Iceman In Iceworld

Wishing

2012-02-01T10:51:00.001-08:00

I've never tried to count how long it's been since we met
but I feel like spending more time with you.
In a day that will soon give in to nightfall, you always finally call
"Let's meet over there now," I am saved by those words.
Maybe it's because I've had a lot of experience with this kind of thing.
So much that it's mysterious, I can feel you near me.

I'm sorry for always relying on you, it's just that I can't do anything myself...
More than anyone else, I'm praying that the dream you drew in your heart comes true.
That you can be happy together with that person you love so much.

When the things I've been storing up for so long suddenly come flowing out,
you cried with me by my side, and we laughed.
Countless as the stars, again and again we meet and break up.
At that time I lost more than I gained, but it's different now.

Instrumental:

Worst 10 Words in the English Dictionary

2012-01-30T20:44:00.000-08:00

A few friends and I were at Wala last night discussing the worst 10 words ever invented in the EL dictionary. Which I thought was an interesting topic.

We went one round and shared our personal worst words.

1) Paradigm. You've gotta read Dilbert by Scott Adams to appreciate this. Even the word that usually comes after that, 'shift', is more useful. What the fuck's paradigm anyway? It's anything you want it to be. Use it, and immediately you sound more impressive than you really are.

Example:

Education is a paradigm where BLAH BLAH BLAH.
The company is experiencing a paradigm shift. (Meaning: We're downsizing, getting rid of a few morons.)

2) BLAH BLAH BLAH: If you know something, say it. If not, shut up. Why use BLAH? OR YADA? Or etc? Or et al?

3) Fine. A fine 4 letter f word that has been badly mangled, mostly by the female species in our society to mean something meaner than what it was supposed to mean.

Example:

You're not fucking me tonight? Fine. (Meaning: I'm finding someone else to fuck.)

4) Think-out-of-the-box. This is of course more like a phrase than word. It's used by people who fail to look at things from your point of view, so they want to make you look stupid when they themselves are the ones who can't think out of the box.

Example: Killing your 2-year-old baby now is the only way out of your financial woes, my friend. Why can't you think out of the box a bit?

5) Weird. A word that people use on me often. I hate it when they do it cos it's an excuse they use for not understanding what I'm thinking. It's also a subtle hint to indicate that they somehow don't agree with my unconventional lifestyle. I mean, notice how they don't use better words like 'unique' or 'special'.

Example: Iceman, you're fucking weird, man. I mean, what kind of human being are you anyway? (Meaning: You loser. Kiss my arse.)

6) Strategic. Often a word to cover up for 'scheming'.

Example:

Getting yourself promoted by sucking your bosses' cock is a strategic move. (Meaning: Backstab your way to the top. It's the only way.)

7) Seem. It's a terrible word, if you catch my drift. It means you're really not sure of the facts. Just last night, an old friend was nice enough to recommend me to a kid for tuition and said this: Iceman seems to be a good English teacher as his students follow him.

I mean, don't get me wrong. I am eternally grateful to her for her recommendation as I did manage to clinch the deal. If not for her lies, my dwindling bank account would not have been boosted, if only by just a bit. However. What does she mean exactly when she says my kids follow me? Are they fucking stalkers?

8) Apparently. Another useless word that's used when people don't know what else to say. A kind of filler. If it's so apparent, why do you need to say it in the first place?

Example: Apparently, Obama died. Wait, or is it Osama? (Duh.)

9) Awesome. This used to be a good word, but our teenagers have cheapened the word to make it mean a lot less awesome than it used to be.

Example:

I managed to find an empty seat in a crowded MRT train. It was an awesome experience.

Honestly, what the fuck's wrong with our kids nowadays? Has their depth of experience, or lack of it, been deadened by mindless computer screens in this technological age?

10) Nice. Everything is nice. Iceman is a nice man. That doesn't say anything, does it? Why can't they choose better adjectives to describe me? Like awesome?

I can think of more words, but these are the ones I can come up with so far. I'm sure this list will expand as I go along in this blog entry. Sir, any more suggestions?

The Son of Neptune Part 4

2012-01-28T02:39:00.000-08:00

“There has to be a way,” she said.
“Don’t Amazons have ... special powers or something?”

“No more than other demigods,” Hylla said.
“We can die, just like any mortal.
There is a group of archers who follow the goddess Artemis.
They are often mistaken for Amazons, but the Hunters forsake
the company of men in exchange for almost endless life.
We Amazons — we would prefer to live life to the fullest.
We love, we fight, we die.”

~~ page 370

He’d seen the Underworld firsthand.
He had felt what it was like to sit forever doing nothing,
just regretting your mistakes.
He’d looked up at those creepy goldmasks on the judges of the dead
and realized that he would stand before them someday, maybe very soon.

~~ page 388

“Life is only precious because it ends, kid. Take it from a god.
You mortals don’t know how lucky you are.”

~~ page 406

Mars shrugged. “Every hero has a fatal flaw.
Percy Jackson? He’s too loyal to his friends.
He can’t give them up, not for anything.
He was told that, years ago.
And someday soon, he’s going to face a sacrifice he can’t make.
Without you, Frank — without your sense of duty — he’s going to fail.
The whole war will go sideways, and Gaea will destroy our world.”

Frank shook his head. He couldn’t hear this.
“War is a duty,” Mars continued. “The only real choice
is whether you accept it, and what you fight for.”

~~ page 407

The Son of Neptune Part 3

2012-01-27T21:40:00.000-08:00

“When you were born, he was so pleased and proud.
He promised me anything. He swore on the River Styx.
I asked for all the riches he had.
He warned me the greediest wishes cause the greatest sorrows.
But I insisted. I imagined living like a queen — the wife of a god!
And you ... you received the curse.”

~~ page 234 - 235

You were born with too many gifts.
That sort of power tends to burn out a mortal life.

~~ page 275

“What do you want?”

“I don’t have any choice,” Frank said.
“I’m the son of the stupid war god. I have to go on this quest and ...”

“Have to,” Iris said. “Not want to. I used to think like that.
Then I got tired of being everyone’s servant.
Fetch goblets of wine for Jupiter. Deliver letters for Juno.
Send messages back and forth
across the rainbow for anyone with a golden drachma.”

“A golden what?”

“Not important. But I learned to let go. I started R.O.F.L.,
and now I’m free of that baggage. You can let go, too.
Maybe you can’t escape fate.
Someday that piece of wood will burn.
I foresee that you’ll be holding it when it happens,
and your life will end ...”

“Thanks,” Frank muttered.

“... but that just makes your life more precious!
You don’t have to be what your parents and your grandmother expect.
You don’t have to follow the war god’s orders, or Juno’s.
Do your own thing, Frank! Find a new path!”

Frank thought about that. The idea was thrilling:
reject the gods, his destiny, his dad.
He didn’t want to be a war god’s son. His mother had died in a war.
Frank had lost everything thanks to a war.
Mars clearly didn’t know the first thing about him.
Frank didn’t want to be a hero.

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked.
“You want me to abandon the quest, let Camp Jupiter be destroyed?
My friends are counting on me.”

Iris spread her hands. “I can’t tell you what to do, Frank.
But do what you want, not what they tell you to do.
Where did conforming ever get me?
I spent five millennia serving everyone else,
and I never discovered my own identity.
What’s my sacred animal? No one bothered to give me one.
Where are my temples? They never made any. Well, fine!
I’ve found peace here at the co-op.
You could stay with us, if you want. Become a ROFLcopter.”

“A what, now?”

“The point is you have options.
If you continue this quest ... what happens when you free Thanatos?
Will it be good for your family? Your friends?”

Frank tried to imagine staying here with Iris,
putting on a R.O.F.L. shirt,
selling crystals and dream catchers to demigod travelers
and lobbing gluten-free cupcake simulations at passing monsters.
Meanwhile, an undying army would overrun Camp Jupiter.
You can be anything, his mother had said.
No, he thought. I can’t be that selfish.
“I have to go,” he said. “It’s my job.”

~~ page 278 - 280

“Don’t lose hope, Frank.
Rainbows always stand for hope.”

~~ page 283

“I can’t foresee the outcome. Annoying how that works.
A completely unexpected gamble ... it makes the future cloudy.
But I can tell you this, Percy Jackson ... a bit of free advice.
If you survive today, you’re not going to like your future.
A big sacrifice is coming, and you won’t have the courage to make it.
That will cost you dearly. It will cost the world dearly.
It might be easier if you just choose the poison.”

Percy’s mouth tasted like Iris’s sour green tea.
He wanted to think the old man was just psyching him out,
but something told him the prediction was true.
He remembered Juno’s warning
when he’d chosen to go to Camp Jupiter:
You will feel pain, misery, and loss beyond anything you’ve ever known.
But you might have a chance to save your old friends and family.

~~ page 330

The Son of Neptune Part 2

2012-01-26T23:03:00.000-08:00

It was like Percy had faced death before,
like he knew about grief.
What mattered was listening.
You didn’t need to say you were sorry.
The only thing that helped was moving on — moving forward.

~~ page 133

“No power comes without a price, Fai,” she said.
“Before the goddess disappeared, she pointed at the fire and said,
‘He will be the strongest of your clan, and the greatest.
But the Fates have decreed he will also be the most vulnerable.
His life will burn bright and short.
As soon as that piece of tinder is consumed —
that stick at the edge of the fire —
your son is destined to die.’”

~~ page 142

“If left unchecked,” Mars continued,
“even mortals will eventually find it impossible to die.
Can you imagine a world in which no one dies — ever?”

Octavian raised his hand.
“But, ah, mighty all-powerful Lord Mars,
if we can’t die, isn’t that a good thing?
If we can stay alive indefinitely ...”

“Don’t be foolish, boy!” Mars bellowed.
“Endless slaughter with no conclusion?
Carnage without any point?
Enemies that rise again and again and can never be killed?
Is that what you want?”

“You’re the god of war,” Percy spoke up.
“Don’t you want endless carnage?”

Mars’s infrared goggles glowed brighter.

“Insolent, aren’t you? Perhaps I have fought you before.
I can understand why I’d want to kill you.
I’m the god of Rome, child.
I am the god of military might used for a righteous cause.
I protect the legions.
I am happy to crush my enemies underfoot, but I don’t fight without reason.
I don’t want war without end."

~~ page 168

“The point is, Percy, you are the real power on this quest.
You are a seasoned veteran. I’ve seen what you can do.
A son of Neptune wouldn’t be my first choice,
but if you return successfully from this mission,
the legion might be saved.
The praetorship will be yours for the taking.
Together, you and I could expand the power of Rome.
We could raise an army and find the Doors of Death,
crush Gaea’s forces once and for all.
You would find me a very helpful ... friend.”

She said that word like it could have several meanings,
and he could pick which one.

Percy’s feet started tapping on the floor, anxious to run.
“Reyna ... I’m honored, and all. Seriously.
But I’ve got a girlfriend.
And I don’t want power, or a praetorship.”

Percy was afraid he’d make her mad.
Instead she just raised her eyebrows.
“A man who turns down power?” she said.
“That’s not very Roman of you.

~~ page 208

They had the same aura of quiet power, plus a kind of sadness,
like they’d seen their destiny and knew it was only a matter of time
before they met a monster they couldn’t beat.

~~ page 224

The Son of Neptune Part 1

2012-01-25T19:48:00.000-08:00

“Yes, a choice,” June said, as if she were in no hurry. “You could leave me here at the mercy of the gorgons and go to the ocean. You’d make it there safely, I guarantee. The gorgons will be quite happy to attack me and let you go. In the sea, no monster would bother you. You could begin a new life, live to a ripe old age, and escape a great deal of pain and misery that is in your future.”

Percy was pretty sure he wasn’t going to like the second option. “Or?”

“Or you could do a good deed for an old lady,” she said. “Carry me to the camp with you.”

“Carry you?” Percy hoped she was kidding.

Then June hiked up her skirts and showed him her swollen purple feet.

“I can’t get there by myself,” she said. “Carry me to camp because ... it’s a kindness!” she said. “And if you don’t, the gods will die, the world we know will perish, and everyone from your old life will be destroyed. Of course, you wouldn’t remember them, so I suppose it won’t matter. You’d be safe at the bottom of the sea ...”

Percy swallowed. The gorgons shrieked with laughter as they soared in for the kill.

“If I go to the camp,” he said, “will I get my memory back?”

“Eventually,” June said. “But be warned, you will sacrifice much! You’ll lose the mark of Achilles. You’ll feel pain, misery, and loss beyond anything you’ve ever known. But you might have a chance to save your old friends and family, to reclaim your old life.”

~~ page 26 - 27

“The Little Tiber,” said June sympathetically.
“It flows with the power of the original Tiber, river of the empire.
This is your last chance to back out, child.
The mark of Achilles is a Greek blessing.
You can’t retain it if you cross into Roman territory.
The Tiber will wash it away.”

Percy was too exhausted to understand all that, but he got the main point.

“If I cross, I won’t have iron skin anymore?”

June smiled. “So what will it be? Safety, or a future of pain and possibility?”

~~ page 34

马不停蹄的忧伤

2012-01-24T22:12:00.000-08:00

Parents were watching this.

