my blue shadow.

a pervasive fear of drifting, never able to find all that is right, never finding an anchor point to set my roots deep in. the word i fear most is compromise, because i do it so instinctively day-to-day. always willing to settle for less, always willing to give others the benefit of doubt, always willing to sya "it's ok, i'll settle it", always preparing for the burial of a new ideal, always willing to let a new resolve slip because it takes effort to maintain. The greatest fear is that it becomes a habitual character flaw to compromise and make do with, because of fear of disequilibrium, fear of loneliness, fear of delayed gratification which might not come. the schizophrenia persists daily, between the opposite personas of the compromiser and perfectionist. It is a catch 22 situation when there is no satisfaction, no perfect equlibrium, a state of pendulating.

i really need you to be stronger than me in every way.
i really need you to be steadfast and constant, even as i permutate.
i really need you to be the anchor, even as i hesitate.
i really need you to exist...
my blue shadow.

bodytalk.

I was talking to CJ at length yesterday and she said some things that got me thinking. She shared with me how she's keeping to a diet and exercise that she might lose more weight, because her ideal woman is magazine-model slim. She explained that every woman's ideal woman-to-be is different; whilst other women value intelligence and seeks to increase their knowledge to be the ideal woman in her mind, her ideal woman is of that physical build and hence she has no qualms about working towards it. Just as how some women value and appreciate her curves, she values and appreciates "petite", even if it might mean being "flatter".

I think it's fine to love gyming. i do. I think it's fine to gym towards an ideal body type. i do hope to achieve that. But i'm hesitant to say that it's a purposeful purpose in life. A fantastic and healthy body is an important subset of living here on earth now (because it is the temple of the Holy Spirit), but it cannot be the basis for day-to-day living, because this body we have is only temporary. I shudder to think that before the throne when Jesus asks me what i did with my time here on earth as His child i would to say "eh, i diet-ed, worked and gymed". How different would i be from people who don't know Him? How am i to reflect His Glory and be His light and salt when all i am preoccupied with my cocooned existence?

Juxtaposition

I'm glad i can finally "release" my film paper now that submission's over. i heart it alot, because I "sense" the writing flow, even more coherently than they were in my mind as i crafted it. Writing to me, is more than a set of words, sentences or paragraphs strung together. It is a very beautiful and elegant woman, articulate in her longings and pensive thoughts, sensitive and sincere. Every time i start on something, it's like knocking on her door and asking her what she has to convey. Going deeper and deeper into her pensive thoughts and emotions. By the time a piece of satisfactory writing is done, i feel that i have connected with and understood her. Weird as it may sound, t's a living relationship.

“Write an essay that discusses Chungking Express in relation to In the Mood for Love, or In the Mood for Love in relation to Chungking Express. Your essay should be centered on one or a few key points. Your essay must also contain some discussion of Wong’s use of the film medium in the two films.”

Wong Kar Wei’s films invoke a sense of déjà vu; an evocation of romantic longings and fleeting chances. Juxtaposing the two films, one finds Chungking Express (CKE) idiosyncratic, whilst In the Mood for Love (ITMFL) nostalgic to the point of being larger than life.

The Concept of Time

Love vanquishes time. To lovers, a moment can be eternity, eternity can be the tick of a clock. -Mary Parrish

In CKE, the sense that time is moving forward is strong. The monologue of 223 reveals an obsession with time and remembrance; each centimeter of contact is recounted, each minute a significant marker of time. There is a positive anxiety to capture memories and time; a “canning of time” in order to capture the meaning of what has transpired in his life. The story of 633 is less relentless in its pursuit of time, but the blasting music “California Dreaming” constantly reminds us that Faye’s utopia has not yet come and behind the fast food counter, she is in a state of waiting. Even when Faye breaks into 633’s house, “Dreams” replay each time, giving us a premonition that something is waiting to happen.

ITMFL on the other hand, slowly ushers one down the memory lane nostalgically and leaves one unable to leave it. Time is almost static in ITMFL, with a looming clock that has no second hand to signify the passing of seconds. Time moves in blocks of moods rather than units of minutes, with Lizhen’s dazzling array of cheongsams as the only significant marker of time in the story. There is the stylistics to reinforce the languid pace; the tracking camera that follows Li Zhen up and down the steps with her thermoflask gives a nostalgic significance to the moment. Shot in slow motion, the whirling, tendril-like cigarette smoke from Chow dances against the light hauntingly and bids the audience to remember the smoke, to remember the wistfulness of that moment. The timelessness of memory pervades.

Emotions.

Events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves they find their own order the continuous thread of revelation.

-Eudora Welty

The use of slow motion in both films highlights the emotional state of the characters relative to the world around them. If 633 was lost in melancholic thoughts after being jilted, Li Zhen was trapped in loneliness with her husband’s absence. In CKE however, the presentation is more literal; 633 drinks black coffee at a snail’s crawl in melancholy as the world around him rushes forward. The same cinematic technique is used more subtly in ITMFL as Li Zhen’s slowed-down, stretch-printed ascent and descent along the stairway with thermoflask in hand, as well as her languid graceful movements near the mahjong table as she mingles with others; exemplifies her loneliness despite the activity and people around her.

Another dimension to the slowness of events portrayed is Kundera’s secret bond between slowness and memory, where slowness is directly proportional to the intensity of memory.[i] The inter-title at the start of ITMFL sums up the mesh of unspoken emotions, raw longings and misty sight of the past in Chow’s memory.[ii] Chow’s memories of meeting Li Zhen at the noodle stalls, enjoyable times in 2046, and pensive moments in his newspaper office are all slowed down and savored. The intensity of 633’s memory of his failed relationship is likewise represented in the extreme slow motion of his coffee drinking. For 223, time is stopped altogether to mark the significance of the moment where he bumps into the blonde and Faye.

In both ITMFL and CKE, close proximity does not mean emotional closeness. The characters get close enough to the point of touching, but not quite. 223 recounts his “0.01cm” distance from the blonde and Faye respectively with a matter-of-factness; Li Zhen and Chow similarly brush past each other along the narrow corridors and stairways, with an air of quiet reticence between them. In CKE, the emotional distance was that of alienation as people are lost in their internal thoughts, whilst the repressed behaviour and emotions of Lizhen and Chow are as much a result as social decorum and respectability as Lizhen's unwillingness to be like their spouses, who have gotten into an extramarital affair. The irony is that Lizhen and Chow were slowly falling in love too, albeit in a waltzing pattern of “Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps”, but their love is unconsummated and therein the beauty of a mood for love, forever embalmed in memory.

