where thoughts materialise.

So we're into the sixth version of my blog after the last version hung around for a year or so.

Now, a bit of info on this image. This photo was taken one lovely spring afternoon, featuring the iconic Old Well from the UNC Chapel Hill campus. I would like to think of this image as a tribute to my time in UNC Chapel Hill, the awesome friends I made and the memories I now hold dear.

A milestone in my life indeed.

I've dropped the tagboard cos its useless and taking eons to load. But thanks to Angela who helped me set it up, I still do like and will miss the pink interface.

So yeah, it's the sixth one you fellas!

Yours.

27 April 2008

you know you miss my older entries

October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008

Monday, May 29, 2006

I made another collage to keep me happy. Yet another random selection from Brisbane 05 that focuses mainly on us. In our apartments, in the public buses, on fields of green, in elevators. Just photos that exude nothing but the simple life. Because, it is often the simple plain living where you understand life the most, and the best.

* *

I would have just embarked on my SEA journey today, to discover the cultures and history I had never known.

By choosing to stay, I find myself constantly having to remind myself that I live in the 'today' and not the past. I get overly sentimental with the past because it is nothing like the situation I have to face today - the impending death of someone so close. Which has kept me from living my 'today's to the fullest - very dangerous and time wasting.

I have learnt to take my foot out from the past, and to firmly place it in the present, and to understand the importance of it all. I live in 'today'.

By choosing to live in 'today', I can fully be in acceptance of the reason I chose to stay, that is to give my grandma the best quality of life left for her. In that sense, I appreciate how useless it is to complain that I could have been overseas or how life would have been less burdenful.

I had to come to terms with death as the inevitable. People think very little about death. They spend their lives worried about really absurd things, putting things off and leaving important moments aside. They risk nothing because they believe that is dangerous. They grumble a lot, but act like cowards when it is time to take certain steps. If they thought a little more about death, they would never fail to make that telephone call that they have been putting off. They would be a little more crazy. They would not be afraid of the end of this incarnation - because you cannot be afraid of something that is going to happen anyway.

I learnt to look at death in its face and realise that it is part of life, and see life as a transitory and impermanent journey to another.

By accepting death, I am more prepared for life. And I feel that this is the greatest lesson of all. This is perhaps what all the events have been planted to lead me towards. The magnitude of it all placed my little rantings and complaints into perspective, to realise the bigger meaning of living a life.

To be at peace with the world, I have learnt to be at peace with my inner self.

Today I realize, as I look back at how events unfolded, that I had a greater calling to be back home and very unknowingly, I had launched myself on a journey, a very different journey to appreciate life and to cherish the ones I love.

nimgnoy let the night fall at 11:50 AM

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Sunday, May 21, 2006

I always liken the summer vacation to a period of great change. An undertaking of new roles and new challenges in life. Some people graduate and begin a new life, some start their internship attachment and tonnes of others flee overseas. It is a marvelous time of the year - great weather, zero commitments to school and lots of free time at hand. We are no longer students. We become working adults, travellers, and ultimately all become witnesses of the greater world.

Of course, not all would embrace such change as willingly as others.

For me, I've chosen to watch the ethereal sunset, to cherish what's left of its blazing glory before it slips behind the horizon and leaves behind nothing but memories of what it used to be. In its setting hours, the sun is at its most meek and vulnerable.

* *

I am most probably cancelling SEA with Jon. Which is probably one of the hardest decision to make. While being with my grandma in her last months is the obvious choice to make, the compromise I had to make was a large one.

To dash the dreams of my bro is definitely one I find the hardest to accept. To realise that, because of me, he has to give up to the trip as well, is something I feel extremely bad about. And though he is gracious enough to say it's okay, I inevitable feel responsible for the no go.

Fucked up. I can't help but feel so damned fucked up.

nimgnoy let the night fall at 11:47 AM

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Thursday, May 18, 2006

This week has proven to be trying. But not enough to break the hard shell I've built around me thus far.

Last night, dad and I sent Ye Ye to the hospital. He has been frail these years, despite his healthy lifestyle and you can't fight age I guess. He suffered from a mild heart failure last night. By the time we got Ye Ye checked into the hospital and got ourselves home, it was an unearthly hour of 4 am.

Dr Lee also told us that grandma's fight with cancer is coming to a close. With her situation only going downhill from here on, the road to the end has finally begun. While I am relieved to know that her suffering will not last long, but. at what price?

Hence, my SEA trip will be inevitable be affected. Which is certainly something I am very concerned about, since my bro and I had been planning it for ages.

The emotions tug me in all directions. But if these past one and a half years has taught me anything, it would be to cope with all that is happening around me. I have taken bigger blows than this, so this is classified as no sweat.

But, coping is not dealing with the issues at hand. Nothing much really get resolved, I just learn to take it in and keep things the way it is. Sometimes, while people commend that I am taking the situation well, maintaining cool in such times of adversity, I feel otherwise. I am a warrior, I fight to make the lives of the people I love around me better, but like every other superhero, I am cursed with the ability to take in pain effortlessly, only keeping the pain for myself so that others can be free of it. If anyone's to suffer, let it be me.

