February 2012
29 posts
Um, hi
Well. Here I am. I gave in. Still a little cynical, mostly a believer, but largely jaded. You and I, I know we have deep unresolved issues, but if by some miracle You haven’t given up on me, I sort of really need You now. I’m not asking for a solution, just for someone to hold my hand.
“Four years ago I was just a guy who had a crush on a girl who had a boyfriend....”
– Jim Halpert (The Office)
1 tag
Yours, but Mine too
When your close friends started seeing me as their friend too, a part of me was fulfilled. There is no better sense of belonging and approval than the one you receive from the people who love the person you love. It might not have been a big deal to you, but the warmth I felt is not something you easily forget even after it falls apart. After so long of feeling like I was never good enough, it was...
1 tag
1 tag
Ambivalence
If it comes down to picking sides, I would like to think the people I would give my life for would choose me fully, completely and wholeheartedly. In short, I would like to be top priority of the person whom I put as top priority. But I’d never ask and I never want to know, because I doubt I could cope if you hesitated for a split second or if the answer was anything less. As much as one...
Endovanera: I won't change →
endovanera:
“You have not been through that much of shit in your life”
Oh really? I haven’t? What would you know, when you didn’t take the time to get to know me but rather passed your judgement based on what you knew about me for a period of time. I don’t really talk about my past in detail because its not…
Sigh. I rarely use that word - sigh - in my posts but that is all I feel like...
Re: I have nothing more to say
Hey there.
What does it mean to miss someone? Is it the longing and the wishing for things to be like they were before? Or is it the simple lack of a familiar presence in your life? Someone once told me you never fully give a shit about missing someone until you pick up the phone and tell them. I haven’t done any such thing and neither do I plan to, so perhaps I don’t miss you all...
1 tag
Desperation
We need to talk. I want to see your face and be there in person when I ask you what I’ve, until recently, been pushing under the carpet. It is a big deal, so please handle my heart with care. Words are meaningless unless they’re felt and meant, and I will mean every single syllable that will escape my lips — so listen. Most of all, to the way my voice breaks when I try to play...
1 tag
Rifle
“verb.
You told me to get the money for the pizza from your wallet. So I had permission, I swear. You were five dollars short, but your driver’s license photo was worth me making up the difference. And then I found the photo behind your health insurance card: you and me in front of the bay in San Francisco. I remember you stopping that woman and asking her to take the picture, and how...
1 tag
The end
At one point, he feels it’s his duty to impart words of wisdom to me so he says, “You’re only 21, don’t tie yourself down. Live my life. If you cannot imagine yourself marrying the guy you’re with now, just break up lah.”
“I never stay with someone I cannot see myself marrying. If you’re a friend, you’d know that,” I reply,...
Portfolio building
—
And the best news of the week goes to landing my Cosmopolitan (Singapore) internship. Come May, I will officially be running errands, ironing clothes for photoshoots, going for food tasting events that my editors might not have the time to go for, rubbing shoulders with possible industry contacts, writing articles (fingers crossed!), jumping right back into the physically hectic life...
1 tag
Koi No Yokan (Japanese):
“The sense upon first meeting a person that the two of you are going to fall into love.
This is different than “love at first sight,” since it implies that you might have a sense of imminent love, somewhere down the road, without yet feeling it. The term captures the intimation of inevitable love in the future, rather than the instant attraction implied by love at first sight.”
On...
'Let me in or let me go'
How long does a heart take to heal?
Why do you hurt the ones you love, and why does the reverse make sense too?
When is the right time to love yourself more than you love another?
Why is it important to experience loss, but just barely enough for you to appreciate the next love affair instead of closing yourself off permanently?
Who is the person staring back at you in the mirror and do...
flight dreams
I often dreamt of flying when I was younger. Such dreams supposedly meant
that I had feelings of entrapment in my real life. It was true. Back then I believed
I was determined to lead a life my parents would be proud of: I would attain
a degree, a job, remain a Christian, marry a nice girl. During those days, I would fly
off balconies, jump off the tops of flats and swim through air for...
Happy Valentine's Day x
One day, I want to celebrate this commercial holiday with the most overused and cliche date: roses, dinner at fancy restaurant, movies, and then an intimate activity. Just to see what the big hoo-ha is about. (I’ll try to last one whole day without cringing.) In the meantime, I will enjoy it the way I like most: quiet Valentine’s Days spent lazing around in bed, soft kisses, and...
