376: if it’s too loud, you’re too old

Happenings of the past (last) week of holidays;

373: i’d rather dance with you

You’re so unkind, he sings. And he replies, well, you’re out of your mind.

It’s easy to forget that you’d ever left. Yet everything seems somehow different, somewhat changed in the meantime — things have moved, been torn down and rebuilt, or reshaped into different things, people have come and gone and drifted further away, and we’ve all descended into a strange pool of awkwardness we don’t quite know how to get out of.

368: youth’s elixir fills our veins

362: and do you know what you’re doing to me

I hate the way I still prac-crit everything you say even though my English is better.

I know I keep asking, so you and me, babe, how about it under a convenient streetlight. I wish I could serenade you, step out of the shade. And you’ll reply from the top window, just like in the song. Everything’s happened; it can’t un-happen itself. You and I — maybe we’re only brief encounters, nothing else. 

349: the wheels fly and the colours spin

We were young, we were free, happily drunk and suited up. There’s no time to be in Holland like this time, and though the weather refused to cooperate, the joy is in gritting your teeth and continuing to be happy. Everyone was out in full force, from the babies to the grandparents — family fun. Whatever the reason to celebrate, there is always a reason to drink beer.

Cheers! ♥

335: she’ll take a tumble on you

The semester is almost over. As usual one is struck by how fast time flies, and the way in which it has flown. People have already gone home, to wherever they came from, and one recalls the tears that I find myself unable to shed. Maybe it was because I was not the one leaving; maybe I did not have sufficient connections with these people. There were lovely people, people I wish I’d known better were I not caught up in my own drama, but three months and meaningful friendships are hard to sustain. One is aware that this is not an excuse and that I could have, if I tried, or bothered to try. That being said, maybe next semester will be different, and one can always hope for the best. Making new friends, sustaining them, remembering why I am here in the first place, living for myself. The world is now and forever waiting for me to explore it. For once I will try not to be defeated by my own inaction. 

333: fireworks in lake michigan

As usual, I have not done anything (much) today. I have an exam on Monday but I’ve barely started studying. This would be better if it were actually graded so I could feel more fear, or written so that I could feel less. As it is, it’s an oral exam. I’m scared shitless and yet not, and my brain is continually pushing waves of apathy towards me. 

326: look what love gave us

These few days have been better, but it might have been all the alcohol.

Everyone is going home soon, and it’s hard to fathom that one semester has already passed us by. In these three months so many things, good and bad, have happened, sometimes changing our lives irreversibly. Whatever it is, whether it’s the people we’ve met or the people who have left or are leaving, this exchange year is shaping up to be an unforgettable one.

313: i swam across, i jumped across for you

So. Last weekend we went to Utrecht, with 5 other people from various countries. We met up with Gary, Zhiming and Crystal, who’d just arrived that week. It was lots and lots of fun. Utrecht is a beautiful old city, and because it was really the first of stereotypical Netherlands that we saw, it was great. There are lots of canals, boats, people cycling… 

I almost didn’t go, though, because I didn’t eat breakfast and we were late, so we cycled hard and fast to the train station. Then I felt really dizzy and couldn’t walk straight, and ended up sitting down on the floor after awhile and eventually missed our scheduled train. We did manage to get on one 20 minutes later, after Val forced chocolate down my throat, but I still felt queasy till we actually got to Utrecht and ate some breakfast. Hmm.

311: cos i’m coming home again

All this cycling home half-drunk is bound to take a toll on us one day.

For the less experienced among us, I have already crashed into a wall and fallen off trying to mount a kerb with my bike while trying to bike home while high just now.

Apparently this is quite a common occurrence. That I only ended up with a bleeding shin is a blessing in itself.

309: see your shoes and your spirits rise

Before we all know it, I’ve been here for more than a week. Over these few days there have been so many happenings, so many parties, so many exciting things to tell. From the first week of meeting new people and crazy random parties with lots and lots (and lots) of drinking, to cooking totally random food in the kitchen, we’ve also changed our housemate. He used to be an American who smoked weed all day and stayed on the top floor, but he moved out because of the rent and now we have a new Iranian housemate whose wife is coming to stay with him starting sometime this week. He is also Muslim, so we are having to deal with all this at one go. 

