can learn from.
And if someone annoys you, it's more to do with yourself than them.
So talk to people who want someone to listen to them.
Put others before self.

I flipped through my previous journals (the ones starting from August 2010). Number for entries from August 2010 - June 2012: Two books. Number of journal entries since 10 june 2012: Fifteen. Ohgod the first semester in university has seen me being so disgustingly happy and empty. Sadness (or whatever negative feelings) make you reflect so much more. And thinking is the only thing that keeps me alive. It's not as though I write a lot here either, but things here are public and therefore much less personal. I don't drop names here at all, with the exception of just the two I guess.

This might sound kind of twisted, but I want to be on that 'roller coaster of emotions', feel more and more and more and more sadness, so one simple action from someone would put me on a high. I want to write about them and feel alive. I don't want to be alone and satisfied. Things are kind of boring and empty.

So I long for happiness whenever I'm upset, but there's always the part of me that likes feeling like I'm at the bottom of the world, cause it feels productive. I mean, reflecting makes you feel productive cause it means you won't get depressed over the same things over and over again. And it makes you feel like you're gonna be a better person. Plus your head becomes so much clearer after writing.

It's like how they say 'there's always the storm before the calm'. And you like the storms cause they make you appreciate the calm much more later on.

-

Then again, I know I'm doing this to myself cause I'm simply detaching myself from people to prevent things from messing up with my life. Suppose they call that defence mechanism. So please, myself, learn to love others once more and fall into pits and abysses as you wish. (don't just love the ones you trust). You're being far too cold these days, not replying and such. You won't die.

Before Sunrise/ Before Sunset synopsis, words squeezed onto one page. Watched them under nic's recommendation. I'd love to talk about it but there's a mini Christmas dinner to prepare for at home.

The films are interesting because there is not much of a specific plot; they're like video recordings of the conversation between two strangers who met on the train (in before sunrise), and their encounter with each other later (in before sunset). Yes, for the full 1.5 hours for both films.

I prefer Before Sunset, it was much more complex and addressed issues I could relate to. Before Sunrise was nice in the more simple, romantic and idealistic way but I still liked it cause there was a lot to be learnt in the conversation between the two.

Maybe I need to learn to be independent, because I feel  lonely all time despite the hustle and bustle around. It's nothing like having high expectations, really, because I don't even know what there is to expect besides something that'll keep me happy inside. Not just the comforts of someone's embrace, or security, or a stable life interspersed with exciting moments, but true connection. I wouldn't say it's magical - just coincidence that two people, friends or lovers, like to talk/do the same things and are naturally interested in each others' views.

I'll be specific here though, since I just watched Before Sunset. The kind of love with hormones involved. People say, oh all these things are just romanticized, love is all about commitment. I do wonder if relationships coming from pure effort and intermittent love will last, not just on the surface and not something just satisfactory.

And what exactly is wrong with romanticising things anyway? Searching for it and not finding it is painful so we give up, maybe that's what.

And zooming in on marriage. Sometimes I think this whole "you must remind yourself to put in the effort because marriage is a commitment" thing is just a 'rule' to make sure people don't get divorced and kids don't suffer. It might not even be the truth.

Well firstly, if you're truly in love with each other, things will never end up in divorce even if you fight, because you know you need each other to feel fulfilled and satisfied. And if you actually end up with someone you don't love passionately enough, will putting in the effort make a difference when you know you both won't truly understand each other?

From a larger perspective it saves broken families, abandoned children, prevents social problems (and alot of other divorce/marriage related problems) - but the whole concept of love becomes so diluted. So you have a complete family. A roof over your heads and perhaps enough to provide your kids a good education (or anything that keeps them happy). You quarrel a little, you compromise, you are both loyal and committed, everything is comfortable.

But you still feel so lonely, because nothing that ever comes out of your mouths keeps your heart fulfilled. And your kids can sense it. Nobody will be able to know what love is, or even just to describe it, or know how to treat someone well.

-

Then again, all such talk is useless. Sadly a lot of us will end up marrying for all reasons other than love, because not everyone's lucky enough to find someone to love. The lucky ones go through 50 years together like they were both young and in their 20s.

Other people get married, have kids. Love dies, they try to remember what it was like when they were both young and in love. We settle down for fear of a lonesome life. Sure, we can grow fond of someone we want to take care of (and vice versa), someone who will be the other parent of your child, feel satisfied with that life - but that might be satisfaction and not love.

I know they say, "life is all about being satisfied with what you have". but.. I guess I'm still young and can afford to dream for a little while more. And if reality hits and I can't find anyone I know how to love properly, then I shall "resign to fate" and live with another body, not a soul. (and perhaps learn how to love a child properly instead).

