19:50.

Much Afraid - Jars Of Clay

Empty again
Sunken down so far
So scared to fall
I might not get up again

So I lay at your feet
All my brokenness
I carry all of my burdens to you

All of these things
I've held up in vain
No reason nor rhyme
Just the scars that remain
Of all of these things
I'm so much afraid
Scared out of my mind
By the demons I've made
Sweet Jesus, you never ever let me go
Oh, sweet Jesus, never ever let me go

So happy to love
Yet so far to go
You lead me on to where I've never been before

All of these things
I've held up in vain
No reason nor rhyme
Just the scars that remain
Of all of these things
I'm so much afraid
Scared out of my mind
By the demons I've made
Sweet Jesus, you never ever let me go
Oh, sweet Jesus, never ever let me go

Sweet Jesus, you never ever let me go

Oh, sweet Jesus, never ever let me go

19:03.

she pulls her poodle's ear and yelps
the pain that came she felt it first
crazy woman alone in the night
dressed in black to blend with the nile

the thoughts were not unfamiliar but their names were lost
what to call them, she could not recall
and so she walked to the pigeon's hole
down the rabbit burrow alice fall

alice, alice, what are you doing?
how are you to know if it's wonder you are wandering in?
alice alice, that kitty's evil
pull its head and let it quiver

the fat lady sings in time
to the marching band by peru's side
the conductor's a candy, a gingerbread man
oh hazel run on and never slow down

on and on and on you tire
but where's a rest and what's the time?
haze will fall and sun will shine
but its hue may not be light

18:49.

I cannot remember at which station they got on, but they rode with me to Woodlands. A pretty lady in her early 30s, I first noticed her and noted her preppy knee length skirt when she walked straight into my line of vision, and a little girl about eight perhaps trailing behind her as they settled against the panel opposite mine.

I noticed the latter's ears first. Imagine if you will ears flipped upside down 180 degrees, with the smaller end on top and the tops were pointed! I first noticed the point and immediately thought, "Elf!" then realised the "inverted-ness" of the ears.

I really don't know why but I thought the mother - I assume that's their relation - was gay. I really don't know why, don't ask.

The little girl was tanned, unlike her fair mother who ignored her most of the journey. She had her chin-length satin-smooth black hair tied back in two knots, showing off her unique ears. She wore striped baby blue and pink socks, and her denin peddalpushers had pink embroidered flowers at the end.

I liked her.

Her voice was soft. I saw her mouth move, her mother ignore her, I never heard what was said. Her eyes too were soft, and also unsure.

You know the little child actress in Homerun?

Yeah, my little Totto Chan on the train had a pensive heart-shaped face like hers.

Her mother stood cross-armed against the door, at times turning to face it full-on to look out, and never spoke to her daughter voluntarily.

Or just once anyway - "Go and sit lah". No, not in a tone laced with concern.

The little girl - her eyes always fixed on her silent mother - rushed to the next available seat when it was vacanted. While many parents would move over to stand near their kid or sit with them, taking their offspring on their laps, this one didn't.

If you had not seen them together during their earlier part of their journey, you won't know that they were together.

The two metres separating them felt long, even to me as a bystander.

All the little Megan-lookalike could do was sit right at the edge of the plastic orange seat - her feet did not even touch the floor yet - and stare, head turned and lifted slightly, at her mother whose head was turned away from her.

We reached Admiralty, and the child - her mom blocked from her line of vision by a happy family (3 kids running around their pony-tailed Dad while he was on the phone) - scrambled to her feet to tiptoe and see her mom.

She thought it was the right stop.

Her mom never looked back, and she sat back down. For a small moment, her downturned mouth twisted slightly and if possible, she looked even more unsure.

Twice, I saw her smile when the other children were scrambling in fun but that unsure, almost sad look reclaimed her fast both times.

It was her almond eyes. They were not particularly big or stunning but they were constantly fixed on her mother. Those eyes kept mine on her throughout the journey. And she never noticed, she only had eyes for one person.

Her mother finally acknowledged her when our train rolled into Woodlands station. I walked behind them, saw them held hands as they approached the elevator, and her develop a skip in her steps and start to chatter to her quiet mother.

At the ticketing rails, she tapped her yellow ez-link card onto the wrong reader. Her mom grabbed her arm over to the right one but the card has been read and the wrong turnstile activated. They didn't notice and kept trying to tap the card onto the "right" reader. I saw her start and look up at her mom. I'm afraid there was fear in her brown eyes.

That's where I lost them. Though I pretended I was waiting for someone and stopped near the ticketing booth to look for them.

How terrible it is for a child to be with an adult in a bad mood, or worse, an adult who's not interested in you.

Maybe some people just shouldn't ever be parents.

19:58.

Imagine by John Lennon is one of my favourite songs but whenever I sing it, I know I don't believe in its lyrics. What I believe in and what touches me is the spirit of the song, the spirit that says imagine a better place, let's dream of a better place, you are allowed to dream of a better place.

Not the lyrics, which advocated an impractical one-ness.

So when I read this, I had to post it. I wonder how many hate mail the journalist got so far.

20:13.

If you can consider JB to be overseas, then I effectively went on my first overseas assignment on yesterday.

Am now in the office, waiting for a call from the UK about the piracy story I chased yesterday. Depending on your leanings, those two sentences may sound exciting or dulled by a been-there-done-that favouring. I would tell you my angle, which is new, but since the article may be held, let's be quiet.

It was a rainy day yesterday. Rained throughout the whole time we were in Malaysia.

For a girl living in Woodlands, JB's a skip and a hop away. So, yes, I did feel slightly so somewhat like, "This is it? My first overseas assignment?"

Ingrate, me. I've been so conditioned by my material world, that's one reason why I need to leave what I have now and go somewhere new.

But guess what? I did enjoy the feeling of being on assignment in a foreign environment, even if it's just JB. Yes, so out of three leads, only one turned up all right and yes, so the photog and driver were feeling rather bummed, as was I, after one lead turned out to be a joke, literally so.

But I liked it. I liked how I felt like I have to swin or sink. For the piracy story, I separated from my photog and driver. Worked alone, posing first as a customer, gaining entry into the little private room where the wares were and asking questions as disarmingly as possible. Then, deciding if I should identify myself.

I liked that "uh oh" that went off in my head when once, I introduced myself to a pirate. His entire face changed and all his kakis stopped whatever they were doing and looked at me. I liked having to think on my feet pronto.

I've already thought of story ideas I could pursue in Melbourne.

....

I questioned a lot about journalism and my role in it. There were times when I wondered about my calling to it too. But thank God, through many little things, I know I've been called to this industry and I have a role to play.

It's amazing how things just work out when you wait, trust, and walk on. God is great.

I'm going to Rmit's Media Studies. On Monday, while en route to work, the IDP representative called me to go down to his office since the Aussie representive was there. I rushed down in a cab.

I wasn't dressed to impress, I was in denim jacket and mini skirt, carrying a backpack, I looked like a kid.

I wasn't equipped to impress. I didn't have my portfolio or resume, two things that normally give me a lot more assurance during interviews.

It all went wonderfully though. I really liked the guy and he accepted me into the programme at the end of the approximately half-hour interview/ discussion.

Have I written that God is great?

He really is.

And just a couple of days ago too, two scholar colleagues informed me that if I applied and get a scholarhip, they are sure I won't have to do a 6-year bond since my course is for only a year.

The bond duration was what deterred me from any thoughts of entertaining a scholarship application. But come Monday, I will speak to my bosses about it.

Yeah, I don't know if I make the cut. My results ain't that great and my performance at work, though not lousy, have had its moments and non.

There's an assuring sense of rest and peace inside of me though. Whatever happens, it's going to be okay. Whatever happens, God is there with me.

This feels so good.

12:43.

Hallo world.

It's good to know things are settled. Not that every single thing has been so, but now I know I am definitely going to Australia for the spring intake, I feel more... grounded. Less up in space floating like debris about to collide with a space cow.

[I echo your "eh?" on the animal mention, don't know where that came from either]

I've not been posting in my own voice for a while simply because that voice has not been very coherent.

The last two or three weeks handed my mind a microphone and pushed it into the milky way. Every thought inside my head was amplified, and none was within my grasp of reason or in the sphere of mono-logic.

It didn't help that the university folks were not very, well, switched on. After a written test and a phone interview a month after, I waited three weeks to receive with pleasure an email affirming I made the cut and can finish the journalism programme in a year.

I reverted with an email responding to the choice of compulsory subjects I have to take and they revert with an email saying I need one and a half years to do the programme instead.

Which threw me up against the wall since I was already mentally settled on going, and since Hannah had already found and paid a deposit for the apartment.

I fell back on my back-up plan - Media Studies, which I can definitely complete in a year, but just received another email from the Journ folks clarifying a one-year programme provided I take Radio Journ, Online Journ and two journ subjects among my eight modules.