马不停蹄的忧伤
作词：黄舒骏　作曲：黄舒骏

我永远记得少年的时候
在薇薇家的后门
祈求一个永恒的约定
喔！令我心碎的记忆

她那凄迷的眼睛
温暖的小手　轻柔的声音
怜悯着我的心意
说着她最后的话语

她说：远方的世界有着一位姑娘和美好前程等着你
可爱的男孩！吉普赛的我不值得你为我停留倾心
喔...不要哭泣

喔......我马不停蹄的忧伤
马不停蹄向远方奔去
喔......我马不停蹄的忧伤
马不停蹄　我来到这里

我永远记得去年的六月
当娟娟关上车门她泪奔而去
喔！我面无表情
她那凄迷的眼睛
温暖的小手　轻柔的声音
再也不属于我
只有那最后的话语

她说：我知道我只能活在你最寂寞孤独的日子里
可爱的男孩！吉普赛的你我只是你一个小小的回忆
很快你就忘记

喔......我马不停蹄的忧伤
马不停蹄向远方奔去
喔......我马不停蹄的忧伤
马不停蹄　我要忘记这里
喔......我马不停蹄的忧伤
马不停蹄向远方奔去
喔......我马不停蹄的忧伤
马不停蹄　我究竟要到哪里

The Lost Hero Part 3

2012-01-23T23:03:00.000-08:00

He watched Jason's face — looking more and more devastated as Thalia described their mom — and for once, Leo didn't feel jealous of his friend. Leo might have lost his mom. He might have had some hard times. But at least he remembered her. He found himself tapping out a Morse code message on his knee: Love you. He felt bad for Jason, not having memories like that — not having anything to fall back on.

~~ page 389

Leo wished he could reach inside his tool belt and pick just the right wrench to fix Jason's memory — maybe a little hammer — bonk the sticking spot and make everything run right.

That would be a lot easier than trying to talk it through. Not good with organic life forms. Thanks for those inherited traits, Dad.

~~ page 397

Your father acts confident, Piper, but he walks a fine line between two worlds. He's worked his whole life to deny the old stories about gods and spirits, yet he fears those stories might be real. He fears that he's shut off an important part of himself, and someday it will destroy him.

"You have a strong will," she mused. "I'm never given much credit among the gods. My children are laughed at. They're dismissed as conceited and shallow."

"Some of them are."

Aphrodite laughed. "Granted. Perhaps I'm conceited and shallow, too, sometimes. A girl has to indulge. Oh, this is nice." She picked up a burned and stained bronze breastplate and held it up for Piper to see. "No?"

"No," Piper said. "Are you going to answer my question?"

"Patience, my sweet," the goddess said. "My point is that love is the most powerful motivator in the world. It spurs mortals to greatness. Their noblest, bravest acts are done for love."

"Love is powerful, Piper. It can bring even the gods to their knees. I told this to my son Aeneas when he escaped from Troy. He thought he had failed. He thought he was a loser! But he traveled to Italy ..."

"And became the forebear of Rome."

"Exactly. You see, Piper, my children can be quite powerful. You can be quite powerful, because my lineage is unique. I am closer to the beginning of creation than any other Olympian."

"You were born. I remember now. So you're ..."