Think people do tell me I'm idealistic and pessimistic at the same time. Fatal combination.

A seed sleeps, buried deep with dried soil granules, away from those of its species. Bored underground, it adapts and emerges, just to see itself in a slightly modified form, blending in beautifully with the rest. The branches, the leaves not entirely hers, but at least it was fun waltzing to the breeze in the dark of the night, rustling with her buddies close by. Few months pass, a bud grows but it never blooms - its deep purple core does not go well with the flood of blue blossoms around her.

If the seed could retract itself, it would wait patiently for the thunderstorm to wash it back to where it belongs - now it is too late.

I am a few feet underground.

Finished watching Lilya 4-ever by Lukas Moodysson under Sarah's recommendation.

Top: my most straightforward and raw interpretation/thoughts of/about the movie. Grammatical error spotted.

It is a really good movie about a 16 year old girl in Russia, abandoned by her mother and finally resorting to selling her body for the sake of survival. She gets into a 'relationship' with a man who wanted 'nothing of that sort' and promised her a better life in Sweden. So she left her hometown and her only friend, excited but guilt-ridden for she had abandoned him like her mother did to her. She realised she was trafficked into the Swedish sex industry upon arriving at her new room in Sweden and there, she was locked, only to be let out when there was 'work'. Twists at the end not to be revealed.

You really hate the mother for abandoning her and paving the way for her daughter's shitty life but at the same time, you can't help but wonder if she was trafficked as well when she left for America with her boyfriend (in a car as well). By the way, the scene of her running into her mother's arms and wailing "don't go! don't leave me alone!" and her running into a pool of mud as she watched the taxi disappear.. so so heart wrenching. 

Don't think I should analyse it much for it'd spoilt the movie for anyone. Much mirroring involved, and the cylicity, use of imagery. So. Good. Don't even attempt to click on the photo if you wanna watch the movie. Ok actually it doesn't really matter since they're quite straightforward.

I have two questions:

1) what is the purpose of living if life is horrible as Lilya's?

2) why is the body viewed as sacred?

-

Oksana Akinshina's eyes remind me of Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine. 

Antonio Vivaldi: Sinfonia "al santo sepolcro" RV 169

Background music for end titles. Bleak, painful, sad piece of music.
I am in love with this.

-

Not so related to movie (or perhaps it is),


Thom Yorke performing "last flowers till the hospital".

Depressing music two days in a row. I am so loving life right now.

Been to a few parties this year, it's great to finally be able to meet the people you haven't seen in ages but personally, I don't like the idea of parties that much, the crowd's too big for any talking. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind attending a few of them once in a while especially during Christmas just to get into that festive mood, and some games can be fun, but it's rather anti social behaviour cause you could be having as much fun with someone you don't know. You're engaged with a game and not the people. I don't really care if I still can't play bridge at age 20.

Things always end up the same: after a few hours of abit of talking and socialising, people run out of topics and there'll always be the "let's play card games/games/watch funny youtube videos together" suggestion. It's fun, but just as fun as finding people to play that game with you. People, not necessarily friends. Or people that happen to be able to play with you and whom you subsequently term as friends. I still find this all quite anti social. 

What does it mean to be "sociable" anyway? Feel like it does not necessarily have to be in big groups. At parties, there are always endless activities to get everyone involved. But parties can be equally 'sociable' with many many groups of 2-3 people having great conversation amongst themselves in a room of maybe 30. Problem is, you meet people you're not very close to during these big parties and it's normal to run out of topics quickly.

So why do people attend parties when they're not half as fun as we/movies help us imagine them to be?

I guess the world's a lonely place. Our closest friends may not be here by our side and as much as socialising can be tiring and perhaps a waste of time, we all hate being stuck at home alone on a day where everyone else are with their friends and loved ones.

The world is really just another lonely place.

aim of the moment no.1: stop being like you. Like, stop whining.

people kind of get amused when people google for weird things.
Guilty as charged, but it's interesting to note what people search for.
There are so many people on the internet you feel like hugging:

(1) type: "why do"

and the list of suggestions:
"why do men cheat"
"why do we dream"
"why do we yawn"
"why do cats purr"

(2) type: "why do i feel"

and the list of suggestions:
"why do i feel so tired"
"why do i feel so empty"
"why do i feel dizzy"
"why do i feel nauseous"

(3) type: "i hate"

and the list of suggestions:
"i hate myself"
"i hate singapore" (ok i didn't say that. I like singapore)
"i hate myself for loving you"

(4) type: "i am so"

and the list of suggestions:
"i am so bored"
"i am so lonely"
"i am so tired"

(5) type: "why is"

and the list of suggestions:
"why is the sky blue"
"why is the silence so loud"
"why is yawning contagious"
"why is my period late"

(6) type: "i wish"

and the list of suggestions:
"i wish i were the moon"
"i wish i were pretty"
"i wish i were there"

(7) type: "my life is so"

and the list of suggestions:
"my life is so boring"
"my life is so empty"
"my life is so twilight" (what???)
"my life is so messed up".