To summarise, effectively, I now have three offers - UniMel Arts (2 yrs), Rmit Journ (1 yr with compulsory subjects) and Rmit Media Studies (1 yr, with no compulsory subjects).

UniMel is definitely out.

And by Monday, I have to make up my mind whether I want Journ or Media Studies. The only thing holding me back from Journ is the compulsory module Radio Journ.

I'm loathed to do group work. This anti-social nerd has thrived in the independence of working life as a journalist and is admitedly, unsure about group work in a student setting again.

Oh, I want to study. Fer sure, ye. And as scary as it sometimes is to me, I need to be a fish out of the water again so I get out of my comfort zone and complacency.

Then, there's the pride which is my thorn in my flesh. The pride that recoils in horror at the thought that I may not be as competent as I fancy at a subject which I rather not take (though I do see its interesting side and am interested in it).

[Interlude: *takes knife and stabs Pride*]

hehehheehhehe, oh well, such a long post deserves an interlude.

But to revert to the topic at hand which I have no doubt will have a significant bearing on my future, part of me wants to run away, skipping into Australia and such a new phrase of my life. Another wants to remain at my desk in the daily's office, hitting some good shots at times and seeking comfort from the little things.

Both are good places to be at but I am not omnitranscient.

Good thing God is, and He will be with me everywhere. It feels a bit like I am Peter about to step out of the boat to walk on water, and I am scared fric-less but I'm daring to move because God is with me.

Choices, choices, choices.

I don't want to be po ma (indecisive) any more. It's a strange trait to take on and not particularly appealing.

There's a lot more areas and issues and feelings to talk about and share but I should demure. I can see eyelids at half-masts already.

Abba's Take A Chance On Me is playing in my head.

Take a chance?

Okay.

22:11.

Everybody hurts - REM

When the day is long and the night,
the night is yours alone
When you're sure you've had enough of this life,
well hang on

Don't let yourself go
Everybody cries

And everybody hurts sometimes

Sometimes everything is wrong. Now it's time to sing along.

When your day is night alone
(hold on, hold on)
If you feel like letting go
(hold on)
When you think you've had too much of this life,
well hang on

Everybody hurts
Take comfort in your friends

Everybody hurts

Don't throw your hand, oh, no
Don't throw your hand, if you feel like you're alone,
No, no, no, you are not alone

If you're on your own in this life,
the days and nights are long
When you think you've had too much of this life to hang on,
Well, everybody hurts sometimes, everybody cries
And everybody hurts sometimes

And everybody hurts sometimes

So, hold on, hold on.

Hold on, hold on.

Hold on, hold on.

Hold on, hold on.

(Everybody hurts. You are not alone.)

16:30.

"As a kid, I would have loved to have learned to play the piano. I think I'm more than angry about the reasons I didn't. Without the band I would explode. Or worse, I'd just numb that area.

"I think that's what happens to people who have a gift and they can't get it out; they fence it off, put a lot of ice on it, and walk with a limp. So I kind of got to mark that moment; that's really what art is to me. And to use humour. U2 songs are not a bag of laughs, but with these works I got up to some mischief." - Bono, U2, from here

16:58.

The first step to awareness. About the Cambodian displaced, the 2nd generation of Cambodian refugees and how again, their families are broken up now. Here.

12:55.

Help. The Mandarin version of Lemon Tree is playing on 95.8FM, my Dad's favourite station. *Cringes and cowers*

Yay. The 12-year-old neighbour just stopped by at our gate excitedly to announce she has got one A* and 3 As for her PSLEs. I didn't even know she's in Primary Six. Her immense glee - Mom told me the little girl had recently confided in her worries about PSLE results - is sweet.

The usual: I am still rather undecided as to what choice to make for the future. Every new day, and every new person I tell my dilemma to, just stirs up more confusion. There are many practical arguments and my pragmatic self and my idealistic self keeps shoving and shouting at each other.

I am thankful for this choice, the ability and privilege to have a choice to make, and I don't want to give that up and just say, ok God, shut one door so I can choose the other by default.

This time, I really want to know and hear it from You. Exercise my choice and choose correctly the best path You have for me.

So help me, God. And please pray for me.

22:07.

Sometimes, people relations seem like the hardest thing in the world.

And I am DNA. Um.


You are DNA. You're a smart person, and you appear
incredibly complex to people who don't know
you. You're incomparably full of information,
and most of it is useless.


Which Biological Molecule Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

00:52.

*Yawnnnnnn*

*dopey grin*

Am in the office.

20:57.

I am in the train station. The no-man's land, the limbo between worlds, and I'm just waiting for the train to come.

I am not alone.

I look around and I see many others. Some, like me, have that look in their eyes. They are waiting for the same train, sometimes doubting their faith that it will come. Others, distracted souls, have embraced this temporal stage as life and are convinced that this is all there is. They look at me like I'm a foolish sod.

That may not be that far from the truth but I'm not about to switch sides just for a coat of primary coloured gloss on black-and-white-clad me.

How long should I wait? What should I do while here? Will I lose it or will I gain that eternal treasure?

Let's not talk about eternity, but look at the here and now via micro-lens. The first question in that last paragraph still applies. I know that while I wait, I shall do unto The Lord and seek, as with every undertaking, to honour my Lord.

Things are happening at work and in life. Stuff are being stirred up and I am rather clueless, Lord, as to what to do. On one hand, it feels like finally the proverbial bridge is here. On the other hand, the trodden path is still avail and its familiarity has a number of comforting factors.

After all, I walked it for 14 months and I've learnt to see the flowers besides the roadside. I've also, by Grace, learnt how to walk on and smile at the rays of sunshine.

Then, there are other people who have fallen into ranks; they share my journey.

I do not detest this path, but how long really, how long can I remain here? I feel like I need to take off this hat, shrug off this skin and kick off my boots. But I will not be a runaway. I refuse to do that.

It's a strange choice isn't it? If I finally get what has eluded me this far, and I choose to walk away from it.

Is it unusual? Yes. But is it really unusual? No.

It's always the narrow paths.

It's finally here. The choice to be made. I don't very clearly know my choices yet but they are getting less vague.

All I can do is wait. And as I wait, I have to pray and be still. Soon, I will have reached the bridge. Soon, I will know whether to walk onto it or steer away.

My Lord, My God, take my heart and mind. And for this final lap, help me work unto You and smile.

Be near, O Lord, be near.

15:57.

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne,
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

- J R R Tolkien

23:45.

Whenever I read stuff I written from eons ago, I get struck by how similar certain things have remained, especially all I care about. And I get struck by how I managed to articulate what I wanted simply maybe because I am kind of mucking now.

These old writings remind me to be who I want to be.

Presenting the second time, my artistic identity. It's posted near the bottom.

22:55.

"I want to be a hunter again
want to see the world alone again
to take a chance on life again
so let me go." - Hunter by Dido

Disclaimer: The plea to be let go is not aimed at any one.

I was just reading my guestbook. This has been a good restful stay-at-home weekend, I've notched up so many hours sleeping that I can't hit the sack yet. Too wide awake. Too late to be playing the piano so here I am, reveling in my nerd-dom.

The guestbook brought back many memories. I really miss you all so much. But here we are, on our way to growing up, we grow apart. Is this it? Maybe.

Am just here listening to songs like Iris and Runaway Train, songs that fit in such moments.

Sigh, bittersweet symphony the song in my mind. Is this really the way it's going to go the rest of my life? People come, people go and you can't help it 'cause your get on different trains and become different people. And even if your still appreciate each other, your can never meet at the same platform again.

It's nobody's fault. No one's to blame. It just is. And it may not help that I suck at initialising the maintainence.

*The Space Between - Dave Matthews Band*

I had some time to think these two days. And somehow, it was just random scenes from my past that kept coming at me.

I saw myself with my primary five class walking up the stairs to that third-floor classroom, and Mr Lim asking me if I wanted to be a prefect; baseball with the boys; the first boy who said he loves me; the depression years; the McDonald hangout; boyband days; the libraries; the counsellor's room; talking to the discipline master; auditioning; interviews to get into Mass Comm; stepping into mud while on the way to the library....

*Angel - Sarah Mclachlan*

Too many things to put down in type or paper. Reels played mentally and I just felt like whoa, so many days have passed.

So many days have passed.

What have I been doing? Getting ready, getting prepared, but it has been two decades and counting.

I've felt old since I was 15, and while I wear this same feeling now along with my first realisation of youth, I still feel my years and admit, fear that I may no longer wear scars as badges of honour, but cringe whenever one could be inflicted.

I look around and realise what they say about 30 being the new 20 is true. Being a grown up is no different from being a kid.

Paraphrase from Calvin and Hobbes:

Dad: You know when I was a kid, I thought that adults knew everything.

Mum: Yeah?

Dad: If I knew it was all ad-libbed, I wouldn't have been in such a hurry to grow up so fast.

Forgive my ramble but things like concise, reason, and structure is kind of beyond my reach at the moment.