Attire in both films hence becomes a vehicle for emotions and passions to be expressed; consequently, restraint of attire is a reflection of restrained emotions. The more carefree attire of 223 and Faye is a contrast to the prime and proper 633, where in public space, his hair is always immaculately combed and shirt tucked in. The blonde is always decked in her wig, sunglasses and raincoat. The duo finds emancipation from their restraint by the end of the movie segments. Symbolically, 633’s shirt is un-tucked when Faye comes back from California and the blonde drops her wig after murdering her lover. Along a similar vein, attire in ITMFL reflects the required restraint of passions in 1960s Hongkong[iii] and both Chow and Li Zhen have their hair and attire immaculately in place throughout the movie, juxtaposed with a less formal and promiscuous Ping. However, emotions are never emancipated for the couple; Li Zhen remains composed as tears roll down her cheeks in room 2046 when she realized Chow had already left for Singapore.

Hence, the voluptuousness of emotions in ITMFL that reside within the characters bursts unto the colours around them. “Unbearable nostalgia”[iv], that of knowing the inevitable death of one’s love, is hence imparted to the vivid colours of Lizhen’s cheongsams, the bedsheets of Chow’s room, even the colours of the aged walls. Those colours are reminiscent of a time charged with pent up emotions, a time that was more colourful in Chow’s memory than what actually was. They lure the modern audience into believing that the 1960s had more vibrant colours, more life. Rather than an accurate portrayal of the real 1960s, it is perhaps more fittingly, Chow’s subjective memory of a wistful past. Emotions in CKE are similarly displaced onto inanimate objects and rituals. 633’s melancholy from being dumped by his air stewardess girlfriend is displaced onto his bar of soap, rag, soft toy. 223 creates a ritual for himself (buying cans of pineapples with an expiration dated 1 May), imparting much emotional tenacity to a senseless activity. Faye’s adoration for 633 is similarly displaced onto her routine of cleaning up 633’s apartment. Both Faye’s break-in into 633’s house and Li Zhen’s break-in into Chow’s apartment in Singapore is a metaphorical and oblique way of moving into the heart of the man they yearn for, because both lack the courage to bring their feelings to fruition. When dreams threaten to come true, Faye puts it on hold by escaping to California. Li Zhen on the other hand, remains silent on the phone even as Chow waits for her to speak.

Space

Love is space and time measured by the heart. –Marcel Proust

In CKE, the high density of the whirling mass of faceless people who surround the characters and crammed spaces[v] creates a deep sense of alienation. ITMFL however, is reminiscent of a time where people were crammed together in a claustrophobic space and forming a community where they borrow newspapers from each other and have meals together. Characters are always negotiating crammed, narrow spaces and corridors. The spying camera places the audience as a voyeur and neighbour, always behind something, peeking in and eavesdropping in a living space with high human density. The only time that Li Zhen and Chow could be free from prying eyes and chatter is during their dinners together and thereafter, along the lonely night streets that were stripped of other people or street furniture. Even on the broad streets however, they are frequently shot behind the barred windows and in a cab, maintaining them in a claustrophobic space, signifying their trapped existence in a close knit community where tongues wag at the slightest misstep one makes.

At the same time, space is presented as a repository of memories. The occasional empty shots of the street lamp, the common corridor between the two families and the empty street void of people long after the characters leave. The space takes on a life of its own, inviting the audience to fill in the elliptical gaps in the story. Lizhen walks past under the street lamp and after a short delay, Chow walks past in the opposite direction. Will they meet the next time they pass through? The street lamp seems to ponder as the original score carries the characters through the space. True enough, they do, as the rain patters down against the light from the street lamp.

Juxtaposition

CKE as as forward-looking and hopeful as ITMFL is nostalgic and wistful. The stories might be different, but underlying them, Wong's distinctive themes of memories, chance and regret remain the same. The concept of time, display of emotions and use of space echo these themes in the two films.

---

[i] “There is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting. Consider this utterly commonplace situation: a man is walking down the street. At a certain moment, he tries to recall something, but the recollection escapes him. Automatically, he slows down. Meanwhile, a person who wants to forget a disagreeable incident he has just lived through starts unconsciously to speed up his pace, as if he were trying to distance himself from a thing still to close to him in time… the degree of slowness is directly proportional to the intensity of memory; the degree of speed is directly proportional to the intensity of forgetting” (Kundera, Milan. Slowness. Trans. Linda Asher. London: Faber and Faber, 1996. pg 35-35)

[ii] It is a restless moment.
She has kept her head lowered,
to give him a chance to come closer.
But he could not, for lack of courage.
She turns and walks away.

That era has passed.
Nothing that belonged to it exists any more.

He remembers those vanished years.
As though looking through a dusty window pane,
the past is something he could see, but not touch.
And everything he sees is blurred and indistinct.

[iii] The landlord lady criticizes Lizhen for wearing beautiful cheongsams “just to get noodles” and the boss finds the new tie by his young mistress too flamboyant.

[iv] The “unbearable nostalgia” describes a situation in which, even though one’s beloved is present, one sees no future, or “your beloved’s death is, invisibly, already present”. (Kundera, Milan. Identity. Trans. Linda Asher. London: Faber and Faber, 1998)

[v] Both 223 and 633’s apartments, Midnight Express Chungking Mansions are all crammed spaces.

political theory

I do not believe in the absolute determinism of history. On the contrary, I believe that all life, and consequently, the life of hstory, is made up of simple moments, each of them relatively undetermined in respect of the previous one, so that in it reality hesitates, walks up and down, and is uncertain whether to decide for one or other of various possibilities. it is this metaphysical hesitancy which gives to everything living its unmistakable character of tremulous vibration.