So I have led my life these past one and a half years like that - simply coping. And sometimes I wished I had the strength and rationality to deal with these issues, to know how and what to feel, instead on just being an expert in shelving them neatly within.

Well, nobody deserves the blame in this, fate has moved us apart. It is not an easy game to play, this life, when the rules remain a mystery.

All along the fault is up for grabs, why don't you have it?
Well it's for sale, go make your offer, I'll sell it for no less than what I bought it for.
You pay no more than absolutely zero.

nimgnoy let the night fall at 11:57 AM

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Monday, May 15, 2006

It is true that most Singaporeans live to eat. Very evident from the multiple random blogs with grossly huge or carefully tesselated pictures of the meals these food worshippers eat. Very often aspirantly taken with a <1 megapixel camera phone. And worse still, showing the before and after pictures of a full and empty plate, of which the message they are trying to convey still remains a mystery to me.

Ah we're into mid-May already. Certainly didn't seem that long since my exams ended. And summer is beginning to take shape - glorious sun (albeit the occasional storms), lazy afternoons and warm humid nights. Love it when light plays on the water.

Today I woke up to a renewed peace. Perhaps its the ten hours of sleep, but I feel almost like a newborn, clean slate into the world, where the dry sponge is ready to absorb the wonders this transient world brings - good or bad. I am more than convinced that life is not about holding on, but about moving on. For if we can never go back in time, the only thing we can do is to figure the best step forward.

"Dear Leonard, to look life in the face, always to look life in the face, and to know what it is, to love it for what it is. At last to know it. To love it for what it is. And then to put it away."
- Virginia Woolf's final note to Leonard, her husband, before she took her life.

I somewhat think I finally understand what she meant.

I can't be cooped up at home now, sun's begging me to go out and play.

nimgnoy let the night fall at 11:34 AM

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Saturday, May 13, 2006

The big city holds with it stunning architecture of the forgotten era, and yet in this drizzly morning, the chill it brings isn't any different from the chill it brought then.

And within shells of architecture, big cities remain the same. Strolling along the streets under a greyish blanket of clouds, what I see remains no different from home. Cars of different make splitting the thin sheet of waters. Individual umbrellas for individual folks, and though the street is busy, each make their individual path through the myriad of messy people. Pockets of vacant lots grim and taken over by nature. Mothers with kids, people with cell phones.

After all, what binds us all urban folks today is how we do not talk to anybody anymore. Each route taken in the big city is every route taken for himself. And perhaps in an environment where the struggle is for survival in the concrete jungle, silence is probably the best and safest way out.

And so we keep our feelings to ourselves, and so our feelings never get known. It is funny how in this age, feelings equates almost directly to vulnerability. People are so immersed in our problems these days, we find no way out but in silence and solitude.

Only those who find life find treasures. When everyday seems the same, it is most probably because we have stopped noticing the good things that appear in our lives. And I fear that I may come to that point in life, not by my will, but for circumstances force me to.

Out in the streets this chilly morning, as I look at the people making their own way through the pavements, I realize I am but only one of them too - walking my solo journey, detatched from the world I so wish to live in.

nimgnoy let the night fall at 12:47 PM

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Having been quite down lately, I often drift into this heavy and melancholic mood when night removes me from the rest of the bustling day. And within me, ruminating over issues that have held me captive, masked and gladly forgotten (albeit momentarily) by the vigority of my busy schedule.

More often than not, these encumbrances proved on hindsight, that they really should not bother me as much as they did, having only done so because my mind turns each matter over and over in my head till it snowballs into something quite out of proportion. My trouble would then seem trivial and ingenuine, and life goes on back on the beaten track again.

And I am quite used to it now. Almost always numb whenever I feel down, I do not get too worried because I know that somehow things would work out - my issues, so small, would prove insignificant after sometime.

Maybe that's why I am compelled to write this time. Perhaps because this time, things are seemingly otherwise. What is bothering me is genuine, and what is bothering me is well founded.

And it is at times like these when I can turn to no one, except the night, except the net, except myself.

nimgnoy let the night fall at 12:07 AM

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Wednesday, May 10, 2006

And so, version 1 of my Southeast Asia intinerary is out.
SEA

Departing on the 26th May (hopefully), this journey will take us into:

Singapore - Bangkok - Siem Reap (via Aranya Prathet-Poipet border) - Temples of Angkor - Phnom Penh - Ho Chi Minh City (via Baret-Moc Bai Border) - (possibly) Mekong Delta - Hue - Hanoi - Vientiane - (possibly) Luang Prabang - Ayuthaya (via Vientiane-Nong Khai Border) - Bangkok - Singapore

Arriving in Singapore 23rd June (hopefully too).

That's a grand total of 29 days and i'm-not-going-to-even-count-how-many miles.
29 days for Southeast Asia is quite a mad rush but I guess highlights should suffice, there isn't even time for China as Jon and I wanted.

* *

Today I woke up at 11am and am very proud of it. Why?
Because today, I have realised, is the first day since God-knows-when that I can wake up anytime I want.
And because today, I have realised, is the first day since God-knows-when that I can spend time with myself with no committments to school or friends whatsoever.
And because today, I have realised, is the first day since God-knows-when that I am actually home for the afternoon.