Rumination
(The first time I heard this word, it was in my Graphic Communication lecture in poly. Now every time I use it, I think of my lecturer who asked us to ‘just google me’ when giving a self-introduction.)
We discussed the Singapore political scene today in sociology tutorial. I found myself speaking up a lot more than usual, and being extremely critical of the government and their...
Awry
“I fall in love with you again every day, y’know,” I told you once.
And I meant it. There were new subtleties in your actions that I managed to spot every day, as if I was viewing you through a different lens each day. The way you managed to make me smile with a new type of joke; the sheer depth and immensity of some of your thoughts; the way you brushed perspiration off your...
sleepingtigers:
Back on this topic I’m sorry but just how does a writer fall in love with someone that doesn’t share that depth with words and outward emotions spilling and toppling and tripping all over the place. Tripping over ourselves tripping over the love constantly needing to form and wrap our lips around some sort of idea that just might clarify how much it is we feel. As if it were even...
Build character, not CAP
—
Before uni started, I was talking to a good friend from Arts camp one night. Like geeky students who had been deprived education so long (him, because of his nation-serving stint and me, because I took a break), we were looking at possible modules to take on and the two of us were two kids in a candy store over the prospect of learning again.
There were a few modules we chanced upon...
1 tag
#photostash
Clearing my SD card and finding the most precious pictures consisting of (1) the cover of my new journal that I plan to use from cover to cover, (2) a birthday gift for my sister from my better half and myself, (3) look! It holds cute charms too, (4) notes for a really horrid module, (5) research — I’m serious! Guess who landed an internship interview with Cosmo SG...
lifeofgenius asked: Are we cut from the same cloth, leaves from the same tree, singing different songs, to the same melody?
1 tag
Remains of a recollection
In a year, I will forget the light banter we had over drinks one December night. The air was heavy with unfulfilled hopes of the year and we were all but pouring our hearts out. Lights sporadically lined the deserted alleyway that guided our tipsy selves to a waiting cab. Your eyes were sparkling and I suspect it was an effect of alcohol (on you as much as on me), although in a year’s time,...
Recovery
Forgetting you, in loving someone else, Is no less painful than the pressing wounds; When she loves someone else, the many hells I go through seem to know no bounds.
It is part soul, part instinct after all, To draw the utmost pain into a trap And sterilise the wounds with alcohol. None of this owes to mishap.
You broke my heart so badly that the only Way I can recover is to let Somebody else...
2 tags
Adulthood (n.)
The proverbial brick that hits you when you reach your twenties, very often leaving you floundering in a pool of where-the-fuck-did-time-go.
The sinking feeling that starts to descend approximately around the time you see people you went to school with start to get married and having a kid. Or two. Chancing upon photos of their weddings and marriage life on Facebook might result in...
Lil thingz
The other day during Singapore Lit, Cyril Wong (and that marks a record high of two Cyrils I know of) came down to give a guest lecture. It wasn’t a lecture lecture per se (what am I trying to say); more of an informal exchange of ideas and free flow of thoughts about poetry, writing, Singapore society (cue nervous laughter) and other things that inspire this fine man.
Oh wow, an...
Bygones be bygones
The heart is a labyrinth. There exists tiny dips and curves that you discover all over again no matter how many times you’ve walked the boulevard of broken dreams. Oh Green Day.
The other day I stumbled upon the corner that houses memories from seven years ago. I dreamt of you that night. Why hi there, I didn’t think you still existed, I mused. I maintain that ex boyfriends should...
A distressed flow
Motivation and Momentum are shunning me like the plague. This is very bad - I am not even half the motivated one I was last semester. Why do these elusive periods of Hardworking-ness come and go?
Please stay.
Just one night?
Long enough for me to sit still without fidgeting?
Is this what they call the Semester Two Blues? Because they are hardly blue. Blue is a wonderful colour, calm and...
January 2012
27 posts
1 tag
In between breaths
Freedom: It tastes sweeter ever since I moved out of my hall room on campus and back home. Sheer irony, considering how I left home in order to regain my grasp on freedom and escape the tendrils of my mom’s incessant nagging. I can’t say that life in hall was for me because there were enough obligations for me to run fast and far away. Perhaps all I needed was the extra time and space...
