TGIFriday!

i woke up in a good mood this morning.

firstly, all my emails were delivered last night. i had an email notification from globe wireless informing me that all the emails i've written to andy have been delivered to the vessel SARKU CLEMENTINE. bingo! money makes the world go round. well, at least it makes mine go round.

secondly, i'm all prepared for my WHITE PARTY tonight. i'm wearing white pants, a white singlet, and my powder blue heels. and i even brought 2 choices of hats - a white golfer hat, and a white with grey and white camouflage side-print cowboy hat.

to not appear too stark, i've decided to wear my granny shawl over my white ensemble. i'm beginning to like this shawl more and more! mum knitted it for me, and it's pink and blue wool, so it looks almost lavender from a distance. it's knitted with big holes, so it really looks like a granny shawl. i pinned it up with pink woollen flower brooch that kim gave me, and it looks great!

so that upped my peace factor. everything is going as planned. i stepped out of my house, and it was such a beautiful day! it's the kind of days where you just wanna lie on the back of a boat and sun tan! there was a mild breeze and the sun was brilliant! i got into my car and decided that im going to drive with my windows down.. and enjoy as much of this beautiful day before i get locked into the air-con'd madness of my office.

my hair got a little messy, but it's cool. and as i was driving, i remembered what andy said, to roll down the back windows a tad, if you don't want your hair to be all over your face when driving with the windows down. soo clever you are sweetheart. but not today. i wanted to feel the wind in my hair.. trucks and vans scuttled past me, sending their exhaust fumes in my direction... pooooi!! but it's alright.. i'm all in white, and feeling peaceful.

then i parked my car, and it was all over. once i turned off the engine, and stepped out of my car, the fire alarm at the marriott hotel went off, and the bell was (of all places!) right next to my lot! in the middle of this chaos, i was torn between moving my car, and covering my ears from the shrill ringing. i chose to run. yes, in my powder blue heels, oh sooo pretty, but sooo difficult you are. i ran to the lift, and as murphy's law would allow it, both of them were stuck. yes, stuck! god knows where, i wouldn't give a damn even if they were stuck between a camel's arse.. but they were stuck!

left without a choice, i went down, the fire escape stairs, in my powder blue heels, trying to ignore the loud clacking that's reverberating through the echo-ey stairwell of the damn'd marriott hotel. you would think a glamourous hotel like marriott would have a carpeted stairwell, but NO, they were tiled and loud against the glamourous heels that their glamourous patrons would normally be wearing. and the corners were yellowed with stains of origins i don't even want to imagine. gawd. so much for peace. and yes, the alarms were still going.

i finally got to the first floor (thank god!) and out into the open. as i headed for the hotel entrance, a uniformed man tapped me gently on the shoulder and said, "excuse me m'am, we are having a fire drill right now, so i'm afraid you are not allowed into the hotel at the moment. please walk around the hotel and you may go out of the area from there.." and he pointed in a direction AWAY from my office building. groan. i guess it's NOT over..

and so i walked. around the building, past the smelly drains, along with Clinique girls in their clean WHITE uniforms and thick, immaculate make-up. as i tried to steer away from them, someone shouted into a loudhaler beside me, "PLEASE GATHER IN THE FRONT OF THE BUILDING TO MARK YOUR ATTENDANCE!" That's just great. if it wasn't enough of a chore to be teetering my way through the back alleys of the hotel, it sure made me feel ten times worse to be herded along as another hotel/department store staff, to be marked and have my obedience noted.

this lady, who was in the same predicament as me, turned around and said to me "my god! not only do they not apologise to us, they treat us like we're hotel staff!" i gave her a weak smile, too tired to comment. on with the aviators. and trudge.

sigh. i did get into the office, eventually, still white and pristine. but i'm thinking to myself right now, that perhaps air-con'd madness isn't really that bad after all.

andy, you're a star

On the field I remember you were incredible
Hey shut up, hey shut up, yeah
On the field I remember you were incredible
Hey shut up, hey shut up, yeah
On the match with the boys, you think you're all alone
With the pain that you drain from love
In a car with a girl, promise me she's not your world
Cause Andy, you're a star