"The last child of Ouranos, who was greater than the gods or the Titans. So, in a strange way, I'm the eldest Olympian god. As I said, love is a powerful force. And you, my daughter, are much more than a pretty face."

~~~ page 431 - 433

Jason turned to the goddess. "The memories are coming back, but not the location. You're not going to tell me, are you?"

"No," Hera said. "That is part of your destiny, Jason. You must find your own way back. But when you do ... you will unite two great powers. You will give us hope against the giants, and more importantly — against Gaea herself."

"You want us to help you," Jason said, "but you're holding back information."

"Giving you answers would make those answers invalid," Hera said. "That is the way of the Fates. You must forge your own path for it to mean anything. Already, you three have surprised me. I would not have thought it possible ..."

~~ page 518 - 519

"I know you can hear me," Jason said to the statue.

The statue said nothing. Its painted eyes seemed to stare at him.

"I wish I could talk with you in person," Jason continued, "but I understand you can't do that. The Roman gods don't like to interact with mortals so much, and — well, you're the king. You've got to set an example."

More silence. Jason had hoped for something — a bigger than usual rumble of thunder, a bright light, a smile. No, never mind. A smile would've been creepy.

"I remember some things," he said. The more he talked, the less self-conscious he felt. "I remember that it's hard being a son of Jupiter. Everyone is always looking at me to be a leader, but I always feel alone. I guess you feel the same way up on Olympus. The other gods challenge your decisions. Sometimes you've got to make hard choices, and the others criticize you. And you can't come to my aid like other gods might. You've got to keep me at a distance so it doesn't look like you're playing favorites. I guess I just wanted to say …"

Jason took a deep breath. "I understand all that. It's okay. I'm going to try to do my best. I'll try to make you proud. But I could really use some guidance, Dad. If there's anything you can do — help me so I can help my friends. I'm afraid I'll get them killed. I don't know how to protect them."

~~ page 542

The Lost Hero Part 2

2012-01-22T17:40:00.000-08:00

"Enough, Valdez," he scolded himself.
"Nobody's going to play any violins for you
since you're not important.
Fix the stupid dragon."

He got so involved with his work,
he wasn't sure how much time had passed before he heard the voice.

You're wrong, Leo. They need you desperately.
In some ways, you are the most important of the seven —
like the control disk in the dragon's brain.
Without you, the power of the others means nothing.
They will never reach me, never stop me.
And I will fully wake.

~~ page 252 - 253

"Maybe people with special gifts show up
when bad things are happening
because that's when they're needed most."

Jason wanted to tell him everything would be all right,
but it would've sounded fake.
Jason didn't know what would happen.
They were demigods, which meant sometimes things didn't end okay.
Sometimes you got eaten by the Cyclops.

If you asked most kids,
"Hey, you want to summon fire or lightning or magical makeup?"
they'd think it sounded pretty cool.
But those powers went along with hard stuff,
like sitting in a sewer in the middle of winter,
running from monsters, losing your memory,
watching your friends almost get cooked,
and having dreams that warned you of your own death.

~~ page 287 - 288

"I'm not good with children," the god confessed.
"Or people. Well, any organic life forms, really."

Maybe Hephaestus was still a jerk,
but Leo kind of understood where he was coming from.
Leo knew about running away from people, not fitting in.
He knew about hiding out in a workshop
rather than trying to deal with organic life forms.

~~ page 327

"Oh, how could I take offense? Please, go on ignoring me."

"Mighty understanding of you ..." Hephaestus frowned, then sighed wearily.
"That was sarcasm, wasn't it? Machines don't have sarcasm, usually."

~~ page 330

Hephaestus's beard began to smolder. He absently swatted out the flames. "What my blasted mother Hera is doing now — she's a meddling fool playing a dangerous game, but she's right about one thing: you demigods have to unite. That's the only way to open Zeus's eyes, convince the Olympians they must accept your help. And that's the only way to defeat what's coming. You're a big part of that, Leo."

~~ page 331

"Why me?" he asked, and as soon as he said it, more questions flooded out. "Why claim me now? Why not when I was thirteen, like you're supposed to? Or you could've claimed me at seven, before my mom died! Why didn't you find me earlier? Why didn't you warn me about this?"

Leo's hand burst into flames.

Hephaestus regarded him sadly. "Hardest part, boy. Letting my children walk their own paths. Interfering doesn't work. The Fates make sure of that. As for the claiming, you were a special case, boy. The timing had to be right. I can't explain it much more, but ..."

"Blast," he said. "I can't talk much longer. Zeus is sensing an illegal dream. He is lord of the air, after all, including the airwaves. Just listen, boy: you have a role to play. Your friend Jason is right — fire is a gift, not a curse. I don't give that blessing to just anyone. They'll never defeat the giants without you, much less the mistress they serve. She's worse than any god or Titan."

"Who?" Leo demanded.

Hephaestus frowned, his image becoming fuzzier.

"I told you. Yes, I'm pretty sure I told you.
Just be warned: along the way,
you're going to lose some friends and some valuable tools.
But that isn't your fault, Leo.
Nothing lasts forever, not even the best machines.
And everything can be reused."

~~ page 332 - 333

The Lost Hero Part 1

2012-01-21T20:24:00.000-08:00

Keep moving — that was his motto.
Don’t dwell on things.
Don’t stay in one place too long.
It was the only way to stay ahead of the sadness.

~~ page 70

Leo had never been the biggest or the strongest kid. He’d survived in tough neighborhoods, tough schools, tough foster homes by using his wits. He was the class clown, the court jester, because he’d learned early that if you cracked jokes and pretended you weren’t scared, you usually didn’t get beat up. Even the baddest gangster kids would tolerate you, keep you around for laughs. Plus, humor was a good way to hide the pain.

~~ page 82

His eyes watered, and Piper saw the sadness behind them. She figured that's why women were so attracted to him. On the surface, he seemed confident and rugged, but his eyes held so much sadness. Women wanted to find out why. They wanted to comfort him, and they never could. Dad told Piper it was a Cherokee thing — they all had that darkness inside them from generations of pain and suffering. But Piper thought it was more than that.

~~ page 110 - 111

"It'll be dangerous," Nyssa warned him. "Hardship, monsters, terrible suffering.
Possibly none of you will come back alive."

"Oh." Suddenly Leo didn't look so excited. Then he remembered everyone was watching.
"I mean ... Oh, cool! Suffering? I love suffering! Let's do this."

~~ page 132

It isn't time yet, little hero. Someday, you'll have your quest.
You'll find your destiny, and your hard journey will finally make sense.
But first you must face many sorrows.
I regret that, but heroes cannot be shaped any other way.

~~ page 137

His relatives wouldn't take him in. His Aunt Rosa called him a diablo and shouted at the social workers to take him away. So Leo went to his first foster home. A few days later, he ran away. Some foster homes lasted longer than others. He would joke around, make a few friends, pretend that nothing bothered him, but he always ended up running sooner or later. It was the only thing that made the pain better — feeling like he was moving, getting farther and farther away from the ashes of that machine shop.

"You'll find your destiny, Tía Callida had promised, and your hard journey will finally make sense.

~~ page 142 - 143

Sure, she looked great after Aphrodite zapped her, but she also didn't look like herself. She wasn't comfortable with the attention.

Jason had felt bad for her. Maybe that was crazy, considering she'd just been claimed by a goddess and turned into the most gorgeous girl at camp. Everybody had started fawning over her, telling her how amazing she was and how obviously she should be the one who went on the quest — but that attention had nothing to do with who she was.

New dress, new makeup, glowing pink aura, and boom: suddenly people liked her.

Jason felt like he understood that. Last night when he'd called down lightning, the other campers' reactions had seemed familiar to him. He was pretty sure he'd been dealing with that for a long time — people looking at him in awe just because he was the son of Zeus, treating him special, but it didn't have anything to do with him. Nobody cared about him, just his big scary daddy standing behind him with the doomsday bolt, as if to say, Respect this kid or eat voltage!

~~ page 163

Annabeth hesitated. "Jason, the thing about prophecies ... the more you know, the more you try to change them, and that can be disastrous. Chiron believes it's better that you find your own path, find out things in your own time. If he'd told me everything he knew before my first quest with Percy ... I've got to admit, I'm not sure I would've been able to go through with it. For your quest, it's even more important."

~~ page 168

Draft

2012-01-20T20:23:00.000-08:00

Total obliteration is not possible.
Go through the motions.
Tune out.
Ignore.
Pretend.
Deactivate the temptation to say what you feel,
to lash out at people,
since you realise some people are never going to get it.
Everyone is different,
which amounts to say that everyone is the same -
they just want their own way.
People bound by tradition.
People constrained by modernity.
Pieces of truth strewn along wayward paths.
If reality is inconsistent
with all the maps which contradict one another,
then all the maps are always wrong
or maybe almost right.
When words are no longer able to express
the multitudinous thoughts running through your head,
let them all out.
Use your rage.
If people hurt you, hurting them back hurts you even more.
Revenge. Vindication. Guilt. Death. Sorrow.
The vicious cycle.
The inability to distinguish right from wrong.
The propensity to annihilate false constructs.
To condemn all that is pretentious, contrived.
To sift out the flaky from the genuine.
To get the real deal.
To expose all frauds.
To bring them down, all of them.
Call down judgement,
hellfire,
brimstone.
Many dark thoughts
arise from good ones.
Without evil, where can there be good?
Without suffering, where can happiness exist?
Strive to read between the lines
as well as you can read the middle finger.
Yet if no lines exist and everything is blurred,
the Middle Path is obscured
by the pavement of good intentions;
and the Golden Mean
points the way to dusty death.
Then out, out, brief mediocrity.
The knowledge of good and evil.
The tree of life and death.
Cycles and circles.
Yin and Yang.
The unbalanced balanced life.
Confusion, demons, angels, power.
Fire, light, eternity.
Rebirth, repetition, reiteration.
Itinerary, Little Red Riding Hood.
Robert Frost, deep in the woods.
I found myself awakened to despondence.
Darkness be embraced
as light that is too bright blinds.
No other source
other than the ONE
burning in my heart.
Blaise Pascal.
John Milton.
Thomas Moore.
Viktor Frankl.
David Whyte.
Anton Chekov.
Vaclav Havel.
Alain de Botton.
The existential condition.
Franz Kafka doesn't metamorphosise.
The trial fails.
The castle crumbles.
Minotaur.
Labyrinth.
Heroes.
Revamp.
Recap.
Construct deconstruction.
Reason curbs.
Fucking hurts.
Feeling works.
The inability to see things from another person's point of view.
You can try all you want to be a better you.
But whatever you do, you are never going to be able to escape from yourself.
I know the kind of person you are
even though you don't.
No matter how one suppresses,
when you realise that your anger in not going to go away,
the only way out is to use it
in the only constructive, or perhaps
destructive way possible.
To build up, one must first destroy.
Control. Alternate. Delete.

3rd Instalment of Novel

2012-01-19T23:29:00.000-08:00

It will be more difficult to progress from here onwards.

The only thing I have left is my determination to get it right.

Writing

2012-01-17T03:01:00.000-08:00

"For me, writing is like breathing."

~~ Haruki Murakami

"Neuroscientist Nancy Andreasen makes the comparison that “successful writers are like prizefighters who keep on getting hit but won’t go down. They’ll stick with it until it’s right.” Her research indicates that a state of unhappiness may even improve our ability to express ourselves. Writing therapy has come into vogue as a supplement or replacement to prescription drug regimens favored for so long. The French literary theorist Roland Barthes posited that 'a creative writer is one for whom writing is a problem'.

So if depression is getting you down, look on the bright side. Pick yourself up, and pick up a pen while you're at it. You can channel all of that mental energy to create something positive. Now that's something we can all feel better about."

~~ Interbrand, James Moore

"Writing is one of the supreme human achievements.
No, why should I be reasonable?
Writing is the supreme achievement.
It is by turns exhilarating and arduous,
and trying to write obsesses and distresses
students, professional writers, and diarists alike."

"Can any good come from casting such a medicalized eye on the world of writing? Medicalization tends to lead to pathographies of artists: Dostoevsky's writing is explained away as nothing but epilepsy. Pathologizing the process of writing could make us see creativity as abnormal or even dangerous. Yet affliction is everywhere, perhaps especially in writing. Suffering has driven great writing, and problems with writing, notably writer's block, have caused great suffering."

~~ Alice Weaver Flaherty

"If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly."

~~ G. K. Chesterton

"My Muse sits forlorn
She wishes she had not been born
She sits in the cold
No word she says is ever told.

Why does my Muse only speak when she is unhappy?
She does not, I only listen when I am unhappy
When I am happy I live and despise writing
For my Muse this cannot but be dispiriting."

~~ Steve Smith

"Ordinary words convey only what we know already;
it is from metaphor that we can best get hold of something fresh."

~~ Aristotle (1954 ed., 1410)

"Nothing that happens to a writer — however happy, or tragic — is ever wasted."

~~ P. D. James

Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now

2012-01-16T07:07:00.001-08:00

Turn Back The Clock

2012-01-15T08:01:00.000-08:00

Reposted from 30 August 2010:

by Johnny Hates Jazz

Another day is ended
And I still can't sleep
Remembering my yesterdays
I begin to weep
If I could have it over
Live my life again
I wouldn't change a single day

CHORUS:

I wish that I could turn back the clock
Bring the wheels of time to a stop
Back to the days when life was so much better

Lying here in silence
Picture in my hand
Of a boy I still resemble
But I no longer understand
And as the tears run freely
How I realise
They were the best years of my life

BRIDGE:

You might say it's just
A case of giving up
No
But without these memories where is the love
Where is the love

CHORUS
Why can't I turn back the clock
Bring the wheels of time to a stop
Back to the days
Oh no no
I remember when
Life was so good
I'd go back if I could
Oh oh I wouldn't change a single day
Don't let the memories slip away
I wouldn't change a single day
Don't let the memories slip away

2nd Instalment of Novel

2012-01-12T22:43:00.000-08:00

I just completed the second instalment of my novel. (Is it instalment or installment? Enrolment or enrollment? Mad woman can check?)

I'm still not happy with it but it's the best I can muster up with so far.

I had the weirdest dream about her last night.

I haven't seen her for such a long time, in fact, I haven't even thought of her at all.

So why is it that I can sense that she had been praying for me?

And this other guy I just got to know recently. Why is he in the dream?

I don't think the guy and the girl even know each other in real life (I assume).

Fair enough, both of them are Christians. But that's probably the only common thing they have. There can't be any other hidden link or symbolic representation between the two. Unless ...

Kafka International Airport

2012-01-11T22:37:00.001-08:00

Oh man, this one had me in stitches and I almost fell off my chair.

I asked the ticket person what gate my flight was at.
They said that the airline I was flying didn't exist.
And everyone keeps calling me S.

Gate B2 is next to Gate B11 and Gate B14 is in the F Terminal.

Life and obliteration are indistinguishable.

Flights ... cancelled ... crashed ... delayed ... missing ...

If there is a problem, fill out a complaint form and place it in an envelope addressed to the name of the hospital in which you were born.

1. Who are you?
2. If not, what are you?
3. Is it not true that you are whoever we say you are?
4. You are disgusting.
5. Have you lied to us?
6. Have you lied to us?
7. Have you lied to us?
XX. Will you lie to us?
28. We believe you have lied to us. Does it matter whether you truly lied to us?