"The Revolt of the Masses" Jose Ortega y Gasset

this is my life. The life of a political theory student labouring under the force of contemporary ideas of what public life means. It is intellectual acrobatics and it is labour, but the consolation is that these ideas are rejuvenating even at this time when i'm re-reading them and trying to fit them into a coherent paper. The greatest gift of work to me, is to be continually inspired by what i'm learning and processing.

a cold heart in the heat of the summer.

a posture of yearning, yet privy to none that might pry.
a picture of perfection, yet frozen in fear.
a position of despair, yet too weary to be calibrated

goodbye.

Last Political Theory class. We took a class photo!
There's something about being in an Honours Class; everyone kinda knows one another and when the music fades and the last dance's over, everyone still lingers on the dance floor to catch the last wisp of nostalgia. And boy, was it an awesome dance. Much humour, laughter, idiosyncrasies and intellectual debates. I'm really thankful for Dr Pellerin and how he insisted that we hold discussions after he lectures even though there were protests. It really facilitated learning, interaction and friendships.

CS wrote me a letter because it's the last time we will meet each other whilst he is still an undergraduate. i'm really quite touched. Thank God for friendships. He has been a good senior and brother-in-Christ to me; both of us believe that God has been deliberate in making our paths meet. As a believer i do think that everyday of my life is orchestrated by a loving and sovereign God, but it's usually more acute in certain relationships than others. I know that CS will go forth as light into the world :)

I think RL Boy said "i think i'll miss you" before we parted but i'm not sure. Or i'm pretty sure he said it but i'm disbelieving that he would say something like that directly. He's been a friend, despite a certain degree of discomfort on my part. Till now he's pretty much still a stranger whose motivations i do not fully grasp but i always choose the side of humanity and friendships over schemes and evil intentions. Yes, there is the sinfulness of man and the deceitful heart to contend with, but by and large I believe the human race is capable of good, because God is good. I'm getting ahead of myself by talking in such macro, moralistic terms! I just pray that one day he will come to know Jesus as the only way, truth and the life. I believe it's tiring for agnostics who think through theology thoroughly and yet find no satisfactory conclusion. After class RL and i would usually hang out but today i decided to lunch with Vania to catch up with her. She's such a perky and likable girl to be with.

I remember saying how lonely i was last semester and i prayed specifically for God to bring me more friends. And He did! I feel like i've a whole new wardrobe of them. Whatever it is, i still thank God that He has put all these different people along my path this season. I've learnt and grown much and I believe it's to prepare me for greater Glory that's in Him.

goodbye, till we meet again.

The Prophet. On Love.

Then said Almitra, "Speak to us of Love."

And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them. And with a great voice he said:

When love beckons to you follow him,

Though his ways are hard and steep.

And when his wings enfold you yield to him,

Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

And when he speaks to you believe in him,

Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.

Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,

So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.

He threshes you to make you naked.

He sifts you to free you from your husks.

He grinds you to whiteness.

He kneads you until you are pliant;

And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,

Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,

Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;

For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, I am in the heart of God."

And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.

To know the pain of too much tenderness.

To be wounded by your own understanding of love;

And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;

To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;

To return home at eventide with gratitude;

And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

More of The Prophet.

space in togetherness.

“You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when
the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other’s cups but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous,
but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”

- ‘The Prophet’ by Kahlil Gibran

What a beautiful rendition of love, one that has said all that is to say about love. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keep, for only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. stand together yet not too near together, for the pillars of the temple stand apart, and the oak tree and cypress grow not in each other's shadow. This is love as God has created and there is so much beauty in it. spaces in togetherness, because there has to be room for God. I'm inspired and awed.

unbearable phonecalls.

why are couples so mushy and disgusting? Don't tell me it's sour grapes. it's true that they talk and act different around each other. my sister never talks to me that way. i get incredible goosebumps listening to my sister's mushy phone conversations almost every night. to imagine it's only one side i'm hearing and it's already so unbearable. eeks. And i'm always playing the irritating "younger" sister making gagging noises and pretending to throw up whilst she goes on and on. eeks.

the grass is not greener.

My current favourite text is The Constitution of Liberty by Friedrich Hayek. He's a lucid and matter-of-fact thinker with amazing writing. But i'm mentioning him because i'm borrowing an interesting term that he uses in explaining how inequality breeds progress. It's only when people are unequal that the more well-endowed is free to have experiments in living, which will lead to civilization's progress. because of him, my young idealist socialist tendencies have waned a little. i think it's a good thing to adjust one's beliefs once in a while when one knows so little. the beauty of being a green horn in life. but i've to move on to the meat of this post, which is far more trivial and interesting.

A thought that left an imprint on me a couple of years ago was during my time in City Harvest, when this male friend, in explaining the phenomena of a pretty cell group leader bring hordes to church each week, gracefully said, "U know why? It's because no one would mind a pretty friend." Whether or not you are a believer you would agree to going to church because you have eyes on a certain someone is a little dishonourable. But of course it's not a sin and God does miracles even with wrong motives of the heart. I started off with mixed motives myself. But the point is not in the churchgoing phenomena or religion, but it is that the very matter-of-fact statement has deep social meanings embedded in it. being the overlooked, prideful, imperfect, envy harbouring, insecure female that i was (and still am), i was of course a little offended by this little fact of life.

A few years of pondering and experiments in living, I've come to the (i hope, humble) conclusion that i have perhaps managed to take a peek at the other side of the field and it's not that greener. In fact, it has a lot less vitality and pure vibrancy with all that pollutants in the air. This semester especially has been a slight change for my shell, pulling off a little more glamour and glitter just for a change. And I have noticed slight differences in how people treat me. Look deeper, they are not slight differences, but more accurately, superficial differences. A different group of people take the initiative to talk and posture to make an impression. I'm simultaneously taken more seriously and more frivolously. (well, usually frivolously until i open my mouth to prove that i am not an airhead.) I am now utterly convinced that i will never be impressed with a male hunky (usually superficial of course) airhead in the long run. In many ways i'm still vulnerable to being taken in at the onset by beauty but give me a few weeks (okay, sometimes months) when the character shines through, there's no way to hide and God shows me how empty the way of the world is.

I know this sounds like i'm enlisting into a nunnery of some sort. But you know what i mean. Everyone has met eye candy material who turns out to be that and nothing else. Candy that does not satisfy true hunger. I saw the look RL Boy exchanged with his male friend and i knew it was some immature male ego thing going on. I'm half reminding myself not to be offended by this act of female objectification but it's still not a comfortable thought.

