the usually reliable blogger decided to die on me for awhile just as i tried to publish my post at around 10pm.
ah well.

i just realised today that good albums are like good short story collections.
no surprise, then, that i like both so much. especially those steeped in melancholia (yes, that again!).

i have something of a penchant for torturing myself.
everytime i visit mp library i have to borrow 4 books at one shot though i can never finish all of them.
and i incur fines in the process.

this time round:

• "the great wall of china and other short works" by franz kafka
• "tales and more tales from the mountain" by miguel torga
• "gravity" by erica wagner
• "dramacontemporary: scandinavia" by olafur haukur simonarson, tor age bringsvaerd, ulla ryum, margareta garpe, jussi kylatasku

the middle two being short-story collections, the latter is a collection of five modern plays, one each by playwrights from each of the five scandinavian countries.
(i remember someone telling me that iceland wasn't considered part of scandinavia. wonder who.)

nothing short of suicidal - they all seem heavy, and it's so bloody close to the promos.
why the hell am i doing this?!
(i would have borrowed carver and borges instead had the library not had the audacity to not possess any of their books on their shelves.)

have boosted my mp3 collection by 14 files tonight, with contributions from pitchfork, soulseek, claudia, kelly and bao.
the best return for a long long time.
and dare i say it's an unusually good mix of stuff. we have french, icelandic, english and instrumental tracks; soft-pop, power-pop, j-rock, brit rock, electronic, post-rock, alt-pop; long tracks, short tracks; fast tracks, slow tracks; happy tracks, depressing tracks...

that's the way. i need to open up *slightly* more.


on another note: it's interesting to think about how people relate to each other, and how these relations grow.
food for thought.
(someday i'm gonna have huge throbbing migraines, what with purvis, radiohead, kafka and myself to contend with.)

picture yourself on a boat in a river
with tangerine trees and marmalade skies
somebody calls you
you answer quite slowly
a girl with kaleidoscope eyes

cellophane flowers of yellow and green
towering over your head
look for the girl with the sun in her eyes
and she's gone

lucy in the sky with diamonds
lucy in the sky with diamonds
lucy in the sky with diamonds...

follow her down to a bridge by a fountain
where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies
everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers
that grow so incredibly high

newspaper taxies appear on the shores
waiting to take you away
climb in the back with your head in the clouds
and you're gone

lucy in the sky with diamonds
lucy in the sky with diamonds
lucy in the sky with diamonds...

picture yourself in a train in a station
with plasticine porters with looking glass ties
suddenly someone is there at the turnstile -
the girl with kaleidoscope eyes

lucy in the sky with diamonds
lucy in the sky with diamonds
lucy in the sky with diamonds
lucy in the sky with diamonds
lucy in the sky with diamonds
lucy in the sky with diamonds...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

hm.
kitson's gone.

or going, rather - somehow he's online on msn at the moment.
must be enjoying his last bits of singapore shopping before he goes to baulk at the insanely high prices of living in the uk. specifically, winchester.

and so marks what seems to be the beginning of a period of sea change.
it's time to get down to the grit in life...

8 months doesn't sound short, but it does feel short. too short, especially, when just about everything's been going the way you wanted it to go.
but fate has a habit of throwing the spanner in the works at uncannily strategic times...

friday was awkward for the class.
i can't say much as i was quite sleepy in class, but i was sober enough to make out ms ho's words, and to discern the class' response.
- is it possible to respond to something purely for the sake of reaction?
if anyone did that then it'd really be sad. like you had nothing better in life to do than to stoke the almost-dead embers.
sometimes, though, i think people just react as a spur of the moment... feelings can be fleeting, and for some, it just seems second nature to let it loose before it dies out under the smothering waves of rationality.

i sometimes wish i were more like that.

i look at some people and i wish i had more things to talk about, things to have real serious conversations about.
other than music and sports.
both of which i admit to having limited knowledge of.
other people seem to be so much more purposeful/purposeful in life.
not that i think i don't have any (in either sense).
but...
sigh.