28. Have you renounced your God?

If you only make certain to properly follow proper protocols, no such problems will exist. Properly follow proper protocols.

A new medical report warns that getting screened for cancer is now the leading cause of finding out that you have cancer.

Guy In Philosophy Class Needs To Shut The Fuck Up

2012-01-10T23:42:00.000-08:00

HANOVER, NH — According to students enrolled in professor Michael Rosenthal's Philosophy 101 course at Dartmouth College, that guy, Darrin Floen, the one who sits at the back of the class and acts like he's Aristotle, seriously needs to shut the fuck up.

Link

'O' Level Results

2012-01-09T10:21:00.000-08:00

Had a kid who told me his results.

7 A1, 1 A2, 1 B3. L1R5 - 4

He probably took Higher Chinese or 3rd Language or CCA etc.

Asked me if he should go to Hwa Chong JC.

I told him my one cent worth.

"Are you the kind who studies well with Christian friends around?
If yes , then follow them."

"Are you the kind who enjoys competition, thrives under pressure and swears that you would defeat the top student in your school? Then go to RJC."

"Are you someone who can't perform under a stressful environment but instead enjoys learning at your own relaxed, self-motivated pace? If yes, go to a neighbourhood JC."

Then he said he wants to go ACJC. Asked me if they are as snobbish as ever.

My potential junior. I laughed.

I told him there are a fair amount of snobs everywhere.

I didn't exactly enjoy ACJC anyway.

The Power of Six

2012-01-04T20:58:00.000-08:00

From the very first time a brush was put into my hand at school, I fell in love with painting. Painting allows me to see things as I want to and not necessarily as they are; it’s an escape, a way to preserve thoughts and memories, a way to create hopes and dreams.

~~ page 59

Where to begin? Your father’s name was Liren. He was brave and powerful, and he lived his life with integrity and purpose. As you witnessed during your visions of the war, he carried out these traits until the very end, even when he knew the war was unwinnable. And that’s about all any of us can really hope for, to die with our dignity, to die with honor and valor. To die knowing we did everything we could. That was the epitome of who your father was. It’s the epitome of who you are, too, even if you don’t necessarily believe it.

~~ page 199

Keizoku 2

2012-01-03T09:51:00.000-08:00

Things like pain or sadness are important assets to me.

I'm prepared to live with my sins.

No matter how painful, I won't try to escape from the pain.

People experience pain and suffering and overcome them.

That's how they change into kindness.

A show about supernatural / special powers:

Link

Koishite Akuma

2012-01-02T05:10:00.000-08:00

A vampire show:

Link

Meaning

2012-01-01T21:04:00.000-08:00

To stand up as a meaning-maker is a revolutionary stance. The groundwork for this revolution has been laid by 200 years of movement toward a single idea: that life can have meaning even if the universe has none.

link

塵埃裡的花 by 陳瑞

2011-12-31T18:44:00.000-08:00

Compliments to my mother. I'm not kidding.
I overheard her playing this again and again as I left home.

Fuck You

2011-12-30T08:45:00.000-08:00

Sir. It's not me.
It's my kids' fault, I swear.
They made me do it.
Or maybe the devil made me do it.

No wait.
Let me rephrase this.
The devil made them do it.

(Chorus)
I see you driving 'round town
With the girl i love and i'm like,
Fuck you!
Oo, oo, ooo

I guess the change in my pocket
It wasn't enough i'm like,
Fuck you!
And i fuck her too!

I said, if i was richer, i'd still be with ya
Ha, now ain't that some shit? (ain't that some shit?)
And although there's pain in my chest
I still wish you the best with a ...
Fuck you!
Oo, oo, ooo

(Stanza 1)
Yeah i'm sorry, i can't afford a ferrari,
But that don't mean i can't get you there.
I guess he's an xbox and i'm more atari,
But the way you play your game ain't fair.

I picture the fool that falls in love with you
(oh shit she's a gold digger)
Well
(just thought you should know nigga)
Ooooooh
I've got some news for you
Yeah go run and tell your little boyfriend

(chorus)

(Stanza 2)
Now i know, that i had to borrow,
Beg and steal and lie and cheat.
Trying to keep ya, trying to please ya.
'Cause being in love with your ass ain't cheap.

I picture the fool that falls in love with you
(oh shit she's a gold digger)
Well
(just thought you should know nigga)
Ooooooh
I've got some news for you
i really hate your ass right now

(chorus)

Now baby, baby, baby, why d'you wanna wanna hurt me so bad?
(so bad, so bad, so bad)
I tried to tell my mamma but she told me
"this is one for your dad"
(your dad, your dad, your dad)
Uh! Whhhy? Uh! Whhhy? Uh!
Whhhy lady? Oh! I love you oh!
I still love you. Oooh!

I Am Number Four

2011-12-29T10:58:00.000-08:00

Quotable Quotes:

“Hope?” he says.
“There is always hope, John.
New developments have yet to present themselves.
Not all the information is in.
No. Don’t give up hope just yet.
It’s the last thing to go.
When you have lost hope, you have lost everything.
And when you think all is lost,
when all is dire and bleak,
there is always hope.”

~~ page 124

“One of the gifts our planet gave us is to love completely.
Without jealousy or insecurity or fear.
Without pettiness. Without anger.”

~~ page 274

I wrap my arms around her. "I miss you," I say.
"You miss me? But I'm right here."
"That's the worst way to miss somebody.
When they're right beside you and you miss them anyway."

~~ page 330

"The pain of healing is double
that of the original pain
caused by whatever has happened."

~~ page 361

"To sit back and do nothing
is to allow that same destruction,
that same death and annihilation.
Why stand back and let it happen?
If this planet dies, we die with it."

~~ page 366

“Those things that are the most obvious
are the very things we're most likely to overlook.”

~~ page 407

The price of a memory is the memory of the sorrow it brings.

~~ page 426

“A place is only as good as the people in it.”

~~ movie version

— I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore

Christian Authors

2011-12-28T02:45:00.000-08:00

"Write as if you were dying.
At the same time, assume you write for an audience
consisting solely of terminal patients.
That is, after all, the case.
What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon?
What could you say to a dying person
that would not enrage by its triviality?"

— Annie Dillard, The Writing Life (1989), page 68

"Take the book of Job, for instance. Some would say the book of Job is about pain, that hidden inside the story are secret steps to take when you happen to be dealing with pain. I don't think this is true, exactly. I think the book of Job is a story about life, and there aren't any secret steps in it at all.

My friend John MacMurray tells me the first book written in the Bible is the book of Job. Moses wrote Job before he wrote Genesis, scholars agree, and so the first thing God wanted to communicate to mankind was that life is hard, and there is pain, great pain in life, and yet the answer to this pain, or the cure for this pain, is not given in explanation; rather, God offers to this pain, or this life experience, Himself. Not steps, not an understanding, not a philosophy, but Himself.

I take this to mean the first thing God wanted to communicate to humanity was that He was God, He was very large and in control, storing snow in Kansas, stopping waves at a certain point on the beach, causing clouds to carry rain, causing wind to race down imaginary hills of barometric pressure, and that if He could do all this, then He could be trusted, and that, perhaps, this would help us through our lives. And so from the beginning, from the very first story told in Scripture, God presents life, as it is, without escape, with only Himself to cling to. It worked for Job, after all, because even before God healed him and even before God returned his wealth and even while Job was sitting by a fire picking scabs from his wounds and mourning his family, he would respond to the whirlwind God spoke through by saying, All this is too marvelous for me."

— Donald Miller, Searching for God Knows What, page 215 - 216

Desktop CPU Updates

2011-12-27T20:28:00.000-08:00

I am typing this from my desktop computer at last.

The rest of the fixing process didn't go smooth. I followed through the website's instructions in the best way I can to the very jot and tittle, but it turns out that every machine is different and there is no fixed set of procedures that can resolve every unique computer with its own set of specifications and problems.

After completing the rest of the complicated instructions till the very end, my machine went back to its original vicious cycle of restarting again and again without even allowing me to see the windows screen. Back to square one tamade. I had to go back to Command Prompt and type the first set of commands all over again to stop the fucking loop.

Then, at least I got to look at a windows screen instead of black screen of command prompt and blue screen of recovery console. After that, wasted some more time re-installing windows and other software that had been lost. Finally now, things seem to have stabilised after so much pain. Though at least I don't have to pay the repairman and still got my precious data back.

My plan is to get an Apple computer real soon. God damn it. Steve Jobs, why did you have to die?

Desktop CPU

2011-12-26T20:12:00.000-08:00

By a stroke of miracle, I managed to fix my Desktop CPU which kept re-starting on its own. Already googled the problem and exhausted every troubleshooting suggestion last week to no avail - except the most dangerous and complex solution - the one which required the knowledge of Command Prompt - dinosaur technology.

Yet, I realised, when all else fails, you have to go back into the past. Start things all over again at the most basic, primitive level. It may require a lot of digging around, random guess and check and even some learning of the C programming language. But if I don't do this, I would have to spend money on the computer repairman for data recovery by getting him to connect my hard disk into another computer terminal to recover all lost data, in addition to virus / malware / trojan removal etc etc which probably cost a bomb.

So last night, I tampered with the last possible alternative among all the websites I scoured: the Command Prompt. I'd been trying to avoid this last resort because it's unchartered territory. It's not as user friendly as windows icons, so even if you make one small mistake in the lettering, type the slash in the wrong direction, don't insert the required gap / spacebar etc, the process will not be carried out. Anything can go wrong and the slightest oversight can render you lost in outer space, with no hope of ever coming back.

The website I referred to was not completely accurate in its instructions too. I had to modify some of the commands to make them work, otherwise the machine tells me it does not recognise the commands.

Even though my CPU is still not completely fixed (50%), at least now I can see the windows screen instead of the black screen of death (command prompt) or the blue screen of recovery console. So I immediately performed data recovery first. Now after backing up all my precious files by transferring them into my thumb drive, things are much more stabilised so even if I mess up the rest of the fixing process, at least my data is recovered and I am free to re-format everything if things screw up again.

Percy Jackson 1st Series

2011-12-25T22:11:00.000-08:00

I actually managed to finish all 5 books of the 1st series of Percy Jackson (Camp Half Blood).

Was stuck in the Battle of the Labyrinth for days as I was busy with my novel but managed to pull through and find my way out after that.

First 2 books of the 2nd series have been snatched up in most libraries so I'm stuck with his Kane Chronicles for now.

The Last Olympian Part 1

2011-12-24T08:23:00.000-08:00

page 101

"What's wrong with her, exactly?" I asked.

"She was born with a gift," Hestia said. "She could see through the Mist."

"Like my mother," I said. And I was also thinking, like Rachel. "But the glowing eyes thing — "

"Some bear the curse of sight better than others," the goddess said sadly.

page 102 - 103

"Not all powers are spectacular." Hestia looked at me. "Sometimes the hardest power to master is the power of yielding. Do you believe me?"

"Uh-huh," I said. Anything to keep her from messing with her flame powers again.

The goddess smiled. "You are a good hero, Percy Jackson. Not too proud. I like that. But you have much to learn. When Dionysus was made a god, I gave up my throne for him. It was the only way to avoid a civil war among the gods."

"It unbalanced the Council," I remembered. "Suddenly there were seven guys and five girls."

Hestia shrugged. "It was the best solution, not a perfect one. Now I tend the fire. I fade slowly into the background. No one will ever write epic poems about the deeds of Hestia. Most demigods don't even stop to talk to me. But that is no matter. I keep the peace. I yield when necessary. Can you do this?"

"I don't know what you mean."

She studied me. "Perhaps not yet. But soon. Will you continue your quest?"

"Is that why you're here — to warn me against going?"

Hestia shook her head. "I am here because when all else fails, when all the other mighty gods have gone off to war, I am all that's left. Home. Hearth. I am the last Olympian. You must remember me when you face your final decision.

I didn't like the way she said final.

page 228 - 229

Prometheus tapped the lid of Pandora's jar. "Only one spirit remained inside when Pandora opened it."

"Hope," I said.

Prometheus looked pleased. "Very good, Percy. Elpis, the Spirit of Hope, would not abandon humanity. Hope does not leave without being given permission."

The Titan slid the jar across the table.

"I give you this as a reminder of what the gods are like," he said. "Keep Elpis, if you wish. But if you decide that you have seen enough destruction, enough futile suffering, then open the jar. Let Elpis go. Give up Hope, and I will know that you are surrendering."

The Last Olympian Part 2

2011-12-23T20:41:00.000-08:00

page 264 - 265

"Percy, for so much of my life, I felt like everything was changing, all the time. I didn't have anyone I could rely on."

I nodded. That was something most demigods could understand.

"I ran away when I was seven," she said. "Then with Luke and Thalia, I thought I'd found a family, but it fell apart almost immediately. What I'm saying ... I hate it when people let me down, when things are temporary. I think that's why I want to be an architect."

"To build something permanent," I said. "A monument to last a thousand years."

She held my eyes. "I guess that sounds like my fatal flaw again."

Years ago in the Sea of Monsters, Annabeth had told me her biggest flaw was pride — thinking she could fix anything.

page 267 - 269

"Whichever! Now listen, the situation is graver than you imagine. If Olympus falls, not only will the gods fade, but everything that is connected to our legacy will also begin to unravel. The very fabric of your puny little civilization ... your entire society ... will dissolve. Perhaps not right away, but mark my words, the chaos of the Titans will mean the end of Western civilization. Art, law, wine tastings, music, video games, silk shirts, black velvet paintings — all the things that make life worth living will disappear!"

"So why aren't the gods rushing back to help us?" I said. "We should combine forces at Olympus. Forget Typhon."

"The truth is, Pierre — "

"Percy."

" — the other gods would never admit this, but we actually need you mortals to rescue Olympus. You see, we are manifestations of your culture. If you don't care enough to save Olympus yourselves — "

"Like Pan," I said, "depending on the satyrs to save the Wild."

"Yes, quite. I will deny I ever said this, of course, but the gods need heroes. They always have. Otherwise we would not keep you annoying little brats around."

"I feel so wanted. Thanks."

He looked at me, and purple fire flickered in his eyes. "As I recall, I once predicted you would turn out to be as selfish as all the other human heroes. Well, here is your chance to prove me wrong."

"Yeah, making you proud is real high on my list."

"You must save Olympus, Pedro! Leave Typhon to the Olympians and save our own seats of power. It must be done!"

The Last Olympian Part 3

2011-12-22T21:02:00.000-08:00

page 281 - 282

"I don't have to do anything!" Hades' eyes blazed. "I'm a god!"

"Father," Nico said, "if Olympus falls, your own palace's safety doesn't matter. You'll fade too."

"I am not an Olympian!" he growled. "My family has made that quite clear."

"You are," Nico said. "Whether you like it or not."

"You saw what they did to your mother," Hades said. "Zeus killed her. And you would have me help them? They deserve what they get!"

Persephone sighed. She walked her fingers across the table, absently turning the silverware into roses. "Could we please not talk about that woman?"

"You know what would help this boy?" Demeter mused. "Farming."

Persephone rolled her eyes. "Mother — "

"Six months behind a plow. Excellent character building."

Nico stepped in front of his father, forcing Hades to face him. "My mother understood about family. That's why she didn't want to leave us. You can't just abandon your family because they did something horrible. You've done horrible things to them too."