If nothing else, this experiment of living has shown me the value of depth. and it truly weighs heavier than fluff.

Zardo's streets.

Veurnes Street in Belgium

Bruxelles Street

by Zardo, a new fav.

I love his shots of empty streets. The skewed lines and looming presence in the Veurnes shot is breathtaking. It's one of my favorites. The warmer lighting in Bruxelles Street seem to be one of the rare gentler shots that he takes. the stoic gothic buildings are always juxtaposed with the sky and tormented clouds, which give them a breathe of majestic life.

i'm alive!

it hit me that living the eternal life means that my entire being is so exciting and different from the rest of the world. i'm constantly seeking God's will and God's way in every aspect of my life and the reality of it grounds me and gives me strength and joy even in the midst of the most arduous trials and journeys. I can learn so much about myself and my future one day, just talking and keeping the communication lines between me and God open. I'm seeking God for my calling although i think deep down i might still be scared to receive it. It's a trust issue at the root of it; whether i have enough faith to trust God that His calling for my life is the best for me. My mind knows the answer, but my heart has to be fortified to be made vulnerable. Sounds a little paradoxical huh. But i believe that Jesus has to fortify my heart with faith because i have so little of it.

On Love and Marriage

What we call "being in love" is a glorious state, and, in several ways, good for us. It helps to make us generous and courageous, it opens our eyes not only to the beauty of the beloved but to all beauty, and it subordinates (especially at first) our merely animal sexuality; in that sense, love is the great conqueror of lust. No one in his senses would deny that being in love is far better than wither common sensuality or cold self-centredness. But, as I said before, “the most dangerous you can do is to take up any one impulse of our own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs”. Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. you cannot make it the basis of a whole life. it is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go. And in fact, whatever people say, the state called “being in love” usually doesn’t last. If the old fairy-tale ending “They lived happily ever after” is taken to mean “They felt for the next fifty years exactly as they felt the day before they were married”, then it says what probably never was or ever would be true, and would be highly undesirable if it were. Who could bear to live with that excitement for even five years? What would become of your work, your appetite, your sleep, your friendships? But of course, ceasing to be “in love” need not mean ceasing to love. Love in the second sense – love as distinct from “being in love” – is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not love yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be “in love” with someone else. “Being in love” first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.

People get from books the idea that if you have married the right person you may expect to go on “being in love” forever. As a result, when they find they are not, they think it proves they have made a mistake and are entitled by change – not realizing that, when they have changed, the glamour will go out of the new love just as it went out of the old one. in this department of life, as in every other, thrills come at the beginning and do not last. The sort of thrill a boy has at the first idea of flying will not go on when he has joined the R.A.F. and is really learning to fly. The thrill you feel on first seeing some delightful place dies away when you really go to live there. Does that mean it would be better not to learn to fly and not to live in the beautiful place? By no means. In both cases, if you go through with it, the dying away of the first thrill will be compensated for by a quieter and more lasting kind of interest. What is more, it is just the people who are ready to submit to the loss of the thrill and settle down to the sober interest, who are then most likely to meet new thrills in some quite different direction. The man who has learned to fly and become a good pilot will suddenly discover music; the man who has settled down to live in a beautiful place will discover gardening.

This is, I think, one little part of what Christ meant by saying that a thing will not really live until it first dies. It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill: that is the very worst thing you can do. Let the thrill go – let it die away – go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow – and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time. But if you decide to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will all get weaker and weaker, and fewer and weaker, and you will be a bored, disillusioned old man for the rest of your life. it is because so few people understand this that you find many middle-aged man and women maundering about their lost youth, at the very age where new horizons ought to be appearing and new doors opening all around them. It is much better fun to learn to swim than to go on endlessly (and hopelessly) trying to get back the feeling you had when you first went paddling as a boy.

an apple a day.

In great need of encouragement, i decided to be apple fairy today and encourage 2 other people. My heart still weighs heavily within me, but regardless.

Would you say that it is a rude awakening to realize that there's no one to completely understand you, someone who's always on your side? This hit me this week pretty hard, but it's part of the human condition - to be imperfect people who might sometimes let neglect and competition slip into our relationships with one another. I shall not dwell on that. CS Lewis believes that it is possible to love our enemies, just by looking how we love ourselves. there are days that you don't like yourself, but you still love yourself all the same isn't it. therefore there are times when i don't like my friends, but i can love them all the same. and there are going to be times i won't like my future husband, but i can continue to love him. how profound.

on that note, there's an acute sense that there is an Eve in me. I do need my Adam, though i've sometimes wondered if I was going to remain single. I need someone to walk through this journey and grow with me. I don't think i can go it alone. I'm of the persuasion that there is a RIGHT person. all political correctness aside (like you should think of being Miss RIGHT instead of pondering over the possible existence of Mr RIGHT), i do believe that there is someone out there who's more right, than others, for me. someone i can live with the rest of my life and i won't doubt if i made a right choice by choosing him above all the other zillions of male specimens out there. And of course, to have that person think the same of me. but of course, substitute male with "female" please. i don't know if there's only one of such a person and I don't really think it's important, as long as i will meet someone right eventually. all the other generic questions won't matter.

a dash of sanity.

the constant need to run away from intentions and manipulation of others bears fatigue on my fragile inner self. the command is clear; to flee, or encumbrance or disillusionment will upset the balance of the world around me. You would have thought that all this waltzing near and running away was an indication of something positive. of charm or attractiveness. but in reality it constantly echoes the reminder that one does not get what one really wants and has to flee from all the wrong people to protect the sanity of the heart. another taunting reminder of how willing everyone around me is to compromise in order to fill the void inside them. how detrimental to the growth of an idealist who'd like to be a protected innocent sheep without the need to be shrewd as snakes.

but the state of running away is not a comfortable existence. Have i been ordained to run? I just want to get lost in my thoughts. Even if all is deliberately made unclear and vague by others and i play along, my heart is still sober minded. what an irony. But yes, my heart has started to develop a mind of its own, with thought process and archives of memory, experience and guidelines to govern how i feel. What an evolution that should set my feet dancing; no one could have foreseen it. leave me alone, i just want to be found by the right person. don't remind me of all that is wrong in the world.