And using a recycled kicker, Let's dance.

19:58.

"You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." - John 8:31, 32

The truth wasn't the red pill, but it is the new world that unveiled after taking it, the light outside Plato's cave, but like Neo, in rags and a hole in his skull, we sometimes think and feel like we are still chained.

'cause we are still surrounded by all the glop, and still in the system, and if we look at ourselves in its mirrors, we see unglamourous, pitiful machine-influenced persons, in sackcloth and wasteland.

BUT we have been freed. It's true. Freedom - post red pill (the decision to accept Jesus Christ into your life) - is a realisation in the mind. Faith is not based on works and miracles. It's not how you feel, it's what simply IS.

19:29.

"What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad."

"You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up. Ironically, that's not far from the truth. "

- Morpheus, The Matrix.

[For more quotes from the movies, click here]

It's spot-on right-on bull-eyes like these along with many many wonderful perception versus reality, relativity against the absolutes cornerstones of life, faith, human fraility issues in one darn super cool black-leathered package that converted me.

Without fangirl's prejudice, I will say this. Matrix Revolutions does not suck. It is not lousy. It is not damned.

Yes, it does not thrill and grab you like Matrix, but the movie experience is different from Madonna singing Like A Virgin. You cannot recapture the exact essence of that first time because it cannot be as organic and new any more when it is no longer new.

But Revolutions is all right, not amazing, not wow but decent enough for me to go buy the whole trilogy now. It didn't had a conventional safe ending. I like that, I like that there is no run-of-the-mill type happy ending, I like it that Trinity died because that's real.

It's important that the movie retained that errie realness.

I want to discourse, but I can't discourse unless someone throws some punches. Argh.

"To be great is to be misunderstood." - Oscar Wilde

21:30.

The world is on its back at 3am. Everything's bathed in subdued movie lights, the world is a stage and I'm its only player walking out of my company.

Down that long road that is really just a carpark, I walked flanked by cars, and the cars, they were (are) flanked by trees. I walked fast, the hour was late, I was tired. I wanted to linger for the night was beautiful, I wanted to linger in the open to feel the moonlight and fill my lungs with the cold crisp air.

It was after a storm or drizzle I didn't hear, and the ground was still wet. Everything was clean and I felt a measure of vigor.

Then, in mid-stride, I saw it. A small shape on the road, stationary and shadowed. I heard a small squeak then I ran.

When I was a child, I saw a half-squashed rat on the road while on my way to the market with my mother. Roadkill. Even when I'm in the front passenger seat of a car cruising somewhere, I avert my eyes when I spot something that looks like roadkill.

That shape on the road, with a longish extension on one side looking like a tail and four legs-like shadows when its belly was, looked like that albino rat I saw as a child.

I didn't scream, I almost did, but I ran in a foolish fit, immensely thankful when I realised the squeak was from my sandals on the wet road. At least that meant if it was indeed roadkill, it was not struggling to live with horrendous injuries.

I hope.

So there I was, the still of the night and my mood disrupted. I walked faster, there was no cab in sight, but wait, one - green taxi sign still switched on - was parked along the parking spaces at the right side of the side gate.

I walked over, waving a few times to get the cabbie's attention. Closer up, I saw he was concentrating on, looking down at something on the seat next to his. I paused at the opposite side of the road, and waved again.

He didn't look up. And with half a mind wondering if he may be engaged in dubious activities and half a mind just tired and longing to get home, I crossed the road. Tapped on the bonnet, he didn't look up. I walked to the front passenger side and tapped the window. He jumped.

He was counting his day's earnings. I hope I didn't look like a robber.

Any how, he refused to take me and I walked up to the main road and got a cab almost as soon as I reached that end of the road.

Thank God.

Fast forward.

The traffic lights are so pretty at night. I always wanted to film the scene from the back of a car or take photos. I had my digicam with me, but unfortunately no guts to take it out and start shooting and perhaps disturbing my kind driver and inviting a barrage of questions. So I did not. Sigh. The next time I am in a friend's car, and I sit up front, and it is early morning where the lights are on, I will shoot.

That morning ended at 4am, when I finally lay myself down to sleep, tummy full from a very late dinner Mom kept for me.

I love Mom's cooking.

16:16.

Came across an excerpt of these lyrics here and felt enough connection to go check out the full lyrics. I've never really checked out Dubstar but darn, I have to download this song. The lyrics are too spot on for those melancholic moments.


Stars - Dubstar

Is it asking too much to be given time
To know these songs and to sing them
Is it asking too much of my vacant smile
And my laugh and lies that bring them

But as the stars are going out
And this stage is full of nothing
And the friends have all but gone
For my life, my God I'm singing

We'll take our hearts outside, leave our lives behind
I'll watch the stars go out
We'll take our hearts outside, leave our lives behind
I'll watch the stars go out

Is it asking too much of my favorite friends
To take these songs for real
Is it asking too much of my partner's hands
To take these songs for real

But as the stars are going out
And this stage is full of nothing
And the friends have all but gone
For my life, my God I'm singing

We'll take our hearts outside, leave our lives behind
I'll watch the stars go out
We'll take our hearts outside, leave our lives behind
I'll watch the stars go out

We'll take our hearts outside

We'll take our hearts outside, leave our lives behind
I'll watch the stars go out

We'll take our hearts outside, leave our lives behind
I'll watch the stars go out

We'll take our hearts outside (was I asking too much)
Leave our lives behind

I'll watch the stars go out (was I asking too much)

We'll take our hearts outside (was I asking too much)
Leave our lives behind

I'll watch the stars go out (was I asking too much)

(Was I asking too much)
I'll watch the stars go out (was I asking too much)

We'll take our hearts outside (was I asking too much)

I'll watch the stars go out (was I asking too much)

We'll take our hearts outside (was I asking too much)

(Was I asking too much)

(Was I asking too much)

22:34.

Acid juices make me hyper. Everytime I get gastric pain, my mind seems to distangle from my body. I talk louder, I talk nonsense, I laugh louder and generally behave rather unlike my usual "staid" self. (By the way, "staid" reminds me of elephants)

Does speaking faster connotes genius? I think not.

Does pushing your own pitch as the gospel truth make you the best salesman? Beep, not in my book.

When I am high on acid (that's what the tummy produces when one gets gastric I think), I tend to rave.

Acid juices II = Frustration. When I am frustrated, the testosterone in my body must go up. That's why I speak fast, I glare, I walk fast and I talk to myself, bullet-speed while I make calls, do work, mumble and get uncontrollable urges to hit things.

I wish hitting things was legal. Wait, it is. As long as the thing is indeed a thing, and not alive, and it belongs to no one who can sue you. If I break a punching bag, people stare. I don't get why. They should applaud at the spectacle. And provide me with more things to hit.

I am having gastric pains. Grrrr....

16:07.

Happiness.

I never used to think about it, or seek it like people I knew did. It wasn't a conscious thing but while others said things like I want to be happy, I never thought of this elusive pursuit at all.

Always just thought that once you get the meaning of life, everything else falls into place. With understanding and wisdom, that knowledge of your existence, you gain happiness, joy and well, all the good stuff necessary to put the puzzle together.

Maybe I am unconsciously feeling like this may not be true any more. Either that, or I'm simply realising that the search for meaning is a long journey riddled with potholes, pain, confusion and a lot of stuff that potentially makes one unhappy. And I hope this doesn't mean I am copping out of the long and narrow path because I know happiness is shifting into a focus for me now.

Why?

I really don't get it. Is this meant to be? Due to circumstances, environment, being a working young adult, selling out even? I don't know.

It's weird, not in a bad way.

I'm laughing more (and not just at inexplicable private jokes which I can never explain, but with people). I'm dressing in preppy high school garb and for the first time in my life, people are thinking I'm younger than my actual age.

That last point, my dears, is a big thing. This kid who always been old before her time has never had such comments.

But back to our personal discourse on happiness.

"I know there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil - this is the gift of God" - Ecclesiastes 3: 12, 13

That eternity set in my heart burns me. Everytime I read the words of Solomen above, I silently protest and then hang my head in defeat.

Is this it?

I protest but increasingly, understand how big a gift this is - finding satisfaction in my toil and being delighted with all these I know, worldly though they may be called.

In equal measures, increased understanding that there's nothing new under the sun, and everything is meaningless drive me crazy.

What do I do?

I know the words of the king is true, yet I know too an abundant life is possible. So I seek that. I take delight in my work, I continue to take delight in the small things and I seek happiness from this life. All the time knowing this world is not my home, and that what you put into a task or object affects the meaning you could derive from it.

It's possible to be happy because at the end of the day, our Father will not give us snakes when we ask for fish; nor stones when we ask for bread.

And you know something? He's the Boss.

:)

18:22.

Puppet master, hear my cry
Prostrate and beaten, I'm thine
If I could smile, I would plead

please

La you sing, La again
Stop looking away, look at me
My revolution, confusion


Jump

22:16.