(8) type: "should i"

and the list of suggestions:
"should i upgrade to ios6"
"should i buy iphone 5"
"should i update to windows 8"

(9) type: "help my"

and the list of suggestions:
"help my unbelief"
"help my pride"
"help my acel"
"help my gf is a pregnant virgin" (and how does that happen..)

------

note to self: write about train ride with dad this afternoon.
note to self: 3:15 am - am annoyed for now.

Blonde Redhead - Silently

Love this.

1) Be supportive, always
2) Listen

Robbie Williams - Candy

Catchy pop. Was in the record store with nic and thought it sounded familiar.

Maybe that's what a person's personality is: the difference between the inside and the outside.

Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

There is only one thing stopping me from drawing:

The laptop is in front of me and blocking my way. It is switched off while i'm typing away on the desktop. There is no space on the table, and clothes I've brought back from Tembusu are stacked on the bed as well so there's no space for my laptop at all.

Finding a space for it means I'll have to pack my bed, and my table. I am reluctant to do so because I want to reply to Sarah (been wanting to do so for ages) and I want to sketch and design that t-shirt. But I can't do all these because...

my laptop is blocking my way.
And I do not want to pack up.

This would make a good topic for a silly nursery rhyme. Or something.

{edit} packing was actually quite fun. Everything's fun when you start on it. Now, what can explain the intertia? - googles: why do people get lazy? -{/edit}

"the power of introverts ep1" inspired by the book "quiet".

Issues about whether such labelling's necessary aside,

this video reminds me of my experiences during the negotiation workshop held over the past 3 days. Now to set the context - "Quiet: the power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking' by Susan Cain is a book about how Western culture misunderstands and undervalues the traits and personalities of introverted people. I've always wanted read it (after watching Susan Cain's TED talk sometime at the start of the year), simply because it makes you feel better to know that "not thinking aloud, writing thoughts out instead of speaking", "preferring to recharge by being alone", "thinking too much" and "working slowly" are not traits that are unacceptable. This is contrary to what I've always believed (especially in secondary school when I was much less comfortable in my own skin), because such behaviour have caused me much sadness.

So, the negotiation workshop, organized by our wonderful prof in Tembusu College - a 3 day workshop teaching us the skills of.. well, negotiating. We were given the chance to do role-playing and negotiate with different cases and issues at hand, 1-1 parties, 2-2 parties, 3-3 parties, and even a 27 party, 6 hour long negotiation on the last day. It was fun, no doubt, learning ways to come to a common consensus with another party that had totally differing interests from you at first.

But it was only great for me in 1-1 pairings, because I just shut up most of the time when working with bigger groups. There's so much more stimulation when there's a big group of people and it's so difficult to think aloud. There's no time to write down and straighten out my thoughts when a question is posed, there's the pressure to respond immediately. So I ended up switching off half the time. And the fact that I'm afraid of saying the wrong things/saying things that might be different from the viewpoints of my group members did not help. I wonder if the people thought I was dumb or stupid or useless back there. I'm sorry, I really honestly cannot think in the presence of people (the maximum is just one other person, or two people that can be trusted completely). Discounting such times, the workshop was really fun, and perhaps very much so for people who aren't like me. I'd like to thank my lucky stars for giving me a place in Tembusu where there are so many opportunities to learn.

Back to introversion. Oddly, there's another side of me that's completely loud and talkative and crazy in front of people I'm comfortable with, be it in big or small groups. And the friendly me who says hi to everyone and can talk to strangers and can do small talk with acquaintances (even though I hate it). Sometimes I feel odd. There are so many pieces of me. I wish to have more alone time in school, but I'm still searching for someone who can understand me completely so, I can't cut back on trying to socialize yet.

There's an exceptional number of people here who think aloud and aren't afraid to voice out their thoughts here. Sometimes I can't help but fear that they'd think I'm "not up there enough" because nobody knows what I'm thinking. Being "good enough", especially intellectually, is a really big thing here. I don't like to tell people who I am (or maybe there really isn't a need). They only see the bubbly, crazy side of me. And since I'm not that horrible at socialising (if i want to), people just assume I like talking. I don't. It makes me tired.