8 months is such a short time in which to build up solid relationships.
but possibly the crammed canned nature of jc life has acted as a catalyst to the creations of curiously strong bonds between some of us...
sophie asked us on friday if we ever had a better teacher than, say, purvis.
come to think of it yeah i have had better teachers. (in my memory, at least.)
but none whom i have come to identify myself with so much.

it's scary sometimes when i think of how similar my thinking was/is to his, or at least his that he presents during his lessons.
he's meant to provoke us, he says... how do i get provoked when i agree with a lot of what he's saying?
and it's not after a rational processing of his ideas... they just seem to click.

i wonder if he knows who in the class are christians, and who are not.

for the moment though i cannot picture someone other than purvis doing hardy with us.
not that i want to.


so marks the first touchstone in this period of sea change, when one of the founding members of the class leaves for what hopefully is greener pastures for him. all the best, kitson.

it's our turn now.

Your belonging in The Mysteries of Udolpho is quite
evident; a world of intrigue, melancholy,
sublimity and terror. You belong where there
are danger, gloomy edifices, and evil Italian
guardians. Your passion for the passion of the
Mediterranean, the divine contemplation of
nature, and for adventure stories, makes you a
prime contender for a spot in a gothic romance.

Which Classic Novel do You Belong In?
brought to you by Quizilla

was on the train with lam today when someone in the next carraige had an epileptic fit.
first thing i knew after i turned around in response to someone shouting for help, there were two denim-clad legs twitching in a very scary way.
looked further up the body and saw the person's head twitching as well.

thankfully enough someone had the presence of mind to use the intercom to alert the station master.
some others elped to prevent him from biting his tongue. then the staff came and took him out of the train, by which time his fit seemed to have ceased.
hopefully he's recovered.

if that kind soul hadn't come forward to help and called for someone to use the intercom would anything have happened?
would people have helped?...


anyway
on some kinda of high after today went very well.
we managed to make our pw sound (nothing much to show hehe) right on track.
lit was very engaging yet again.
pe shit turned out to be basketball (fun!).
and maths test turned out to be pretty easy after all. haha should ace it.

now blisfully putting off chinese homework by binging on haagen-dazs coffee ice cream and listening to achtung baby on the computer.
ahhhh.......

i'm quite baffled and amazed at how my body clock has petulantly refused to set itself right for the past few days even though lysistrata is over now.
i still dragged my nights on till 2am in the morning then get up 3 1/2 hrs later to go to school.
nothing short of farcical. i wonder how i ever get through school.

anyway it seems to have given up - i almost dozed off just now while mugging vectors and induction.
just a while more...

it's so tempting to sing along to jonsi's (sigur ros) voice even though you know well that it is impossible for you to match his lilting falsettoes.
in hopelandish notwithstanding.


today's safti visit was quite depressing.
the talk, at least.
it's unsettling to realise that you really are going to have to devote at least 2 years of your life to something you don't really believe in.
the way they put it to us it was almost a glorification of violence.
"wow here we have a missile! *boom* and a machine gun!! *boom boom* and more weapons!!! *BLAM*"
also not easy to see how the panelists managed to squirm and dodge their own planted questions.
i mean, they are the ones who will be in charge. it just adds to the feeling that this is absolutely not what you want to be doing...

but the tour went some way in relieving that. i guess when you do physical stuff all day long you don't have time to think of such stuff and depress yourself.

ah well.


and i have decided to try to adapt a carver story for stage after the promos.

for no apparent reason my mind wandered back to a conversation i had with ben moh in the park outside safra yishun last year before the start of the b-div bowling tournament.
we were talking about the things we read, and ben asked me why i liked to read stories and plays that reflected so closely real life when people read for leisure and for pleasure.
stuff like ibsen's plays, miller's plays, raymond carver, anton checkhov etc.

i couldn't answer him, and i still cannot answer the question, but that i kinda like to wallow in melancholy.
i still do.
how else do you explain my record collection?

• sigur ros
• radiohead
• starsailor
• my morning jacket
• interpol
• doves
• elbow
• bss
• etc etc etc...

i can only come to the conclusion that i'm somewhat masochistic.
(not the sexual kind.)

on another note:

those who want copies of the lysis soundtrack and/or the house music, please keep in mind that you WILL have to pay a token sum of 50c per cd so that i do not make too much of a loss.
(yes i AM making a loss.)
it'd be much much better if you just pass me a cd to burn the stuff on. then you won't have to pay in concrete money terms. better on your (my?) conscience, maybe.

i want to go to mexico to eat chocolates and vanilla pudding.
and drink margaritas.
(i just watched planet food on dta.)

am quite pleased with my haircut. hehe.
i had to tell the somewhat apprehensive new hairdresser at the shop to thin my hair more and more ("jian bao yi dian! gan gan jian!!") until i was finally satisfied.
ah well.