A Different Kind Of Blue - U2

Those cars
On you
So small
Down there
From here
So high
We drift
We fly

Twilight breaks through
A different kind of blue

More lights
Blue signs
All gold
All new
So small
So high
Down there
Tonight

With twilight breaking through
It's a different kind of blue

Twilight breaking through
It's a different kind of blue

21:50.

Just strangers in a strange land
Where the moon is dim
Wanderers in a pack hunting
Alone and feeling grim

I don't know what you mean sometimes
The distance between us is too great
But yet, I can feel you here right now
breathing inside of me

This is the air I breathe
My daily bread
This is the life I lead
That which I'm loathe to forget

So cut those words into my heart
Lest I forget to cry
What is my truth, dear Lord?
Let my words be few

17:20:

Actually, with my penchant for shooting myself in the foot, I really should not be surprised at my own actions.

And actually, with my history of getting dodgy haircuts, I really should not be surprised the hairdresser gave me weird bangs like those eye-brows type fringe schnauzers have. Umm, I just made myself sound weird, didn't I? Actually (the third actually in one entry) it ain't that bad after I derangingly tried to further trim them myself. Count that as another shot in my abused feet, but oh well, it's just hair (I'm reminding myself).

Last week was... interesting. Good too. Tues and Wed, I left work at 12.30am, Thurs, 1am. By Friday, I was swaying like Caption Jack Sparrow when I woke up. But gee, how happy I was.

The workaholic in me has returned to take a bigger place in my life. So have more inspiration and a feeling of worth.

This week, I predict there will be at least two late working nights but hey, we are cool with it. Cheerios and bingo and all that.

It is strange what growing up brings.

Sometimes, you just stop and realisations hit you unceasingly. Realisations of how you have evolved. I see it in me, certain traits, but yet they are not constant which worries me.

Things like being more approachable, open, some say PR, I enjoy company a lot more these days and no longer cringe (or not that much) at dining with perfect strangers when I meet them at some mutual friend's place or something.

I probably hate knowing I'm shy. But all right, at the grand old age of 22, I can admit it and embrace that unpredictable, selective trait as part of me and deal with it.

Talking about growing up changes again, it's also surprising to me how I have remained the same girl in as many ways as I've changed.

I will write more but I'm awfully hungry... it's a good feeling.

By the way, I'm buying a second-hand acoustic Epiphone. It will be my third guitar. I hope it's a stunner and in good shape. I'm not familiar with buying things second hand at all.

Love ya, Lord.

22:20.

For it's the mystery of the universe - You're the God of holiness
Yet You welcome souls like me

And with the blessing of Your Father's heart
You discipline the ones you love with Your kindess and Your majesty

Jesus, those who recognise Your Power know just how wonderful You are - That you draw near

- Sacred King

21:50.

A colleague I like and respect came back to the office today after a six-month hiatus.

She said it felt like two weeks, I thought it seemed longer than six months.

How do I begin to tell her what happened over these six months if she asks?

I have no idea.

So much happened.

I've grew as a person.

Learnt guts as well as lost some.

How does one begin to relate one's life?

That's why it's so hard for me to keep up with friends.

When they ask, so how have you been?

What do you say?

Good, ok, not.

How does one find the words?

So when people talk, I listen.

When newsmakers speak of their lives, I am a raptured audience.

I cannot give much, but I can listen to your story.

I hope you understand it's important.

16:34.

One big advantage of working in a media conglomerate is the amount of information you have at your fingertips. I came across the article below while searching for some other information, and I loved it. A bit whimisical, rather cynical, but very much so, from a journalist's heart.


Published 1993 Sept 24
Author: Asad Latif

SINGAPORE takes pride in its food. I do not mean the confluence of so many culinary cultures here, though that is important. I am talking about the way people eat.

I used to visit a restaurant - "eating-place" is more accurate - in Kerbau Road, off Serangoon Road. There, at peak hours, would gather a congregation of the hungry, appetites sharpened into devotion by long hours of toil. Some
moulded stone and mortar into the houses and roads of Singapore. One wrote about Singapore on computer screens.

Those who had just arrived would sit back in grateful expectation after ordering their food. I joined them.

As the food arrived, we dipped our fingers slowly into the rice, feeling its heat. We spread it out as if to increase its yield, spicing its taste with salivary waiting. The vegetables and spices were mixed in, slowly, calmly. We mixed them in a little more, the pace increasing.

And then, in the abandon of delicious freedom, we began eating. Rice, avial, sambar, papad, more, pickles, meat, egg or fish, we ate it all, great, shameless quantities of it all. Ours was a gusto which, if watched by the merest of artists, would have turned his canvas into a masterpiece.

The food swept into us, strengthening our limbs and gratifying our hearts, uniting a ragtag band of devotees into seamless, undistracted impatience.

It cost $3 for the chicken-meal, $2.50 for the fish-meal. The rice and vegetables were unlimited. The pieces of meat or fish were fixed. But the gravy was unlimited.

The restaurant has since moved, leaving no address behind.

THE closure of the restaurant meant the destruction of a community, for me, anyway. For it was there I learnt that a community is a group of people united by a common purpose though they may follow different paths, rarely agree with
each other and often have little to do with each other as individuals.

Which brings me to the market.

If you go to a market quite late in the day, when prices are likely to be lower than during peak hours, you will see old women scanning the remaining fish. They smile with a kind of sheepish greed that is meant to disarm the vendor but actually irritates him. Though the fish themselves are becoming second-rate, the vendor can be quite rough with these second-rate customers.

That attitude becomes doubly irksome if he happens to be nice to you, a proper customer who is late because he did not have the time - not because he did not have the money - to come earlier.

And when the old lady smiles at you because you are trying to make things a little better for her by smiling, you know that the only thing you can do is write.

I AM sometimes tempted to divide the world into three groups: states, unreal people and real people.

The state we know about. Unreal people are the kakis of the state.

They owe their livelihood indirectly to the state as a source of power. Conservatives, democrats, situational democrats, anarchists, armchair anarchists, intellectuals, economists, staid senior leader/feature writers (Selfews), Contentious news reporters (Connerps) snapping at the Selfews' ideological heels - all are hangers-on of the state, pretenders to imaginary thrones, parasites feeding on suspect lineages, unreal people all.

Those at the receiving end of their actions are real. Children, housewives, students, teachers, hawkers, entrepreneurs, engineers, doctors, lovers stealing a kiss in the dark, rubbish-cleaners, dreamers - these are the real people of the world.

Unreal people speak: Real people are spoken about. Unreal people write: Real people are written about. Real people love or at least make love: Unreal people make money by writing about love.

Now, mark me, I do not have anything against the state. I do not understand those who are railing forever against "the state", as if there was a viable alternative to it. Nor am I saying that real people are "good" and unreal
people "bad". Life is hardly as uncomplicated as that, and roles do overlap.

The loan-shark is a real person, but I doubt that you would want him as your friendly next-door neighbour. No one but journalists (if even they) likes journalists, but imagine a world without (unreal) journalism.

Which brings me to my point. Journalism is perhaps the only unreal profession which exists only because there are real people around. Democrats could chant passages from De Tocqueville and economists could continue to disagree with
each other, but only journalists are privileged to enter the lives of real people without knocking. They are suffered, as all intruders are, but they are suffered on trust. And it is that trust they need to keep when they write.

I HOPE that the thoughts on food and markets are some small proof of this, even though I am a Selfew who was once a Connerp. Though this is not always possible, I feel that it is better to try and describe things well than to explain them, for most explanations debase the thing being explained.

"To discover the various uses of things is the work of history," Marx wrote, on the first page of the first volume of Das Kapital. He himself lived up to that challenge quite well; as someone said recently: "No other writer gives more vivid, intense accounts of modern 'things'. No one has better described the ambience of a great textile mill or the misery of a brickfield or the enigmatic nature of commodities."

Unlike his successors, Marx was not a Marxist; unlike them, the early Marx at least understood how important it was to allow things to speak for themselves instead of getting polemic to speak for them. It is not surprising that Marx
was once a practising journalist; so was Dickens.

SO IT is that real people create real situations, and that journalists must write about them.

I was travelling by bus last week. At a stop, I was looking around idly, when my eyes fell on two teenage schoolgirls. One of them was waving at a student who had entered the bus and saying something; the other was giggling, her
right hand cupped lightly over her mouth.

What a sight. I do not have a sister, but if I did, and if she at 16 had giggled like that, my brother's-heart would have awakened from its slumber and soared on the wings of her laughter. Dear girl, hold on to your laughter; keep
your giggling youth as long as you can. For one day you will be as old as I am. You will not only have to think before you speak, but think before you laugh.

But, then, as a journalist, you will have the freedom to capture your captivity and turn it into words.

20:50.

Today, my immediate supervisor gave me another one of those discussions that veer into the boundaries of talking-tos.

We went through this, similar material, two months ago when I was passed over for confirmation, and when I got into trouble for my blog.