"Maria died!" Hades reminded him.

"You can't just cut yourself off from the other gods!"

"I've done very well at it for thousands of years."

"And has that made you feel any better?" Nico demanded. "Has that curse on the Oracle helped you at all? Holding grudges is a fatal flaw. Bianca warned me about that, and she was right."

"For demigods! I am immortal, all-powerful! I would not help the other gods if they begged me, if Percy Jackson himself pleaded — "

"You're just as much of an outcast as I am!" Nico yelled. "Stop being angry about it and do something helpful for once. That's the only way they'll respect you!"

Hades's palm filled with black fire.

"Go ahead," Nico said. "Blast me. That's just what the other gods would expect from you. Prove them right."

"Yes, please," Demeter complained. "Shut him up."

Persephone sighed. "Oh, I don't know. I would rather fight in the war than eat another bowl of cereal. This is boring."

page 307 - 308

I picked up Pandora's jar. The spirit of Hope fluttered inside, trying to warm the cold container.

"Hestia," I said, "I give this to you as an offering."

The goddess tilted her head. "I am the least of the gods. Why would you trust me with this?"

"You're the last Olympian," I said. "And the most important."

"And why is that, Percy Jackson?"

"Because Hope survives best at the hearth," I said. "Guard it for me, and I won't be tempted to give up again."

Achilles

2011-12-21T09:12:00.000-08:00

"Achilles," I said.

The ghost nodded. "I warned the other one not to follow my path. Now I will warn you."

"Luke? You spoke with Luke?"

"Do not do this," he said. "It will make you powerful. But it will also make you weak. Your prowess in combat will be beyond any mortal's, but your weaknesses, your failings will increase as well."

"You mean I'll have a bad heel?" I said. "Couldn't I just, like, wear something besides sandals? No offense."

He stared down at his bloody foot. "The heel is only my physical weakness, demigod. My mother, Thetis, held me there when she dipped me in the Styx. What really killed me was my own arrogance. Beware! Turn back!"

He meant it. I could hear the regret and bitterness in his voice. He was honestly trying to save me from a terrible fate. Then again, Luke had been here, and he hadn't turned back. That's why Luke had been able to host the spirit of Kronos without his body disintegrating. This is how he'd prepared himself, and why he seemed impossible to kill. He had bathed in the River Styx and taken on the powers of the greatest mortal hero, Achilles. He was invincible.

"I have to," I said. "Otherwise I don't stand a chance."

Achilles lowered his head. "Let the gods witness I tried. Hero, if you must do this, concentrate on your mortal point. Imagine one spot of your body that will remain vulnerable. This is the point where your soul will anchor your body to the world. It will be your greatest weakness, but also your only hope. No man may be completely invulnerable. Lose sight of what keeps you mortal, and the River Styx will burn you to ashes. You will cease to exist."

Christmas Through Your Eyes

2011-12-20T07:23:00.000-08:00

Posted on 26 December 2009:

Caught this song while watching J Drama Last Christmas. For those of you who loved the tragic Tokyo Love Story, watching this is a must.

Screenwriter Sakamoto Yuji and main actor Oda Yuji are the same. Too bad that actress is now Yada Akikio instead of Suzuki Honami. What really strikes me are the memorable oldies playing at the background while you watch the drama.

4 comments:
teo-san said...
Merii Kurisumasu!

2:35 AM
Iceman said...
arigatou gozaimas ta.

gengki desuka?

3:16 PM
teo-san said...
ogengkides

4:46 PM
Iceman said...
yokata. kampate ne.

12:37 AM

Bad Things

2011-12-19T21:28:00.000-08:00

This week, bad things have been happening to me one after another.

On Friday night, I lost my library book and hair oil, sustained unknown bruises and scratches here and there and damaged my keyboard a bit. Did someone rob me and beat me up? I couldn't remember.

On Saturday, my ATM card got eaten by the fucking ATM machine.

On Sunday, there were no MRT services the entire fucking morning and I had to reach office by 10am. I ended up taking not one but two buses and was almost late for work.

On Monday, my keyboard broke down at my own careless doing. At the same time, my desktop CPU was attacked by a malicious virus and boycotted me. Because of this, I may not be able to recover all my precious files in my hard-drive. I did not back them up. I may end up re-formatting entire hard disk.

The only good thing I have going for me now is the progress of my novel.

The Mad Woman helped me with it, I confess. She actually bothered to read the first instalment from beginning to end and gave valuable feedback. Or is it invaluable feedback?

Don't you find the language fascinating? If 'valuable' is the same as 'invaluable' who the fuck bothered with the redundancy?

Battle of the Labyrinth Part 1

2011-12-16T06:22:00.000-08:00

- page 116 - 117

“I have nothing to offer,” Briares said. “I have lost everything.”

“What about your brothers?” Tyson asked. “The other two must stand tall as mountains! We can take you to them.”

Briares’ expression morphed to something even sadder: his grieving face. “They are no more. They faded.”

The waterfalls thundered. Tyson stared into the pit and blinked tears out of his eye.

“What exactly do you mean, they faded?” I asked. “I thought monsters were immortal, like the gods.”

“Percy,” Grover said weakly, “even immortality has limits. Sometimes ... sometimes monsters get forgotten and they lose their will to stay immortal.”

I’d never thought about it too much, but now, looking at Briares, I realized how terrible it would be to be so old — thousands and thousands of years old — and totally alone.

“Maybe that’s why monsters fade,” I said. “Maybe it’s not about what the mortals believe. Maybe it’s because you give up on yourself.”

- page 158

“You must listen to me,” she said. “Holding grudges is dangerous for a child of Hades. It is our fatal flaw. You have to forgive. You have to promise me this.”

- page 180 - 181

“Mother likes telling that version of the story,” he grumbled. “Makes her seem more likeable, doesn’t it? Blaming it all on my dad. The truth is, my mother likes families, but she likes a certain kind of family. Perfect families. She took one look at me and ... well, I don’t fit the image, do I?”

“Believe me, young Cyclops,” Hephaestus said, “you can’t trust others. All you can trust is the work of your own hands.”

It seemed like a pretty lonely way to live.

"Some of us ... the way we learn not to trust people is even more painful."

Battle of the Labyrinth Part 2

2011-12-15T06:43:00.000-08:00

- page 205 - 206

“But, Percy,” Calypso said gently, “I did support him in the first war. He is my father.”

“What? But the Titans are evil!”

“Are they? All of them? All the time?” She pursed her lips. “Tell me, Percy. I have no wish to argue with you. But do you support the gods because they are good, or because they are your family?”

I didn’t answer. She had a point.

- page 210

“It isn’t easy being a brilliant inventor,” Hephaestus rumbled. “Always alone. Always misunderstood. Easy to turn bitter, make horrible mistakes. People are more difficult to work with than machines. And when you break a person, he can’t be fixed.”

“Daedalus started well enough. He helped the Princess Ariadne and Theseus because he felt sorry for them. He tried to do a good deed. And everything in his life went bad because of it. Was that fair?” The god shrugged. “I don’t know if Daedalus will help you, lad, but don’t judge someone until you’ve stood at his forge and worked with his hammer, eh?”

“I’ll — I’ll try.”

- page 213

As I sailed onto the lake I realized the Fates really were cruel. They sent Calypso someone she couldn’t help but love. But it worked both ways. For the rest of my life I would always be thinking about her. She would always be my biggest what if.

Battle of the Labyrinth Part 3

2011-12-14T07:26:00.000-08:00

- page 296

Grover fell to his knees in front of the bed. “Lord Pan!”

The god smiled kindly, but there was sadness in his eyes. “Grover, my dear, brave satyr. I have waited a very long time for you.”

“I ... got lost,” Grover apologized.

- page 298

“But gods can’t die,” Grover said.

“They can fade,” Pan said, “when everything they stood for is gone. When they cease to have power, and their sacred places disappear. The wild, my dear Grover, is so small now, so shattered, that no god can save it. My realm is gone. That is why I need you to carry a message. You must go back to the council. You must tell the satyrs, and the dryads, and the other spirits of nature, that the great god Pan is dead. Tell them of my passing. Because they must stop waiting for me to save them. I cannot. The only salvation you must make yourself. Each of you must — ”

Pan sighed. “Everybody’s a cynic. But as I was saying, my dear Grover, each of you must take up my calling.”

“But ... no!”Grover whimpered.

“Be strong,” Pan said. “You have found me. And now you must release me. You must carry on my spirit. It can no longer be carried by a god. It must be taken up by all of you.”

Pan looked straight at me with his clear blue eyes, and I realized he wasn’t just talking about satyrs. He meant half-bloods, too, and humans. Everyone.

Finally he turned back toward Grover. “My dear satyr,” Pan said kindly, “will you carry my message?”

“I—I can’t.”

“You can,” Pan said. “You are the strongest and the bravest. Your heart is true. You have believed in me more than anyone ever has, which is why you must bring the message, and why you must be the first to release me.”

- page 328

The wine god sighed. “Remember, boy, that a kind act can sometimes be as powerful as a sword. As a mortal, I was never a great fighter or athlete or poet. I only made wine. The people in my village laughed at me. They said I would never amount to anything. Look at me now. Sometimes small things can become very large indeed.”

- page 329

Annabeth and I pretty much skirted around each other. I was glad to be with her, but it also kind of hurt, and it hurt when I wasn’t with her, too.

愛到無路可退 by 彭佳慧

2011-12-13T21:54:00.000-08:00

爱到无路可退的地步
只好一步一步继续去贪图
再不求完整的演出
只希望剩下的恍惚别落幕

爱到无路可退的地步
哪能清清楚楚让痛苦结束
我再不会走上绝路
只会像无根的枯叶
飘零孤独

而爱只剩回顾
我好辛苦
总是在夜深人静
一个人踟躇

和你走过的每条路
发现你要的前途
不是我
不是我想要的归宿

Germinating

2011-12-12T00:27:00.000-08:00

The need to write that ultimate novel has always been at the back of my mind for years, but I had been unable to come up with a creative way to bring my work to another level.

Then, about a month ago, a vague idea came to me. Details weren't very concrete, but I knew that the only way for my novel to meet my own expectations was to follow that general direction.

Carrying out an abstract theory successfully to transform it into concrete reality was the main problem. I still needed specific steps to overhaul my stuff so that it could be decent enough for even myself to read.

I was stuck for weeks and still didn't know how to go about overhauling it.

But a few days ago, something interesting happened. While talking to an ex-student about wanting to be a writer, ideas for my book began to germinate in a clearer manner.

This morning I began struggling with the tone of my book.

How did I want it to sound?

How do I make it more interesting? More complex? More entertaining?

And I think I made a baby step today.

It's still a baby step, but I think I have pushed myself to the point where things are beginning to move more smoothly on their own.

I'm embarking on the writing journey, and slowly but surely learning to enjoy the ride.

I think I can pull it off, at least for now.

Many more obstacles will come along the way, but I'm quite happy with my progress so far.

For aspiring writers, enjoying the process is the most important thing.

Alan Watts

2011-12-11T01:07:00.000-08:00

I dig Alan Watts.

He died on the year I was born.

Stumbled upon The Book, written in 1966 and shockingly prophetic in its depictions of the horrors that advanced technology can bring:

Consider the astonishing means now being made for snooping,
the devices already used in offices, factories, stores,
and on various lines of communication such as the mail and the telephone.
Through the transistor and miniaturization techniques,
these devices become ever more invisible
and ever more sensitive to faint electrical impulses.

The trend of all this is towards the end of individual privacy,
to an extent where it may even be impossible to conceal one's thoughts.

At the end of the line, no one is left with a mind of his own:
there is just a vast and complex community-mind,
endowed, perhaps, with such fantastic powers of control and prediction
that it will already know its own future for years and years to come.

Yet the more surely and vividly you know the future,
the more it makes sense to say that you've already had it.
When the outcome of a game is certain, we call it quits and begin another.

This is why many people object to having their fortunes told:
not that fortunetelling is mere superstition
or that the predictions would be horrible,
but simply that the more surely the future is known,
the less surprise and the less fun in living it.

~~ page 44, 45

expiry date on writing

2011-12-10T19:29:00.000-08:00

1) the beef noodles i bought last night

no longer tastes good this morning

no matter how hard i try heating it up

there's an expiry date on everything

you can try to resurrect something that is dead

yet after it has risen - it's no longer the same

it may be that something's fault

it became bad after it resurrected

or it may be your fault

you became bad

you changed how felt about that something after it resurrected

the only thing you can do is to accept the fact that things have expired

and that it is time to move on

it's a kind of maturity - as you realise

that you can't have everything and it's time to let it go

easier said than done

which is why - it takes not just maturity but also a lot of courage

to leap off what you are familiar with in search for the unknown

kierkegaard's proverbial saying

and the basic premise of keroac's 'on the road'

2) the phrase 'reclusive writer' is an oxymoron

reason: what i write here, like what 1q84 says, is no longer mine

it's online - which makes me, inadvertantly, public and no longer reclusive

therefore, this makes my writing yours, and everybody's

i've always been bitching about wanting to be a writer -

but the fact is that by blogging -

i already am a writer

even if three quarters of what i write isn't mine but quotes from others

it makes no difference since -

if what i write and create originally isn't mine anymore when i post it on the internet -

what is the difference between my own stuff and other stuff (question mark)

other stuff which i rip off the internet anyway (question mark)

i think kafka was the only truly original and paradoxical 'reclusive writer'

since he ordered max brod to destroy all his works after he died

he truly did not want to be known

and he fulfilled his wish in an ironical way

when he was alive, he wasn't known

when he's well-known, he couldn't have been aware of it anymore

since he was already dead

3) writing therefore implies - to a certain extent - originality

and a sense of curiosity

of wonder

grandiose

and revelation

to a large extent in the past -

but no longer now

a technological global village implies that there is a possibility and the danger

that ideas will no longer be original since everyone is copying something from everyone else

if nothing is original anymore and everything else is copied and artifically manufactured

then what is real (question mark)

what is genuine (question mark)

WHAT IS (QUESTION MARK)

more laptop woes

2011-12-09T01:45:00.001-08:00

as before both 'shift' keys and 'caps lock' key are all but dead ETC ETC

in addition to all original keyboard woes f5 function key has gone haywire for two weeks now since b4 30th nov

even after i disconnected and re-connected keyboard ribbon to motherboard a few times still no joy

thought there was something wrong with the connection but no

creating a lot of problems as everything reloads in internet and finds and replaces in microsoft word

i can't get anything done!!! TMD

that was bad enough

now even comma full stop and slash buttons have stopped working since 4th dec

so this fucking entry has minimal punctuation marks for obvious reasons

as it turns out fucking repairman's promise of ordering new keyboard from china or hong kong was an empty promise

what the fuck did i expect

i paid him only sgd$100 for the entire 2nd hand laptop

a new keyboard costs more than sgd$100 whether u order from china or buy from local warehouse

if he were to really get a new one for me he'll be making a fucking loss

end of day he's a fucking businessman

what did i expect him to be

a fucking philantrophist

i might as well disable laptop keyboard and connect to external keyboard which costs less than sgd$10

TMD

in retrospect i'm not angry at him for breaking his promise that he will get me a new laptop keypad

it's the way he tries to give excuses about how the people in china are delaying the import of the new keyboard

in other words stop giving excuses and lying

be direct

if you can't deliver what u promise JUST SAY IT up front

