370: the sounds still wait to be found

And we’re all junkies, and pushers, and pimps and hookers. You never know what you’re in for. And you can shake it, try to forsake it — but you know you’re gonna take it. You never know what you’re in for.

I nearly cried when I watched this today. Dear Jorge, I will miss your guitar forever.

369: i said, maybe

I’m back home; it’s a bit surreal. After the sunsets, the harsh and lonely winters, the dream is over, and with it the heartwarming, heartbreaking, and life-changing moments. It was difficult at some points, dealing with things. It was mostly happy in others, watching people sing and play the guitar, to see people speak in rapid-fire French, strange mannerisms and language quirks, to remember not to take everything for granted, secrets shared (and unshared), playing games with each other for no apparent reason. To realise at the end of the day that everything must go, even the daily routines and the weekly dinners, the 9pm days in the library, cycling back in the cold. I’m back to where the sun beats down like the rain and the rain beats down like the sun, and both are equally harsh and unforgiving, and leave no room to breathe. The air is humid like a sauna and threatens to wrap you up and choke you. Everything is familiar and unfamiliar, people remain the same, but things are now so different. The mosquitoes are everywhere still and the ants steal up silently against the table and overwhelm your untouched food in one fell swoop. In any place we go, the old wounds resurface even as we make new lives.

368: youth’s elixir fills our veins

366: and you exploded in my heart

 

The weather needs to get a grip on itself. It keeps alternating raining and not raining, the sun shining and not shining, the sky being cloudy and then not. It needs to stop sending me on rollercoasters because I don’t like being taken for rides.

365: when i look at you i watch the sun rise

I’m not counting. 

364: 痛苦的相思忘不了

 

 

363: 等下一个天亮

As I get older I realise I am less and less prone to subterfuge. It may be a good thing or it may not, but somehow I can’t find the energy to hide behind words anymore. There used to be a time when I took great pleasure in making everyone guess what I was talking about (strange how people put up with me, sometimes) but nowadays I’m tired of mind games and second guessing all the time.

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. 

361: it’s just rough to stay tough

It’s funny how things never turn out the way you expect them to. And though I’ve said this many times over in the past few months, it probably never really hits you till it should. Where do you go when you’re lonely? Do you remember, that time when we were still in love, and as usual I was being cryptic because I’m retarded like that, and you said, no, I’m not here to gun down romance, but you did anyway, in the end, barely a week later (or two; who remembers?). Slowly the answers to every question matter less and less; there is no point asking why anymore. Why? has no answers, or at least none satisfactory. And finally, the answers die away, in a corner by themselves, like little birds in the winter. 

357: a sure simple way to reach you

Though you know, some things don’t really change, …

 

356: 口上的棉花糖也溶化了

When the curtains closed last night I didn’t know what to think. I sat in my room looking out at the window, but all I saw was my own reflection because the outside was so dark. I think about the construction site and how my friend teased me about opening the curtains, and then I remember how it used not to be there at all, and it always amazes me how fast things change without you even noticing. Can you see the sunset, Sharmila used to ask me, when we were walking from our house to the supermarket, then wearing just slippers and a t-shirt and jeans. As the weather turned colder and our clothes got warmer the site grew and grew and the roof eventually appeared and blocked out the sunset altogether. It’s still not ready yet, and I wonder if it will be by the time I leave, but it’s not the same anymore. 

352: vienna waits for you

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! ♥

348: they come, they come, to build a wall between us

(You know that they won’t win,)

Berlin is a wonderful place. For everyone who has been there, they will know what I mean. There’s nothing quite like Berlin, which continually surprises you and makes your heart stop at every turn. Berlin is a city where contradictions fly into each other and crash spectacularly. Next to a piece of history there is the unmistakable odour of youth. The crash and bang of paint and art hurls itself against unwanted buildings, forgotten roads, new life creeping into dead parts of cities. Slowly but surely the city is being preserved, sterilised against time, for a past they refuse to forget. And yet history is made relevant in the most startling of ways, through new life, new art, new ideas. Fresh ideas that refuse to be forgotten, old ideas that refuse to be erased. We cannot forget, and so we must remember. 

346: hearts on fire, i reach out to you tonight

Do I want this or what. I love it so hard it is unbelievable. Am tempted to buy a random canvas tote and sew my own, because I could totally do it, and not give Marc Jacobs an extra $1395 in his pocket. QUESTIONS. DILEMMAS. EXCEPT MY SEWING KIT IS IN SWEDEN. (EXCUSES.)

I want to go out, except nothing is open, because for once I don’t feel constrained by my bicycle. Except I have a ton of readings to do, so I should probably do them. As for planning holidays, things have a way of working themselves out in the end (I believe), so I should calm the fuck down and be less annoyed with myself and the world. Meanwhile, I have been sitting at home watching shows, spamming Top Chef like there’s no tomorrow, starting on Hell’s Kitchen (and the 45546 Japanese dramas/HK movies on my hard drive). I just got back from a weekend in Luxembourg, where the five-hour train ride was one of the better journeys, despite having to wake up at 6 in the morning. 