This justifies the existence of this blog, because technically there's no target audience and technically I'm not telling anybody about who I am; but if any one reads this and understands what I want most is not just someone to 'get high' with, but someone who can talk to me about things we care deeply about, then that'd be great.

Ok I blog mostly because it'd terrible to lose track of who you are at any point of time.

I wonder if this is called self absorption.

Grapes and Cherry Tomatoes

There are two grapes and two cherry tomatoes in front of me. So I ate the cherry tomatoes, bit into its skin and a salty, fresh taste fills my mouth. Half a second later, I pick up the other oval shaped, reddish fruit - the grape. But perhaps I didn't register it as a grape; picking up a visually similar object within such a short period of time, I expected the taste to remain unchanged.


It tasted like the weirdest thing on earth as I bit into it - antecedent saltish taste from the tomatoes and then a fresh burst of sweetness mixed into it - in the form of a deceiving looking grape. Next time I'll try mixing a bowl of grapes and cherry tomatoes and not look while eating - just to see how both fruits (which your fingers will think are exactly the same) can confuse the tastebuds.

Sidenote: freeze grapes and consume as a midnight snack.

COMPLETELY ADDICTED. Fed's recommendation.

Radiohead - Just (Live from Saitama Super Arena, Japan, 2008)


The video

Also, something to think about.

i want my effing freedom which i don't get when i'm back here.

AhsChoir had a farewell for our teacher in charge Mr Tan today. Hope he doesn't mind mind me sharing what he posted on facebook up here. (unsure of the privacy settings)

Felt like tearing/had goosebumps listening to this, especially at "until we meet again". Here are my honest thoughts, because what was felt was simply overwhelming. Sometimes I listen to music for a few times to understand it a little more, but this - it just got to my core the first time round. There are many choral pieces that can be more beautiful than this, but the context matters the most. I cannot begin to describe how it tugs at the heartstrings, releases them and gently pulls them back. It's been a long while since I've been moved so much by a song so, so beautiful that I choke when I try to sing it. The harmony and dynamics - build up, gently cascade down and continue to flow. None of the students' faces are recognizable, but watching and listening to people so young capable of creating something so beautiful.. evokes memories. Of how we were fifteen and got our Gold with Honours. We sang credo at Olomouc. We circled around the teachers there and Ubi Caritas was the first song that entered everyone's minds. We sang it. I think M (if I'm not wrong) was the student conductor. He was a small thirteen year old boy back then, and now he's conducting, communicating so elegantly.

Loneliness, besides nostalgia, was the only other emotion I knew when I heard xuan was going back with her friends for the farewell, saw photos on facebook with the (major) clique from my batch with Mr Tan. I wish I were part of a group back then. Nobody will ever ask me to attend choir related events even though I am so in love with the music and want to be part of it so badly. Same for band in jc, same for everything else. I wish I were not that different. Or quiet. I wish I belong with the people who love the same things as I do.

Farewell Mr Benjamin Tan. I wasn't part of the exco and didn't know you well, but you remind me of the conductor at les Choristes. You were charismastic and taught us music and values. Farewell, even though you'd never read this. Farewell, even though the only thing you'll remember about me is my name.

This is wonderful beyond measure.
Ahs Choir, you're so beautiful :')

Are you Happy?/
No./
So why are you here?/
We're satisfied. People spend their lives looking for happiness when all it'll bring is misery.

-

I feel like I have been rather self absorbed, inconsiderate, straightforward and defensive as of late. There's too much in people I cannot stand, the problem must be with me and not anyone else.

We visited the museums today, SOVA (art theory) is greatly missed.

I'd be a hypocrite if i talk to you. Cannot stand how you want to be the centre of attraction wherever you go. Perhaps there's something wrong with me because it makes me really annoyed.

Exams ended 11 this morning and it was a little less peaceful than I had imagined it to be - not that I'm complaining, of course. Exams aside, I finally had a proper meal of ramen and frozen yoghurt after God knows how many days of bread and tuna for both breakfast and lunch. Collected the flute I rented (kept me excited throughout the day), dinner at wahchee with a mix of people, playing the piano with Fed and then a movie marathon (Inglourious Basterds & Easy A) with 5 others all the way till 6:30.

I would say my post exam celebration is complete - now the time to write all the letters I've been wanting to write, to improve on my tone on the flute, get back to oil painting again, read. As much as I'd love to go out, I really hope there'll be at least 1/2 - 2/3 of my time allocated for doing such individualistic activities.

6:53 am. Time for bed, I guess.