I’m gonna make a mistake-

I’m gonna do it on purpose

I’m gonna waste my time

Cuz I’ full as a tick

And I’ scratching at the surface

And what I find is mine

And when the day is done, and I look back

And the fact is I had fun, fumbling around

All the advice I shunned, and I ran

Where they told me not to run, but I sure

Had fun, so

I’m gonna fuck it up again

I’m gonna do another detour

Unpave my path

And if you wanna make sense

Whatcha looking at me for

I’m no good at math

And when I find my way back,

The fact is I just may stay, or I may not

I’ve acquired quite a taste

For a well-made mistake

I wanna mistake why can’t I make a mistake?

I’m always doing what I think I should

Almost always doing everybody good

Why

Do I wanna do right, of course but

Do I really wanna feel I’m forced to

Answer you, hell no

I’ve acquired quite a taste

For a well-made mistake, I wanna

Make a mistake, why can’t I make a mistake

I’m always doing what I think I should

Almost always doing everybody good

Why

A Mistake – Fiona Apple

from “When The Pawn Hits The Conflicts He Thinks Like A King What He Knows Throws The Blows When He Goes To The Fight And He’ll Win The Whole Thing ‘Fore He Enters The Ring There’s No Body To Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand And Remember That Depth Is The Greatest Of Heights And If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where To Land And If You Fall It Won’t Matter, Cuz You’ll Know That You’re Right.”

i just realised that i do not have the habit of telling anyone anything about myself and it’s not because i do not trust them (some of them) but it’s just that when you voice fears of yours you bring it from the depths to the light and sometimes i’m just afraid to face it and let the enormity of it all overwhelm me.

enough, i do not need doubts and questions; i did rather be silent and let it consume me from within. there’s this paralysing sort of fear that just freezes me in stasis and i cannot budgebudgebudge. i don’t know what it is, or maybe i do, and maybe i’m just too afraid to face it in the light because i will just break down and cry.

——————

today was teacher’s day and apparently i did not catch my aunt dance. i went back at eight thirty and i saw juniors frentically preparing presents for the tutors; a girl (because names are personal and even though i know her name i shall not say it because it is always her own) gave mr burge a book on kama sutra and she blushed furiously; the dog(s) called doleful; and somehow things werent the way they used to be. i gave mr perry a sharapova tagboard and a monkey to be spanked; mr miles 20 tracks which i treasure; mr burge primo levi; mr barnard a barney hugging a heineken and mr white a heineken; distribution and handshakes and then they were off.

and a year ago it wasn’t just jesley wenqi karin and me.

and maybe it’s time to let go of what’s not yours.

the games end in 45 minutes time and i will be 23 before beijing arrives; will the chinese overthrow the americans at last? (they have total utter domination in badminton and table tennis and diving; three whole events!!)

yesterday the americans won the 1600m relays but lost the 400m, and that is why my friend, baton passing is so important. wariner is the next johnson because he’s so lean and strong and he has a lovely name; wariner rolls around the tongue the same way wainwright does; lauryn williams runs the same way as i do, if only a sec faster; today i played basketball and i escaped unscathed; today yesterday 48 hours 2880 minutes and even more seconds, numbers and figures do they really matter.

these days i do not dream anymore and i need an epiphany.

“Upon Jones’ approach, Williams took off a tad too early. After three unsuccessful tries, Jones finally got the stick into her teammate’s hand. But the pass had taken place outside of the 20-foot exchange zone.

Instead of the Olympic Record the team had planned to set, the letters by their name read DSQ.

As Jamaica celebrated its victory, Russia the silver and France the bronze, Jones, Williams and Williams clutched each other’s arms as they gravely walked toward anchor runner Latasha Colander.

They looked as if they were walking out of a hospital with bad news, using one another for strength in anticipation of the pain that lay ahead.

They did not let go of each other for the next 30 minutes.

They made their way through the hot tunnel underneath the stadium where they would face the media together. The questions were only aimed at Jones.

The grand dame of track and field assumed her role of veteran spokeswoman, explaining away the mistake and shielding her young teammate from any blame.

You know the baton didn’t get around,” Jones said with a sarcastic chuckle. “I really don’t even know what happened. Angela ran a good leg. I thought I ran a good leg. I couldn’t hand the baton to Lauryn, and it didn’t happen today.”

The next question was slightly more personal. “Can you talk about your experience here at the Games Marion?”

“It was a rough one,” she said.

Then, the unthinkable happened. She broke.

Jones turned her head away, lip quivering as she tried to hold back the tears. The reporters waited, stunned and uncomfortable, suddenly sympathetic to a figure they had attacked with such ferocity for the past months.

Her teammates stood by her, felt for her, but finally they came to her rescue.

