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.