Five Loaves and Two Fishes

A little boy of thirteen
was on his way to school
He heard a crowd of people laughing
and he went to take a look
Thousands were listening
to the stories of one man
He spoke with such wisdom,
even the kids could understand

The hours passed so quickly
the day turned to night
Everyone was hungry
but there was no food in sight
The boy looked in his lunchbox
at the little that he had
He wasn't sure what good it'd do
there were thousands to be fed

But he saw the twinkling eyes of Jesus
the kindness in His smile
and the boy cried out
with the trust of a child
he said:

"Take my five loaves and two fishes
Do with it as you will
I surrender
Take my fears and inhibitions
All my burdens, my ambitions
You can use it all
to feed them all"

I often think about that boy
when I'm feeling small
and I worry that the work I do
means nothing at all

But every single tear I cry
is a diamond in His hands
and every door that slams in my face
I will offer up in prayer

So I'll give you every breath that I have
Oh Lord, you can work miracles
All that you need is my "Amen"

Take my five loaves and two fishes
Do with it as you will
I surrender
Take my fears and inhibitions
All my burdens, my ambitions
You can use it all
I hope it's not too small

I trust in you
I trust in you

Take my five loaves and two fishes
Do with it as you will
I surrender
Take my fears and inhibitions
All my burdens, my ambitions
You can use it all
no gift is too small

You know, I was just sad with my 5 loaves and 2 fishes. I asked God why He gave me such little capacity; why i could write well but my critical analysis skills lacking. Why other people were better than me at excelling at what they do, whilst i seem to drift a little. Why other people had the endurance to sleep little and accomplish much whilst I am cranky and distracted when I'm hungry or sleepy. Why can't I be the epitome of efficiency and shut out people around me when I want to get work done? I heard this song and that sadness gave way to realization that my God is loving and I am precious in His sight. What He delights in is not how well i perform relative to others, because the five loaves and 2 fishes were exactly what He had portioned for me. Every idiosyncrasy, every strength, every weakness, every smile and frown He knows, because He formed me. What He delights in, is I offering up my five loaves and two fishes in trust, even when I don't know what He will do with it, exactly when I know that what i have is small. God is much bigger than i think He is.

March 27, 2008
U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES
A choice of past, present or future
By Kishore Mahbubani

DEMOCRACY can be magical. When it works well, the wishes of the electorate can express the soul of the nation. America has done this by whittling the presidential campaign down to three candidates, each of whom expresses different mainstream aspects of the American soul.

Much of the world is relieved that extremists like Rudolph Giuliani and populists like John Edwards have been eliminated. Senators John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are choices other nations around the globe can live with. Each represents an aspect of the American soul that has worked well in realms of foreign policy.

Mr McCain represents the past. But what a glorious past it has been.

America has done more good in the past five decades than any other nation. At the end of World War II, when America was at the peak of its power, it rejected the European impulse to colonise and dominate. Instead it chose to work towards liberating much of the world, delivering political freedom to billions. It launched a rules-based world order that enabled nations to emerge and prosper - from Japan and Germany in earlier decades to China and India more recently.

Without the open trading system America engineered with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the precursor to the World Trade Organisation, East Asia could not have succeeded. This American-designed world order has delivered more peace and prosperity than the European period of global domination of previous centuries.

Mr McCain, rather than President George W. Bush, symbolises this glorious past. His commitment to honour and decency and his belief that America must remain a moral beacon remind the world how good America once was.

His steadfast opposition to the use of torture shows his awareness of how much the Bush administration's cavalier treatment of human rights issues has damaged America's standing in the world. Despite its free media, few Americans are aware that Amnesty International has described Guantanamo as 'the gulag of our time'. The moral authority America lost through its use of torture in Guantanamo and in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal was far more precious than the scarce intelligence that torture has provided. Virtually all intelligence experts know that torture does not work. Mr McCain knows this personally. He was tortured as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese.

He also understands what 'responsibility' means. To argue against 'ditch and run in Iraq' may win him few votes in America but much support outside the US. If he is elected, the world will hope for an era where America regains the respect it once enjoyed. \

Mrs Clinton represents the present. Many Americans still remember Mr Bill Clinton's administration as one of the happier chapters of recent US history. The end of the Cold War produced a huge sigh of relief that nuclear terror had finally ended, explaining why, in American memories, the 1990s appear to be a sweet patch of history.

Mr Clinton made some foreign policy mistakes, from Rwanda to Bosnia. But he introduced fiscal discipline, kept the global economy growing and oversaw a stable world order. The American nostalgia for this era is understandable. Similar nostalgia is also found in the rest of the world. Hence, Mrs Clinton's message of 'experience' resonates with many outside America. The competence of the Clinton administration contrasts sharply with the incompetence of the Bush 43 administration.

It is fair to compare the happy Clinton era with the nightmarish Bush era. Both 9/11 and the folly of the Iraq War have made Americans feel more insecure. Mr Bush deserves a large part of the blame for this. But Osama bin Laden began planning the attacks long before Mr Bush was elected. In his own way, Mr Clinton was also asleep while new forces were brewing. He had a golden opportunity to fashion a new world order when the Cold War ended. He failed to seize it. Hence, despite Mrs Clinton's experience, few outside America believe that she can recreate the happy 1990s unless she understands how much the world has changed.

The powerful economic resurgence of Asia and the new peaks of anti-Americanism in the Islamic world are new forces the US has to deal with. The world has changed dramatically since Mr Clinton left office. Sadly, Mrs Clinton's rhetoric seldom mentions these new realities.

This is why many outside America are cheering for Mr Obama. He represents the future.

More than any other presidential candidate in recent history, he has a unique capacity to listen to other voices around the world, perhaps in part because he lived outside America as a child (and may well become the first American president with some knowledge of Bahasa Indonesia, which he learned in his childhood in Indonesia).

His Foreign Affairs essay reveals this capacity to listen:

'In the case of Europe, we dismissed European reservations about the wisdom and necessity of the Iraq War. In Asia, we belittled South Korean efforts to improve relations with the North. In Latin America...we failed to adequately address concerns about immigration and equity and economic growth. In Africa, we have allowed genocide to persist for over four years in Darfur and have not done nearly enough to answer the African Union's call for more support to stop the killing.'

