28/12/09

Yesterday celebrated Val's 21st in the wrong year. Glad we're still in contact after graduating from secondary school so long ago. I'll wish you happy birthday again on your real birthday!

Just had dinner with Pam. Sorry to make you rush off and then get late for your discussion! I wonder how Koreans manage to remain so slim on TV and movies when they have so much to eat. I nearly killed her with my fantastically wrapped pork belly LettUce dumpling. Poor Pam. Udders was as good as I remembered it and I'm glad to see that they ignored the votes to invent the Prata and Yong Tau Foo flavour.

Thanks for the yummy muffins! Beary Christaas =)

23/12/09

Dear Santa,

Could you give me a new back for Christmas? Mine doesn't feel so good today. Sitting at Bedok jetty watching the sun go to sleep behind the clouds gave me a very comforting feeling. The sea breeze made the wonderful invention of air conditioning insignificant. I could have gone on sitting there for a long time but let the darkening sky cajole me into returning.

21/12/09

The other day, we went out from the car and my partner realised we had forgotten to bring the camera along. Returning to the car, I remarked, "When you act, you need the props". The comment didn't mean much then. Perhaps I heard it somewhere before. It seemed to be an appropriate joke then.

I didn't think too much about it. If I revisited every comment that spent less than a half a second percolated in my brain before it came out, I would be kept busy. Watching Noriko's Dinner Table (2005) just brought that incident back into my mind.

Being so immersed in acting that you are able to feel the sensations your character feels and completely forgetting yourself must be acting of the highest level. It was chilling, even, to watch as the characters part of the "family-circles" take on their persona.

After watching it, it dawned on me that what I do isn't all that different. Putting on the uniform each shift I transform into someone else. This character that is part my own construct based on what I think people's expectations of me are, and when they let me know quite overtly what they are. The procedures part is pretty easy - usually watching what my more experienced colleagues do and taking bits here and there and combining it to become my own. Knowing what I have to do aside, the bit that troubles me more is who I am supposed to be. What do I tell the person who has been telling me all the things that are going wrong in their marriage with a mixture of words, tears and snot? I don't know if it's more cruel - to tell the person that if there's nothing more that I am legally and procedurally obliged and empowered to assist I'll take my leave, or stand there with an earnest look plastered on my face while giving careful, calculated replies which I think will make that person feel better when my heart's circuit breaker had been already triggered and feeling disgusted at my hypocrisy.

In situations like that where things aren't A or B (they never are), the basis of my decisions and actions so far has been whether I am able to make that person feel better. Another dilemma presents itself, whether to fulfil this principle, had I told an untruth or led that person to having certain expectations which will eventually be shattered.

That's the circle of life... just like the numbers after 3.14 in pi continue without end, real circles can never be perfect. But if you draw a circle with a compass and a big fat marker, a thick outline will make it seem perfect

14/12/09

I was deployed to partner the most difficult person to work with, did not eat anything after breakfast, had to bring this guy who pissed his pants back to station, felt my throat in flames yelling at people/through doors to evacuate neighbours from a fire, found out that old people are really 10-year-olds with white hair when you try to make them do something they don't want to, had to STAND-by the fire scene for 4 hours, found my car's battery was dead after it was causing a jam, made someone yell at me "turn on your hazard light!", had to attend a call 7 minutes before I was supposed to knock off, had to bring someone back to station and finished work 2 hours later.

But that person was on leave, breakfast was a HUGE packet of nasi lemak, there's always newspapers, nobody got sick from the smoke, in the end they listened to the real kid (in uniform), I didn't have to see another dead body, my colleague brought the car booster to me, I didn't have to yell back, my colleague offered to go for it instead, that person was quite a lot of fun to talk to and taught me how to make beer battered fish and chips.

It isn't that difficult to on normal days to feel like I'm on top of things, have a little fun, but when it hits the fan, I think that's what really defines people - to be able to show fortitude of character when everyone else bolts. It makes a difference when someone you know is going through a tough patch but still takes the effort to smile, laugh at their own jokes and break out into Beyonce's Single Ladies in the car ad lib.

And that's why I'm proud to be from Delta.

Mitsuo Aida

Because it has lived its life intensely,
the parched grass still attracts the gaze of passers-by.
The flowers merely flower,
and they do this as well as they can.
The white lily, blooming unseen in the valley,
does not need to explain itself to anyone;
it lives merely for beauty.
Man, however, cannot accept that ‘merely’.

If tomatoes wanted to be melons,
they would look completely ridiculous.
I am always amazed
that so many people are concerned
with wanting to be what they are not;
what’s the point of making yourself look ridiculous?

You don’t always have to pretend to be strong,
there’s no need to prove all the time that everything is going well,
you shouldn’t be concerned about what other people are thinking,
cry if you need to,
It’s good to cry out all your tears
(because only then will you be able to smile again).

Is it really okay? To let others know that you aren't as strong as they thought? I try my best to be thankful for what I have. To me, what I can do for myself and the people around me, is to not make anyone have to worry for me. In thinking that people should not have to think about me maybe I've forgotten how to think about others as well. Perhaps thinking is the wrong word. Thinking I do pretty well, reducing communication to its constituent elements using my narrow perception, taking what I want and rejecting the rest. I must have hurt many people this way, when they talk to me and and feel like they're talking in an hollow cave because all they hear is their own echoes. It's something I try to wrap my head around a lot, because many of these people are people I truly care about. I don't know if I can give up this bit of selfishness in me, to give up my own emotional amnesia for the ability to truly empathize with people. In a way I've forgotten.

Passion Play

I should not have hid
where my heart can't follow
Cause this grace gets so far
and too hard to swallow
I've been running from Saul,
he's been giving chase
When I look in his eyes,
all I see is my face

Are you still on my back
after all these years?
Chasing my out of hell
and my nice veeners
I don't know how you stand
when you've got no floor
Or how you can breathe
with your hands on boards

I just want to be not what I am today
I just want to be better than my friends might say
I just want a small part in your passion play

Do you hear when I call
in the midst of wrong?
Do you hear these few words
while I sing this song?
Are you caught up in me
like I heard you say?
Or just some big cashier
that I'll have to pay

26/11/09

Caught Gokusen with Pamela today. I think I would have liked it a lot better if I had finished all 3 seasons or if I was a fan of Kamenashi Kazuya as much as the legion of them at the cinema who gave a very loud collective sigh when he appeared. Dinner was great catching up and the dessert we shared triggered a cascading dose of dopamine in my brain :D

And I have to appreciate my f***ing good friend who even after receiving a lethal-blow-to-lesser-friendships type of sms said he'll let me drive his car when daddy doesn't.

Fatty Joshua, tomorrow you get on your bike okay?! Even if there's a huge thunderstorm. If it floods I'll have you swim through it. No more excuses!