(I think I posted about the former on my old site.

As for the latter, yes, I was called into a room by another supervisor who basically, told me he thought my blog contained "sensitive material" about the company. He also made some remarks which sounded like judgements on my character. It hurted me a lot and I cried while in that room, 'cause I respected this journalist very much and at one time, even looked up to him as the war reporter I want to be and I didn't understand why he was judging me so harshly on a personal level. I used to feel akin with him because I thought our passion for our profession, or to me art, was same.

I never explained why I left my old squat. It's because of that. I don't expect utter privacy when I choose to put up a website with my real name - and now I choose not to - but I couldn't continue writing about my inner thoughts, my life at a place where I specifically know unwanted eyes would be looking at.

To cut a long story short, later on, I discovered it was very possible a colleague I trusted - the only colleague with my URL - had passed my URL to that supervisor. Maybe because she thought I slighted her in my blogs before. I still cannot bring myself to converse with her on a similar level or to trust her.)

Anyhow, back to today. Since the two double whammies - the blog thing happened first followed a week after by the confirmation - hit, I have reverted back to working life in a rountine.

But I do know I'm not over it. If I have to admit it, I think it took a lot more out of me than I care to think.

I like to be more unflappable. Sometimes I am.

Yet the past year I have been with the paper, I had cried more times over my work (in my workplace too, four times) than I had in totality during the entire course of last year.

It's really simple. I'm not supposed to cry over such things, I don't, just never did so before.

Guess I am not above it all, huh. But I never did believe I was. I just didn't... cry.

They say that it's the ones that you love most that hurt you most. Journalism, writing is one of my greatest loves. And forgive me if I am too sensitive, too precious about my job, but it hurts me like crazy to be the way I am now.

Maybe it's burn-out but I absolutely hate the way I cannot seems to be the way I was, to chase stories 24/7, to ALWAYS be on the lookout for stories, to be driven with that unspeakable newshound instinct because I absolutely love journalism.

I still love being a journalist. I will never give up writing and no, don't infer wrongly, I still love journalism itself too.

My immediate supervisor, though at times well intentioned, makes me tired. He doesn't realise it consciously but he is significant reason for my enthusiasm low.

But I'm tired. I can't go on. I cannot find the drive that I had. The love is still there but it no longer makes me move. I can't glide now. I still can write, I still can report, I still can work but where's the magic?

Maybe I talk of my job with a idealism that is foolish but we cannot lose our idealism. We cannot do so. This cannot be just a job. Otherwise, I become just like them.

I'm tired, and I want to be whole again. I need to be healed, Lord, I need to put down my bitterness. For I know there's bitterness inside, anger and spite at the unfairness of it all, at the split in the office now. I don't want to play anymore. I don't want to do the PR, I don't want to do this shite.

Help, God.

For I know "All things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to His Promise".

You are my Rock.

17:47.

My room faces the evening sun. Every day, while the sun gives off the last of its strongest rays, my room will be flooded with yellow light. My current bedsheet is a gentle navy blue and it caught the light fabulously.

It seemed that there was a large halo in my humble abode and where the halo fell seemed like where an angel would appear with a message.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Yesterday, this popped into my mind: "I'll never be 18 again."

Yes, another one of those truism that suddenly leaps at you and make you look at it differently. And yes, why is it that these jumping phrases so often concern time and age.

Today, after watching Bend It Like Beckham on cable, the same thought blinked at me. Why should I want to be 18 again? No reason really. It was a good year, that year off school. A year which I look back upon as my spiritual revival and a year which was all bright and lit up so much you can see angels flying over every day.

But I digress. I think I get this 18 thoughts because I'm simply half-afraid that I will never be as carefree as I was then. I did have cares and worries then, it wasn't a Mary Poppin world but it had that teenage zest which coloured every single thing brightly.

I guess, wait, I know it's scientifically true that every day, we die a bit more, are that closer to the last breath.

I also know I want to die to self but do not believe this biblical dying is akin to that weary death time inflicts on living people. The latter, I'm referring to that increased deadness, that loss of a will to live and to love and rejoice, and dance with life.

I feel rather old at times like these. Gee, 18. I think I'm rather wistful that I never did go for the sports and team participation bit, mostly choosing (not that it seemed like a choice then) to go for angst, music and myself.

I always loved soccer. Quite liked basketball too. In fact, I believe I would like to do both now but am deterred by the fact that I'm as far from fit as one can get. Besides, how do I get into a team now? I want to play them as what they are, team sports. I'm untrained, which doesn't make me a candidate for pro or semi-pro teams.

There are always ways, I probably am just being inert. I like to start off with kicking a ball around and throwing some baskets for fun like we used to in primary school and even occasionally in secondary school (Darn, I feel old).

I want the discipline of participation sports, those you go all out for and get sweaty and dirty and a lot of team spirit.

Hah.

20:24.

Yesterday, someone killed himself. I seen him around before but never spoken to him so unlike those who were closer to him, I was spared from anguish.

Everyone was talking about it, discussing it, perhaps trying to get a grip on it. "It" - How one could commit suicide. Jump off a building when he was 25, and just starting his career.

But when you are a stage where nothing seems to be worth living for any more, Reason is that which you have already ran away from, and a device that's very far away.

I'm glad he didn't have to listen to all our speculations and guesses.

When someone chooses their own way out like that, it is a natural reaction to ask why, and to discuss and try together to understand it. But while I understand this auto reaction, I'm loathe to particpate.

'cause for me, I think whatever reason he had, whatever it was, he made his choice. And if we weren't there for him when he could still hear and evaluate, then we should be slient now too. As respect.

This is really not meant to criticise anyone. This suicide is not the first that happened near me these recent years. And I hate it.

I hope suicides will not be one of the things so common in my adulthood that I cease to be bothered.

So few things are really relevant but I keep forgetting.

20:44.

Go watch Pirates of The Carribean. I utterly love it and it's not just because Johnny Depp's in it.

Gosh, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny (!).

Umm, to be serious, it's good. Campy, hilarious, not very logical but a good ride throughout. Stellar cast, Johnny embodied weird fey Captain Jack Sparrow.

Several times today, I caught myself containing a laugh when I remembered some scenes. Hah.

Fey - That's my favourite word of the moment.

13:05.

Johnny Cash never was an artiste I seeked. Though he was one I admired. By the word "seeked", I simply mean I was not as acquainted with his music as I felt I should be. I often read about him, most notably in a U2 biography To The End Of The World.

He has gone home at the age of 73, about five months after his beloved wife and soulmate took the same journey. And as I - like millions others - read the articles, obituaries, tributes in cyberspace and newsprint, I'm solemn like those others. Not disturbed, because I believe He is now with Jesus (Heaven's an indefinitely better place).

I join his fans and friends in some moments of mourning.

Why? Simply because he was one of those examples whom I want to be like.

Jocelyn asked me why I like U2 so much.

I know why, though I articulate this poorly.

U2, Johnny Cash, these people represents to me people constantly running, running to stand still (to steal a line from U2). They are (were) Christians, and the passion for God evident, but they dared to bare their souls with a fury that I can't look away from. They fought (fight) demons, they swum in music, in the spirit of my beloved rock n roll.

They were (are) human, completely fallable but because they are (were) honest, they earned my respect. And they respected the art of music, made (make) amazingly great music and harnessed the rock n roll's power. Christians need not be cookie cuts of each other. Can faith exists in seemingly chaos and the devil's territory? Can faith lasts in fame?

Yes.

I like that brazen defiance. Why must the devil have all the good music? (To borrow a line from William Booth, salvation army's founder and I think, the Christian rock band Stryper who made the line into a whole song)

I like running on the edge of the ring of fire, getting burned but never having my spirit quenched.

But will I dare? (Anyhow, my ring of fire is different from that of rock n roll.)

They did.

And to that, I salute.

I will see Mr Cash in Heaven when I get there. Though mind you, my attention will be on Jesus.

00:32.

On my old site, I once posted this quote from a well-loved author, C S Lewis. You could call it a warning, I guess, to me as well as yourself. And since these words are still profoundly reverent to me and life, here they are again:

"Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."

23:59.

I like to teach the world to sing.


The Redemption Song - Bob Marley

Old pirates yes they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the Almighty
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly

All I ever had, is songs of freedom
Won't you help to sing, these songs of freedom
Cause all I ever had, redemption songs

Redemption songs

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look
Some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fullfill the book

Won't you help to sing, these songs of freedom
Cause all I ever had, redemption songs
Redemption songs, redemption songs

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look
Yes some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fullfill the book

Won't you help to sing, these songs of freedom
Cause all I ever had, redemption songs
All I ever had, redemption songs
These songs of freedom, songs of freedom

22:27.

I wish I have the words to paint landscapes
Pretty hues and tragic tunes
It's not a fancy, or is it?

My hand's soaked with fabric and sore from brushing
On my walls my murals speak
Wait a minute, what is it?