As we move from a mono-civilisational world of Western domination to a multi-civilisational world, the world needs an American president who understands intuitively and intellectually that we are dealing with a new phase of human history. America must learn to listen to new voices. Mr Obama can teach it how to do that.

His election would also destroy immediately half of the massive anti-Americanism in the world. Having travelled to all corners of the globe, I have first-hand experience of how different regions think.

Africans will celebrate. The sight of a son of an African father occupying the most powerful office in the world will boost their self-esteem and give them hope that Africans too can succeed. The 1.2 billion Muslims will also marvel that American society elected a Christian with 'Hussein' as a middle name despite right-wing efforts to suggest that he might be Muslim.

The support for Mr Obama comes not just from the poor and the dispossessed. An Indian billionaire also asked me to root for Mr Obama. He said: 'With Obama, what you see is what you get. With Hillary, you get a new mask every day.'

Mr Obama's authenticity has clearly struck a positive chord outside America. He has convinced many Americans that the time for 'change' has come; and 3.5 billion Asians know that change has already come for them. The Asian century has begun. At no time in recent centuries have young Asians been more optimistic about their future. They are looking for an optimistic young American to connect with. Mr Obama could not have come at a better time.

American leaders will have to surf new waves of history. Only Mr Obama seems to have this surfing agility. If the world could vote, most would vote for him. Former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan spoke for many recently when he said: 'I think an Obama presidency would be inspirational, an incredible development in the world.'

The writer is Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, NUS. His latest book, The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift Of Global Power To The East, appeared last month.

Copyright: New York Times Syndicate

The Road Home - 我的父亲母亲

The movie moved me to tears unexpectedly; I didn't think that a simple story set in rural China was going to touch my heart. Undoubtedly, it's going to remain one of my favourite films. It was a story of love set in the 1950s in rural China, between Zhuo Di (Zhang Ziyi) and the village teacher. The story starts off in black and white, with a business man on his way back to the rural village of his birth to take care of his father's funeral. He comes back to find a grief stricken mother who insists that her deceased husband be carried by men on foot from the morgue in the city back to the village by a long winding road. Through preparation for his father's funeral, he narrates the story of his parents' love, which bursts forth in rich colours onscreen, emblemed in the enigmatic child-like wonder of Zhang Ziyi's delicate features. Her role as Di is captivating; an illiterate 18yr old girl who falls in love at first sight with the village teacher.

Finally, a picture of a couple who love each other simply because they fall in love; not because they were 2 individuals seeking love in an alienating city, nor because of lust or emptiness of loneliness or idealized notions of love. A love story that lasts 40 years and refuses to end even with death. A love that can withstand the test of time and unmet expectations, because of the faith that they loved each other.

To think that the modern single talks about managing expectations and moving on to the next possibility of love. As if love was instant food that had to gratify or else; as if breaking up and divorce and "we fell out of love" was the norm. I think the modern man has lost something true, something pure, something that lasts. Perhaps it was the fact that we think our possibilities are endless, that we can afford to play the field a little longer, that we have the faculty of choice, that we deserve only the best, that we will only know if we love one another if we "try it out". The irony is that all these chasing after what we think is the formula for true love only pushes it further and further into the realm of imagination and ultimate frustration.

I just ask for that simplicity. I hope it's possible.

monday blues.

i get hopelessly depressed on Mondays. I always thought the idea of Monday blues was some sort of a pop culture joke but it's very real to me. I feel like shutting down and hibernate with a loud defiant "beep beep" to let the world know how reticent and constipated i feel right now. crabbiness to the zenith. i feel a need to feel that each day i live is one of purpose and meaning. And so i did the inevitable. I went to borrow Walden by Henry Thoreau from the library.

It made me feel a little better. It just dawned upon me that it's not a coincidence that Monday Blues jolted me to get my hands on a book written by a hermit-wannabe, whose most quoted (and my fav) line is,

"Most men live lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them".

jolt me out of this quiet desperation today.

All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow

And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very mad world mad world
Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
Made to feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me

And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very mad world ... world
Enlarging your world
Mad world

In the Mood For Love

It's hard to describe it if you haven't watched enough of Wong's films, but it suffice for now to say that his movies are like sophisticated dreams that invoke a sense of deja vu. Dreams that have a touch of demure glamour to it, thanks to Christopher Doyle's unmatchable cinematography. There are also the stylistics; slow motion, whirling, tendril-like smoke dancing against the light, tracking camera, lush and voluptuous colours, haunting music, motiffs that appear in cycles to entice and capture you. But more importantly, Wong's distinctive themes of memories, regret, chance remain consistent throughout his films and evoke in one deep nostalgia of a time past, be it the one in the story world or in one's own memory. It's almost he is able to reach inside of your mind and represent those emotions that are most delicate and inexpressible. That is why his films are true art.

"At once delicately mannered and visually stunning, Wong Kar-Wai's "In the Mood for Love" is a masterful evocation of romantic longing and fleeting moments in time."

The stunning cheongsams wore by Lizhen are achingly beautiful. Unknowing, the array of cheongsams are the only marker of time in the story, given that almost the whole film revolves around the 2 characters and the narrow spaces around them. What is not said speaks louder than the actual words exchanged. The repressed behaviour and emotions of Lizhen and Chow are as much a result as social decorum and respectability as Lizhen's unwillingness to be like their spouses, who have gotten into an extramarital affair. The irony is that Lizhen and Chow were slowly falling in love too, but Wong refuses for them to consummate their love and therein the beauty of it all.

It is a restless moment.
She has kept her head lowered,
to give him a chance to come closer.
But he could not, for lack of courage.
She turns and walks away.

That era has passed.
Nothing that belonged to it exists any more.

He remembers those vanished years.
As though looking through a dusty window pane,
the past is something he could see, but not touch.
And everything he sees is blurred and indistinct.