Ah, holidays. And it is slowly creeping into the rhythm of my life. The lazy afternoons with the ceiling fan swirling overhead.

nimgnoy let the night fall at 2:23 PM

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Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Beyond words.

nimgnoy let the night fall at 12:07 AM

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Saturday, May 06, 2006

It's a depressing weekend lah. I am, quite reluctantly, moving back home. Boxes and boxes of memories to be progressively shifted to base this weekend. My room at PGP would cease to be home, becoming merely a husk where memories once formed, empty, awaiting its new owner, whoever that may be, to move in next semester and once again thrive with new life and new memories.

I cannot believe this, I am getting sentimental over a room. A room! Sometimes I wished I could leave these little things behind more easily, sometimes I wished I was less feeling like everyone else out there. But I am a captive of memories and of time, that I do admit.

I want to face this world with more vigour. It scares me sometimes when I get the inkling that I am beginning to be complacent with life. And its true, how the mundanity of life blinds us to the beauty of the world. So I refuse to let routine, or only getting good grades, or fear of the unknown get the better of me. And I fight of course. I fight the frowns on my mom's face when I mention the backpacking trip, I fight the weird stares when I tell people that I do not have a specific job I am working towards, I fight the questions arising when others ask me why I am studying in FASS, I fight stigmas and stereotypes.

Because I believe I will fight a good fight, because I do not want to be satisfied with the status quo, and most importantly, because I refuse to let my dreams die. How can I move on living when I have turned back and said "No" to life?

And in the horizon, I see a tempest approaching. I've seen many tempests in my life. The majority of them took me by surprise, so that I had to learn - and very quickly - to look further, to understand that I cannot control time, to exercise the art of patience, to respect the fury of nature. Things do not always happen the way I would like them to, so it's better for me to get used to it.

The wind is speeding up. I'm in an open field; there are trees on the horizon that, at least theoretically, will attract the bolts. My skin is impermeable even though my clothes may get drenched. Therefore it's best to enjoy this vision rather than run for shelter.

I see the tempest approaching. Like any tempest, it brings destruction - but at the same time it waters the fields, and the wisdom of the heavens comes down with the rain. Like any tempest, it will pass. The more violent it is, the quicker it will pass.

nimgnoy let the night fall at 1:18 AM

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Wednesday, May 03, 2006

So surreal, but this BBC article covers the main issues I have been studying this whole semester in my Philosophy class.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4954856.stm

Now read on after you have read the article above.

Although seemingly absurd and out of this world, these thought experiments are not simply formulated to put you in the spot or make you think Philosophers have nothing to do but to come up with weird senarios to screw their brains up.

The attached violinist case, as you have read, applies to abortion.
The trolley case(s), applies to the issue of active and passive euthanasia. The difference between killing, and letting die.
This is merely the tip of the iceberg that we have studied, this module forces you to evaluate and consider death in a dimension never envisaged before.
Other issues we read include: Why is death bad?, The sanctity of life, Abortion, The right to self termination (Suicide), Euthanasia and Ethical issues in human body parts markets.

Ethics. Now you understand why my fellow coursemates and I are tormented souls.

But that sure beats studying numbers.

nimgnoy let the night fall at 11:33 AM

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So, the academic year has come to a close.

And finally, I get to sit quite comfortably in my cool but not chilly room (albeit the last 5 days here), pink martini in the background, laptop staring back at me. My contacts are still fused onto my eyes and its making them really dry, the bright screen is not helping much either.

Nevertheless, AY05/06 has come and gone, and 10 modules later, I must say it has been quite a year. I believe I have learnt more things in this academic year than all the other years combined.

The tide is changing and I have, quite fluidly, plunged into another first of my life, summer vacation that is. And sribbled on a crumply piece of used envelope (its gummed flap all torn and mutilated), are a whole list of things I have or want to do. It is an impressive list of people to meet, things to do, errands to run, pleasures to enjoy.

I have given exam much thought over the past weeks. I realised, based on the system that awards grades i.e. the bell curve thingy, that my success is based very much on the incompetency of others. There is no such thing as doing well, only doing better than others. Be in a class of geniuses and its a tough fight for that A, be in a class of idiots and you are blessed. So it boils down to playing mind games - look confident, dress well, smile even when the notes make no sense to you, chat up with the lecturer (and make the class see you are doing so) - do all in your ability to dash their belief that they can, make them believe they are no match to your aptitude and nothing they can do in their little lives can elevate them into your league.

Then you, hopefully, score.

Okay, a bit late considering exams are over already. And just a disclaimer, I did not adopt the abovementioned strategy this semester.

My contacts are killing me and they absolutely have to get out of my eyes now.

So to end off, here's to the premiere of MI:3 we caught just now.
MI3

Thanks for the tickets again, Winston.

Aside: The auntie at the YIH Cheers asked me and vic if we were twins. The hair perhaps.

Time is up, stop writing, pens down, surfs up and time to party summer away!

Happy Birthday Yifang. 12 years of friendship, amazing.

nimgnoy let the night fall at 12:42 AM

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