don't use the waiting game to make people expect u to do what u won't do

the original price for the second hand laptop was sgd 230

even after i traded in my dinosaur laptop if u still think u are being shortchanged for selling your 'slightly less dinosaur' laptop to me (which is heavy laden with its own set of problems) at sgd 100 --

JUST FUCKING SAY IT

say that the new keypad costs too much

at the very least give me tips on how to connect an external keyboard which is much cheaper

AND I WON'T BUG YOU ANYMORE

is it too much to ask

Titan's Curse

2011-12-08T08:01:00.000-08:00

Apollo: You might as well ask an artist to explain his art,
or ask a poet to explain his poem.
It defeats the purpose.
The meaning is only clear through the search.

- page 148

Athena: Do not judge me too harshly, half-blood.
Wise counsel is not always popular, but I spoke the truth.
You are dangerous.

Percy: You never take risks?

Athena: (nodded) I concede the point.
You may perhaps be useful.
And yet ... your fatal flaw
may destroy us as well as yourself.

Percy: (My heart crept into my throat. A year ago, Annabeth and I had had a talk about fatal flaws. Every hero had one. Hers, she said, was pride. She believed she could do anything ... like holding up the world, for instance. Or saving Luke. But I didn't really know what mine was. Athena looked almost sorry for me.)

Athena: Kronos knows your flaw, even if you do not.
He knows how to study his enemies.
Think, Percy. How has he manipulated you?
First, your mother was taken from you.
Then your best friend, Grover.
Now my daughter, Annabeth.

(She paused, disapproving.)

In each case, your loved ones have been used
to lure you into Kronos's traps.
Your fatal flaw is personal loyalty, Percy.
You do not know when it is time to cut your losses.
To save a friend, you would sacrifice the world.
In a hero of the prophecy,
that is very, very dangerous.

Percy: (I balled my fists.) That's not a flaw.
Just because I want to help my friends ...

Athena: (cutting in) The most dangerous flaws
are those which are good in moderation.
Evil is easy to fight.
Lack of wisdom ... that is very hard indeed.

- page 281

Sea of Monsters

2011-12-05T21:30:00.001-08:00

Annabeth: Hubris means deadly pride, Percy.
Thinking you can do things better than anyone else ...
even the gods.

Percy: You feel that way?

Annabeth: (She looked down.) Don’t you ever feel like,
what if the world really is messed up?
What if we could do it all over again from scratch?
No more war. Nobody homeless. No more summer reading homework.

Percy: I’m listening.

Annabeth: I mean, the West represents
a lot of the best things mankind ever did -
that’s why the fire is still burning.
That’s why Olympus is still around.
But sometimes you just see the bad stuff, you know?

And you start thinking the way Luke does:
‘If I could tear this all down, I would do it better.’
Don’t you ever feel that way?
Like you could do a better job if you ran the world?

Percy: Um ... no. Me running the world would kind of be a nightmare.

Annabeth: Then you’re lucky. Hubris isn’t your fatal flaw.

Percy: What is?

Annabeth: I don’t know, Percy, but every hero has one.
If you don’t find it and learn to control it ...
well, they don’t call it ‘fatal’ for nothing.

Percy: (I thought about that. It didn’t exactly cheer me up.)

- page 191

Percy: And Kronos is rising. He’s going to destroy Mount Olympus!

Chiron: He will try. And Western Civilization along with it,
if we don’t stop him. But we will stop him.
You will not be alone in that fight.

Percy: (miserably) I’m just a kid, Chiron.
What good is one lousy hero against something like Kronos?

Chiron: (smiles) What good is one lousy hero?
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain said something like that to me once,
just before he single-handedly changed the course of your Civil War.

Humans don’t exist on the same level as the immortals.
They can’t even be hurt by our weapons.
But you, Percy - you are part god, part human.
You live in both worlds.
You can be harmed by both, and you can affect both.
That’s what makes heroes so special.
You carry the hopes of humanity into the realm of the eternal.

Monsters never die.
They are reborn from the chaos and barbarism
that is always bubbling underneath civilization,
the very stuff that makes Kronos stronger.
They must be defeated again and again, kept at bay.
Heroes embody that struggle.
You fight the battles humanity must win,
every generation, in order to stay human. Do you understand?

Percy: I ... I don’t know.

- page 252

Reading Spree

2011-12-03T06:05:00.000-08:00

1) Kevin Brooks' latest book 'Naked' wasn't too bad. I think he's getting better. His earlier book 'Lucas' some time ago was inferior to later books like 'Being' and 'Naked'. But in my opinion, 'iBoy' and 'Killing God' were excellent, surpassing the rest.

2) Re-read Nick Hornby's Slam. I would think 'Long Way Down' still surpasses it.
Hopefully I can get around finishing 'Juliet, Naked'.

3) Stumbled upon Lore's 'I Am Number Four'.

4) Percy Jackson & Sea of Monsters out in JE library by Rick Riordan. Grabbing it now.

I'm really into teenage fiction now.

a hero's fate

2011-12-01T04:07:00.000-08:00

excerpt from the lightning thief

"I am sorry you were born, child. I have brought you a hero's fate, and a hero's fate is never happy. It is never anything but tragic."

I tried not to feel hurt. Here was my own dad, telling me he was sorry I'd been born. "I don't mind, Father."

"Not yet, perhaps," he said. "Not yet. But it was an unforgivable mistake on my part."

"I'll leave you then." I bowed awkwardly. "I—I won't bother you again."

I was five steps away when he called, "Perseus."

I turned.

There was a different light in his eyes, a fiery kind of pride. "You did well, Perseus. Do not misunderstand me. Whatever else you do, know that you are mine. You are a true son of the Sea God."

Riordan & Murakami

2011-11-30T18:40:00.000-08:00

Finished Rick Riordan's first book - Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief - in the Camp Half-Blood series and am officially a fan.

Visited his blog and discovered that he is, coincidentally, also currently reading 1Q84. This is what he has to say about Murakami on his 29th November entry:

Now I'm reading 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. I'd heard it was a difficult read, and certainly it is long, at well over 900 pages, but I find that I'm flying through it. Murakami knows how to keep the pages turning with a brilliant mix of mystery, fantasy and intrigue. Two characters, Aomame and Tengu, find themselves slipping into an alternate version of the world in 1984 -- a world Aomame names 1Q84. What is causing this shift, and whom can they trust? Those are just some of the questions facing them. The book reminds me of Orwell, of course, but also Gabriel Marquez and some early dark urban fantasy like The Land of Laughs by Jonathan Carroll or Little, Big by John Crowley. (Which you should read, if you haven't.) Yet Murakami isn't really like anyone else, exactly. He has that fresh 'something,' just like the fictional editor Komatsu in his narrative is looking for. Check out the book!

1984

2011-11-29T19:08:00.000-08:00

After reading part 1 of 1Q84, I decided to take a break.

Stumbled upon the 'Twitterature' version of 1984 by George Orwell, written by 2 undergraduates who decided that the classics should be made readable and understandable to the Twitter community.

I've got to admit that these 2 morons did make me laugh. I actually almost rolled off my seat.

They came up with hilarious versions of other classics too, but this was what they came up with for 1984:

Nineteen Eighty-Four
By George Orwell
@Ratatouille

London is a totally ridiculous place these days. (I actually mean ridiculous in a totalitarian way. Best keep this to myself.)

What’s with the slogans like ‘War is Peace’? Do only I see they make no sense? Seems someone in the government is on a very big opposites kick.

I found a little journal and a tiny place in my room where Big Brother ISN’T watching. Now I can record dissident thoughts/jerk it.

Look, brother, if I wanted to be WATCHED doing my dirty business, I’d make a sex tape. Oh? You already have it?

God I hate rats. It’s important that you know how much I hate rats, because I really, really hate rats.

At work; dullsville. How can rewriting history be fun if you’re betraying the timeless ideal of truth? Let’s see: Truth Is Lies?

Disregard last tweet. Need to keep those bad thoughts out of my head, otherwise I’ll have to make a trip to the Ministry of Love.

P.S. By ‘Love’ they mean imprisonment, execution, and unspeakable torture. In that order. Like I said, opposites are the new white.

Met a drab hot girl today. Slipped me a note saying she loved me. Romance is forbidden because everything good in this society is bad. Hmm.

Fuck it, life’s a risk. Had sex on the hillside; went wild, though for a moment I was ashamed of my varicose veins.

While you should never date a hooker or a porn star, I suggest a girl who writes porno. Guess what she thinks about all day?

We defeated Eurasia in the war! Or was it Eastasia all along? Either way, we’ll take them as usual.

Julia and I do it every day. Nice store owner rented us a room without cameras. Must not launder the bed sheets too often or we’ll be caught.

My boss wants to see me; this can’t be good. Maybe I’ll get laid off and have to transfer to the Ministry of Irony.

Surprise. He is part of a secret organization devoted to overthrowing the party. Julia and I are in. This is so exciting.

Just kidding. Big Brother WAS watching us! Carted off to the Ministry of Love, as I tweet. Makes me think of childhood for some reason.

Sometimes you’re locked up in a secret government prison. Then you meet this crazy old woman. And it’s your mother.

Hard to post through endless rounds of torture. O’Brien tells me that the Party wants power for power’s sale. Deep, man.

DAMNIT. FUCKING RATS IN MY FUCKING FACE. WHY DID I TELL I HATE RATS? NO KILL JULIA PLEASE GODDAMNIT. FORGOT: THERE’S NO GOD.

I’m a free man. I do love Big Brother. He is doubleplusgood – truly, in my heart, I love him. Because I am free. So very free.

~~ Hilarious Review

another intense dream

2011-11-28T17:50:00.000-08:00

a dystopian society (perhaps in the future)

i wake up, for some reason (drunk?) not being able to remember exactly what happened during my holiday trip with my family to a certain resort (marina bay sands?).

i do recall vague details here and there, like at the swimming pool and the beach, but for some reason, exact scenes and entire periods of time at other places have been completely erased.

the media comes in and tells me that they would like to come up with a reality show based on my life, and promise that it would be well-received.

i got very confused because i was excited about the possibility of stardom, yet the invasion of privacy a celebrity must undergo frightens me.

i vaguely recall a fragmented memory, where my eldest sister E, for again some unknown reason, warned the paparrazzi not to film details about my life and the exact things i said when i was drunk / in a trance.

i call eldest sister E to confirm the memory, and she asked in surprise, "you remember?"

"yeah," i said. "i don't know how i remember, but i just did. it's like i dreamt of it."

E kept silent for a while. it's like she's keeping something from me and hesitating whether she should tell me the truth, and whether i could handle it.

she made arrangements for an agent named (i can't recall the name) and he introduced himself to me, saying that he could find a way for me to sue the media should they choose to air a film that i had not consented to be released to the public. he said i might have a 50-50 chance of winning.

second sister P enters the picture suddenly without warning. the plot somehow both thickens and fast forwards.

P appears during a time in future when i discovered i had special powers. the powers were not very strong and well-developed, but i was beginning to draw notice from some of the people who hung around near me, like classmates, colleagues, neighbours, strangers at pubs i frequent etc. it was becoming increasing difficult to hide this gift / curse, both from myself and others.

once, i inverted a red umbrella and used it like some flying broom that witches ride on to float through tanjong pagar road where some korean and chinese restaurants were situated. pictures of me gliding exuberantly through the air fascinated some reporters, so they sent these photos to my second sister P.

the strange thing was, if they were really reporters, why did they send the photos to my second sister instead of the press?

i seriously began to doubt if they were reporters, but P insisted, "no, they aren't."

but somehow again there was some degree of doubt in the tone of her voice, and i suspected that she may again, like my eldest sis E, be hiding something important from me.

one day, she spotted me with the red umbrella gliding again. Stopping me, she said, "look, people are watching you. let's get out of here."

she rode a motorbike. in reality, second sis P doesn't ride a bike although she drives a car. But in my dream, she drives a really really cool bike, like harvey davidson or something.

for some reason, she loses control. she rides the bike up a perpendicular wall, the bike topples over, travels for a metre or two upside down in the air ...

Then finally she falls down hard ... flat on her face ... to her death.

it happened so ridiculously suddenly that i could not believe my eyes. what made her want to do such a thing? was she possessed? did she try to learn flying from me? was someone trying to kill us?

but for some reason, i didn't die even though i was seated behind her in her awesome bike. i escaped unscathed. another absurd outcome ... why?

another scene.

my mother was cooking beef noodles when ...

i woke up.

失落沙洲 by 徐佳瑩

2011-11-27T18:44:00.000-08:00

我不是一定要你回來只是當又一個人看海
回頭才發現你不在留下我迂迴的徘徊
我不是一定要你回來只是當又把回憶翻開
除了你之外的空白還有誰能來教我愛

我不是一定要你回來只是當又一個人看海
疲憊的身影不是我不是你想看見的我
我不是一定要你回來只是當獨自走入人海
除了你之外的依賴還有誰能教我勇敢

the art of uncertainty part 2

2011-11-26T02:28:00.000-08:00

What each must seek in his life never was on land or sea.
It is something out of his own unique potentiality for experience,
something that never has been
and never could have been experienced by anyone else.

-- Joseph Campbell, page 81

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift
and the rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society that honors the servant
and has forgotten the gift.

-- Albert Einstein, page 211

Our primordial purpose is
to respond to the impulsion from within
to solve the mystery of our individual existence,
to find and be the authentic Self
that is, has been and ever shall be.

-- Michael Beckwith, page 248

the art of uncertainty part 1

2011-11-24T20:51:00.000-08:00

a book by dennis merritt jones

If we use only our past as a reference point for our future,
we just create more of what we have already created,
another version of the same thing.

-- intro xvii, xviii

The only thing we have control over is our choice to either react mindlessly
or respond mindfully to “what is” in the current moment.

There it is: To practice the art of uncertainty
is to get comfortable with being “out of control.”

By this, I don’t mean being out of control
of our own actions and behavior,
but rather letting go of the need to control
the actions and behavior of other people,
including their opinion of us.

-- page 25

If you’re in a bad situation, don’t worry — it’ll change.
If you’re in a good situation, don’t worry — it’ll change!

-- john a. simone, sr., page 35

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need. —- Tao Te Ching, page 54

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned,
so as to accept the life that is waiting for us. —- Joseph Campbell, page 61

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation
and go to the grave with the song still in them. —- Henry David Thoreau

ticket to freedom

I have projected the same images day after day
becoming a prisoner of the known.
But the known is dead and past now
and I must buy my ticket to freedom
By embracing the fresh unknown.

Chance encounters, unexpected coincidences
Premonitions, dreams and wishes
Flashes of unpredictable joy
Random events are
Weaving themselves in the web of time.

I have left the voice of reason.
I am listening to the beckoning whisper
In the recesses of my heart.
And new shapes of reality
Are coaxing me out of my prison.

~Raid on the Inarticulate / deepak chopra, intro xv

In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty
... in the wisdom of uncertainty lies the freedom from our past,
from the known, which is the prison of past conditioning.
And in our willingness to step into the unknown,
the field of all possibilities,
we surrender ourselves to the creative mind
that orchestrates the dance of the universe.

-- page 2, deepak chopra

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in a bud
was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

-- page 11, Anais Nin

The Time Machine by HG Wells

2011-11-23T01:56:00.000-08:00

i'm fucking fed up with my keyboard which has an almost dead 'shift' and 'capslock' function, so my writing from now onwards will all be in lower case.