Slowly, slower, the music slows me
Then beating quickly, the rhythm moves me
Is my reflection bloody?

Dorian Gray.

Lullaby, sweet sweet sound
Pray


Shhhhhhh

18:21.

Johnny Cash has died.

20:01.

I like: The way the sky merges into the sea, the way the sun colours the sky, the way the white fine sand gives way underneath my feet and get between my toes, the way the green-blue still sea water embraces my body, the way the clouds smile down at me. And how I see God in all these.

Swim, sunbath, eat, snack, watch tv, laugh, kid, jump on beds.

All in a day's work. Living on an island that's not urban. Where the beach is at my doorstep and beautiful pools and jacuzzi wait for me to jump in. Where I live with beautiful people whose company I enjoy.

A place where dreams looks plausible and my future is stretched all the way right along the bright path towards the horizon.

In that place, I dream on a deck chair just enjoying the sun kisses on my body. I didn't need to think. And I think a lot (during my massage, I caught myself thinking, "What should I think of?"). I normally enjoy it a lot. God forbid if I should ever stop thinking and questioning but recently, I think too much. Sometimes, my head hurts and I have to exert effort to push everything somewhere else.

So bintaN was very good.

And I remember the way we were. I stayed at Nirwana this time too.

I've got a tan, my nose is starting to peel.

Anne dropped a room key into the ocean. Heh. Yes, it's unfortunate but since it happened, let's laugh rather than moan.

There was a dead lizard on the window sill in Joce's room. It freaked me out. We contemplated calling room service, acting helpless and asking for help. In the end, we settled on trying to ignore it.

I want to spend more of my life in other places. Places where I don't have to deal with certain obligations.

I want to travel. It's feeling more and more like a need each day. I want to travel, see new things and people, live in new places and drink the experiences and knowledge and everything that comes from such. I want to learn.

Just now, I watched Gilmore Girls, last ep of season three. I like the show, cry over it and all that. Rory made valedictorian, is estranged from Jess, going to Yale. Dean's getting married, Luke's contemplating going on a trip with a lawyer he's seeing.

I missed too many episodes to catch up but my eyes were not dry when Rory gave her valedictorian speech. Come to think of it, I always tear whenever these graduation bits are shown. I cry for the innocence then try to remember was it that way for me. Poly was strangely adult. Detached by the time we got to the end. Secondary school, I remember the heartbreak as we huddled together and cried.

I cry too because I never had it as beautiful as they show it. I'm not bitter but it would be nice to do that gown and all. Hug classmates you loved and hated and remember it all in a bittersweet painful episode.

I appreciate that type of pain, though as I get older and encounter them more and more, it gets too painful and I get afraid I may dislike it and grow numb.

While watching the show, I had a wild idea that I would plug away so hard I can make valedictorian when I get to uni. But then I realise I don't even know if they still have that at that level and whether I would even qualify to take a shot at it as a student with advanced standing.

But I will try for the Dean's list, if my advanced standing status does not deter me.

No, nothing's finalised. I still don't know whether I am going to Melbourne. Am still waiting for the RMIT admissions director to get back to me on the exemption bit. If he confirmed (please pray!) that I do, then I have to call the IDP to arrange to sit for the Journ entrance test which cost $70. Gee. And if I aced that, I still have to go through a telephone interview. *nervous smile*

I cannot stay where I am for long. That's how I feel right now though I may change my mind. But now, I simply feel that I have to go. Go. Go. Go somewhere. Do something else. I need to be somewhere different so I can be simulated again. Perhaps I want to shake the dust off my feet.

Let's dance.

19:54:

I'm going to bintam tomorrow with Anne, Joce and Serene :) Haven't had a holiday since I started working. Let me see, that was... last June. Yes, I think I need this break. I'm going to lay on a nice deck chair on the beach, wade into the sea to see the fishes, and I will get my pasty white legs and trunk tanned. I WILL relax.

If it sounds like I'm trying to psych myself, I am. I am very much so looking forward to this trip. It's the first time the four of us are going for a holiday together, but I hope I can get out of work mode. Work has been delightfully busy this week. I've been productive, which always makes me want to be more productive. And when I am on a roll, I am on a roll.

When do you know if I'm on a workalcoholic (not)overload? When I am working on an empty stomach into the night, and yet deliriously happy. When my contact lens is dry and I can't help blinking every five second but I'm still vainly taking my time with my words. When I work late yet come into the office on time.

There are many more symptoms, but I have an article to finish now.

Do pray that I'll be able to get some good thinking time and journal writing this trip too. Must think (more) about my life.

Peace out.

:: Oh shoot, I forgot to get my photo byline retaken, I look darn dodgy in my usual one. Shooooot.

15:33.

"What I really enjoy are people who, when they're singing, it feels like, if they didn't sing they wouldn't be alive," [Damien Rice] says. "People who are compelled to do what they do. You can just feel it in their voice, feel it in their words - this type of terrible passion."

_________________________________________________________

If I didn't write, can I live?
If I don't have music, if I cannot play, if I should not be able to sing, will I die?
If I don't have God, there's no "can I?"s, I can't. Not anything.

13:39.

Excerpt from here:

Bono tells of a recent visit to a exhibition of photographs taken by Anton Corbijn, who has worked with the band on most of U2's album covers. As he toured the show, one portrait caught his eye.

"I saw a picture of myself," he says. "I guess I would have been 21, just about to make one of our first videos, and there was a look in the eye that was really striking, and I think it was naivete.

"And somebody, a journalist standing by, asked me, 'What would you say to that person -- like your son -- who is starting out on his journey?'

"And I said: 'You're right.' And there was no arrogance in that remark because I was right in a way then more than I am now.

"Because you learn fear. You learn to walk your step. You sacrifice your innocence for experience. You think that that is what will make you a better writer. You think that, but you're wrong. Clarity is what makes you a better writer, clear thinking. You have all that, in your first face."

_________________________________________________________

I don't know if experience is a lesser aid to the writer's journey than what is commonly accorded it but I do know this: My innocence is being sacrificed. But I'm not a victim.

10:12.

The gender genie says I'm male. Based on the passage below, it concluded that indeed, I write like a man(?!!).


"The time is 10.08am. I sit before my office pc, a new black IBM empowered with WinXP. I like this machine. I like my U2 screensaver and wall picture. I like the fact that I have a cd-rom. I like too how I used to have microsoft office when the rest of the reporters don't. Used to - Those are the opportune words, the spike in the wheels. Like many other things here in my (used-to be) dream office, the programme taken away from me makes me feel robbed."

21:03.

3am, Geylang, I stopped besides a row of durian stalls. The fruit uncle asked me if I was from China. Umm. Then he said I look like Teng Lijun. Double umm.

Woodlands, 3.30am, at my void deck, I paid the cabbie $20.25, wished him a good night, then tottered off - denim jacket over one arm, bulging black sling bag on the other side of the equation, and both hands clutching tightly to the red plastic bag that held my purchases.

My brother hates durians.

And of course, it was 3.40am on a Wednesday morning and my loved ones were asleep. My eyes were dry, my contact lens on my right one dried out, and my stomach protesting against the various dishes I consumed earlier uncharacteristically.

I opened my door, careful not to make the plastic bag rustle too much. I gingerly left the durians on the mat, dumped my bag and stuff on the sofa and rushed to lock the gate. Hey, it was 3am. The world seemed dead but... well, but.

In order to ensure my dear brother did not get unpleasant whiffs of the durians, I bought my wares to the little service balcony outside the kitchen and shut the adjoining door. So at 3.45am on this Wednesday morning, I was opening four big durians with my bare hands and transferring the gain to tuppawares.

Once they were in the fridge, I slipped out to throw the two bags of hollow husks down the shared chute. Thankfully, there were no lizards or cockroaches lurking there.

I walked quietly and fast back home, locked up. Sniffed around to make sure the house has not been taken over by pungent aroma then washed up, cleaned up and went to bed.

Mission accomplished.

15:53.

BBC WORLD SERVICE: SPINNING TO WIN (11 AUGUST 2003)







(??) word/s unsure




Robin Lustig: In times of war, it's not only soldiers who go into battle; so
too do journalists and politicians.



""What we wish to secure is Argentine withdrawal. We've tried for eight
weeks through the Security Council...''



""The difference between interviewing somebody in the safety of the
Pentagon and being caught in an ambush with a bunch of teenagers is immense.''




""It's a helluva thing having some reporter sitting on your right-hand side
as a forward commander when you're making decisions about life and death.''



In this episode of the BBC's Spinning to Win, I'll be looking at what
happens when war is over … in Iraq and elsewhere. Is spinning to win the peace
even more difficult than spinning to win the war? What lessons should we learn
as politicians, soldiers and journalists look back at conflict and examine the
role that they played.



""Our aim is to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and make our world
more secure. The justice of our cause lies in the liberation of the Iraqi
people and to them we say, we will liberate you; the day of your freedom draws
near.''