It was not bad, not bad at all. We stumbled, head first yet again, into a random cafe which turned out to be a gem. Score! I love wandering around aimlessly and finding things I wouldn’t have known were there. Going to Berlin in a few days! Excited.

345: smiling flash, talking trash, under your breath

I am super annoyed. In fact, I am so annoyed it’s not even funny. I am trying to plan my holidays for March, but all it turns up is that everywhere I want to go, nobody is free, or they have all been there before. And when I think about the reason as to this sad and very unfortunate state of affairs, the only answer that pops up is a very obvious one. Because I keep waiting for people, who say they don’t mind — scratch that, want – to go again with me, and then shit happens, everything gets fucked up, including all my bloody plans — and my life, goddamnit — and now I am stuck in a rut. Of course I know it’s unfair to blame everything on one cause, and I was stupid enough to put all my eggs in one basket, but obviously I thought that if you can’t trust the person closest to you, you can’t bloody trust anyone. As it turns out, I am painfully right. These things have a way of proving themselves to you. Am I happy? No. Am I bitter? Fuck yes. Am I jealous? Possibly so. I am tired of pretending like all this does not matter to me, because it does, and I am not even pissed off so much as I am jealous and annoyed at myself for being an irrational jealous human being. And if someone says the four words 把握青春 to me ever again, I will fucking kill them. I hate how there are shadows still hanging over my head. Most of all I hate how people get to be happy and I don’t. I hate how I feel like I will never be happy as long as they are, because that makes me evil, and I don’t like being evil, because I know — I know – that the happiness I deserve is there, even if I don’t see it now, so I am just being a stupid angry piece of nonsense. And I hate how as much as I don’t like being evil, I can’t bring myself to be all noble about it, because that nonsense only belongs in movies, and I’ve had enough of people thinking their life belongs in a fairy tale TVB drama serial. Seriously, what the fuck man. I am an existential mess. 

(Also, X — X, of all people — is teaching me ways to get over someone. I wish I had enough energy to laugh at how ridiculous my life has become.)

344: singing my life with his words

Strange how the time flies; suddenly I’m back in school again, lessons are starting up, and as usual, I’m all happy and raring to go. It’s good to be back in Holland, which is slowly but surely beginning to feel familiar. Still, home is where the heart is, and sometimes I think that it’s not so much the country but the fact that I can come home to my own room, my own life and space, and just do my own thing. Travelling is fun, and so is meeting up with people, but sometimes all you need is time to yourself. I have always treasured having my own life, and now more than ever, I feel like I’m getting myself back again.

343: i have fought the good fight

There are things I would like you to know, if only you have the time. After all that has been said and done, after all that has come and gone, what matters that is what is left is you and me. Maybe you and me, on two different ends of the earth, maybe you and I, who have been different from the beginning. We have travelled these roads, gone up and down these hills — as uninspiring as they might have been, our journeys are what we make of them. 

How do you feel as you travel through time and space towards a love you cannot save? The train rolls on, and the landscape never changes. Here the skies are dark and wintry, and one barely sees anything through the windows. One makes out the skeletons of trees and the falling snow, grey against the dark ground.

One may ask, 好好的一份爱，怎样会慢慢变坏, but the answer is simple. You remember the times when he said, there will be nothing left if only one side keeps paddling. One is tempted to continually attribute fault to one person, but the fact is that the oars on both sides must move in order to keep the boat moving; and then, more than anything, it must take two hands to clap.

The train is less silent than one expects. In France it was full of Japanese, polite to a fault and quiet as death, whispering around each other, afraid of stepping on someone else’s toes. Here there are murmurs of conversation, muffled laughter, and the sound of little children. Everywhere on trains people sleep and start up again, their heads nodding in time with the jerk of the trains along the rails. If I could, I would whisper my love to you across the tracks, and maybe you would wake up too.

And yet, even if everything is doomed, we take the same chances; and in a warped way, we follow the same paths. We try to not hurt other people as we strive not to hurt ourselves, rejoicing in our youth as we hurtle towards adulthood, drinking in the year as if we were starved of air. Like maniacs we shuttle from place to place, checking off boxes and ticking off sights as we go along, as if each place were so easily explainable, so easily seen. As travelers we brave only the surface of the iceberg, intrepid as we are, and yet what swarms beneath is what is important. What is essential, you remember, is invisible to the eye — it is only in your mind’s eye that you can see rightly.

And then, we paint our pictures in our memories. When we prefer not to take pictures, each detail of every city is absorbed, and we cannot get enough. We struggle to remember everything, as if each day were our last, and we could only breathe that air once. It could be that the people are unfriendly, too friendly, or unnecessarily friendly or unfriendly, but if one is objective one remembers that we do not know enough to judge. All we have are our impressions, and our thoughts, and these are all we have to go on. 