i'm beginning to like rafa benitez a lot now.
at least he makes sense at post-match conferences, and doesn't make stupid comments like kevin keegan.
("mr benitez was blocking my view as i sat in the dugout and he stood in the technical area.")

ok. shall go back to chinese homework.

p.s. realised i forgot to thank some people!
people like chin eldon and jj and seet for coming down to support.
:]

we did it! haha.
went off without much of a hitch.
considering the state the production was in on monday night we sure have come a long long way...

thanks to everyone in the cast - aps, boof, vivien, choon, soph, vaish, claud from a13a (we rock!) especially.
and randy for doing the lights to perfection (perfection, that is, to the absolute threshold of lt1 technology).
and mark for styling everyone's hair and making timmy look like a blue astroboy.

and most of all the unsung backstage heroine kelly:
thanks so much for staying up so late on so many nights to preview the tracks for the soundtrack with me.
wonderful organisation job you did there... go get some rest! you deserve it. thoroughly.
and you're welcome. :)

thanks too to yeekiat, zhian, yiting, ruth, shane, kitson, grace, tsz san for gracing the occasion and being part of such wonderful audiences.
(if daniel was there too i'm sorry i didn't see you, thanks too)

all in all we are such a remarkable class! hahaha.
i am still very keen on putting up something next year as a class.
(i strongly STRONGLY propose ibsen, miller or a stage adaptation of raymond carver.)

i need sleep.
i need a haircut.
i need a larger music database.
i need a more varied music taste.
i need econs help.
i need a lot more physical strength than i have now.
i need to make zhian feel guilty about drawing that pink smiley on my shirt.
i need to get the pw group back on track.
i need to quit whining to randy about not getting into o-team.
i need time.
i need a better memory.
i need to grant favours less readily, my mother says. haha...

currently waiting for a file transfer to kelly to complete.

the 1b people don't seem to be as cool and private as others may make them out to be.
maybe it was just the crammed atmoshpere in andi's car tonight as we made our way home. haha.
(incidentally i feel quite guilty sitting in the front seat alone (wiggy you're the largest-sized here) and leaving michael, shirin, matt, zhong and andi (in her own car!) squeezing in the back seat.
and for making allan wait like 20mins for me before i tell him that i'm going home with the 5 of them.)

i find it quite odd that, in my 4 years in ri, i did practically nothing in school other than delve into academia. sec3 gep camp notwithstanding.
then i come to rjc and wham! haha.
better to have my plate filled up to the edge than have it empty, i guess.

i have been meaning to do my first album review for the skttrbrain site for a while already, which hopefully will serve as good training in my longterm ambition to write for pitchfork magazine one day.
but because of lysis/ra/photog/maths/econs/english/gp/blablabla it's still undone.
will most probably start on it after saturday evening.

on another note i am bloody disappointed yet kinda resigned at my exclusion from the o-team.
spontaniety was never one of my fortes, but now i don't get to relive one of the best 2 weeks of my school life so far.
will try to live with it.

sigh... ah well.

the sky outside is almost black in colour.
one of the few times i actually get irritated with rain in the afternoon - here i am trying to go through my music collection looking for songs for lysistrata and the rain and the thunder conspire to make listening a chore. gah.

but on the bright side i am now very motivated to get the go! team's debut album if/when it comes out in singapore.
ah well.

ha.
the lysistrata soundtrack will so rock.
yeah - indie is the new hip-hop (haha). i'm sure indie fans will have no qualms with liking the soundtrack.

at least it's not like the wicker park soundtrack where the bozos inexplicably put snow patrol right next to broken social scene's sublime "lover's spit", lifehouse before death cab for cutie, and got postal service to cover a phil collins song. (?!)

so many good albums are coming out soon - interpol, beck, ted leo, clinic.
i need cash...

right.
so now i'm ready to go public.
(about time everyone got to see this masterpiece of coding by claud anyway.)

previously this was a private blog. accessed by (i hope) only 2 other people, both with relatively in depth knowledge of what i went through from around april to june this year.
a whirlwind three months.

i have since deleted all the posts.
well not really - i saved it somewhere in my hard disk, password protected...
...so i can look back at it someday and smile and sigh. like i just did.

so this shall become my blog - i will from now on use the other site as my music site, where i catalogue my record collection and attempt reviews from time to time.
(i hope to write for pitchfork sometime in the future.)

someone teach me how to get the archives up? i feel like shifting everything from the skttrbrain site here. the blog posts, that is.

:)