307: all your stereotypes

Americans are noisy, Spanish girls are hot, Japanese guys are super hot, the Germans think Erdinger is good shit, the Chinese are fucking everywhere, and omg. OH MY GOD.

HOLLAND FUCKING SMELLS OF WEED.

(OK. That was my update. Other than that orientation’s been fun. But there is so much alcohol, and especially when it costs 1-2 euros a pint, everybody drinks like crazy. At orientation functions beer is FREE, and it’s pretty good beer, the pubs are everywhere, people are happy, and omg the weed. Today there was an impromptu party at the hostels near the university, so everyone went down to the lawn and brought down couches and like 5 cases of beer and a couple of bottles of wine. So many people turned up, from everywhere, and it was so good talking to everyone. The weather was great and it wasn’t cold at all, we were warm from the alcohol and talking so much nonsense, and Sharm has just stumbled off to bed. On the bad side it cost us $20 (11 euros) for a cab ride. Yesterday there was a welcome drink in the city centre and everyone was just. Drinking. And drinking. And drinking again. Tomorrow there is another party. Everyone is crazy and high and it is kind of funny listening to them talk. My liver is fucking going to die.)

305: 天下无不散之宴席

Last Friday–my last Friday here in a year. 

Pictures behind the cut.

287: and she takes me away to that special place

Right now I feel giggly and happy.

 

279: dinner with cleavageman j

Did I ever tell you I love Muji food? Like, not the clothes, but the random selection of weird and wonderful foods they stock up near the back. Like plum cheese tarts and black pepper cheese bites. Yum. 

I should be buying less since I’ll be in Japan in a few days, but I can’t help it. Anyway yesterday concluded the neverending series of birthday parties (surprise, and otherwise).

277: the kids are alright

Obviously I had no time to do this before today. So even if it’s 1.5 months late, thank you:

269: お誕生日おめでとう！

It takes a special kind of person to stop coming home drunk after a party. It takes a special kind of person to ignore the flashing lights, the booming music, and the leering eyes. A sea of white shirts wherever you go, squeezing through bodies to get to the toilet. Resisting glass after glass and bottle after bottle of whisky. You think maybe you’d be better off with a beer, or two, or none. A Coke, maybe. Then you think about how there is still work to do tomorrow, Equity and Public Law waiting for you, their siren songs turning to unpleasant wails in your head. Still, it’s a road that must be taken. And still you smell of smoke.  It takes a special kind of person to forget about all this, to let go, and just be happy. As if there is nothing on tomorrow, as if nothing is the way it was yesterday.

We got lost on the way home. It was raining and I couldn’t see anything and I knocked down a cone outside Zouk and the security guard screamed at me. It was mildly unpleasant but somehow it was funny, when everything was a haze. I probably shouldn’t have been driving. 

To the special person tonight who abandoned tomorrow and lived for today, here is your very happy 21st birthday. I know you will remember it forever and ever, even if you can’t really remember anything tomorrow. We are always here to remind you. Hur hur. :)

So the sky turns from black to purple to orange, and still the clock ticks on. When it turns blue we will wake up and life will start again.

258: a peach is an upside down heart

PEACH: ひっくり返る愛のマーク！！！

Err. Cos you know like how I have not been sleeping for the past few days and staying in school till 2am to do my stupid public law assignment. Naturally once it was over I reverted to doing completely time-wasting things.

Like posting pictures.

Oh and I half-forgot there was Equity today.   

253: 青春 … 万歳!

I don’t know why everyone seems to be getting on my case recently. The entire weekend (and today) my mother and grandmother have been making weird and insinuating comments and it is getting really, really difficult to not get pissed off. Obviously, my Lenten resolution (which is not to get pissed at my mother) is not working out as well as it should. Considering my mother’s own Lenten resolution is not to complain, I’m not even sure who failed more. This is a situation that deserves a huge GG.  

I’ve been intending to start my Public Law assignment today but I just can’t get down to it, and all I did today was read two White Papers at McDonald’s, and even that took all of an hour. What is with me and inertia? Even more worrying is the fact that I will have to seriously start studying for exams again after this break is over, and then it’ll be a long and painful two months to the finish line again. Considering I do less and less work each first half of each semester, I don’t know how I’m going to pull off a miracle. Now I’m just biting my nails and hoping I don’t slide down to the bottom.   