1 tag
"I don't think I've enjoyed National Day so much...
—
I began this post originally wanting to wax lyrical about how much I miss you, but damn that couldn’t make you fly home from Melbourne immediately. Then I chanced upon the most random photo of us ever - you were 16, and I, 17. It was our nation’s birthday and we were holed up in a suite in the hotel overlooking the Marina Bay floating platform. Your brother’s friends...
1 tag
Listen
I try to tell you all the reasons I look at you with sadness in my eyes but I need you to hear what I’m not saying. I know it’s not the easiest thing, but please try to see past my walls.
▲
“In Physics, the triangle represents the Greek letter Delta which means ‘change.’”
I just gave a good friend the synopsis of my life story. Halfway through I had a mild revelation that my opinions were the perfect snapshot of a wilful, stubborn child all grown up. Change is the only constant, they say. And it’s true - you go through life thinking you’re...
Heather Weather
She is one of the special ones.
Tuesday night: We sat at Mos Burger starting the conversation with topics of utmost importance: internship (for her) and school (for me), filling each other in with the details of our lives and being amazed as usual at our similar points of view like how we both treasure alone time and she was telling me she would like hanging out alone in uni and going for...
1 tag
Naked
There are a lot more paragraphs and stories I wrote about you before you were mine. Buried somewhere in cyberspace. Or in the deep recesses of an Asian girl’s mind. Some feelings are so intimate I don’t even want to revisit them for fear of tainting a delicate memory. I like the idea that I once noticed you from the corner of my eye. I was drowning and you saved me. Unknowingly, but...
2 tags
The worst kinds
Everyone thinks the most painful kinds of love are the ones that got away. Or the ones that stay unrequited for years; one party falling, the other guarding. Or the ones that you can predict are never going to work out, but you try anyway. Or even the ones that tear you down and spit you out.
But I think the worst kinds are the ones that never really begin. The ones that rest on the laurels and...
Singapore Dream vs Singapore Plan →
Spent the last ten minutes reading the linked article that accurately (albeit a little dated) depicts the life of most Singaporeans and unfortunately, some people I know. I titled it as such, although it’s not the actual title, because it’s the main gist of the article. So often in pursuit for our version of perfection do we misinterpret success as matching up to everyone else’s...
1 tag
Peach
In ten years I would probably forget this day.
The sun is scorching today / the air smells dusty, musty, I can’t tell / there is a fog of laziness enveloping us / I am sitting on the mattress and looking at my favourite person sleep and thinking yes it’s true what they say / you never truly realise how much you love a person until you watch them sleep / watch them in their most...
2 tags
Number 4: a haiku
Dear Gemini boy who came my way, I hope you’ll be the one to stay
2 tags
The role of a former lover
—
I think perhaps,
the moment we open our hearts to another, albeit cautiously, a part of them always lives on within us. The proof is in living through some days with a memory or a thought tugging at the string that connects two disparate souls that once breathed as one; and all at once we feel the sadness and happiness and anguish they go through, and if every scar marks its place then...
Things I need to learn
Just because people are not like you doesn’t mean they’re ‘bad’. They’re simply different and if you can’t handle it, just stay away. Don’t allow them to provoke you because that just ensures you revel in the addictive therapy of complaining like a whiny self-absorbed teenager. Of which I am not. A teenager, that is.
Keep Calm, Grace.
Keep Calm and Start...
carriemp asked: If I could like that post about being an introvert fifteen thousand times, I would do it.
So I am an Introvert
At the risk of sounding self-indulgent, I self-reflect my way through life. Especially when faced with people or scenarios of an epic proportion on the scale of tolerance. Tonight my introversion kicked in big time. I could feel the weight of my bones straining under blankets of idle chit-chat, being overly sociable and other extroverted actions.
I do not relish small talk. Nothing more bores me...
A major change
I am contemplating a change in major. It’s still early in the sem but oh lord the possibility is weighing on my mind. Oh Grace, you really know how to fuck things up.
1 tag
1 tag
1 tag
An odd shaped love
—
‘The right person at the wrong time is still the wrong person.’
A friend tweeted that yesterday and I can’t begin to tell you how much I’ve turned that sentence over in my head, analyzing it from all angles. You don’t need ostentatious words to describe a sentiment shared by many. A simple sentence like that hit home immediately.
I always thought you...