went back to my computer repairman to fix my seemingly dead HDD drive. luckily i was able to retrieve all my work when the man identified the loose connection and re-established it. he also promised that my new keyboard would arrive in a few days' time. i thought he had completely forgotten about it. let's hope he's not playing me out and that he would keep to his promise.

1) stumbled upon 'the time machine' which my kid happened to be reading last evening. perhaps due to this and also my obsession with dystopian society and the second renaissance by animatrix, i had 2 dreams last night pertaining to the future.

the first dream was about how robots and superhumans are fighting each other for control over the earth. the so called normal humans who have not evolved into higher forms of intelligence / higher levels of consciousness have somehow died off due to the process of evolution. in this dream, it was not clear to me whether it was the robots or the superhumans themselves who killed off the normal humans, but whatever it was, they have ceased to exist because they could not adapt.

the second dream, i can't recall the details, but it was about the complexity of life in the near future. things were relatively comfortable and my family was staying in some sort of condo, and the tv programme i was watching was fascinating, but i was unable to switch channels that easily. i felt so moronic when an auntie nearby had to teach me how to operate the remote control, yet after that i was still unable to grasp the most basic concepts of something as simple as changing channels even after listening to her explanation. also, my family had to share our tv room, dining area and even bathroom with other families. we were like in some sort of semi-commune which was very strange.

2) stumbled upon a book in jurong east library by OSHO. very thought provoking / atheistic.

3) i'm at present feeling a bit like tengo in 1q84 now.

like him, i'm a tutor.

like him, i'm also doing some kind of writing on my own.

when he read and re-wrote air crysalis, it inspired him to write his own novel.

when i read 1q84, it inspired me to re-write my own stories.

4) i found an iphone at jurong east libary and returned it to its rightful owner.

when i asked my sec 1 class if they would return lost phones to their rightful owners, most put up their hands. those few who didn't put up their hands did so after i gave them guilty stares.

when i asked my sec 4 class the same question, NONE of them put up their hands no matter how much i tried to give them guilty stares.

i'll leave it to you to figure out what the moral of the story is.

they fucking just stared back at me in silent disbelief, as if i was a moron for doing the right thing. i asked one sec 4 how much an iphone costs. he says 300 over bucks.

i'm not a very rich man. so why am i not doing what everyone else is doing? WHY?

i told one sec 2 kid that i returned an iphone to its owner.

he confessed that he recently found a watch at a swimming pool and wore it as his own.

finally, i asked my RIVER VALLEY kids over the weekend what they thought.

you know what all 4 of them said?

FINDERS KEEPERS, MISTER TAN.

with even the more intelligent people among us answering me like that, i should think that our future as a human race is doomed.

Another Strange Dream

2011-11-21T21:10:00.000-08:00

In this one, I was back in army camp.

It was ORD (Operationally Ready Day). In my time, it was still called ROD (Run Out of Date). I still prefer the old name ROD though. ORD sounds and is lame.

It seemed that everyone else had already happily packed their bags and moved out of the bunk except me. My bed was still there, my things were still in the cupboard and I had too much baggage with me to get everything out in such a short period of time.

Then, out of a sudden, I suddenly realised that this room wasn't part of my army barracks. As I began to feel my way around, it seemed like I was actually in the building of the old Ministry of Education headquarters which in my time was located at Tanglin or Kay Siang Road.

The building was totally empty. For some reason that was unknown to me, everyone had moved out. I remember feeling that sense of abandonment and futility. I was left all alone with too much stuff to pack and not even knowing where to start in the first place.

Then, suddenly an ex-colleague appeared right in front of me, or maybe beside me. I don't know how or why she appeared but she did. And she seemed to be smiling at me.

I am not very close to her. All I remember was, there were rumours going around some time ago that she had a thing for me. One of the bosses even told me point blank, albeit a bit tongue in cheek, that she kind of liked me. I didn't know how to respond to that, so I left it at that.

There was a period of time when we used to talk and banter more. We even exchanged quite a few smses and she even wished me happy birthday recently but things kind of simmered out shortly after that.

Maybe I should have responded to her more. Cos I think even in my dreams, she was somehow trying to reach out to me in my aloneness.

Strange Dream

2011-11-19T17:31:00.000-08:00

I had a strange dream last night.

I usually remember most of my dreams, but these few weeks have been hectic as I've been busy with work and computer stuff, so I didn't bother to record them down.

But things got intense last night. I forgot most of the details but there remains a powerful trace, an aftertaste, which leads me to type whatever it is I can remember.

I was translated back into the past where I was attending a Christian camp during the school holidays.

I remember feeling that sense of awkwardness with the people I once knew and was close to, the reason being that I knew I was no longer the person I was. In other words, I no longer believed (completely) what orthodox Christians believe in.

Even so, I begrudgingly went ahead with their religious activities with a moderate amount of obligation and the lack of enthusiasm.

What happened next was scariest.

I was told that I was going to be involved in an extremely dangerous mission.

They are going to 'smuggle' me, among a few others, into a totalitarian country to do missionary work.

I remember feeling a great sense of fear when they showed me the hamster cages that I would have to be 'locked up in' until we reach the country via a helicopter / private plane.

Of course, the sense of absurdity was there too. I mean, a hamster cage?! What the fuck right. If you don't know what a hamster cage is, it's just a miniature box-shaped cage with metal grills all around.

I had to squeeze myself into it!

Yet the most ridiculous part was, I didn't have the strength or the willpower to resist the demands that have been unfairly imposed on me. Christianity does have its own set of rules and regulations, just like any other religion. But to militantly imprison someone into some kind of rectangular cage; literally trying to squeeze everyone into some kind of one-size-fix-all mould, is inhumane and wrong. I remember feeling slightly uncomfortable as I braced myself to enter the small cage, but there was absolutely no overt feeling of the sense of injustice, of active resistance, of speaking out against the irrational chains that were going to bind me.

I experienced no anger at all. Just fear.

I was led like a lamb to the slaughter. Brainwashed, unable to fend for myself.

Of course, Christians among you would be accusing me of being possessed by Satan for having such a demonic dream. Moreover, you can quote verses like how Jesus has come to set us free from bondage. Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set us free. He whom the Son sets free is free indeed. Amen. Hallelujah. Thank you Lord. Speak in tongues.

My goal is not to contradict these Christians. It's just a dream I had, and I am simply sharing it with you like it is. I try not to interpret it in a way that is too objective. I do maintain an open mind towards your interpretation, but I remember the feelings elicited when such insane restrictions were imposed on me.

Many would suggest a Freudian interpretation. A decade ago I had some bad experiences with a cult-like form of Christianity which kind of messed me up deep inside, so now I am still manifesting the negative residue of its influence. You may not be wrong. Maybe.

Other new age believers would opine that I have, at last, seen the light, started to think 'out of the box' and begun to move towards a more 'eclectic' approach to spiritual and supernatural forces.

You might be right, too.

A Book by its Cover

2011-11-18T03:05:00.000-08:00

People say don't judge a book by its cover.

But this book has no covers for you to judge. It's what you would call an open book.

No clothes, no make up, no social contrivances, no bullshit. The real me.

The content I write here is absolutely free for all. Even if you reproduce it anywhere else, you infringe no copyright issues for I have wanted it to be so.

I tell you the truth about myself with no strings attached, no hidden agenda, no holds barred. I unleash the pent up energy.

The best things in life are usually not free. This one is, but that doesn't mean it's not good. It may not even be good in your opinion. It may, in fact, be bad. But it's my best.

I give my best, even though it may not be good enough.

What inspired me to start writing this was my walk down Esplanade Theatre 2 evenings ago for the River Valley High choral recital. On my way there through City Link, I encountered not one but 2 teenagers (or maybe young adults), wearing black plastic spectacles with no lens at all. One female, one male, on two separate moments with only a minute difference in between them.

The pair of black spectacles has become a peripheral, an accessory, like a pair of earrings or bangles, something you can do without.

It's a bad analogy I know, but what pops into my mind are people would build houses without needing to live in them. Buying a house at least makes sense cos there is meaning to it - it's a form of financial investment. But building one with your bare hands without staying in it?

What originally was meant to enhance one's vision has become trivialised, rendered redundant.

But I exaggerate, of course. People who do this normally place a great emphasis on external appearances. They believe that wearing black spectacles without lenses makes them look better, cooler, sexier.

It's like how smoking and drinking can be made to seem glamorous, symbolising an extravagant and ostentatious lifestyle.

Or possibly, there may be something hidden below the surface that I'm not detecting yet. I seem to notice a certain measure of depth within these 2 individuals even though I noticed them for only a while.

It's like, if you wear earrings on your left ear or right ear or both and you're a guy, you are trying to display the fact that you are gay and proud of it. But non-gays will not be able to understand and comprehend the hidden code. It's a kind of language that only the inner circle understands.

So in an sense, either way, you can't really judge a book by its cover.

A girl wearing orange underwear and pink bra is not vain. It's a secret code to let the married men know that she's horny and available. And the married men intuitively know the code too, somehow. So they can be complete strangers when they meet each other on the street, and be fucking in Hotel 81 the next very second.

Murakami puts it another way in 1Q84.

The taxi driver warns Aomame:

Things are not what they seem.

Don't let appearances fool you.

There is always only one reality.

The Fierce Imagination of Haruki Murakami

2011-11-17T19:23:00.000-08:00

Excerpts from The New York Times. Compliments to Mister Lim for sharing the site.

1) Over the years, Murakami’s novels have tended to grow longer and more serious — ... and now, after a particularly furious and sustained boil, he has produced his longest, strangest, most serious book yet. (1Q84)

2) This giant book, however, grew from the tiniest of seeds. According to Murakami, “1Q84” is just an amplification of one of his most popular short stories, “On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning,” which (in its English version) is five pages long. “Basically, it’s the same,” he told me. “A boy meets a girl. They have separated and are looking for each other. It’s a simple story. I just made it long.”

3) For decades now, Murakami has been talking about working himself up to write what he calls a “comprehensive novel” — something on the scale of “The Brothers Karamazov,” one of his artistic touchstones. (He has read the book four times.) This seems to be what he has attempted with “1Q84”: a grand, third-person, all-encompassing meganovel. It is a book full of anger and violence and disaster and weird sex and strange new realities, a book that seems to want to hold all of Japan inside of it — a book that, even despite its occasional awkwardness (or maybe even because of that awkwardness), makes you marvel, reading it, at all the strange folds a single human brain can hold.

I told Murakami that I was surprised to discover, after so many surprising books, that he managed to surprise me again. As usual, he took no credit, claiming to be just a boring old vessel for his imagination.

“The Little People came suddenly,” he said. “I don’t know who they are. I don’t know what it means. I was a prisoner of the story. I had no choice. They came, and I described it. That is my work.”

4) When Murakami sat down to write his first novel, he struggled until he came up with an unorthodox solution: he wrote the book’s opening in English, then translated it back into Japanese. This, he says, is how he found his voice. Murakami’s longstanding translator, Jay Rubin, told me that a distinctive feature of Murakami’s Japanese is that it often reads, in the original, as if it has been translated from English.

5) You could even say that translation is the organizing principle of Murakami’s work: that his stories are not only translated but about translation.

6) A Murakami character is always, in a sense, translating between radically different worlds: mundane and bizarre, natural and supernatural, country and city, male and female, overground and underground. His entire oeuvre, in other words, is the act of translation dramatized.

7) I asked him if he felt any kinship with Orwell.

“I guess we have a common feeling against the system,” Murakami said.

Threw in the Towel

2011-11-15T21:08:00.000-08:00

1) Finally threw in the towel and traded in my darn dinosaur laptop for a second hand Pentium 1.86 Ghz, 0.99GB RAM, 40G HDD by topping up another $100.

2) And it fucking comes with another set of woes. Speed is relatively faster but the keypad SUX. Went back to repair shop to fix the CAPS LOCK button. The man did it in a rather slip shod manner - although he said he would change the entire keypad, he ended up just fixing only that button.

3) It was only after I got my laptop back that I realised that:

a) the right Shift key was totally not working
b) the left Shift key and the 'a' key needed me to hit extra hard to work
c) the scroll / num lock button came off and I had to manually attach it back

4) It comes with a 30 day warranty. Am going back to Sim Lim to see the man. I hope the man fixes these problems later without charging me more.

5) USB mouse doesn't seem to work on this fucking machine either. Touchpad not very sensitive, so have to resort to using mouse but I kept seeing a speech balloon that says my USB device is malfunctioning. Tried uninstalling and reinstalling USB controller in hardware device manager under system properties but still no joy.

6) Finished Book 1 for 1Q84. Two more books to go. Am already reading as slowly as I can and kept re-reading several parts but yet the fun will soon all be over.

26 Golden Rules for Writing Well

2011-11-14T21:41:00.000-08:00

a checklist for professional writing skills

1. Don’t abbrev.

2. Check to see if you any words out.

3. Be carefully to use adjectives and adverbs correct.

4. About sentence fragments.

5. When dangling, don’t use participles.

6. Don’t use no double negatives.

7. Each pronoun agrees with their antecedent.

8. Just between you and I, case is important.

9. Join clauses good, like a conjunction should.

10. Don’t use commas, that aren’t necessary.

11. Its important to use apostrophe’s right.

12. It’s better not to unnecessarily split an infinitive.

13. Never leave a transitive verb just lay there without an object.

14. Only Proper Nouns should be capitalized. also a sentence should
begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop

15. Use hyphens in compound-words, not just in any two-word phrase.

16. In letters compositions reports and things like that we use commas
to keep a string of items apart.

17. Watch out for irregular verbs that have creeped into our language.

18. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.

19. Avoid unnecessary redundancy.

20. A writer mustn’t shift your point of view.

21. Don’t write a run-on sentence you’ve got to punctuate it.

22. A preposition isn’t a good thing to end a sentence with.

23. Avoid cliches like the plague.

24. 1 final thing is to never start a sentence with a number.

25. Always check your work for accuracy and completeness.

[ANON.]

~~ Link

11 / 11 / 2011

2011-11-11T02:08:00.000-08:00

Computer Woes

1) The more I try to fix my computer stuff, the more it breaks down.

2) My old desktop CPU exploded two nights ago with a burning smell. Couldn't switch it on after that. Spent $55 on a new Power Supply Unit early this morning.