The thing about Wong's movies is that you can easily be infatuated with the first film that you see, because of the novelty of it. It's a beautiful piece of literature that you can ruminate upon even as the credits roll. Almost like eye candy, what you see and feel can entrap you unknowingly. Slowly, you fall in love with Wong's dream, a mesh of unspoken emotions, memories, raw longings and misty sight. The heuristics are not always logical, but in any case, a beautiful raphsody that's haunting. The story carries over themes and characters and motivations from other stories that he has made and the more you know about the other characters (by watching more of his films) the more revelations hit you, deeper and deeper. The parallels between the characters and films will not hit you the first time; only if you give yourself space and time to connect the dots.

warning: spoilers ahead for 2046

Its "sequel" 2046 will carry over the central character Chow to his life after parting with Su Lizhen. 2046 is however less focused, almost a compilation of Wong's films to date; one cannot fully appreciate it unless having watched Wong's earlier works. But even if one eventually learns to appreciate the parallels and metaphors, In the Mood For Love is a film hard to trump, even by Wong himself, armed with a formidable cast. One gets the feeling that all that is to be said seem to have been said in In the Mood for Love anyways.

Personally, I found it hard to get through 2046 without watching In the Mood for Love. It was only in lieu of the latter that i found the motivation for Chow's promiscuity and ironically, saw past that promiscuity to see the real point of the movie. As if exacting revenge on a passive and prim-and-proper him in the past with Lizhen, Chow turns 180degrees to become a womanizer and heartbreaker but he is unable to love, unable to commit, unable to lend his heart to Bai Ling for even a while. More women enter his life, but everyone of them is a reference to a different figment of Lizhen (Maggie). He has flings with each of them, as if to undo the moral restraint that has held them back in 1963, but one discovers that despite the breakdown in his moral restraint, his emotions remain habitually constrained. He was stuck in his memory, that regret of lost love and nostalgia for a time past. Chow's inner motivations never change; he was perpetually stuck in the inertia of 1963 even as the world and the women around him changed.

Faye, who plays his landlord's daugher cum android in 2046 approximated closest to being Lizhen's substitute, being Chow's partner in writing of swordfighting stories, just as Lizhen had. But she was the only one who had a purely platonic relationship with Chow, because she was already in love with a Japanese (Takuya Kimura). Her delayed response to Takuya's "Do you love me?" was an emblem of the too-early-too-late motiff in Wong's films. A single tear drops, silence drags on, and Takuya says "Sayonara". Why did she hesitate? Did she really love him? He has no answer and hence travels to year 2046 to find the answer, because it is the place where nothing ever changes. Halfway through the 2046 story, Chow takes over the persona of the time traveller, as he seeks the answer to why Lizhen did not leave with him in 1963. Did she love him? Or was it because they met too late and she was already in love with her husband, who's always at "Japan" for business trips? In the end, Faye leaves for Japan to marry Takuya, just as how Lizhen chooses her husband over him. Faye and her Japanese lover was an eerie parallel to Lizhen and her unfaithful spouse.

The furistic part of 2046 with Faye and Liu Jia Ling as androids and Takuya Kimura as a time traveller is likely to drive you crazy if you don't understand their metaphoric existence and motivations. It was again, about regret, memory, restraint, repressed love that was never expressed in time. of being simultaneously too early, too late. I wonder however, if Wong had stretched 2046 too far. There is potential in expanding 2046 into an epic if more thought can be put into the furistic part of 2046 instead of the 60s affair with Bai Ling. Or, cut out the 60s part together and expand the time travel concept. One suspects it's because the camera and Wong loves Zhang Ziyi a little too much and wouldn't let her go.

In all, watch In the Mood for Love, and only 2046 if you're a Takuya Kimura fan. (But you will surely be disappointed with the 20 minute screen time that he has.)


Trivia: apparently, 2046 saw the falling out of Wong Kar Wei with his long time cinematographer Christopher Doyle (pity! he's a genius) and with Takuya Kimura. Due to the 5 year shooting and Wong's quirky working style of never having a script and developing the characters onsite drove some members of his crew crazy, enough is enough. Which reminds me how crew members of Greed quit their jobs too because they were convinced that the director was going to kill everybody by shooting unrelentlessly in the middle of Sahara desert.

Fiddler on the Roof

A musical about a Jewish family in 1905 Russia under Tsarist rule.
It's enchanting! I'm looking forward to watching it on dvd.

i always knew i was Bill Clinton material

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

curious encounter

i made a friend today called Shawn but we both know that it's only going to be this one night and we might never cross paths again, because he has a bird brain kind of memory that forgets names and faces the second we exchanged goodbyes. he actually confessed he remembers people by matric numbers and colour of their clothes better. he asked to examine my face minutes before we parted so that he might remember my face, but i believe it didn't register. whatever it is, we enjoyed each other's company and the incredible intellectual acrobatics. or rather, just talking about life in general on a more philosophical level. Think Before Sunset.

Then again, I've come to realize that films like Before Sunset romanticize such transient encounters of meaningful conversation too much. who says the male and female protagonists have to find in each other a soulmate just because they connect. I believe there are a million people out there who can connect with you if you'd the chance and place to devote your time to it. it's all a game of chance for those who don't believe in God and all an instance of God's subtle lesson to mold us for those who believe. call me a romantic waltzing through life, but i think it's the people who whizz through your life that leaves indelible marks on your outlook on life. Friends who stay longer grow with you so it's harder to say who's rubbing off who. maybe that's why i really love the Wong Kar Wai film, Chungking Express. More on that another time.

Back to my encounter. Details on how Shawn and i ended up talking in school till i had to catch the last bus back tonight don't matter; what's important is that i've come to realize that guys are human too and they are all complex and different from one another (yes, i confess i used to think they are alot more generic, either they must be decent or wild or gay. I've been too judgmental and too presumptuous in thinking that i know how they think and i ought to repent. ) There are many variants of intellectual or conversational guys. And i'm really starting to appreciate their company alot more, just as they are; through listening and sparring with them intellectually i've learnt much and they are alot more 3D to me now. RL Boy, SK, Shawn.