All was good and seemed normal as she walked towards the train that would bring her away, far away from these memories and the things that made her sad. For some it must have been a journey they have made before, towards a future they did not understand. She laughed and joked and smiled, just as she did all this time, brave and strong as she tried to be. As she stepped into the train she waved half-heartedly, as if she knew it might not be the last time that she saw him like this — and yet it was too late when she settled herself, and sat by the window. As she looked out she found no trace of him, and it might have been then she finally realised — neither too early nor too late, perhaps — that there might have been a time when he would wait until she left, but not anymore.

And then — across the rails. The train began to speed towards a new beginning in the middle of the night. Unclear and dark, perhaps, to a girl alone and scared as hell, but still surging forward, the only way she knew how.

 

房子建在海上，就注定一生漂泊. 但连浪子也不会吃回头草. 只要自己能抬得起头往前走，就是对的. 自己问心无愧，光明正大地活着，这才是坚强，这才是力量.

341: i’m going to linger till dawn, dear

I’m back! For awhile, after a month on the road. The bus driver looked surprised when he stamped my bus ticket and noted that the last stamp was dated four weeks ago. And strange again, because I came home to an empty house, with a load of mail waiting for me. I’ve unpacked all my things, knowing that I will have to pack them again pretty soon, which is fine by me, except that I have a shitload of laundry to do by Monday. 

This past month has been good. From being with friends to meeting friends of friends, though somewhat randomly and by tenuous connection (one always marvels at how Facebook improves communications by leaps and bounds), we covered London and Paris and then Portugal — which I loved — Lisbon more than Porto, but still lovely all the same.

339: remember 2008

The year has been eventful, to say the least. I ushered in the new year at the beginning of the year (last year, now) in a variety of circumstances; every year with the Hwa Chong people, screaming “Happy New Year” at the top of our voices around the swimming pool, and then drinking Raffles beer at the front of Block B, our cars parked in a perfect straight line along the parallel parking lots. I was wearing a red dress, I remember, and the rest were happy and drunken.

338: wishing only wounds the heart

We’re in Paris now, after a week in London. The journey to France has been tumultuous, to say the least. From changing travel companions to booking Eurostar tickets to finding last minute accomodation just as Christmas Eve drew to a close, the event that reinforced how this entire trip so far has been a godsend was the fact that we missed our Eurostar train yesterday morning due to rather unforeseen circumstances. And yet, we’re here, in Paris, freezing our asses off in the winter, but the night lights are lovely and the buildings sparkle.

It is vastly different from London, but I am glad to be here. Christmas in London was special, not just because I spent it overseas for once, but because I didn’t spend it with family. I was glad to be with friends, and not alone, and meeting new people on Christmas night itself was also fun. I was glad I took that chance. It scares me sometimes; how I seek company now more than ever, as if being alone is really such a bad thing.

It is not; but when the weather is cold, sometimes all you need are some friends.

I have bought a lot of things. Buying things always makes me happy, for some reason, and whatever that says about me, it doesn’t matter. We also ate an insane amount, from cheap food at the borough markets to expensive one-starred restaurants, went to the Tate Modern, took stupid pictures along the river and filmed retarded videos, and I haven’t laughed this much in a long while. My buys were good — Kwek was my porter, carrying all my shopping and my jackets and my bags (thank you) — while I tried on shoes after shoes after clothes after clothes.

I watched Wicked, which I enjoyed immensely. Some parts made me almost cry, but this is me being subjective. This is all I can say. I am trying not to live under shadows, to come out into the light and be myself again, the girl I used to be, or maybe the girl I have become. Remembering what I used to love, what I used to do, and all the things I have been.  I am getting excited over the old things, rediscovering new things, and indeed who can say if I’ve been changed for the better; but I have been changed for good.

WATCH IT. WATCH IT NOW. Funny and heartbreaking as hell.

(如果你能拿得起，我也一定会放得下)

337: and where are the deep shelters?

I have been probably pushing myself too hard. There are things that I don’t need to do, but I have been doing them anyway. This includes stupid things like reading articles and cross-referencing them, putting in citations in my own paper that cite this article which cited that article on this page under this footnote, and drawing an insane number of mindmaps for that last International Company Law exam just so I would remember everything, which I didn’t, in the end. The last three weeks have been crazy and mad, and I’d like to say I’ve barely had time to think, but the truth is I’ve been thinking a lot (and maybe too much), and I don’t like what I come up with. Everything I write does not make sense, now that I read it again, and even though I passed my exam, I am still somewhat unhappy with the results. I want to do well, even if I don’t have to, and this bugs me. Am I asking for too much?

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. 

332: where’s the fire, what’s the hurry about

… we’ve got so much to do, but only so many hours in a day. And we can dream on, but don’t imagine they’ll all come true.

I have decided to update this post everyday for a week with the things that make me happy everyday. It is time for some POSITIVITY! Also, strange how they say people only blog when they are either 1) very depressed 2) very free 3) very busy. I suppose this must be true, because I do it all the time.