Leave your number on the locker and I'll give you a call
Hey shut up, hey shut up, yeah
Leave your legacy in gold on the plaques that line the hall
Hey shut up, hey shut up, yeah

On the streets, such a sweet face jumping in town
In the staff when the verdict is in
In a car with a girl, promise me she's not your world

Cause Andy, you're a star
In nobody's eyes but mine

Andy, you're a star
In nobody's eyes but mine

Andy, you're a star
In nobody's eyes
In nobody's eyes but mine

- The Killers, Hot Fuss (2005)

dichotomy

i woke up one saturday morning, after a big bad friday night, and decided to write a blog in friendster. strange enough, i didn't know what to say. after much deliberation, i realised that i had a mental block because i was thinking of all those people i had in my friendster list. people from all corners and milestones of my life. and i realised that i was policing my thoughts because of the possibility of all these people reading my blog. so, i ended up with a rant. this is what i wrote.

Zen and the art of blogging

my first blog. first words to be reverberated across the world wide web. they'll never come back to me. echoes are only formed when there are barriers to the soundwaves we create. and if the world wide web is really as infinite as they say, they'll never come back to me.

nonsense.

you'll never know who's reading your blog, forming the barriers of your reverberations and transmitting them into a gazillion directions. interesting. microscopic analysis? or sheer paranoia? but what forms the barriers of words, and your thoughts, as you think about what to type into this white space in front of you? can i say that my neighbour looks like a mutant bullfrog and still be able to look him in the eyes with a cheery "good morning!"?

americans can do that. easily. freedom of speech has probably inculcated an overly-projected sense of pride in their personal words and opinions without feeling shame or guilt towards anyone. (here's where i am feeling the reverberations of my words echo through the star-spangled barriers of the world wide web.) not in our asian culture though. our culture is based on a sense of propriety, where everything we do has to be right and proper. we shouldn't say that your "yee shook" is a dirty old man even though you've seen him prowling the lorongs of geylang on one of your late night supper sessions. that's because he's your uncle, he's your elder, he's your auntie's wife, and your cousins' father. propriety keeps us in our places, and holds our tongue, and so the dirty linen will always be half-dried in the damp, musky basement.

so what goes into a blog? the art of balance? the art of withholding your opinions without sacrificing the ability to formulate your character and a distinct sense of self in the world wide community? how often do you police your words when you're faced with a blank space to scribble and write anything and everything you want?

maybe i am over-analysing the situation. blogging isn't just about opinions. you can turn it into an online diary for your friends who are overseas. including those whom you've never met, and profess to be a sexy 21 year old nymph when they're actually a drunken red-neck lookin for some fun. ok, i'm kiddin. forgive my sardonic humour. it's probably the alcohol from the previous night talking right now. i'll be nicer in a few hours.

well, blogging can be fun. and i don't deny that artists with immense bursts of creativity can turn a blog into a beautiful and sensory experience for those who are keen to take a walk down their aisle. if i could publish my own website, (and i don't mean this one cos this is just a convenient third arm that suddenly extended from my friendster page) i would want a constantly morphing site, themes, ideas, senses. but that, really, wouldn't be executable within my means. cos i am just a writer, the only software i know how to use is microsoft word. and internet explorer.

so i'll leave blogging to the experts. until i can figure out the time and thoughts, and skills, to put a speck of myself on the face of the world wide web.

but why would i wanna do that? right?!?!

sounds like a complete smokescreen eh? no one will ever know that i'm a closet blogger! in twenty minutes, i had turned myself into a hypocrite and created an incredible dichotomy in my life. perhaps it was my doppelganger speaking. yes! that's what it was... the halo'd devil appeared and took over the control of my fingers. perfect.

and so my friends, the horn'd angel is back.

missing you...