I'm just glad for the fact that i am free to just sit and chat with a stranger tonight without feeling that biological need to present myself as single, available female. I'm being brutally honest here.

i am considering to commit myself to not get into a relationship till graduation. If only to learn to live in the moment instead of being of a state of waiting-to-get-into-a-relationship. Like tonight. It's hard to explain but that one year i made the commitment to God to remain single, i still struggled but i felt i was slowly setting myself free from the compulsive need to find the right person to love. It was very much a detox of my emotions as i filtered out the needy and selfish reasons to get into a relationship and just enjoy the state of singlehood and all that freedom entails. I'd been more able to see guys as who they really are. And i think this season of my life when i'm still learning to be more aware of myself in relation to the world, it's good.

enigma

i think i'm crazy. or capricious, or a little of both. i never quite know what to expect from myself. Feelings are like pendulums that swing to and fro and when i'm not looking, they swing straight off the rack to join some other strange pendulums on a strange rack altogether. i'm an enigma. How can i possibly think i like someone for a long time only to start noticing how his little idiosyncrasies are absolutely unattractive to me. how much he dominates the conversation. how we don't connect. bah. Only when i think i'm crazily in love with someone else who comes along, who's totally unlike him but clicks with me?

i think i will stop talking about boys for a while. i'm starting to feel like the girl who cries WOLF.

but i plead with you to continue believe in the authenticity of my feelings even if they change with the winds. because if you don't, i can't trust myself to believe them either. And i'm at a loss.

Outing Part 2

David in all his "gaiety" glory. what were they thinking, adding the feminine covering on him. as if he wasn't already the hot babe candidate for homosexuals. haha. It was an awe inspiring statue they had of David at the main entrance. 2 storeys high as you can see!

This is absolutely my favourite photo out of the entire outing. These are sculptures of Nike, the goddess who brings victory and peace. The colour composition is absolutely stunning.

an art exhibit that shows nature in the heart of civilisation. i think we learnt an important lesson on global warming instead when we ascended to the top. the greenhouse layer nearly hit us backward as we struggled to breathe amidst the thick damp air. the "in-between" seal looked murdered rather than enjoying its amphibian existence between nature and the man-made. From the bottom it looked like it was being lynched.

definitely a social critique of the corrupt leaders of Indonesia to date. some were intact regimes (as signified by the intact crowns), some broken, some totally melted down into a heap of nothingness to trample upon.


this piece of Indonesian art, SK and i disagreed as to what it meant. He thought it was subjugation of women, whilst i saw it as the empowerment of women, because what was heels (subjugation) was transformed into shovels (work) and muscular legs(strength) as pumps. I won in the end, simply because i believe in my art interpretation :) That's what art appreciation is isn't it. Be sure of what you think and impose that on other people subtly in artful language.

that said, i absolutely love museums and art and taking photos of exhibits. (okay even though SK snapped all these photos and not me) It gives me much joy :) i must be an art geek.

Outing.

It was a very enjoyable day out with SK after class yesterday. I'd wanted to go to the Greek Sculpture Exhibition at National Museum of Art before it ends on Sunday and he was free to go and he had the car so we made plans. We reached the museum at 4.30pm and God's favour was upon us because it was free entry 6-8pm yesterday :) We hung around and snooped around the other exhibits till then to enter.

This was one of the first photos i snapped at the museum as we hung around, waiting for 6pm. i love the Victorian rustic stairs and sunny window.

A cool quote that i do not quite understand. weird greeks.

SK made me stand under this quote to snap a photo. It was a mini exercise in embarrassment since there were many guys trying to snap the quote and we were plotting how i could appear under the quote without being too conspicuous. it was hilarious as we scurried away after the crime. I've got to get him to send me the photo.
Having been there for the 3rd time, SK was my free guide. See the apple in Aphrodite's hand? It was the trophy for her unsurpassed beauty in the competition for the most beautiful goddess.
This is Ares, Aphrodite's lover. One of my favourite sculptures because he looked like he breathed. seriously. i stood there breathe abated for 5 minutes as i saw his chest heave with breathing and his flesh come to life. That's why i love Greek sculptures. I spent most of my time at the Greek gallery at the Met last summer. It was so glorious. I'll never forget.

Of course, i was bemused yet again how Greek mythology has such scandalous "lives" having affairs and immoral relations left right center and yet the Greek people held the gods in such high regard. I think the Greek people must be a bunch of bored people who had to live vicariously through the lives of fictitious men and women burning with passion.

i was a little disappointed that there were so few sculptures and exhibits that we could finish seeing everything under an hour. And there was no Hercules. No complete Hercules at least. they could had small replicas of him that weren't intact. Perhaps i'd imagined it to be at least half as grand as the Greek Hall at Metropolitan Museum of Art. I remember the huge Constantine bust i saw last summer. I just stood there in awe. What was i thinking, to compare museums here with New York. But I'm still thankful that i got to see some sculptures on a sunny Friday evening.

I should have snapped more photos.

I saved $4 on my entrance fee for my $14 ramen dinner later. Ramen enthusiasts (read: Grace and Tobias) pls go and try Ken at Orchard Plaza if you haven't. very authentic japanese (according to SK) very delicious (yummy!). The shop front is very japanese too. I think it's one of the best ramen places i ever went to.

We popped by kinokuniya to get some books for his sunday school kids. it was the first time i hang around Kino till they closed. i didn't know they off the lights partially in a polite attempt to chase customers out 5 minutes before. interesting. The queue at the counter got longer the closer it got to the minute.

I was thumbing through The Notebook as i was waiting for SK to pay for his books. Reading through the novel once more made me a little sad. I never watched the movie, perhaps coz i love the book. It's hard explaining why; perhaps the love story was powerful to me because of how much it stands for what i desire. I would want to fall in love with a poet who lived vicariously. But more importantly, the story and writing had a kind of depth that affects me. A kind of emotion and tenacity that stands up under doubt, uncertainty, sickness, death and even.. memories. Love is made all the more harder the lovelier the memories and the reality of it slipping away from one's faculty forever, slowly but surely. And yet Noah hung on. and Allie did too, as long as she could.

would i hang on too? or will i allow myself to drift, to compromise?

I'm always stumped when people ask me how i view relationships and my status. I can only say my only fear is that i'm incapable of love and be loved. There is always the temptation to just be with someone to feed the loneliness. but my heart says no, it cannot do so. It must remain true to itself. But so much so i'm starting to wonder if it's not so much of the right person but an inability to love. I discovered a mind barrier to the heart not long ago and i'm still stupefied as to when i had allowed it to be erected. Was it the time i told myself "Never Again"? Or was God keeping me for the best at the best time? I'm not too sure, as always, but the answer will come some day, in a time of retrospection.