3) AVG 2012 is hell for weaker laptops like mine. Other AVG versions might have been excellent, but this one completely slows down my AMD Sempron 1.79 GHz, with only 224 MB of RAM. Tamade.

Moreover, my laptop battery is all but dead. As the power cannot be stored, the laptop will have to be continuously plugged in. Once the power supply is switched off, my laptop shuts down automatically without warning. What the fuck right.

4) This is to the mad woman. The story I told you that day at Coffee Bean was an incomplete version. Here is the actual reason behind why I was upset.

Just before you came to meet me, I accidentally found a $10 note at the bottom of the table right at the corner where the power point was. I noticed it because I needed to bend down to plug my laptop power cable into the socket.

My point is, I was the one who noticed the $10 note first. I was the first person to reach the table at the left corner of the cafe where the power point is conveniently located at the bottom side of the wall.

The stupid Mainland China girl only barged in later.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not really against China girls (or guys) who, as you know, have been making their presence felt in almost every square metre in Singapore - these past few years especially. Some of these morons who are guilty of pushing and shoving me around in overloaded MRT trains during peak hours are none other than our very own home-bred locals.

My point is, she rushed over to the table where I was already seated, bent down, and snatched the $10 note right in front of me.

She literally snatched it, or grabbed it, or whatever, assuming that I wasn't quick enough to notice the note, or see what she was doing.

And then do you know what happened after that?

She quickly hid the note somewhere and had the cheek to ask me if she could sit at my table because she desperately needed to use her laptop to surf the net. What audacity - she acted as if nothing had happened!

She not only grabs money that doesn't belong to her. She also grabs tables, seats and power points that other people have already occupied.

(She probably grabs men too, I suspect.)

And she doesn't feel a single tinge of guilt about doing it.

It's like she's saying, "Hey listen up, you loser Sinkaporean. I'm only here to make money in your stupid country. After I think I've leeched enough from your economy, I'll go back to China with a full wallet. And I don't give a fucking damn about what you people think or how I make the money. By hook or by crook, whether legally or illegally, whether it is by grabbing money on the floor or sucking cocks, I don't really care. So get out of my uncaring face. Got it?"

Her attitude infuriates me, if you get what I mean.

But I was still nice enough to her. I don't know why I should be nice to her but I was. I told her that my laptop's battery was a bit faulty as it couldn't store power, so if I didn't manage to switch on my laptop successfully, she could have my corner table. And true enough, I was out of luck. My fucking power cable decided not to work at that very moment, and I kept to my promise of letting her take my table (and the $10 which should have been mine too.)

Case in point: I have a confession to make. I too was tempted to take the $10 note when I first saw it. I might have taken it in the end if the rightful owner didn't come back to take it. (There is another story about the rightful owner but things were happening so fast at that time that I got some of the details mixed up. So more on that later.) But I didn't want to snatch it. It's not that I'm a very morally upright person, but I'm just not the kind of person who snatches things.

Conclusion: as a result of a short moment's hesitation, I lost the $10 which I could have used to buy a drink for the mad woman.

This next part is not a computer woe but something that happened a few days after that. I was queueing up for a bottle of wine at a supermarket. As there were a few counters, people tried to get behind the shortest queue. A cashier opened up a new queue that was just beside mine and in less than half a second all the aunties around me rushed over to be first in that new queue. I could have rushed over too but I decided that I was just not the kind of person who pushes and shoves to get to a certain privileged or advantageous position. Maybe it's my fault for being too lazy and slack. But it was also partly because I was too appalled by these kiasu aunties' behaviour to react alertly enough.

This leads me to wonder. What's wrong with our world today (or maybe just Singapore for that matter) with all the pushing and shoving and grabbing?

I no longer recognise or understand the kind of world we live in now.

People didn't used to be so opportunistic. People didn't used to be so rude. Things were slower in the past, but people seemed more patient. At least that's what I think.

Snatching, grabbing and competing against others just aren't my cup of tea.

That's about the crux of the matter, mad woman. I'm not upset with the world, in fact. The world has always been more or less the same, with its fair share of good and evil people.

I'm upset with myself. I failed to snatch what was supposedly mine.

That was the reason why I was so upset that day.

Boundaries Are Weakening

2011-11-06T02:18:00.000-08:00

"Already, it's pretty clear that the screen-based, two dimensional world that so many teenagers - and a growing number of adults - choose to inhabit is producing changes in behaviour. Attention spans are shorter, personal communication skills are reduced and there's a marked reduction in the ability to think abstractly.

This games-driven generation interpret the world through screen-shaped eyes. It's almost as if something hasn't really happened until it's been posted on Facebook, Bebo or YouTube.

Add that to the huge amount of personal information now stored on the internet - births, marriages, telephone numbers, credit ratings, holiday pictures - and it's sometimes difficult to know where the boundaries of our individuality actually lie. Only one thing is certain: those boundaries are weakening."

~~ Susan Greenfield

"The gospel is thus a truth widely held, but a truth greatly reduced. It is a truth that has been flattened, trivialized, and rendered inane.

Partly, the gospel is simply an old habit among us, neither valued nor questioned.

But more than that, our technical way of thinking reduces mystery to problem, transforms assurance into certitude, revises quality into quantity, and so takes the categories of biblical faith and represents them in manageable shapes.

There is then no danger, no energy, no possibility, no opening for newness ...

Truth is greatly reduced ...

To address the issue of a truth greatly reduced requires us to be poets that speak against a prose world.

~~ Walter Brueggemann 1

Walter Brueggemann 2

Random Thoughts

2011-11-02T07:27:00.000-07:00

1) Contemplating your demise kind of forces you to think about bottom-lines.

2) This makes me a bottom-line person. I keep the bare essentials and throw the rest away. Sometimes, I get so careless that I inadvertantly throw out some of what are actually the bare essentials.

It can't be helped I guess. Sometimes you will only realise you appreciate something after you lose it.

3) I know what loss is. I lost my phone twice in three days, almost lost my bag at the same time (thank God a kind soul returned it at the bus interchange), and recently I lost $200 for absolutely nothing.

Don't ask me what happened, cos the scary thing is, I don't even remember how I lost it.

4) This is to the mad woman. I lost my first phone after you called / smsed me. Now you almost lost yours after calling me. It's an obvious sign that we shouldn't be meeting too often.

In any case, thanks for turning up and telling me what I couldn't remember. That was another scary incident I wouldn't ever want to repeat.

We would be wise to just lie low for a while and keep a low profile.

5) My Christian friends used to say that hitting rock bottom is good, cos Jesus Christ is the Rock that will hold you. But I don't seem to find him there.

6) 1Q84 delivers so far.

In my opinion, it may possibly surpass Wing Up Bird Chronicle. I will reserve my final verdict until I finish reading the last page (page 925).

I'm at page 174 now and am doing my best to read it as slowly as possible. In fact, this afternoon, I even re-read some of the parts I particularly enjoyed.

I'm dreading the day when I reach page 925 because I'm not sure if I'm able to endure another long silence until Murakami writes the next book.

On Moths

2011-10-30T23:09:00.000-07:00

A moth flew into my room last night. I tried to chase it away but it refused to go and landed on one or two of my books. I fell asleep and switched off the lights. The next morning it was gone.

Based on Hindu belief:

"The moth is said to have the habit of being attracted by flames. They approach the flames and circle around until they dive headlong into the flame killing themselves. This is symbolic of people who are at first attracted to the teachings of the Gita. Some, on hearing this knowledge, imbibe (to take or receive into the mind, as knowledge, ideas) and inculcate (to accept an idea or feeling) it into their lives. They then take a vow of purity and surrender their body, mind and wealth to follow this divine path. They are said to have renounced this old world and live a life according to divine shrimat. This is known as to "die a living death" when they have conquered the vices. They live a life similar to that of the lotus flower.

On the other hand, some people come and hear this knowledge and then go away to continue living their previous lives. This is to live in the deep sleep of ignorance called "kumbhakarna". This is what some moths do as they circle around and then fly away.

Other moths will circle from a distance, neither flying away nor diving into the flame. They keep forever circling. They are those who can’t make up their minds because of doubts or fear.

Finally, there are those who want to keep their feet in both worlds and enjoy both the vices and the virtues, but this is not possible in spirituality."

~~ Link

Based on Astology / New Age Belief:

A friend of mine has been getting consistent visitations from the moth, and she asked me what I thought. This page is a result of a few meditations with the moth, and symbolic observations.

Moths have similar animal symbolism as butterflies, but have a few distinguishing characteristics that set it far apart from its winged relative.

Namely, the moth is a nocturnal creature, whereas the butterfly is diurnal.

Nocturnal creatures have philosophical symbolism such as:

Dreams
Shadows
Otherworldliness
Secret knowledge
Psychic awareness

We gather these symbolic attributes because night creatures conduct their life-sustaining activities in complete darkness.

Symbolic speaking, they live out their lives by intuitive feeling rather than physical sensory perception.

Philosophically speaking, night creatures do not tumble in the dark, and neither do humans. We use our dreams, our awareness, and our deeper, inner knowing to navigate through the darkest hours of our lives.

Faith is another tool we use to move through shadowy times of uncertainty, and the moth also shares this aspect.

The moth never questions provision. She has complete faith that all of her needs will be meet each night.

A quick-list of animal symbolism of moths:

Vulnerability
Determination
Concealment
Attraction
Subtlety
Intuition
Faith

Even in navigation, when we observe the moth flying into artificial light or flames, the moth demonstrates its faith and determination.

It is still unproven as to why the moth is driven to light – but the best hypothesis is that the moth navigates by lunar light. In the absence of moonlight, the moth moves to the next best thing: man-made light.

Even at the risk of losing its life, the moth is ever-vigilant in following its path of light. This may also serve as a moral to us to keep our own vigilance, but not fall victim to blind faith.

Here we see a fragile vulnerability in the moth. The moon is its mother, and it will follow its course at all costs. This makes it open to distraction, vulnerable to harm. It must adjust its course accordingly to follow the path, rather than drive forward without heeding important signs along the way.

As a creature of the night, and by her navigational devices, we see the moth is highly influenced by the power of the moon. This aspect ties in with animal symbolism of intuition, and psychic awareness.

Indeed, those with the moth totem will find this creature a magnificent assistant in developing higher awareness, and psychic enhancement.

However, with higher perception we sometimes overstep into the realm of confusion. It is important to seat ourselves in grounding foundations when we step in-tune with the lunar aspects of the moth. In other words, fly high with the moth – but always have a clear runway for happy, safe landings.

A master of disguise, the moth can blend in to the point of invisibility. This is a metaphor for us to use our environment to our advantage, blend in when necessary, adjust and adapt when the situation requires it.

~~ Link

Success

2011-10-28T23:51:00.000-07:00

A nice definition of success, probably inaccurately attributed to
Ralph Waldo Emerson:

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty,
to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better,
whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.

Recycling

2011-10-27T00:42:00.000-07:00

From 'Awakened Mind' by David Kundtz

"Do you recycle? Do you use the things you need and then return them to new life? What you recycle will have life again - and maybe even again and again.

Recycling is a specific way to express that you know your place in the universe as a sojourner, as someone who is travelling through for a while and then moves on."

~~ p284

"Junk is the ultimate merchandise. The junk merchant does not sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to the product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise, he degrades and simplifies the client."

William S. Burroughs

~~ p280

1Q84

2011-10-25T10:49:00.000-07:00

It's out at Kino today. At long last.

I was at Kino yesterday too but it wasn't out yet.

The truth is, I dread reading it.

Because after I finish reading it, there will be no more meaning in life.

The following video contains spoilers. Don't watch it if you intend to read the book first.

Owe

2011-10-24T08:58:00.000-07:00

"Our friends owe us what we think they owe us. We must forgive them this debt."

~~ a variation on Simone Weil's statement:

"Our friends owe us what we think they will give us. We must forgive them this debt."

"It is easier to forgive an enemy than a friend."

~~ Dorothee Deluzy

Beautiful Girl

2011-10-21T08:34:00.000-07:00

Christian Bautista:

Jose Mari Chan:

Crop Circles A Scam?

2011-10-19T20:15:00.000-07:00

Cosmic Serpent:

On 29 July 2011:

On 12 June 2010:

Ba Gua for Taoists 2011:

Be patient with this video and soon you will see the bagua at 2 min 46 sec:

On 20 July 2011:

Scary Movie Excerpts

2011-10-15T02:54:00.000-07:00

夢田

2011-10-13T07:56:00.000-07:00

潘越雲/齊豫 version:

南方二重唱 version:

蘇打綠/林憶蓮 version:

Capable

2011-10-03T03:25:00.000-07:00

I'm capable of destroying everything I had built and starting all over again.

I am.

The propensity for self-destruction.

Bring Forth

2011-10-02T23:43:00.000-07:00

Jesus said, "If you bring forth what is within you,
what you bring forth will save you.
If you do not bring forth what is within you,
what you do not bring forth will destroy you."

~~ The Gospel of Thomas

Lost

2011-09-29T22:58:00.000-07:00

I lost my phone TWICE within three days.

At the same time, I lost my bag but managed to find it at Eunos bus interchange.

The forces are against me.

Day 2

2011-09-27T05:59:00.000-07:00

This is to the mad woman.

Thanks for meeting me today.

The curse is upon me so I reckon you should stay away.

I believe in the spirits. And they are all against me, finding ways to destroy me.

I've been drawing / attracting a lot of negative energy. Tons of them.

I'm under spiritual attack. Believe me.

Nothing has been going right for me.

I've only lost and lost.

The curse does not lift.

The pain does not alleviate.

Day 1

2011-09-26T03:31:00.000-07:00

Day 0: The End of an Old Era, the Dawn of a New One

2011-09-25T05:45:00.000-07:00

From The Soul's Companion By Tian Dayton:

September 30: Hidden Beauty

What gives meaning to my life may lie beneath the surface.

Today I will look not with my eyes but with my senses, to understand and experience what gives my life depth and importance. It is, at times, the promise of a hidden well that gives meaning to the surrounding atmosphere, the knowledge of a source of life that makes the day feel worthwhile and guides my mind closer to the mystery. Though I never hope to solve the mystery of life, sensing it will give my life a feeling of fullness. I am not here to explain but to experience life. Understanding comes more from experience than from collecting bits of knowledge.

I sense life’s hidden meaning.

~~ p298

The desert is beautiful, the little prince added. And that was true. I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams ... “What makes the desert beautiful,” said the little prince, “is that somewhere it hides a well.”

~~ Antoine de St. Exupery