“She’s a warrior, and I want you all to know that,” Colander said forcefully. “You all have been on her from the beginning to the end and the USA team is going to stick with her. In the Olympics it’s not always about the win; it’s about the struggle and the journey to get there. And this journey has been very tough for her.”

Few could believe what they were seeing.

Maybe because they never thought she needed it, maybe because they had been afraid to lend it, but for the first time Marion Jones was getting the support she needed.

She was part of a unit, a team — it’s what Marion Jones needed all along but nobody would give her.

The U.S. relay team members made their way down the hall, still holding hands as they walked out of sight.

Jones didn’t have a medal hanging around her neck but she didn’t leave Athens empty handed.

This might have been the Olympic experience that she needed all along.”

iverson fails to get the only championship medal in his life, maurice greene fell to a better runner, paula radcliffe fails to complete her races, stacy dragaila and allen johnson fell across bars and hurdles, and the FIG (fags) wants paul hamm to return his gold medal, how can this be a magnificent games? it began with a bang with phelps and thorpe and van den hoogenband but it has gone progressively downwards since. paul hamm’s comeback victory was supposed to be fairy like; it has now degenerated to a nightmare. alexei nemov’s swansong, ruined by judging. what else can i say.

“love is incidental”

it probably is, and thank you so much for saying that.

yesterday i caught big fish for the second time, and after it ended i went to the toilet to cry; 8 months of pain and love welling up in the recesses of my heart and the tears stil hasn’t dried and i wonder if i will ever have a chance to love.

two hours later i got turned out by my sergeants and they pumped me to no avail; they commented about my attitude and one of them said “the army has no room for individualism”; i refuse to conform and be a face in the crowd just to survive because that would be without dignity and honour and i rather die that way than just be a mindless follower. maybe i would really suffer a terrible fate for the next twenty months but i honestly don’t care and maybe that’s why mr ye said “ey i’m damn surprised you haven’t ended up in detention yet.” feckless and reckless, less of everything and more.

something i noticed was that i never flinched when they screamed at me; i was just stoic and impassive and ha i’m sure pushups in sets of 20 is damn tiring la. but yet the only times emotions broke through was when one of them told me it was for my own good and i think i’m such a sucker for people who actually care that i was touched. but please be rational man. -_-

if army has taught me anything it’s simply all about mental strength and hahaha lets see who lasts longer. sooner or later something will break and it wouldn’t be me.

The work is the death mask of its conception.

and how true it is because things ultimately end and perish, the way this blog will when the computing information highway gets infected with a virus that will slowly, steadily, wipe out (kilomegagigaterra)bitsbytes of information from the face of the world.

nothing is immune from impermanence.

——————-

tomorrow i shall do guard duty again, and oddly enough i enjoy it because its an opportunity to just do my work without getting distracted by the dell. lousy self discipline pak! -twacks-

——————-

yesterday i talked to the grass cutter i was escorting, and his eyes lit up when he spoke of home, of how he would be going back in two years time before he hitches onto a new company and comes back to singapore and maybe hopefully earn more than $180 a month; times like this, i think we should be contented.

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

and i’ve never even seen this book before.

yawp was three days ago, and i did like to congratulate everyone who made it so successful.

—————–

it was six fifty, and i stood beside bernie and he asked, “ey where’s pak?”

i went “here?”

and he went where’s pak for three more times and i replied three times before finally tapping him and he went “oh! i meant, where’s han!”

—————–

and this is the poem i read that day.

A man looks at a beautiful woman

who is trying to get him through a door,

him and his leg-brace; clumsily hammered

carapace of metal,

shrapnel on the outside of his body

from a war he must have forgotten

or never fought. Some spike

on him is caught down there. She bends over

and he looks at her graceful rump, and thinks rump,

and then thinks: pear on a plate,

and, on the underside, two apples.

He can’t believe he can be so trite,

like some shoddy derivative painter,

and so removed from her. Aren’t those thighs?

Isn’t that hair? He opens the thighs, strokes the hair,

nothing stirs. He thinks harder, tries vulva;

a word like a part in a car motor,

something made of rubber, an oily valve

that squeezes and turns itself inside out.

No hope for it. Once

he would have been able to smell her,

pungency of spring pond and soft onions

mixed with a coy deodorant,

eyelet and armpit, and beyond that

the murmur of willows, leaves

of sunlit weeds crushed under her,

but now she has no such halo.

She stands up and smiles at him,

a smile so translucent

he wrinkles in it, like the skin

on steamed milk.

He’s nothing to her but luggage

she needs to haul from room to room,

or a sick dog to be kind to.

She says, ‘Shall we try again?’

He thinks, I am angry. She takes his arm.

He thinks, I will die soon.

A Man Looks – Margaret Atwood