... so much, my heart aches. i tell myself i have to be strong, i'll manage, it's only gonna be three weeks. yeah, three weeks. it'll pass quickly, they all say.

not when you're missing someone.

i wake up every morning with a feeling that something's missing. i may have a packed schedule, but it still feels empty. no matter how much i try to fill up my day, i can never fill up that gaping hole inside.

and i'm feeling it right now. it's growing and growing, encapsulating my mind. i was doing fine the whole day, until the email i wrote to you bounced. i realised that i may not be able to talk to you for the next 20 days. i'm thinking of you, coming back from your bell run, expecting an email from me, but there is none. and that really shits me. it really shits me! URRRGHHH!!!

right now, my world is as bleak as a stormy day in antartica.

sisters

my lovely sisters. what will i do without them? this piccie was taken on my birthday this year, at the zouk wine bar. i'm not big on birthdays, they come every year. but this year, i had my sisters with me.. and it was real nice. of course, it would've been better if andy was here. but he was away at work, so too bad. there's always next year. but he called, from the chamber, and i was thrilled! he called to say happy birthday, which absolutely pleased me to bits! i was missing him very very much really. but wait! this isn't about andy! hahahaha... (though i love you very very much, sweetheart! xxx)

THIS, is about my sisters. charlyn (in pink), eileen (on my right) and stephanie (oh soo sweet! in striped baby blue). there's also jac, and karen, but they weren't there that night. sisters. girlfriends. girls in da hood. whatever they're called.. i know they're dope. and they always will be! *wink*

charlyn. she's gonna be an architect some day. well, maybe not. but right now, she's an "eleet modle". she's got a day job interning in an architecture firm. thank god for that, else we won't be able to msn the whole day. that night, she met her friend wayne (aka DJ Koflow) at the wine bar, and well, we kinda hijacked his table when more and more of our friends came! but he's nice, he didn't seem to mind, and we all made friends with his friends too. actually, i remember Koflow from the Herbaliser party a coupla months back, when he did a set with NDC, but i didn't know him then.

eileen, my partner-in-crime, and queen of verbal diarrhoea. evil has a new name when viv and eileen get together! well, actually, hmmm.. our names together really spell "evil"! haha. alright, i'm not about to publish our crimes, for that would absolutely be suicide for the both of us. but we know how grateful we are for having someone to share our bad! *wink*

stephanie comes closest to being my real sister. apparently, we look alike. well, you decide. quite a few people have asked if she's my sister when i introduce her to them. the next time, i'm just gonna say "yes! pretty right?!" i met steph when she joined my agency as a fresh AE, and now, she's gone to greener pastures. sooo proud of you steph! but this old cow's gonna stay and snooze in our comfortable old grounds.. *grunt*.. haha.


jac. i love this picture of us, taken at the KL asian x-games, 2002. it reminds me of those days when we were both FANATIC about wakeboarding. well, her more than me! i couldn't wake up to go riding at 730am, and make it into the office at 10. but she did! she's nuts. but it's cool. these days, she's splittin her love between wakeboarding and diving, which, of course, i can't join her with my fish-phobia. maybe one day. who knows. andy got me a plastic goldfish with a rattling tail, and put it my car. i've named it slimbob. well, that's a start. i actually like slimbob. hmm.

karen's the third angel, besides me and jac. we were called "stephen's angels" cos we used to ride together all the time.. stephen, jac, karen and me. that's bronson, our little brother, trying to look like pimp daddy. he was definitely going through a phase then.. as kids do! anyway, we had some real good times, the angels.. and karen's always the bait when we needed to get anything from a guy. just send karen. and he'll say yes. to anything. i mean, just look at her!! ;-) sooo pweeety!

first words

finally.

i am here. i am not archaic. i am not a dinosaur. i am not a fuddy-duddy.

i am a blogger. i have caught up with the times. yay.

i still remember the day when i first heard the word "blog". someone used it in an email to me, very casually, as a verb, like "... oh, i blogged the day's event.." or something to that extent. i conveniently brushed it aside, as i would to any new-fangled, unfamiliar word. not another -ism. not another internet fad. friendster was my last attempt to keep up with the internet revolution.

well, here i am now. singing a different tune. all thanks to a very special sister of mine, whose blogs have touched me in her special ways. and i guess, with my failing memory, it would be nice to keep some bits of my life floating in cyberspace, stored in the infinite drawers of the world wide web.

so if you will, walk with me, and perhaps, you'll find the inspiration to begin your own journey!