Professor John McRae: That's the tone, rather like a preacher, giving lots of
pauses for the emotive message to sink in.



Robin Lustig: Professor John McRae is an expert on the art of political
rhetoric at the University of Nottingham. He says the tone as well as the
language that politicians like Tony Blair use is all part of the message they
spin.



Professor John McRae: He's playing this wholly on emotion. And you notice that
when he talks about the weapons of mass destruction there … sideline: of
course we're doing something about weapons of mass destruction … but the
emotive words like "liberation' and "liberty, freedom, justice of our cause',
he's trying to establish a congregation that believes in what he's saying. So
this is a tone of promise, it's a tone of faith, it's almost a preacher's
tone.



""American army is moving at will across whole swathes of Baghdad. This is
just one of the many...''



Robin Lustig: Less than two weeks later, it looked as if Tony Blair's promise
of liberation for the Iraqi people had been delivered.



""...taking place across the whole of the Iraqi capital today.''



""The welcome here has been pretty good. Everybody's helped us out, been
friendly so...''



Then in front of the lenses of the world's television cameras, a giant
statue of Saddam Hussein was brought crashing down.



""The symbolism of this moment just can't be over-estimated. It's just,
with all the...''



Lindsey Hilsum: It was a staged event. The Americans clearly decided that it
was a good thing to do because it would be on prime time television and it
would symbolise the moment when they removed Saddam Hussein.



Robin Lustig: Lindsey Hilsum reported from Baghdad throughout the war for
Britain's Channel Four TV network.



Lindsey Hilsum: But it was not a mass popular thing amongst Iraqis to pull the
statue down. The Iraqis were defacing pictures of Saddam Hussein and so on but
that statue was for American consumption.



""The truth is nobody believes a word now that the Prime Minister...''



Jean Seaton: Wars are about as risky as politics go.



Robin Lustig: Jean Seaton, professor of media history at Westminster
University.



""The truth is some people resent the fact it was right to go to conflict;
we won the conflict...''



Jean Seaton: They really really really sear politicians' futures and of course
sometimes they go well. So the Falklands war left Mrs Thatcher who had been
the most unpopular prime minister since the Second World War, winning the
Falklands war gave her the head of steam and made her popular.

The Iraq war has had a rather different effect, I think probably on this
government.

So you can't, as you go into a war, even if you come out of it fairly well,
know how it's going to play out in terms of politics. And wars are of course
always fabulously political.



Robin Lustig: The political risks became clear within weeks of the end of the
war. Where were the weapons of mass destruction which both President Bush and
Prime Minister Blair had spoken of so often before the war? If it had been
relatively easy to persuade people before the conflict that they did exist, it
became evermore difficult after the war, with tens of thousands of US and
British troops in Iraq and still no sign of the weapons of mass destruction.
The government and their spin doctors had to defend themselves against
accusations that they'd exaggerated or even invented the threat.



""The fact is in the end, in the end, there had been many claims made about
the Iraq conflict … that hundreds of thousands of people were going to die,
that it was going to be my Vietnam, that the Middle East was going to be in
flames and this latest one, that weapons of mass destruction were a complete
invention by the British government.''



Philip Knightley is the author of The First Casualty, a history of war
reporting. He says politicians always claim that wars are necessary in order
to deal with a looming crisis.



Philip Knightley: I believe in certain cases, a crisis can be invented and I
suspect that it will emerge, maybe not in the immediate future but sooner or
later, that the crisis over Iraq, namely the weapons of mass destruction that
had to be destroyed before they were used to destroy us, was an invented
crisis.

We have this man who's very dangerous, he has weapons of mass destruction
and if we don't move soon, he can release these weapons of mass destruction
orders within 45 minutes.



Robin Lustig: When the BBC reported that a senior British official who'd been
involved in preparing a dossier on the Iraqi threat was claiming that the
45-minute warning had been inserted on the insistence of Downing Street, it
led to a major row between the British government and the BBC.

The man who was the main source for the report, a former weapons inspector,
Dr David Kelly, apparently committed suicide after having been publicly
identified and then questioned by a committee of MPs. There's now a judicial
inquiry into the circumstances surrounding his death.

Over the past few years, voters in many countries have come to understand
that governments do tailor their message for political effect and that's true
in times of war, as much as in times of peace.

Professor Greg Philo of Glasgow University who is an expert on public
attitudes says that scepticism in Britain about government claims began during
the 1991 Iraq war.



Professor Greg Philo: Towards the end of the war, there was a huge amount of
criticism of the policy and the way in which it had been sold. So there was an
exposing after the war of outright false information which had been sold or
given to the public.

Now after that, you have a generation of journalists come along who are
much much more critical and the second Gulf War comes along, you see
journalists virtually as you're going along, as you're watching it, sort of
putting down spin doctors and saying ""well, this is from a spin doctor, you
know, we don't know whether to believe it or not'' and who were quite openly
critical on camera. And of course that affects public belief.



Robin Lustig: So is it now much more difficult to mislead people about the
nature of a crisis or the threat posed by a foreign government? If voters are
more sophisticated and if journalists are learning how to tell when a story is
being spun, is propaganda a dying art?

Jamie Shea, director of communications at Nato, had the job of persuading
people that military action in Kosovo in 1999 was justified. He says people
now know too much to be taken in.



Jamie Shea: I believe that propaganda is not something that anybody really
today can get away with because propaganda has always relied upon exploiting
people's ignorance. They believe your truth because they had no other truth to
be confronted with but in the globalised world of today with real time
communications, real time satellite and cable TV, 24-hour-a-day news channels,
embedded reporters who are up in the frontline seeing the action as it takes
place, the idea that you can monopolise the truth, it no longer applies as it
perhaps did in the First World War or the Second World War. So you can only
win the argument by proving that your arguments had more validity than the
arguments of your opponents and that therefore ultimately the cost of inaction
are going to be greater than the cost of action. So you have to win the
intellectual argument as a vital part of winning the military campaign.



Robin Lustig: But propaganda is not necessarily the same as spin. Propaganda
is based on a lie; spin builds on and perhaps sometimes exaggerates the truth.


But the writer and BBC broadcaster Nick Rankin thinks that can be a
dangerous distinction to make.



Nick Rankin: It's too facile to say that all propaganda is lies. All I'm
saying is that it is directed towards an end of persuasion. But then, most
journalism is directed towards an end of persuasion. Most journalism is
propaganda but people are not honest enough to accept it. It doesn't mean it's
lies at all. Every columnist is a propagandist. I mean, I think we just have
to be more frank about it. Everything is spun.

I say, give me character, give me opinion, give me passion. You
get passion, you get propaganda.



Robin Lustig: Not all journalists would accept that analysis but most would
accept that even in times of war, many media bosses have to keep an eye on the
finances as well as on the journalism. Most television companies and most
newspapers are run as commercial concerns and reporting wars is a very
expensive business.

So the public relations analyst Sheldon Rampton says that some American
journalists find that they have to accept the official version of events for
commercial reasons.



Sheldon Rampton: They have bosses and higher-ups to answer to and those bosses
and higher-ups in turn have advertisers and other powerful institutions that
they answer to.



Philip Knightley: I think media bosses have come to learn that in wartime,
their best interest lie in supporting the government of the day no matter what
political stance that government might have.



Robin Lustig: Philip Knightley, the historian of war reporting.



Philip Knightley: And that this also of course is quite good for readership
and viewing figures and all that. I mean, the amount of money spent in
arranging the coverage of the recent Iraq war was enormous. I mean, budgets
that were undreamt of in peacetime were suddenly conjured out of the blue …
$50 million for CNN over and above their normal budget and something like
eight times the normal budget for the BBC … because people expect that the
media of the day will cover the war and the government expects the media of
the day to cover that war in a way that enhances national policy.



Robin Lustig: Many journalists admit that there are questions that they find
it difficult to ask during a war while troops are fighting and dying but which
they then do try to ask once the war is over. That's why the work of
government media managers doesn't stop when the fighting stops. And it's why
more questions are being asked now about weapons of mass destruction and the
alleged links between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda that weren't asked while the
war in Iraq was being fought.

You're listening to Spinning to Win from the BBC World Service. I'm Robin
Lustig.

Television pictures can convey the drama and immediacy of war but the
newspaper reporter George Wilson says that even in the days when he was
reporting from Vietnam, TV could distort the true picture.



George Wilson: I thought that the TV by its very nature was then and is now an
unfair medium because you can have, you know, one, a truck catching on fire
and one dead body and it fills up the TV screen and the impact on the people
in the living room, especially if they suspect that it may be their son lying
there, is tremendous. And it puts the war all out of proportion. So TV by its
very nature is an unfair medium but having said that, it has immense impact.



Robin Lustig: Some critics of modern war reporting argue that it tends to
sanitise war, that it concentrates on the technology, the missiles and the
laser-guided bombs rather than on the casualties that they cause. How many
pictures of the dead and the wounded did American or British television
networks show during the recent war in Iraq? Not many.