# 

So. Ian celebrated his 21st on Saturday, and perhaps really for the last last last time ever, we will gather Ian’s house. Next door, Silver Tower has already been pulled down, and soon everyone will move out and there will be nothing left. While keeping to our Happy Hwachong Nucleus Wilson and I concluded that Ian’s place is really somewhere where everyone meets, and it has been so over so many years. That day someone asked Grace how she knew Ian, and to our surprise neither of us could remember the answer. It was strange; I don’t remember how I met all the guys I’ve known since secondary school. Was it a GEP thing? Or was it just that strange and inexplicable era of instant messaging where everyone was indiscriminate about adding random email addresses to their MSN?  

Probably so. 

252: once more, with feeling

Today I thought about a lot of things. When we first started out, we met each other at the bookstore, and I was reading Gathering Blue, after a long and painful search. We then went on a trip for tea and then to search for the perfect present, before calling you up and finally settling on something. And then, as time went by, the conversations got stranger by the minute, always talking about things other than us, about our surroundings, our plans, and all of us talked about the wine, the food, the random people who were not there, the people in the room, the Japanese embassy. Each story was filled with vignettes and things to remember, as well as very forgettable things, which we only listened to because we were polite. And so on.  

Then as the night died down and the people left, we went on a wild goose chase for an alcohol binge, which came lately in the night, though whether it was much appreciated or not went unanswered. There was alcohol, yes, though some of the pleasure was diminished, and there was good music, and for a few moments all of us were intoxicated and happy, and eager to dance and forget the world. Then we sat down on the plump sofa and realised that it was not our birthday we were celebrating, and as we looked down on the people dancing, I realised what an elaborate mating ritual it was, just like a poem you wrote about so long ago.  

A few days ago there might have been a lunar eclipse. Only when we looked up into the sky, we saw no moon, and thought it was a normal thing. And so, both of us missed a momentous event, as we always have.

251: and one man in his life plays many parts

It’s 9.40 in the morning on a Sunday, a fact which is very surprising because I’m actually awake to record it. It reminds me of the time I woke up at 7+ on a Sunday morning to drive to Starbucks at Liat Towers to have breakfast by myself before (sadly) heading to school for a round of intensive studying. I don’t know what it is with me and Sundays, but I like them. Even more so when I don’t have to go to church. It might be the fact that I slept at 7pm last night though. 

248: the night lights remind me of bright eyes

244: it’s friday – i’m in love

240: 天空海阔 你与我 可会变

It’s 6am — what do we do? 

Today I met — no, I bumped into — no, I saw – the ex to end all ex-es, in the midst of my alcohol-induced high, in Phuture. The very first. But not the very last, in the string of secondary school mistakes (which amounted to two, including this one. There was another, which was also… what we could call a mistake, but for different reasons). And that was a really big mistake. I remember feeling stunned, for a long while, just before a PE lesson when Charlene told me some very bad news. One is aware that I would not be so honest if not for the alcohol now running through my system, but we must take these moments of spontaneity as they come. I didn’t feel much, because I hadn’t been thinking about him in years, but seeing my friend go up to him and say hi reminded me just how long we hadn’t talked. And I thought that things, after so long, would have changed (he even refused to say hello to me when we were in the same school, years after the debacle, totally unaware that all of it was his doing, but that’s another story), but clearly they haven’t. It’s not that it’s a bad thing; I just hadn’t thought of it in years, and suddenly all these intellectual thoughts come sprouting out of my brain, in the midst of an alcoholic stupor.  

Now I am carrying out an (very enjoyable) intellectual conversation with Daming, which I haven’t had in ages. While half-drunk and at 6am in the morning, and listening to Beyond on repeat, which in my opinion is the greatest Cantonese band that ever lived. Even though my boyfriend is currently in Genting gambling his life savings away with the Catholic Boyfriends’ Association, I can honestly say that I’ve never felt this breathless and carefree in a long time. 

原谅我这一生不羁放纵爱自由
也会怕有一天会跌倒
被弃了理想谁人都可以
那会怕有一天只你共我 

237: how new year’s eve was spent

Pictures above courtesy of Michelle!

 

 

After watching the first episode of Coffee Prince with Nurul on Ian’s TV on New Year’s Eve, I went and looked it up. And I finished it in two days. Oh man. I love it. Every character is so well-developed, even the minor ones. And the acting was wonderful. Okay, and the guy was hot.