The BBC's Gavin Hewitt acknowledges that by seeking to avoid causing
distress to viewers, broadcasters can risk painting an inaccurate picture.



Gavin Hewitt: To me, the biggest issue in terms of reporting of the war … were
we able to get across the number, both of civilians and also of Iraqi soldiers
who were actually killed in this war and I had a concern as to whether we
sanitised it in terms of what we showed and I certainly know that I on
occasions said to my cameraman, ""you know, let's go wide here because we
don't want to show things that will upset people'' and I wonder slightly
whether therefore the historical record is not as accurate as it should be in
terms of what happened particularly on the way into Baghdad.



Robin Lustig: The Arabic satellite TV network Al Jazeera showed many more
pictures of the dead and the dying than did their American and British
counterparts. And the network's news editor, Ibrahim Halal, insists that
because so little of what really happens in war is available to broadcasters,
they must not then impose their own filters.



Ibrahim Halal: We haven't got more than 10 per cent of the reality because it
was a very sophisticated and advanced war. How can we imagine that we are
going to filter this 10 per cent of the reality? It's really unfair to start
filtering the shots and bit of information we have got because we need to be
more comprehensive actually. We need to cooperate together to know better
about this war.



Robin Lustig: Once a war is over, the politicians want to declare victory, the
soldiers want to come home. But if there's no surrender, no formal armistice,
how do you know when it is over?



Sheldon Rampton: The problem for this war in particular is that no one knows
how it's going to end.



Robin Lustig: The public relations analyst, Sheldon Rampton.



Sheldon Rampton: We did have a closing ceremony for the war already, when
George Bush flew in to that aircraft carrier and boasted that he'd flown the
plane himself and then gave a stirring speech to assembled troops.



""Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.''

""We're pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime who will be held to
account for their crimes. We've begun the search for hidden chemical and
biological weapons and we will stand with the new leaders of Iraq as they
establish a government of, by and for the Iraqi people.''



And as far as the public is concerned, and the media for that matter, that
means that the war is already over.

And yet the troops are still in Iraq and there's a steadily mounting death
toll of casualties and there's still quite a large backlog of problems related
to the aftermath of the war.



Robin Lustig: But if the war hasn't really ended, why did the media give the
impression that it has?

Professor Jean Seaton of Westminster University.



Jean Seaton: The media only seem to be able to sustain interest and are only
interested in crisis and short, sharp events. But the kind of long-term
things, we need to understand about the difficulties of installing a new
political regime, of peacekeeping in very dangerous circumstances, those
long-term things, the media doesn't have the attention for and therefore the
public doesn't have the attention for.



Robin Lustig: Politicians often say that winning the peace is just as
important as winning the war. But consolidating peace is a lot more complex
and a lot less pictorial than fighting a war. So is it true that once the
shooting stops, the cameras are packed away and the journalists go home?

Jonathan Baker, foreign news editor at the BBC, says no, not even many
weeks after the bulk of the fighting is over.



Jonathan Baker: We still now have maintained a very substantial journalistic
presence in Baghdad and in the countries around the region. We are still
devoting an awful lot of resources to discussing the post-war situation,
reconstruction, the difficulties that people are having. So to that extent, as
a story, it still retains enormous prominence and we're still putting a lot of
effort into reporting it because it's now moved into a new phase. It may not
be a war anymore but it's still a very important story and the involvement of
the coalition forces in Iraq may last for a year or two.

In crude terms, a story lasts and stays at the top of the bulletins until
it's knocked off by something else and even when it is knocked off by
something else, when there is a major event like the killing of the military
policeman, for example, then it goes back to the top again. But this remains a
really important story for us and will continue to be so for many months to
come, I would have thought.



Robin Lustig: But if the journalists keep on working, so did the media
managers, the spin doctors. It's important to governments to convince voters
that a war has achieved its aim; in the case of Iraq, that it got rid of a
hated tyrant and ushered in a bright new era for the people of that country.

Lindsey Hilsum of Channel Four News.



Lindsey Hilsum: I think that the American-run provisional government in Iraq
now has two major prongs to its media strategy. One is to say that basically
everything is all right; and the second is to say that nothing worked before.
Both of these things are untrue.

The Americans swept away all the systems that made Iraq the most terrifying
repressive state but they also swept away everything that made it work. So
people are no longer living in fear that they will be imprisoned by the Baath
Party but also, people don't get their pensions anymore. There used to be a
system for things like that.

I had a long conversation with a man in the provisional authority who told
me in all seriousness that there was no reason for Iraqis in Baghdad to
complain about the garbage not being collected because the garbage had never
been collected under Saddam Hussein.

I saw the garbage being collected under Saddam Hussein. Of course, there
was garbage collection in Baghdad. Everyone would have died of cholera years
ago if there hadn't been garbage collection in Baghdad. But I think that man,
he believed what he said. They believe it was so terrible, that everything was
so terrible, that however disorganised and so on they are now, it must be
better.



Robin Lustig: And that is the key message that politicians want to get across,
once a war is over. Things are so much better now than they were before, they
say, whether it's in Iraq or Afghanistan or Kosovo, that the war was worth
fighting. But if they spin that message, if they say it's true when it's not,
what example do they set to the people who are meant to be taking over to run
the country in peacetime?

Scarlett McGuire has been involved in post-war democracy programmes in
Kosovo and she has seen the dangers.



Scarlett McGuire: The whole point about democracy is that you don't just put
down dictates. You have to persuade people to vote for you. And what my
experience was was that these politicians had no idea of the process of going
out to the people, persuading the people and getting the people to vote for
you.

Interestingly enough, I met the man who was supposed to be the Prime
Minister's spokesperson to talk to him about how to do it and when I said a
spin doctor, the whole room went, ""No!'' I mean, they really don't want that
bit of the West but, you know, it is important that you talk to them about how
to communicate with people through the radio, through the television, through
public meetings because that's what a democracy is about, it's about
communicating with people to persuade them to vote for you.



Robin Lustig: Soldiers have known for centuries that every war is different.
Journalists and politicians know that too. Yet after every war, they ask:
""What should we have done differently? What will we do differently next
time?''

After the Iraq war, politicians, soldiers and journalists are all asking:
""What worked best for us?'' and specifically, ""Did that process of embedding
war correspondents with frontline troops work as we wanted it to?''

Jonathan Baker at the BBC doesn't think there is a clear answer.



Jonathan Baker: Had there been any serious reversals in the units with which
they were embedded, I think the relationship would have been put under
considerable strain. And I think that's one of the interesting things about
judging this whole embedding exercise, in that it was never really put to the
test because on the whole, this was a highly successful military campaign
which invaded an entire country within three or four weeks.



Robin Lustig: And the verdict of the veteran American war reporter George
Wilson.



George Wilson: When all's said and done, we are in a war for men's minds.
Nobody is after territory anymore. There's no arrows on the map, there's no
burning by Christmas. Things aren't simple like they were in World War Two.
This is total warfare and propaganda is a big part of it.



""We knew that Saddam Hussein was a practised liar. We want to make truth
an issue in this military campaign.''



Robin Lustig: Brian Whitman of the Pentagon has had his wish come true but
perhaps not quite in the way he intended.

Most voters in both America and Britain think that the war in Iraq was
worth fighting but according to opinion polls on both sides of the Atlantic,
they also think that their governments exaggerated the scale of the threat
posed by Saddam Hussein. And now after the apparent suicide of the British
weapons inspector, Dr David Kelly, there are serious questions to be asked
about how the public were prepared for war. Spinning to win a war is one
thing, spinning to win the peace may turn out to be a great deal more
difficult.



E

14:17.

It's nice to be back. A series of not particularly pleasant events led to this move. I may be in the move to share what happen one day but pardon me if I'm not inclined to do so now. Bear with me :)

Amadeo means One Who Loves God in latin. Beautiful, ain't it? Yes, I admit I nicked this info off Anne Rice.

I've resolved to spend today at home, relaxing, sleeping, writing, listening to music and watching silly tv shows. This morning I watched X-Men and Spiderman on Kids Central. Of course, there are a couple more reasons as to why I am homebound today. One, I'm still recovering from a bad bout with throat infection and fever (I took three days off work this week) and two, I've horribly overspent.

Very bad, especially when I'm supposed to be saving for my studies.

I have more or less made up my mind to go to Australia next Feb for my BA. Now, it's all up to God to open the door or not. Whichever it is, I am restful. Going by His track record, I know Daddy only does what's best for me.

I'm excited. Rather so indeed. I should apply for both UniMel and RMIT - even though I have decided on RMIT - at the Study in Aust fair happening end of this month. A month or so later, I should know whether I am accepted or not. That is, if I don't need to go through two or three interviews. I'm aiming for the BA in Communication (Journalism) and the school's website said there are two interviews and a test to ascertain one's suitability.

Gee, unnerving.

In a goood way.